I immediately turn and bolt. The reality breach siren giving me more than enough reason to not bother with throwing my ski mask back on. It's been a fucking week and we're getting another reality breach event! What the fuck! I bolt through the streets, weaving my way through the crowds and traffic as people try to make their way to the probably under prepared bunkers. It's a little less frantic this time around, people seem to be keeping some semblance of order but are still pushing and shoving to some extent. Wait, what are my mana reserves at?

Mana: 3689/7068

Still just over half. Damn, this mana regen crystal does work! Said crystal is still zipped into my jacket pocket. Good news is they definitely don't need to be floating around to work, just near.

My thoughts on my new regen crystal are interrupted by the screeching of tires, as a car barrels into the already occupied intersection ahead of me and t-bones a bus at full speed. The bus crumples, literally bending from the force of the impact as it slides sideways across the intersection on screeching tires. Fucking idiots, its already been thirty seconds and no shattering, so it can be worse than last time. I run past the crash, determined to leave the area before even more panic sets in, which has already started on account of the crash. It's not like I could do anything anyways, I have only half mana and low level healing spells. Injuries from that kind of crash are out of my league.

As I run down the street at a considerably faster pace than everyone else, the screams of the chaos slowly fade into the background behind me. I'm maybe halfway to the central bunker by the two minute mark, and still no shattering. Which is good, people are slowly and slightly calming down as time goes on. Both the shock factor wearing off and the realization that it's going to be a lower severity finally getting people to behave somewhat civilized again. Unfortunately that effect didn't last long.

Four minutes in and I break into the giant parking lot in front of the bunker, only to find a scene of utter chaos. It's somehow worse than the first breach event. Cars are parked haphazardly, some having crashed, people running and screaming incoherently in varying directions. And I immediately see why, the doors are still closed, all of them. The exterior lights aren't even on, no personnel outside to direct, reassure, or guard. The bunker should be wide open right now for mass ingress, instead it's locked closed with thousands of people piling up outside as a giant buffet for whatever demons are about to crash through into our reality.

And as if on queue I'm hit with the unnatural feeling of prickling along my skin and against my very senses. Followed moments later by the ethereal sound of glass shattering. I look down at my phone, almost five minutes on the dot. The effect is instantly, complete pandemonium would be an understatement. I throw myself against the nearest building in an attempt to avoid the crowd. Those knowing they won't get into the bunker turn and flee, running straight into those who are running towards the bunker in a panic. The two groups run into one another and trample each other. Above the crowd I notice the air start to contort, twist, and bulge. Almost as if something is trying to force its way through.

Yea nope, not sticking around to see how this goes. I turn and run to the door of the building, which appears to be some sort of commercial office space. I run up to the glass doors and try to pull them open, but have no luck. Looking in it looks like the building is closed, which makes sense. It's after working hours and a weekend. The screams of the crowd reach a new level of intensity as I start searching for something to break the glass on the door with. I quickly spot a large rock within a decorative planter near the door. I snatch it up and without hesitation hurl it as hard as I can at the door. In my slight haste, totally not panic, I forgot that I’m quite a bit stronger than a regular person. The rock rockets through the first door, shattering it completely before smashing through a second set of doors I didn't realize were there, coming to rest in the middle of the lobby surrounded by glass. The sound drew no small amount of attention, and people came rushing over to try and pile into the building to escape the mayhem on the street.

I didn't wait around for the door to become plugged, running straight in ahead of the crowd and for the elevators. I pressed the call button, before realizing how much of a stupid idea getting on an elevator is right now, and instead run for the stairwell. I crash through the door, not caring about any damage I cause to it. Of course it's never that easy, in front of me on the first half floor landing is a distorted patch of air with a demon already halfway out.

It looks like a blue jellyfish with six tentacles acting as legs, but has a beak on its underside between the tentacles like a squid would. It leaps down off the landing at me, tentacles splayed out. I throw my hands up to shield myself while jumping back but I’m not quick enough. The evil little shit snags my right hand with one of its tentacles and quickly latches on as I fall back out of the stairwell. To my shock it doesn't try to immediately rip my hand to shreds, instead it tries to hold fast, extending a tentacle or two up my arm in an attempt to climb up while keeping itself secure. It doesn't work, and I let out a horrified scream as I rip it off with enough force to tear chunks out of my jacket’ sleeve before throwing it to the ground and stomping as hard as I can. My foot comes down and pops it like a grape, sending purple viscera splattering all up my front and into the surrounding area.

Ew ew ew! Fucking demon guts are not cool! I frantically try to wipe the blood and gore off my front, but only succeed in making more of a mess of my poor jacket. Fuck! That’s two jackets the demons have ruined now! A scream from behind me causes me to stop lamenting over my jacket and spin around. A dozen or so people are in the lobby panicking, screaming, and pointing to a woman who has just wandered into the lobby. Her movements are twitchy and unnatural, she has blood around her mouth and all down her front, and has one of those weird demon jellyfish wrapped around the back of her head.

You gotta be shitting me, don’t tell me those damn things can control people. She lets out a horrid wail before rushing at the nearest person, a younger dude who is panicked and completely unprepared. She lands on him, an empty look in her eyes as she overpowers him in a mere moment, drags him to the ground, and starts to literally eat him alive. Everyone else starts screaming and running in panic as the zombie woman claws her way up to his face and starts chewing him apart.

I stand rooted to the spot in shock as the various other people in the lobby run every which direction. Two people run out the front door back onto the street. The elevator doors open and three people run in, only for two to scream and run back out as the third tumbles back into the lobby spasming with a jellyfish latched to the back of his head. Four people run to the other stairwell on the opposite side of the lobby while three rush past me. The last man bumps me, knocking me out of my stupor and allowing me to join them in ascending the stairwell.

Despite entering last I quickly become first, my speed clearly far greater than that of a regular person's. I pick a random floor and throw open the door, finding a large office space open before me. I slip inside and close the door behind me, moments later the sound of people thundering up the staircase passes by.

I lean against the door and slowly slide down, trying to get my mounting panic under control. Everything went to shit so fast I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. Zombie mind controlling demon jellyfish and a non functioning bunker. Not only that, their damn spawn rate was quicker than what's supposedly normal. Supposedly it’s supposed to only start with a few breaking through at the beginning and ramp up over time. That's why bunkers are still effective, because with only a few demons at the beginning evacuation is still manageable. But that, there were fucking three of them right off the bat! Granted a squished one of them, at least the jellyfish themselves seem to be weak. Maybe that's why they popped in so quickly, smaller stuff breaks through more easily at the beginning. As time passes and the metaphorical, or possibly literal, hole in reality widens and more powerful things can come through. At Least that's the explanation the textbooks give on why you need to find shelter quickly. Of course, the more powerful, or more things pushing on the barrier the faster it fails. Thus the tiering system is based on time.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

This is only a level one breach, but it already feels worse than the level five from last week…. On second thought, level five will always be the worst breach in my book. But this one still sucks! I finally build up enough courage to stand up and move away from the door, but I keep my eye on it out of paranoia that a damned zombie will burst through at any moment. Slowly I make my way over to the window. The screams of terror and agony filtering their way through the glass, indicating the shit hasn't stopped hitting the fan outside. Timidly I get close enough to the window to peek over the edge of the floor and outside, and immediately regret that decision. Hell on earth might be the only apt description. The streets run red with blood, bodies wrapped and contorted all about the street. Almost two dozen jelly controlled zombies scattered about are hunched over corpses and taking their fill. Well most of them are corpses, i notice one particular man fighting desperately to break free from the creature consuming him, but it doesn't care as it just holds him down and consumes his legs alive and kicking.

I step back from the window, doing everything in my power to prevent a panic attack and keep my lunch in my stomach and not on the floor. I put my head in the elbow of my still good sleeve and take deep long breaths. It takes a minute but I finally get the feeling of throwing up to go away, and my anxiety to a manageable level. Thank god I didn't actually get to eat any dinner. I make my way farther back towards the middle of the floor. I pull out my phone and notice a flurry of texts from different people. The first is from the automated system with the same usual crap. I reply ‘SOS’ and make a silent prayer that I’ll still be around to be rescued when someone actually gets out here. Second one was from dad, wondering where the hell I am and if I'm safe because mom says I wasn't at home. I debate for a minute on how I should reply. I’m in all likely hood fucked, less so than a regular person, but still not in a good position. He should be safe at the factory, that place is like a fortress. And judging from the fact he isnt panic texting, mom, the twins, and Tommy probably made it to the southern bunker. Which means the southern bunker is working. The last thing I need is him doing something stupid like trying to charge out here to try and save me. I resolve to tell him a bit of a lie while formulating a barebones basic plan with end goal. ‘Am fine, in city, heading for southern.’ is what I quickly text back before silencing my phone. Last thing I need is an errant notification on the latest pop culture reference popping a notification at the wrong time.

With that out of the way I take better stock of my surroundings. The floor I'm on consists mostly of open cubical space, with a few offices and a conference room along the only wall in the place. The other three sides are glass, it looks like the same company owns the entire floor here. Though there isn't any distinctive markings to indicate which company. Unfortunately, an office space really limits my options. I might be able to lock myself in an office or hide in the cubicles, but any demon with half decent senses would probably detect me. I might be able to collect some improvised weapons, maybe some sharp pens or something. I start searching through the cubicles, looking for anything that might make a decent weapon. I quickly discover that most pens and pencils are the cheap plastic kind that will break if I twitch my finger wrong. But a few good metallic or hard plastic ones are scattered about, and I greedily snatch them up and stuff them into my pockets. Of course, unzipping the pocket that the mana regen crystal is in lets it escape to resume its orbiting path around me. I don't care at this point, focused more on gathering while I can. Eventually I find something good, well as good as an improvised office space weapon can be. A very nice metal stapler is on the desk of the first office I search. Small, metal, heavy, a damn good throwable weapon.

The second office gave me false hope. As I entered I noticed a sword hung up on a plaque on the wall behind the desk. I beeline for it and ripped it off the wall, only to discover it was a cheap plastic knock off. Even a cheap metal sword would have been a godsend right now. Otherwise it's just more useless garbage. There is a small kitchen area in the conference room consisting of a cabinet with a coffee maker on top and a mini fridge. I managed to find a metal butter knife in the cabinet, not a cheap one either. My impromptu weapon looting complete, I make my way back to the door to the stairwell.

Current plan is to loot a few more floors for anything usable as a weapon while outside calms down some. After that I'll either make my way south or shelter in place depending on if the demons are actively hunting or not and how bad it is outside. Primitive plan in place I move to the door leading to the other stairwell on the opposite side of the floor. I put my ear up to the door but don't hear anything. Deciding to try my luck on another floor I slowly turn the handle and quietly open the door. Who knows, I might be able to find some of those other people on the upper floors.

I get the door about a quarter of the way open when I notice it standing on the edge of the landing. A zombie in sweat pants and a jacket is looking straight up the staircase. A sick feeling hits me as I realize this is the dude who tumbled out of the evivator. I freeze, hoping for a moment that it will walk away. But it just keeps standing there and looking up. I debate closing the door again for a moment but decide that it might draw its attention no matter how quiet I try to be. The longer I look at the thing the more disgusted I am. The demon jellyfish has eight tentacles, four big ones that have barbs all over them and are currently wrapped around the guy's head and neck. Four small tentacles also wrap around his head, two going into his ears and two more around to the front of his face. The small tentacles pulse with an ominous purple glow at random intervals, it isn't super bright, but still enough to notice.

Actually, now might be a good time to take it out. I don't hear anything else in the stairwell, and it's currently facing away from me. It clearly can't see behind itself otherwise it would have noticed me already, which is weird since the demon jelly is on the back of his head. Maybe I'll figure out why after I kill it. I've already killed one so I know the jellyfish are extremely squishy, I should be able to take it out with a well placed throw or hit. It will be hard to fuck this up, it's facing directly away from me, and is only three feet away. Despite all that I'm still nervous as I pull the metal stapler from my pocket and slowly edge myself through the partially open door. Using my foot to keep the door propped open I slowly cock my arm back and prepare myself. If I miss that thing will be all over me and probably make a lot of noise. But if I get rid of it now while it's alone, that’s one less demon haunting the building.

Finally I take one more deep breath, putting a sharp pen in my off hand just in case. I throw the stapler with all the force I can muster while keeping it on target. My arm snaps forward, the stapler leaves my hand at high speed and flies through the air. I'm on target enough to land a decent hit, the majority of the stapler hitting the majority of the jelly. The effect is instant, a splatter of purple and blue gore shoots out everywhere as the jellyfish has its upper half basically obliterated by the stapler. The body it was puppeting dropped as the stapler clattered off the wall and hit the floor, making a shit ton of noise that reverberated up and down the stairwell.

I dive back inside the door and slam it shut. I wait with my ear on the door, listening for anything else possibly coming around to find the source of the noise. First a minute passes, then two without any indication of anything else having shown up. I carefully poke my head back into the stairwell, scanning for any visual signs that something is there or has been through. When I find nothing I determine it's safe enough to investigate some more and move back out into to look at the body. The lower part is still wrapped round the dude's head. He's also dead, staring wide eyed and unmoving at the wall with blood seeping from his ears and nose. I try pulling the thing off but it's stuck firm, the barbs on the large tentacles holding it in place. I carefully pull the large tentacles free, making extra sure to avoid the barbs in case they are poisonous or something. The whole jellyfish is a nasty slimy mess but I manage to get it off using the stapler and some pens. As I finally get to pull the remains off I discover something a little more disturbing. The beak has dug into the back of the dudes neck, before opening up and shooting what can be best described as yellow tendrils straight into his spine. I recoil back at that, seeing someone's spine is a little too much for me.

I move to the edge of the landing and look up and down the rest of the stairwell, searching for any more of those things, or other demons. I don't see anything up or down the stairwell, which opens up my options and leaves me with a choice. Do I go up and look for the other people and or more supplies, or go down and try to get to the southern bunker as quickly as possible? The decision is made for me as I hear a door crash open and screaming coming from above.