Madeline led the way as we moved through the halls. She had her gun in her good hand, and used the other to push the wheels of her chair in an alternating fashion. It was remarkable how steady she kept her firearm as she did so.

I had since removed the revolver Madeline had lent me from my inventory, and was gripping it uncomfortably in my right hand. I wasn’t used to holding a gun yet, and it showed. Madeline had gotten really angry with me when I tried to hold the revolver by its barrel earlier. Apparently that was a good way to lose fingers.

The ninth floor was clear, so we headed back to the stairwell. Madeline and I climbed the stairs to check the roof. She decided to make it up the normal way, hauling herself laboriously up each step by the railing. I offered to help, but she declined, saying I’d probably just injure us both trying.

The rooftop was empty, so we decided to head back down.

Just like when she normally went up them, Madeline descended the stairs backwards, putting her arms on the railing and carefully bumping her way down one flight at a time.

“Madeline?”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you go backwards? Isn’t it dangerous?”

“It’s actually safer that way. If I go front first the small wheels of my chair can catch on a step and send me head over heels.”

“Oh. Noted.”

“Yep”

We continued on to the next floor. It was clear too. Also, deathly quiet. I wasn’t liking how little evidence we were finding of other people.

“Do you think we should start knocking on doors?” I asked.

“Hmm. I wouldn’t. People are probably panicking a bit, and I don’t want to get shot.”

“Fair enough.”

We made it back to the stairwell, and checked the next floor, and the next. And the one after that. After descending so many stairs, Madeline was starting to get a little sore.

“What little I can feel of my ass hurts.”

“You sure I can’t help?”

She thought on it for a bit. “Not really. You’d have to walk backwards down the stairs with my chair in front of you, and we’d both have to lower me one step at a time and it'd take forever.”

“Well, let me know if anything changes, I guess.”

“Will do.”

***

We checked the next floor.

This time we found a single door ominously ajar. Ominous because all the doors in this building shut automatically.

Something was propping it open.

And it was still quiet.

“Madeline.”

“Yes Leo?”

“Are you as creeped out as I am?”

“Very much so, yes.”

“I don’t suppose we can just ignore it and retreat to homebase?”

“Tempting, but probably ill advised.”

“Darn.”

“Darn, indeed.”

“Well,” I said, “would you like to go first?”

“Fuck no.”

“Double darn.”

“Why don’t we send one of your little guys in to scout it out?”

“Excellent Idea.”

I turned to Mick-Chicken. He was intently avoiding my gaze, and trying very hard not to be noticed. If he could whistle, he probably would have. I looked at Fry. He was shaking his little head vehemently, gesturing to his firearm. I noticed that the slide on his rifle was locked back. He had apparently used all of his ammo on that first skeleton we had encountered together.

That left Four-arms. It gallantly hopped off of Miss Madeline’s lap and trotted off to the door of doom, seemingly unafraid.

He slipped through the gap in the door, and I could see him looking both ways before he continued on deeper into the unit. I could hear the little pitter patter of his feet, so there wasn’t a barrier in place.

We waited there in silence for a while, growing tenser each second.

Eventually four-arms appeared in the crack of the door, and he gave us three thumbs-up. Both Madeline and I sighed in relief.

At which point something grabbed four-arms by his waist and dramatically yanked him out of sight.

“Well that's not good,” I stated, not sure of what else to do at that point. Madeline opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the sound of glass breaking. This was followed by several loud crashes, a couple thumps, and a noise like a pool noodle slapping on water.

“Given how tiny he is, I’m surprised he can make so much noise.” I said.

“Well, in theory it could be whatever grabbed him that’s making all that noise, not him.” Madeline replied.

“We should probably help.” I said.

“You first.” She replied.

“Fine.” I said, pulling the hammer back on my revolver.

“Wait, you’re actually going in there?” Madeline’s tone was mildly incredulous.

“Yes?” I wasn’t really sure what she was getting at. She looked up at the ceiling, and then looked back down, seemingly deciding that keeping an eye on the open door was more important, though she kept stealing glances at me as she did so.

After a short eternity, enlightenment dawned on her face. “You want to rescue him!”

“Yes, obviously!” What was so hard to understand about that? Time was wasting while we hung out in the hallway, and I could still hear the sounds of a violent altercation coming from room 403.

“See, as bad as it sounds when I say it out loud, I was just assuming we could use the little guys as sacrificial pawns.” She explained.

“What the fuck Madeline!?”

“I thought you agreed!”

“Obviously not!”

“Then why did you send him in alone!?”

“I don’t know, it seemed like a good Idea at the time!” The pool noodle slapping noise was getting louder and more frequent, and I was hearing less thumping.

“Anyway, I'm going in there.”

“No, you're not!” She shouted, pointing a finger at me.

“Why!?”

“Because you're not allowed to fucking die!”

I leveled a squinty eyed glare at her. “Ok, first of all, I’m not gonna die, second, you can’t tell me what to do, and third, I’m going in there!” I said, before running off.

Madeline, not an individual to take being one-upped kindly, yelled “Not if I get there first, asshole!” before zipping past me faster than I could hope to match, bashing her way through the entrance at speed.

Her having that dash ability was so unfair.

I saw her skid to a stop and pull her pistol to bear just as the automatic door shut on her.

Gunshots followed.

Once I made it to the door, I found that it was unsurprisingly locked. All apartments in the building had doors that were locked from the outside by default. Someone on the inside could open it up for me, but given the racket I was hearing, that seemed unlikely. I looked to Mick-Chicken.

“We need to blow the lock!” He gave a single confident nod and launched a missile into the area of the door where the latch met the doorknob. Wood splintered, and I could see light coming through a newly opened gape in the doorframe, but it still wouldn’t budge.

“One more!” There was another detonation, and the lock almost gave, but it still wouldn’t open.

“Again!” There was no detonation this time. He was out.

Jesus christ!

The missile barrage in his chest was still an option, but I’d forgotten about it in my panic and started kicking the door like an idiot.

I of course fell on my ass in the process, but I got up quickly and started ramming my shoulder into the door instead. The slapping noises behind the door weren’t stopping, though the gunshots had, which wasn’t a great sign.

I eventually busted the damn thing down, but stumbled as it gave away and fell on my side, because at this point it should be obvious that my clumsiness was near perpetual.

At least I was facing the action, even if the wind had been knocked out of me.

I could now see my previously invisible nemesis. It was a big egg shaped thing with mottled purple skin, tentacles, and snapping, beak-shaped orifices all over its body.

Madeline was wrestling with a couple of its tendrils, and I saw Four-arms was wrapped in a slimy appendage as well, his sword resting some distance away from him. The real freaky part was that as far as I could tell, the tentacles that had him weren't even attached to the eggish-blob that made up the main body.

“What the fuck-” I coughed as I got up, “-is going on!?”

“Bullets-” Madeline grunted between breaths- “Don’t-” She had a tendril in each hand, and a third one was wriggling beneath the wheels of her chair- “Work!”

She was being pushed against the wall, and I watched in horror as a severed worm-like arm of the octopus blob crawled back to the main body and was devoured by one of its many mouths. A new tentacle sprouted from the patterned surface of the creature, and went straight for Madeline’s throat.

It failed to grab her though, as she instead caught it in her teeth. She chomped through it in one bite, before spitting it to one side and breaking into a gagging fit. “Holy shit that tastes gross!”

“Why the fuck did you try and eat it!?”

“Well I didn’t have any better Ideas! I’m out of functioning Limbs! And hey, instead of gawping could you maybe do something!?”

“Fine, give me a sec.” I picked my gun up from the floor and shot it. The bullet sunk into the surface of the egg-squid, but the monster didn’t really seem to be all that bothered.

“I wasn’t kidding-” The recently chomped tendril struck for Madeline again, but she Accelerated through it, sending the whole thing flying before it splattered against the wall of the kitchenette. “When I said bullets don’t work!”

The blob-beast recovered from its flattened form and peeled itself from the wall before our eyes. It landed on the kitchen counter, and tumbled off it clumsily, rolling into the living room. It seemed stunned, but it was definitely still alive.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“Well, how do we kill it then?” I asked, staring at its aimlessly wriggling tentacles.

“If I knew, I would have already.” Madeline panted, clearly out of breath.

“Well, shooting it does nothing. Slamming it against the wall seems to have done something, but not kill it. And I’m assuming dismemberment doesn’t do anything either?”

“No. The tentacles can move on their own,” she pointed to the one still wrapped around four arms, “And Apparently the beaks like to eat them.”

“At which point they regrow,” I finished.

“Should we just cut our losses and run?” I asked. It was stunned after all, we could just leave.

“I’m not sure, it could chase us. And even if it doesn’t, I’m not jazzed about the Idea that it could squeeze its way under the gap of my front door and strangle us both in our sleep.”

I shuddered at that remark. Clearly Madeline was working with a more active imagination than yours truly. Not that I could say she was wrong, we’d just seen it flatten like a pancake. That it could squeeze through the small gap under a door wasn’t a huge stretch.

“Regardless, whatever we do, we’d better do it fast; I’m pretty it’s waking up.” Madeline said, and I followed her gaze towards the now rising tentacles of the cephalopod-conglomerate.

The way the ropes of octopus flesh twitched through the air reminded me of a dog sniffing for a specific scent.

Soon enough, they locked back onto us.

There were four of them total, and half targeted me, with the others going for Madeline. I stumbled out of the way of one, but the other got my leg, and I fell. Madeline had Accelerated away from the two, but now three were chasing her, and there wasn’t a whole lot of space to move around. I was grabbing onto the leg of a table, doing my best not to be dragged towards the pulsating, purple ostrich egg. I’d dropped my gun of course, not that it would have done me a whole lot of good then.

Still, I looked around me for anything I could use, and saw that Fry and Mick-chicken were both trying to free Four-arms. Mick-chicken was using the sharpened claws on his hands to tear pieces of tentacle off of him, but was being delayed by the fact that the pieces he tore off were attacking him. Fry was struggling with his tiny frame to drag Four-arms’s oversized sword.

Finally, Fry used the thrusters on his feet to boost himself towards four-arms. Spinning like an olympic hammer thrower, he used the resulting centripetal force to hurl the comparatively massive blade towards the bundle of purple tentacles that caged Four-arms.

The only part of him that was exposed at this point was a single foot, but that was enough. He caught it between the sole of his foot and his stiletto heel, and then pivoted his ankle to slice his way through the surrounding matter. His leg was free, so he bent a knee to cut more, freeing his other leg. His thrusters burned through the mass on his back, freeing two of his arms. He made quick work of the rest that was still clinging to him.

The organic material that hadn’t been burned was still alive, but he paid it no mind and boosted his way towards me, slicing the limb that had my leg. He made his way towards Madeline next, who had tears in her eyes. She had apparently elected to chew her way through any tentacles that grabbed her, and was suffering for it. Though clearly that hadn’t stopped her. I could see squirming purplish debris all around her chair.

Four-arms sliced through the tentacles still attacking her, zig zagging across the long feelers, dicing them as he went, though the pieces of flesh scattered on the floor started worming their way back to the main body immediately.

Madeline leaned over the side of her chair and lost her lunch.

I thought it best to assume she was out of the fight.

I got back on my feet, and grabbed my gun. I stuffed it back in my inventory, and looked around for anything I could use to light the crap-cuttlefish on fire, flames having proven the most effective so far.

“Madeline, you see anything we can use to set it on fire?”

“No, but that’s a shit Idea anyway.” She moaned, clearly still unwell. I wasn’t that worried, she had another healing item left, should it come to that.

“Why?”

“Because the fire extinguishers will kick on as soon as they get a whiff of smoke.” Right, this place had ceiling mounted sprinklers. A number of students had gotten doused by them whilst trying to smoke a spliff, including one of my roommates. Fucking Jacob. We all got slapped with a fine for that incident too.

“And if the sprinklers don’t work, we’ll have to worry about burning down the whole building.” Madeline finished. She was right, as always.

“Allright, new plan then.” I grabbed a standing lamp Identical to the one I’d used as a weapon earlier.

“I don’t think hitting it with a lamp is gonna do anything.”

“I’m planning to get a little more advanced than that, Miss Madeline.” I half-explained.

“Right, well, whatever it is, you should probably hurry.” Sure enough, the egg-squid was chowing down on its own crawling flesh, and I could see bumps forming on its exterior. It didn’t look like it had enough mass to regrow its limbs yet, but it wouldn;t be long now.

I unplugged the lamp first and checked the length of the power cord, but it was disappointingly short. I needed it to reach the monster where it layed while it was plugged in. There was another outlet closer to it. I handed the plug I was holding to Fry.

“Plug this in over there when I tell you to.” I pointed, and Fry nodded. I then tore off the lamp shade, and removed the metal prongs that were meant to hold the shade in place. That was pretty easy, because that lamp was a cheap piece of shit.

I unscrewed the bulb, and held the lamp itself in my armpit while I opened my inventory and retrieved a pair of needle nose pliers that I’d grabbed when I was cleaning out my apartment.

I used the pliers to pull on the copper hot tab inside the light socket, bending the metal so that it poked upwards. I removed the threaded cylinder that acted as the neutral contact entirely, yanking the wire connected to it out.

“Leo, it's awake again!” I looked up, and saw tendrils sprouting from the calamari-cretin one again.

“Four-arms, buy me some time!” He set off to do just that, and I focused back on my task. The wires were tied in a knot just under the light socket itself, usually. I needed that extra wiring, so I started bending the thin metal chassis of the standing lamp in order to get to it. After extracting it, I untied the knotted wiring, and checked the length. It’d do.

I picked up Fry and Mick-chicken, and put them in their usual places. I handed Mick-chicken the neutral wire. Fry Had the plug, and I had the hot tab sticking out of the top of the lamp.

“Mick-chicken-” god that name was dumb “-jam that wire in one of its mouths when I give you the signal.”

“Wait, what's the plan-” I started running before Madeline could finish. Four-arms couldn’t be left to hold off that thing forever, and I didn’t have time to explain.

I got about halfway there before a tentacle swiped at me, but I dodged it, impressively managing not to trip over my own feet while doing so. I took another two steps after that, and was almost upon it. Another ropy appendage went for my legs, and I hopped to avoid it. Four-arms rocketed across the room and sliced the offending appendages after I landed. I stabbed my lamp into an open beak.

“Now!” Mick-chicken dived from my shoulder, going over it and onto the opposite side of the monster’s bulbous body. He propelled himself downwards with a flare of blue flame, and stabbed the exposed wire into another open maw.

A third tentacle grabbed at me, but I couldn’t avoid it this time. It got me by the midsection, and started pulling me into it. That was fine, I was basically finished with what I’d been planning anyway. Now I just had to trust that the rubber soles of my shoes would save me from what I was about to attempt.

“Fry!” He jumped and jetted his little body towards the nearby electrical socket, jamming the plug in.

The lamp now had power, but in order for it to complete the circuit or go to ground, the two exposed contacts had to send power through the monster. This meant that a whole lot of current was now being pumped through whatever insides that awful thing had. It spasmed, and its grip on me tightened.

Then the lights went out. It was midday, so even with the blinds drawn there was still enough light to see by, but them going out like that meant I’d probably tripped the circuit breaker. The only question now was whether that jolt had been enough to kill it. I sure hoped it was, because I didn’t have any better Ideas.

The tendril gripping me loosened. A breathless second later and the whole thing dissolved.

Thank god.

***

Madeline didn’t end up having to use a heal, thankfully. She mostly recovered after drinking some water. She hadn’t actually ingested any of the monster, but lacking a bladed weapon she had no other way to cut through all the tentacles than her teeth. That was an oversight on both of our parts, as I almost certainly could have used a knife during that fight if only I’d remembered.

We were talking about that and other things back in Madeline’s apartment. The other floors we had to check in order to get back there had been thankfully clear, and so had the ground level lobby.

Madeline had laughed upon seeing my improvised sign posted on the front entrance.

“Also,” Madeline said between sips of sparkling water, “We do a shit job of working together.”

“That we do.” I agreed, drinking from a can of sparkling water myself. Mine was supposedly raspberry flavored, but it mostly just tasted mildly floral. It was pleasant nonetheless. Madeline had opted for the guava fruit flavor.

“One of the first things we could do to address that would be sticking together instead of dashing off alone.” I said pointedly.

“Not my fault you're slow.” she responded.

“You were literally flying up the walls. I don’t know how I was supposed to keep up with that.”

“Ehh. You could start by not slacking on your cardio.”

We both sat there pouting for a while. It had been a hard day. Although that wasn’t the real reason we were being snippy with each other. We were tired and stressed sure, but what was really on our minds was what we found after we killed the ‘blobtopus’, as Madeline called it.

We found a pile of seven absorbed bullets (six fired by Madeline and one from me) and, in amongst that, a single human finger.

After I spotted it, I vomited. Madeline dry heaved, having emptied her stomach of its contents just a minute prior.

I forced myself to examine it properly, and saw that it was cleanly severed, having cut right through the gap in the first knuckle. I puked another shot of acidic bile, Madeline gagged, it was a great time all round.

Further analysis led me to the realization that the nail was painted pink with a yellow star in the center. Whoever the finger belonged to liked to paint their nails. Which wasn’t a detail I needed to know, frankly.

It still made me nauseous just thinking about it. Madeline Probably felt the same.

I’d ended up putting the finger in my inventory, not sure what else to do, as just leaving it there didn’t really feel like an option.

“So are you just going to let it rot in there, or. . .?” Madeline was giving me the side-eye from her position on her recliner. She was nursing her sparkling water, and I took another sip of mine before replying.

“Uhh, I was kind of hoping to put it in a ziplock in your fridge.”

“Oh fuck no. Nope. Not happening. That thing is not going in my refrigerator.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do?”

“Throw it away?”

“It’s someone’s finger, Madeline!”

“Well it’s not exactly like we can give it back to them!”

“I was hoping we could?.”

Madeline squinted at me. “Why?” She said, sounding more than a little stunned. “It’s not like they have a use for it anymore.”

“I was hoping we could get it reattached.”

“At what hospital? We aren’t in a position where we can just call 911!” She hissed.

“We don’t need a hospital. We can just use a potion.”

“Oh.” Apparently that hadn’t occurred to her. “But wait, how do we know that’ll work?”

“We don’t, but it's worth a shot, I think.”

“I still don’t want it in my fridge.”

“Really!?”

“Look,” she gestured with the can in her hand, “Imagine reaching into your refrigerator for something and seeing a severed human finger in a sandwich bag. That would put you off your lunch, and then some.”

“Counter point, you don’t even use your refrigerator. All you have in there is half a block of moldy cheese and some dried out mushrooms!” I waved my can of lightly flavored carbonated beverage. “You don’t even refrigerate your bubble water!”

“I like it better when it’s room temp.” She shrugged with her left shoulder. “And I was going to eat that cheese.”

“Jesus christ. You're fine with eating something that clearly has developed cultures on par with that of the renaissance, but one little finger is too much?”

“Okay, one, that cheddar will be fine if you just slice off the gross parts, and two, the size and number of dismembered fingers is not the problem! The fact that its a severed fucking finger is!”

“Yarg!” I half growled, in an attempt to communicate my displeasure.

“Rawr!” Madeline shouted back. I didn’t have a response for that, so I got up and walked over to the kitchen.

“You better not touch my fridge!”

“I’m not!” My objective was her sink, or rather the dish rack next to it. I grabbed a copper bottomed pot and filled it with water from the tap, which I was happy to note was still functioning. I then popped that on the stovetop. It was an electric coil type stove. It hadn’t been cleaned in a while, by the looks of it. It was covered in a thick carpet of grease, grime, and blackened chunks.

I’d have to clean it later. For the meantime I just set the largest coil to high and put the pot of water on it.

“Are you making ramen? Can you make me some while you're at it?” Madeline asked, watching me from her spot in the living room.

“No. Though now that you mention it, I am getting hungry.” I grabbed a larger pot from a wall hanger next to me, and filled that with water too. “Where do you keep the ramen anyway?”

“In the cupboard next to the fridge.” I opened the cupboard in question, and found a variety of cup noodles, ramen packets, and cereals. She was particularly fond of shredded wheat biscuits, it looked like. There were also a couple different flavors of protein powder in there too. I grabbed the classic beef flavor ramen packs.

“How many do you want?”

“Two please.” I tore two of them open for her, and two for myself. The water wasn’t boiling in either pot, so I’d have to wait.

“While that’s going, do you happen to have a thermometer?”

“Do you really need one for ramen?”

“No, I need it for a science experiment.”

“Is the science experiment being performed on the finger?” Madeline looked aghast.

“No, well, yes, but not really. Look, do you gotta thermometer or not?”

“I have a temp gun in my tool drawer.”

“And where’s your tool drawer?”

“Second from the bottom by the sink.” And there it was. I gave it a quick test by pointing it at the stove, myself, and the kitchen counter top. All readings nominal.

The water in the smaller first pot had come to a boil at this point. I grabbed two mugs, being sure that they were identical. I then filled them with the boiling water, careful that the water levels matched. I temp gunned both cups, noting their temperatures. I Opened my display, expanded it, and then placed it over one of the mugs, making it disappear like a magician. I then started a stopwatch on my phone. Madeline observed me curiously, but I ignored her. I’d tell her when the results were in.

After all that was over, the water for the larger pot had come to a boil as well. I threw in the four bricks of ramen noodles, and they just barely fit. Three minutes later, and it was done.

“How much broth do you like?” I asked Madeline, who had slipped back into her wheelchair

“None.”

“None?” I arched a brow.

“You heard me.”

I sighed, and drained half of the noodles before putting them in a bowl and handing it to Madeline alongside a fork.

“Oh, and give me my seasoning packets.”

I watched as she tore into the two sachets and dumped them onto her noodles. She then used her fork to roughly stir it all together, and I saw the ramen noodles gradually turn dark brown. There were also little dark lumps of seasoning that refused to dissolve, but Madeline seemed fine with that, and chowed down happily.

As for myself, I ate my ramen like a normal person.