The scraping got louder and louder as it drew nearer to our location. Sweat started to bead on my forehead and my hands were clammy. I shifted my grip on the steel rod, the tension in my fingers tightened around it. Reese breathed heavily, the dust made the air dense and hard to take decent breaths in and out without feeling like we were inhaling the earth itself.

Scape. Scrape. Scrape.

Time seemed to slow and the waiting was becoming unbearable. I fought the urge to run, overriding my natural instinct to react. More debris fell from the trembling ceiling, landing to the side of us, but we didn’t flinch. Our survival depended on being able to take on whatever was coming around the corner.

“Reese? Ariah?” A croaky voice called out in a loud whisper.

“Roderick?” Reese exclaimed, quickly dropping her stance and running in the direction the voice came from.

I dropped the steel rod and ran too, scrambling over the piles of concrete and steel that had formed on the floor.

When I rounded the corner from the changing rooms to the main gym, Reese was already in Rodericks arms hugging him tightly. I ran and jumped onto them, enveloping both of them in excitement.

“Roderick! I’ve never been so happy to see you in all my life!” I cried as I put my head on his chest. Reese stepped back allowing my big brother to embrace me.

“Hey little sis!” Roderick said, his voice hoarse with emotion. I looked up at him, his face was covered in concrete dust and blood.

“Are you okay?” I said suddenly worried.

A groan came from the ground next to us. I hadn’t noticed anyone else, I looked down.

“Eamon?!” I gasped. He was lying on a makeshift stretcher with two metal bars on either side with Roderick’s sweatshirt tied between them to make an area for Eamon to lay on.

“I found him under some rubble. He’d managed to get inside the janitor’s shed and I heard him calling for help as I was running here from the basement.” Roderick explained looking down at Eamon’s gaunt figure as he did so. “Then the earthquakes started and we got stuck. He was too heavy to carry, so I quickly made a stretcher to drag him on.”

“Is he okay?” I asked worried about my friend.

“I’m not sure.” Roderick replied. “He’s in a lot of pain and I’m not quite sure what to do to make him feel better.”

I bent down to Eamon and took his hand softly. Holding it in mine, I rubbed the back of his hand with my thumb to help comfort him.

“Eamon? Eamon? Can you hear me?” I asked gently.

Eamon’s eyes were closed but he turned his head slowly in my direction. His lips opened and he made a low moaning sound.

“Eamon, can you tell us where you’re hurt? We need to know so we can help you.” I said, looking down at his limp body.

He swallowed, his mouth sounding extremely dry and sticky. He opened his mouth again.

“My legs. The pain is in my legs.” He whispered hoarsely.

“Okay Eamon.” I replied. “We’re going to take a look, okay?”

He nodded gingerly, every movement an effort.

“Roderick, Reese, take a look at his legs. I'll keep holding his hand.” I said as I looked up at them with tears in my eyes.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

They nodded and crouched down next to Eamon as well. Roderick carefully lifted the sweatshirt covering his legs and Eamon screamed in pain. Reese pulled back his jeans and he screamed even louder. Underneath the denim Eamon’s legs looked like they’d been burnt. The skin was red and raw, revealing flesh and muscle in places. Other parts looked like crisp charcoal, blackened and bloody. The strange thing was that his jeans weren't burnt or damaged at all, looking like whatever had caused it had gone through his clothes or gone up the inside of the legs of the jeans.

“Holy shit.” Roderick muttered under his breath. Pulling Eamon’s jeans down from the top over his hips, Reese lifted his shirt up and revealed black and red claw marks across his stomach. They seemed to stop around his waist and didn’t go up his torso. From what we could see, the upper half of his body was totally fine.

“Thankfully it’s not all over his body, but whatever had done this is vicious.” Reese said incredulously.

“Eamon, can you tell us what happened?” I asked him gently while still rubbing the back of his hand.

He tried to speak but his words got stuck behind his parched lips.

“I’m going to get you some water, just wait right there.” I put his hand gently back down at his side and stood up. Eamon nodded, knowing that he couldn’t move anywhere anyway.

“There’s a little staffroom kitchen area behind the counter in the foyer. I'm gonna go look for some water there.” I said to the others over my shoulder as I started to move towards the foyer entrance.

“Okay," said Roderick, “but be quick and careful. We don't know how much time we’ve got before the next wave starts.”

“I expected another one before now.” Reese said, looking up at the windows in the ceiling. “Nothing has happened in a little while, maybe it’s stopped?”

“We should still be on alert just in case. We're not in a very safe space here.” Roderick replied.

“I’ll be as quick as I can. I'll get some water for all of us if there is some.”

I ran towards the foyer, careful not to trip on all the debris that lay on the floor. I got to the foyer and jumped over the counter sliding along thinking I looked quite parkour in the execution of the leap. I pushed the door to the kitchenette but it was stuck, so I crouched slightly and used my shoulder to ram it. The shaking must have made something fall down behind it, I thought as I pushed against it again with all my might. This time whatever was blocking the way moved and slid across the floor as the door opened. I put my head around the corner and saw that the gym teacher Mr Margoyles was laying on his back on the floor behind it.

“Mr Margoyles! Are you okay?” I exclaimed in fright as I pushed through the doorway and into the kitchen area. I quickly knelt down beside him and shook his shoulders gently.

“Mr Margoyles? Can you hear me?” I looked at his face. His eyes were wide open and his tongue hung awkwardly from out of the side of his partially open mouth. I felt his cheek with the back of my hand and his skin was cold and pale. There was a blue tinge around his mouth and I put my head on his chest listening for a heartbeat. There was none.

Mr Margoyles was dead.

Stunned, I fell back onto the floor beside him. Taking a deep breath, I reached forward and closed his eyes with my fingertips.

“Ariah?! I heard the others calling. Where are you?! We need to move!”

Jumping up I hastily looked for the small kitchenette fridge and located it over the other side of the room. I ran over to it, throwing open its door causing it to fall forward tipping out containers and water bottles from the shelves. Mr Margoyles' lunch container fell on the floor beside me and I quickly looked back at him realising that he wouldn’t be needing it anymore. Seeing a kit bag on a table in the corner, I reached for it, shaking all the contents out of it onto the floor. I quickly scooped up the water bottles and containers of food, ramming them into the bag.

There was a vending machine near the window, with food and beverages inside it. Looking around the room for something to break the glass panel with, I saw a chair by the table. I grabbed it and using all my strength, I lifted it above my head, bringing it down on the panel. The glass smashed on contact and the vending machine wobbled and started spewing out packets and plastic bottles. Using what Reese had shown me, I wrapped my hand in my sweatshirt and broke the rest of the glass around the edges of the panel and reached in grabbing as much food as I could. I filled up the kit bag to overflowing and then flung it over my shoulder. It was heavy but in my survival state I didn’t feel it weighing on my shoulder.

I stepped over Mr Margoyles, giving him one last look.

“Rest in peace, Mr Margoyles. Thanks for being a great teacher.” I murmured tears filling my eyes, I wiped them away with the back of my hand and left the kitchenette.

I put the bag up on the counter and went to jump back over it, as I did so a loud rumbling started and the room around me shook. I looked across the foyer and saw the others motioning me to hurry up.

The roof between us caved in and blocked the doorway back to the gym. With the force of the trembling, I fell backwards off the counter top onto the floor, the kit bag fell down on top of my stomach, knocking the wind out of me.

As I groaned, I looked up just as a beam came down from the ceiling above me.

“Oh crap!” I cried as I put my hands up to cover my face.