Glazed dead eyes. Exposed rotted flesh and gray peeling skin that looked rough to the touch. Green tinted blood that leaked out from the mouth and eyes.

These things, the shadowy figures illuminated by the dimming flame of the lamp, were corpses. Monsters reanimated and given a perverted version of life just like the skeletons that nearly took his life when this all began.

Sam hesitated to swing as they drew closer.

These things -these zombies for lack of a better term- wore normal clothing, damaged survival packs hanging from a few of them. There were the survivors they’d been in search of; fellow people who had been torn from their lives under the pretense of some game only to find their livelihoods at risk.

Striking them down would be akin to murder wouldn’t it?

‘No.’ Sam casted aside the naïve notion. As he waved about the lamp in hopes that the flame would scare them off, they showed no reaction. He had thought Mai’s eyes were lifeless but compared to them she was just detached. These things were no different than machines, unable to show fear or anger in their pursuit of him. To avoid falling victim to whatever dark force thrust that cruel fate upon them, a certain degree of cruelty needed to be employed on his end.

He could feel sorry for the people they once were when it’s all said and done.

Compassion buried under indifferent logic once more, Sam swung.

Metal cleaved through flesh, heads flying and bodies collapsing. Compared to the skeletons and wolves he’s dealt with, corpses that bumbled about with motor functions comparable to that of a child posed little issue. The setting decay allowed someone with as little strength as him to dismember and decapitate them easily enough.

Their pained groans unsettled him but Sam deafened himself to the sounds. It’s become all too easy to do so in recent days.

He rushed out before the last corpse hit the ground. No need to bog himself down by taking in the bloody mess.

A long fancy corridor, lined with paintings, sculptures, and the occasional torch greeted him. Zombies shambled over from either side. He charged down the right where there were fewer of them, slashing the corpses apart while shouting for Ivan and Sasha.

He wasn’t worried about Mai. She’d cut these things down without batting an eye. The other two were too compassionate, Ivan especially. Misplaced mercy could kill them.

“In here, Sam!” A muffled yell came from one of the rooms ahead. Sasha’s voice.

He cut down those who blocked his way and shoved open the door to a large bedroom.

Inside, Sasha fired arrows at undead around the room from her perch atop of a wooden dresser. She avoided fatal shots. The purpose of the arrows were to lodge into the humanoid creatures and keep them pinned to any piece of furniture or wall nearby. Entirely ineffective. They registered no pain and marched forward, not caring if they tore their own limbs from their sockets in the tireless pursuit.

“Come on!” Sasha obeyed the command and leaped over those between them, joining him in his dash down the hall. “Did you see Ivan or Mai?”

“N-No.” Sasha’s voice came out shaky. While not all of the reanimated corpses were their once fellow survivors, they all looked like they were human at one point. He could already imagine how merciless she thought he was. “One minute I was coming into the mansion right behind him then I was in that room with these-these-“

“They’re not human, don’t hesitate.” “Sam said. Hopefully that’d be enough to solidify her resolve. “We need to find the other two quickly.”

They cut and tore their way down the hall until, finally, they came across the spacious entranceway. Corpses littered the first floor, having met their demise at the end of blades. They descended down one of the curved stairways and followed the blood soaked path of dismemberment that hopefully led the way to Mai and Ivan.

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It brought them further into the mansion and to a beaten down doorway. A cobblestone stairway paved the way to a cellar or basement.

He couldn’t help but flinch.

It took everything to keep it at the back of his mind but the dark energy that bared down on him outside the mansion, seeped out from the unseen depths, not quite directed at them but lingering about all the same.

“Sam? What’s wrong?”

“You really can’t feel that?” Sam questioned. Sasha gave him an odd look, shaking her head. “There’s something dark down there……something stronger than Mai.”

“So? It doesn’t matter what’s down there. We have to find Ivan.” The usual meekness Sasha he’d come to expect from her was nowhere to be found with the prospect of her brother being in danger in the air. She plunged down, bow on her back and knives at the ready. Groans of the approaching undead urged him to follow suit.

The basement of the mansion lacked the grandiose presentation of the upper floors but was no less expansive. A labyrinth of cobbled tunnels spanned every which way, lit up by bright blue flames hung from dangling braziers.

More magic he assumed.

Sasha didn’t bother with the slow and methodical approach, flying straight ahead, past more of the fallen zombies while slicing through the ankles of those that emerged from doorways. He finished them off as he passed.

A shiver ran down Sam’s spine.

They were close to that chilling energy.

The heat that resided beside his heart and constantly strengthen his body rose, burning a smidge hotter, but remained relatively tame, nothing like the desperate burst of power when they first came across the mansion.

If only he could make proper use of aura. All he could do was hope instinct and desperation proved enough to call forth the power in its entirety if things went south. More south than they already were anyways.

An angry roar filled the tunnel and a group of zombies and skeletons alike flew out of the room ahead. And there, blocking the doorway with his massive form, was none other then the man they were in search of.

“Ivan!” Sasha dodged around scattered bones and flesh to the surprised Ivan, Sam not far behind.

“Sasha!” Ivan exclaimed. Groans and crackling bones stole away the short-lived relief brought on by their reunion, a hardened look taking over Ivan’s face. “Go and help Mai, I’ll hold the door.”

He pulled them in and shattered the skulls of approaching skeletons with a swing of his shield, acting as a wall between them and the approaching undead.

It wasn’t hard to understand Ivan’s desperation.

Mai darted throughout the large laboratory like room, glass bottles and odd instruments destroyed with every swing of her blades. On the receiving end of her assault was a floating figure shrouded in a large purplish-black coat. With a wave of a hand, skeletons pulled themselves out from the ground, brought forth by a dark energy. They slowed her pursuit. Still, Mai cut through most of them without trouble but whenever she closed the distance, bones formed, taking the slashes meant for the figure while blades of that corrupt energy forced her away.

The two were on even grounds, but if that hooded figure managed to tire her out that would soon change.

“Keep the skeletons away from Mai.” Sam ordered, already slashing through one of the things. Together, he and Sasha fought the abominations, lightening Mai’s load. No longer distracted by the fodder, she locked their summoner into close range battle.

For all the figure’s strange abilities -the summoning of the dead, the blades of fiery darkness, and even flight- their expertise did not lay in one on one combat. Backed into a wall, the they could do nothing to stop the blade that dug its way into their abdomen. Mai’s next slash would’ve beheaded them.

An ungodly wail that shook the very foundations of the structure left the figure and sent Mai flying, blood leaking from her ears and nose. That didn’t stop the freakishly driven woman from rising back up and rushing the figure once more.

“Worthless sacrifices.” Warped by some force, the voice that left the figure could not be describe as human. It was monstrous; a creature’s disturbing attempt at mimicking them. The figure spread their cloaked arms and that heinous energy fell upon Sam once more, threatening to drown him while calling forth more of those skeletons, their beady eyes aglow with power the ones before them lacked. “Your puny deities can not stop me from taking what is owed.”

The skeletons moved with purpose, their abrupt swings forcing Sam back step by step. The same went for Sasha, the previous openings she took advantage of, now a death sentence in the face of their accelerated movements.

The two of them wouldn’t be enough.

Sam looked to Ivan in time to watch a group of the once shambling zombies surge through the doorway and swarm the man like a pack of wild animals, their lifeless eyes now baring the same glow of the skeletons.

“Ivan!” Sasha abandoned her defense to rush to her brother’s aid. A slice to the ankle dropped her to a knee. Another drove through her abdomen.

‘We’re going to die here.’

The grim realization weighed upon Sam’s sword.

Relentless skeletons that sought to run him through with their blades at the front. Feral zombies pouring through the small doorway one after the other just behind him. Ivan buried under their corpses. Sasha struggling in a growing pool of blood.

This was hopeless.

And yet Sam never dropped his shaky sword.

He wanted to live. He needed to live.

Orange flames gushed out from him, healing wounds and reducing his immediate attackers to dust but doing little else as he shored up a defense against the line of blades. It refused to surge outward and face the dark power that saturated the room.

Only a single faint ray of hope existed in this bleak situation.

“Mai!”