For quite some time, we were alright. The demon was still being summoned its entirety, and once we got up the stairs and started running, nothing had happened other than the roars and growls.

We got to the first floor, as away from the area of the cafeteria as possible, and waited there for some time. It’s what Sylvia suggested. Olbert, on the other hand, seemed like he was keeping with us mindlessly. He did not say a word, nor did he complain about what was going on anymore. I was worried, but we did not have time to talk right now. In a matter of moments, the demon would start wreaking havoc all over the hospital.

That was when the building shook for the second time. It was much more violent, and we heard a large thud above us. Something had fallen down. More people shrieked and shouted, and the scutter of footsteps was everywhere. Sylvia insisted that we should stay in place. Olbert turned his head up with slight worry, but still did not move otherwise.

Then, the third rumble. The ground shook along with the building this time. Louder thuds all over the place. More screaming and running. From the direction of the basement, a muffled series of loud bangs could be heard. Over, and over, almost on the same speed as the blood had been dripping in that room before. A few people shouted at us to move and run, to save ourselves. And still, we did nothing. This had to be the safest place in the building, she had calculated it.

And finally, chaos.

As if being hit with a large wrecking ball, the entire right side of the long corridor in front of us burst into pieces. Parts of the walls, the beds, the plumbing, flew all over as black color rapidly flashed in the background. The roars of the demon got louder and closer. We could see people falling down as it rose, grabbing a few of them in its black hands and squeezing them tight. The ones who had not been hit started to run everywhere, especially towards us. It soon devolved into a stampede.

A bit of debris flew towards us, hitting a few people along the way and knocking them down. But Sylvia raised her hands and they began to glow once more. Following her hand movements, a fluid-like orange material appeared in the air and grabbed the debris before it could hit us. Then, she let go, and the debris fell to the ground.

Behind, in the part of the building which had been destroyed, the head of the demon appeared. It wore a black, dented helmet, which was broken on the sides due to protruding horns that went down to its neck. Inside, a disfigured human face growled as it put the humans it had caught into its mouth, feasting on them as it started to laugh. As it did, the sounds of the chewing were mixed in with something crumbling to dust. From along its mouth, black dust started to fall down.

“It’s ash,” Sylvia whispered.

“Huh?” I couldn’t hear her properly over the screaming of the people, but even then, had she really called it ash?

“Its body is burnt.” She said, “That’s why the color.”

“The…” Olbert suddenly spoke up, “The hero. His body went missing after some time. Turns out he had made some contract, and was still alive. Later, he fought in a war and died in a fire.”

What? I turned towards him, but he looked serious.

Hadn’t he said earlier that that hero’s body could probably be found in the morgue of this hospital? The morgue that was supposed to be in the…

The demon took notice of the people running all around and swung its empty arm towards our direction. They were long, and took more of the hospital’s walls along with it. Now, almost sixty percent of the first floor was broken.

“We need to move!” Sylvia shouted and ran towards the stairs. But…instead of going up, she went down.

“Why not up?” I asked. It would be safer if it couldn’t see us, right?

Sylvia answered with frustration, “Because it will fall!”

I hadn’t considered that. So, holding Olbert’s hand and making sure he kept up, we went down to the ground floor.

Not a lot of people were here yet. Most were probably above the first floor, so it made sense. Olbert kept looking up, as if wondering what he could do for them. Unfortunately, there was nothing we could do. For now, all that was possible was looking after ourselves. Right? There was nothing we could do...

We crawled into the same corner we had been in before. This time, however, Sylvia told us to stay put while she ran towards the demon.

Olbert threw my hand away, and started to go after her. I tried to get him to stop again, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even bring myself to try. Because I was right after him. There was a certain part of me that was feeling tired of all of this. Did surviving just mean sitting in a corner and waiting for everyone else to fight or die? Maybe Auria and Klaus would be sad if I died right here. Maybe I would let them down in the long run. But the ending they wanted from me was a foolish goal anyways. If I managed to save just one person right now, like them, then there might be a small chance they could forgive me, and themselves.

Olbert did not keep following Sylvia. When the stairs came, he took a turn and started to go up. He could handle them. I trusted him. I ran straight for the ones who were in front of me.

“Get out!” I grabbed the people I could and pushed them towards the entrance.

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Sylvia’s hand was now glowing with a faint white glow. In her hand, she held what looked like a small sword. But it was almost translucent, ghostly. It had the same white tint as her hand. With that sword, she went for the demon’s knees, which were visible from this floor, and attacked the small parts which were not covered in armor, stabbing them randomly.

There were quite a few people who were trapped in the rooms directly opposite to where the demon was. Most were blocked due to the broken walls. I could never move those, so I tried to put my hand through the gaps between them, and pulled the people inside out. Through the gap, I could see that a lot of them were escaping through the now-open windows, but the crowding was too much for everyone to be able to get out properly.

I helped around four or five people out before a loud noise shook the floor below.

“Get aside!” Sylvia shouted and pushed me back to the parts where I had come from.

She also jumped and rolled forward, bringing herself to a stop a little behind me.

The floor started to rise little by little until it ripped into two. The demon’s armored foot rose to the sky and tore apart the rooms that I had just been standing in front of. I shouted and tried to move forward, but Sylvia’s hand around my shoulder, and my own judgement, stopped me. There was no saving them. The people who had been able to get out in time were lucky. That’s all we could have done for the time being.

But if Sylvia hadn’t started attacking the demon in the first place, we could have kept focusing on the resc-

No. I couldn’t go down that route right now. We were all trying to do our best to help in our own way. If I even began to think something bad about her right now, then it wouldn’t help anyone.

A large chorus echoed behind us. Sylvia moved forward once more, and grabbed hold of the leg before it went back down, stabbing her sword into it and shouting with it. Then, she went out of sight. Behind me, a large number of people started to pour down from the stairs. Olbert was doing wonders. I ran towards them and made sure that they all left in as orderly a manner as possible.

After the stream of them was over, Olbert came down too.

He panted and stopped near me with a slight smile.

“Good work.” I told him.

He nodded, “That’s everyone I could find. They’ll be alright.”

Then, he looked up and turned his attention towards the demon. The foot came up once more and swirled around the entire hospital. The two of us immediately hugged the floor as it went over our heads. The walls were destroyed as it moved. Anytime now, the building would start coming down.

Once the leg had moved past us, we stood up. Something flew in the air and landed to our right, in the rubble of the now-broken stairs. It was Sylvia, covered in dust and blood. She had a wound on her arm and forehead. We went to her and helped her stand up. She coughed some dust out of her mouth and looked at the demon, who was slowly bending down toward us.

We slowly moved backwards, trying to avoid all the rubble.

First the head and the horns appeared, giving us a view of the top of the helmet. And then, the demon looked up and presented its face. Now, it was completely visible. The eyes were out of place, and a bit jumbled, but wide open. Its mouth was covered with blood, and a broken arm rested on its lips. It brought out its tongue and pulled it in. The eyes were looking right at us, and the demon’s mouth turned into a long grin.

Its hands tore through the building and came down to the lowermost floor. It put them there and pushed himself out of the underground floors and onto the ground, breaking almost all parts of the hospital it touched.

We sunk into the room to the left of us. It probably wasn’t safe, considering that its roof could fall down any moment, but it was the one part of the hospital, from top to bottom, that hadn’t been damaged much yet. On top of that, it was on the other side of the entrance, which would lead the demon away from the other people. Now, the only way we could die was if the demon just decided to stomp us with a limb at once. The chances of that were low, since it was probably more interested in eating us.

As expected, that part of the building did break, but only the part that faced the inside of the hospital. All the walls in that one line came crashing down. Then, the demon’s hand appeared on the roof of our room, and pulled it up. The roof ran up and through the other floors too, probably grabbing all of them together. Sylvia used her magic and threw that entire orange haze around us. I wondered how it worked, but the way she had used it right now was clearly meant to protect.

Some parts did fall on us, but most of the room was overturned and thrown into the ground behind by the demon, whose full body was now in front of us. It roared and started to bring its hand down. Sylvia let go off the current magic, which had caught all pieces of debris in it, and threw it all down. The orange color disappeared, and her hand turned red.

Sweat started to roll down her forehead. Me and Olbert stayed behind. Her entire body was soon sweating, as she held her hand at the level of her eye, waiting for the arm to come down.

“Jump back.” She whispered.

In a crashing second, the hand came down. Both of us went back as ordered, while a burst of fire appeared from Sylvia’s hand. It spread fire on the palm before it could touch us, and she hopped to the right as it came down. Then, she used the same fire magic all over the top of the before it could go back up. But it did almost no damage. After all, the thing was covered in ash.

“Look out!” Olbert shouted.

I looked up to see that the demon’s other hand was also coming down. We had missed it due to being focused on the first one.

It came down right on top of Sylvia, whose hand changed from red to orange in the split second before she was buried under it. The demon laughed and pushed down on the ground. A small sound came from the inside and the demon roared before slowly pulling the hand back up.

Sylvia’s whole body was covered with the orange glow. On the demon’s hand, as it slowly rose, was the dagger that she had used to stab the doctors earlier. She must have grabbed it when she went down with the leg.

The demon pulled it out and laughed as it threw it away. Sylvia let go off the orange barrier and took long breaths. Her entire head was covered with blood now, and her hand looked like it was a bit broken too. She wouldn’t be able to defeat this demon alone. That much was obvious.

Both the hands started to come back down once more. She was still on the ground panting, but readied her hands to make the barrier once more. She braced for impact as they got closer.

“Sylvia!” A sharp voice from the back was accompanied by a shrieking whistle.

Without even seeing what was going on, her hands changed back from orange to red in a matter of seconds. The demon’s hands converged together, close to her. Right then, an arrow found its way to one of the fingers. Sylvia threw a small spark towards the arrow, and it created a large explosion.

Purple blood flew everywhere, along with seven of the demon’s torn fingers. It howled in pain and withdrew the hand from the fight.

Sylvia painfully laughed and crawled back with a smile on her face and pushed herself up. I helped her stand.

Once up, she turned back with her right hand giving a thumbs up. I turned too.

On the rubble of the building behind us stood four people, clad in armor. Three men and one woman.

The largest man out of them came forward and gave Sylvia a pat on the back with a smile. Then, he looked up at the demon, “Good job, Syl. Let’s get this over with, yeah?”