The two people lying on the floor were Michael and Cindy. Cindy had clearly been the one who had attacked Lucas, as the state of Michael’s body was far too brutal to be inflicted by a single knife.

His body was contorted, as if he had been thrown around like a rag doll before succumbing to multiple injuries. Cindy, however, had three pretty obvious stabbing wounds on her torso.

The question “Why?” echoed in Lucas’ mind, but as everyone else was focused on Cindy and Michael, he realized one small overlook in his plan of playing dumb: his shirt had been naturally pierced when the blade struck him, and since his healing abilities naturally didn’t extend to his shirt, there was a very visible hole in it.

Realizing this, Lucas immediately stopped healing himself. His wound had been reduced to little more than a scratch, but it would have to do. He clutched his stomach, contorting his face in pain, and used the couch for support, grunting.

John, stricken with grief over his dying girlfriend and his closest friend, didn’t even glance at Lucas. The girls, however, noticed the blood on Lucas abdomen, and he was glad to find the blood didn’t disappear after he healed himself, making his scratch look way worse than it actually was.

“What happened?” Sasha asked, her eyes filled with tears, leaving John with Cindy.

“I-I don’t know, someone tried to stab me, I think,” Lucas replied, his voice strained as if speaking through pain. “I was lucky and managed to push the person aside before it was too late.”

Lucas believed his acting was convincing, and judging by their reactions, he was right. But John turned back after hearing this, his brow furrowed.

“You pushed a 7’4 aside?”

Dammit, Lucas cursed internally, realizing the flaw in his story too late. But he quickly found words to cover it up.

“I don’t know if it was that thing. I couldn’t see anything in the dark, everyone was running… I don’t know,” Lucas said, looking around suspiciously at the others.

“So you’re saying it could be one of us?” John pressed.

“I don’t know, maybe he wants to play with us,” Lucas grunted. “Who knows what this freak has in mind?”

That sounded like a pretty nonsensical reply, even for Lucas, but it just seemed like something people said in situations like this. John seemed to agree, as he stopped questioning him and returned his attention to Cindy.

Later, Lucas let the others check on his wound. After some discussion, they concluded it wasn’t too severe, but Maria insisted on bandaging him, which he accepted with feigned reluctance.

Cindy, however, was a whole other story, and even with John’s and Sasha’s care, it didn’t take long for her to die from her injuries. The group fell into a deadly silence after that. John, after questioning Lucas, didn’t even have the strength to curse or be angry. Instead, he looked like a corpse, his complexion pale and expressionless. He didn’t say a word since asking about the incident, which Lucas was frankly glad for. If the man started asking too many questions, it could be problematic.

At some point, Lucas revisited the idea of leaving them, but even though it made some sense, he instinctively rejected the idea. After some more reflection, however, he was scared to realize the real reason he wanted them around.

It wasn’t a sentimental one at all; it was purely logical: if there were more people around, he at least had a chance for that thing to go after the others. If he was alone, he would be an easy target. Considering his objective was to survive the night, his logic was sound. What scared him, however, was the coldness of it all. When did he start thinking like that?

Granted, they were NPCs, but now he wasn’t so sure if he even believed that excuse anymore. Wasn’t he having fun with them just a couple of hours ago? Would he be able to relax with them if he thought they were mere robots? Somehow he doubted that, which indicated that he took NPCs a little more seriously than he had told himself these past few days in the tower.

And if he really took them seriously, what excused his suspicions towards Maria, who had been nothing but nice to him this whole time? He couldn’t help it, however, and when he really thought about it, was it really his fault? The floor clearly encouraged suspicion, and he simply didn’t know these people enough to trust them, not with his life on the line.

After Maria had finished putting on his bandages, Lucas addressed the whole group.

“I know everyone is sad. We have lost three great friends. But we can’t give up, and we can’t expect that giant to leave us alone. That thing will come after us again, and when it does, we have to be prepared.”

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Both girls reacted positively to his words, and the apathy he received from John was much better than the confrontation he was expecting.

“Then what should we do?” Maria asked.

Lucas had no quick answer to that, but after a few seconds, a thin arm rose in the air, asking to speak. It was Sasha, who had barely said a word since the last incident, still pretty shaken by the latest events.

“Sasha?”

“We could try to use the cooking gas… so that when he walks in, we could set the whole place on fire.”

Lucas was surprised by her not-half-bad idea. At first, they weren’t excited about the prospect of setting their only shelter on fire, but the unknown threat from the giant was too great to ignore. They were already three people down and weren’t willing to risk any others.

Lucas was actually very surprised by the strength that the giant displayed. It had completely destroyed Michael in a matter of seconds, and he suspected Michael wasn’t even able to put up a fight. Considering that, not even Lucas was confident in his chances against that thing, whatever it was. He could also see in the eyes of the others, even John, that they feared being next, and pretty soon they all agreed it was worth a shot.

The only problem was: how should they attract the killer inside once everything was ready? After some quick brainstorming, the best idea they could come up with was that someone should be responsible for finding the killer and being the bait, attracting him inside, and leaving the house before they set the whole thing on fire.

That naturally raised a lot of concerns. After all, who would be crazy enough to risk themselves to such an extent? There was not only the danger of being murdered halfway through the house but also getting blown to bits if some trigger-happy person set the whole house on fire before the bait could actually leave.

Crazy as it might seem, Lucas decided to accept the role after some consideration. It wasn’t out of the kindness of his heart, mind you, but because he genuinely believed their chances of success would be better if he was the one doing it. He was fast and had experience with life-or-death situations, while the others seemed a little too green for his liking. Besides, he was the one doing the challenge. If he left all his success in the hands of others, what would that make him?

Lucas, however, had no intention of going into this extremely dangerous situation blindly; he had a plan. Since he didn’t trust others enough to put himself in a gas-filled room with them holding the match, he intended to trick the killer into entering the house without having to go in himself. After all, he still hadn’t figured out how Cindy and the killer were related, and if she was plotting to kill them in secret the whole time, so could the others.

After they all thanked Lucas for his sacrifice, they proceeded to the next steps of their plan, which involved closing all doors and windows, and covering all cracks they could find in the hut.

Afterward, they would start releasing the gas, and when the house was sufficiently gassed up, Lucas would go out to bring the killer inside through the front door, while the rest of the group left through the back door. Midway through the preparations, John awoke from his stupor and decided to help, a hint of rage in his eyes.

At some point, when the others were scattered around the house, Maria pulled Lucas to a corner, concern in her eyes. “Are you sure about this?” she asked.

“Yes. You don’t have to worry, I’m fast,” Lucas replied. “Just… take this,” he said, picking up the knife Michael had dropped on the floor when he was attacked and handing it to her.

“Why?” she asked, confused. “I can’t fight that thing.

Lucas sighed before replying. “Cindy attacked me when the lights were out…” He let her realization sink in before continuing. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but there’s more than one killer around. If Cindy was one, then John or Sasha…”

A few moments of silence later, Maria finally spoke, her eyes opened wide. “Did you kill her?”

“Only in self-defense. I wouldn’t be giving you the knife and telling you this otherwise.”

Lucas could see the distrust in her eyes, but she finally nodded after a few seconds, a decisiveness now changing her expression, and both of them went to help the others. Lucas wasn’t sure if he had made the right choice by telling her that or not, but he thought he owed her that much at least.

It was a somewhat calculated risk. If she was innocent, she wouldn’t tell the others because she would be afraid of them or, if nothing else, what that information could do to the group. If she was guilty, well, it would be her word against his, and if it came down to violence, Lucas wasn’t afraid of them.

Before he knew what had happened in the dark, he had decided to play dumb, but after seeing that Michael was dead, his concerns mainly died down. John alone couldn’t threaten him, and he only kept the farce for convenience’s sake.

In the end, no one discovered what he had done all throughout the preparations, as Maria, for better or worse, kept his secret.

It took longer than expected to fill the house with gas, but fortunately, that mysterious figure didn’t disturb them during the entire process, which Lucas was glad for, even if a little wary. With every passing hour, he was closer to sunrise and, consequently, the completion of his objective.

A couple of hours after they started the process, they were finally satisfied with the saturation of gas in the air. The saturation was so great, in fact, that they were forced to take turns outside the house to avoid passing out, and they were all feeling a big headache by this point, so Lucas had to hurry.

Leaving the house to accomplish his mission, Lucas began to feel a little nervous as he walked around the house, searching for any trail of the giant that was lurking near the cottage. Whatever the outcome, he would probably find out soon enough.

Lucas was already expecting that the thing wasn’t simple. He even expected to find an opponent at an even higher level than Sultan had been, but he was still surprised when he met the creature just at the entrance of the woods.

It had a white mask on, like Cindy had said, and it was by all means a giant by human standards. But that wasn’t what surprised him the most. It was the sensation he felt from it, like before when the lights were out—it felt so familiar, and after he identified it, he knew why.

Undead — ??