As he froze in place, Norman too noticed, "Why did you..." His voice died in his throat as he looked at Kiri.
Kiri hadn't noticed that, at some point, her bandage had loosened. A few droplets of blood had trickled out and pooled under her feet as she slept. And something had followed that blood from the hole that they had left open.
Dark vines had emerged from the partially locked glass column, and winding around the nearby shelves, they had made their way to Kiri, who still slept. A small mass of writhing, undulating tentacles now covered her foot, each one covered in slimy, iridescent scales that shimmered in the dim light.
Remus's lips moved but no sound came out. His chest tightened and throat went dry. Finally as he saw a small black tendril reach into Kiri's mouth, he mustered up the courage and yelled. "KIRI, WAKE UP!!!"
Kiri didn't need a second call. Her eyes shot open, and the moment she saw the abomination snaking around her, she activated the lasers on her suit. The green lights on her arms flared up, striking an eerie contrast against the dark tendrils that immediately took notice and wildly swayed and whipped - as if being twisted by an imaginary wind.
Forcing herself up, she tried to pull her leg free and shot at the dark tentacles again and again. The dark vines rippled around her shots, and instead of receding, the tendrils thickened. Soon there was a stream of darkness pouring out from the column.
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The fluid stream branched out into an ever-growing swarm of tentacles that lashed at her and around her. As Kiri wildly thrashed about, tentacles coiling around her body like a vice, her laser tore through numerous racks. Norman and Remus scrambled to move themselves out of the way. As the quiet place devolved into a pandemonium, the glass column too shattered into a thousand pieces as a beam pierced it through.
Kiri was dragged through the floor, littered with shattered glass, towards the hole. The enraged swarm of tentacles tore through her armor, and her screams echoed through the cavernous room as her legs scraped against the sharp fragments, leaving a trail of dark blood behind. The shards of glass crunched and splintered under her frantic struggles, and her shrieks echoed through the empty space like the cacophony of a thousand nightmares.
In that panicked moment, Remus did something he had never thought he would be capable of. He ran after her, guns blazing.
Unlike Kiri's standard-issue I-298 laser launcher, Remus's suite was equipped with a military-grade flamethrower. A blazing white flame bathed whatever remained of the glass column before Kiri could be pulled in.
With a piercing screech, the creature pulled back, twisting Kiri's leg in a single bone-breaking motion as a parting gesture. After Kiri's screams and the flames died down, and the mayhem quietened, Norman looked around at the mess left behind. Where the glass column had been, there was now a crater that opened into a dark abyss.
"What the hell was that?" Kiri asked incredulously. Her leg was profusely bleeding and was twisted at an unnatural angle. She had to struggle against the pain to get each word out.
"Oh, this baby here is an M-389 heavy-duty blasteron. I have seen that flame tear through a three-foot-thick, solid metal wall. Whatever that fucker was, it didn't stand a chance. My dad had to pull plenty of strings to procure this beast from the Protectorate." The grin and his deep faith in his father's acumen stayed plastered on Remus's face as a single tentacle shot out from the hole and tore through his confidence in Protectorate weaponry. And his throat.
Splattered in a fountain of blood, Kiri had already passed out.
Only Norman stayed standing, frozen still, to witness the thing that emerged from the hole.