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Storm of the End
Chapter XXI.VIII: Glimmer of Hope

Chapter XXI.VIII: Glimmer of Hope

I knew just those two things alone weren't enough to kill everyone here. The three must have worked in tandem, and I had seen some of the white liquid on the stairs so it must have used it to trap those people in the basement.

But what if it spat that shit at us? When was it going to spit again?

Shit, shit, shit...

The creature raised its arms as it was almost close enough to reach us. Jared and I both leaped away towards the direction of the studio and circled around the thing so that our backs were to the back wall.

If we had only managed to get out of here in time, there would be no problem just driving away, there's no way this thing would have caught up with us. But in this confined space that grew ever smaller as the building burnt down, with no known way to escape... yeah, we were definitely in a pinch.

"What do we do?" I asked, though I didn't expect an answer.

"The fire," Jared said, staring at the blaze that was going on behind the window of the recording studio, "This thing has to burn, at least I hope. That's the only way I can imagine us killing it in this situation. I'm not even going to bother messing with that white ooze, because I'm sure nothing good will come from touching it..."

We both cautiously circled around the creature, it kept trying to close the distance and cut us off, faking us out by motioning towards one direction and bringing its foot down towards another.

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I glanced at the door that it had come from. The creature was standing within two feet of the doorway. If we could slip by it and get into that room, maybe there would be a window or door we could escape out of.

That door led to a part of the building we hadn't seen from the outside, so we had no real way of knowing what was in there. If there wasn't a way out, we might end up putting ourselves in a worse situation than we were in now. The white ooze blocking the door to the reception room looked like it had completely hardened... definitely don't want to get hit by that stuff. We could try breaking through it, but there's no way we'd be able to do that with this thing still alive. Our backs were to the recording studio, while the creature stood in front of the door.

"Should we try shooting it in the mouth? Maybe it'll actually hurt it there?" I offered.

Jared aimed the gun at its mouth, "It might be worth a shot... or it might not. Fuck, you never know, what if it just spits the bullet back out?"

Before we could make a decision, a sudden loud suction noise came from behind the thing. It braced its arms on the ground.

"Shit, it's up to something!" Jared shouted.

The sucking sound ceased, and then a loud noise like air blowing out of a balloon shook the air as the creature suddenly shot forward, quickly sliding along the ground towards us. Jared and I just barely managed to dive in opposite directions as the creature sped by us and went slamming into the wall near where we had been, cracking the glass of the recording studio window and sending the flames within licking outside.

I felt a pain in my arm and was thrown into the wall back-first before tumbling to the floor with a yelp. Shit... it just barely brushed against me...

If it had hit me dead on...

My arm throbbed with pain.

...My bones would have been crushed.