Coughing, I worked my arms free from the concrete dust and pushed debris away from my face allowing me to take a deep breath. My body was still halfway through the hole and now pinned below the waist on the other side of the pile. Roderick appeared from under a mass of wooden boards and broken concrete, pushing up through them. He stood up, wiping his face to remove some of the dust, revealing a large cut to his head. Blood trickled down into his eye.

“Roderick! Are you okay?”

He seemed stunned and put his hand up again to check the cut, patting the blood then bringing his hand back down to look at it. He stood there examining it as if in shock at what he was seeing.

“Roderick!” I yelled trying to get him to focus on me. “Where’s Reese?!”

He looked up at me, then quickly shook his head in an attempt to regain clarity.

“Reese!” He yelled, quickly bending down and pushing debris out of the way. A hand pushed up through a mound of dust beside him and he quickly removed the larger pieces of concrete and split wooden boards from around it revealing Reese beneath it. Helping pull her to her feet, Roderick started to cry and tugged her into his arms.

“I’m okay Roddy.” Reese whispered, then began coughing, the dust irritating her lungs.

A few pieces of concrete moved and slid past me smashing into what was left of the floor.

“Uh, can you please get me out of here?!” I said as I tried to wriggle free, using my hands to pull at the debris locking me into place. My fingernails filled with dust and grit as I pushed full giant chunks of concrete and metal away from me. I felt sweat beading on my forehead as I upped my effort to escape.

Another giant roar came from above, the creature screeched overhead and what remained of the roof shook. Reese ran over to me and grabbed my arms and started to pull as hard as she could, gritting her teeth and straining as she did so. Roderick followed and began removing the larger pieces of debris from around me.

The pile started to wobble and Roderick grabbed my arms too, then pulled with Reese, the joint effort helped and my body was pulled free from the hole just as it completely caved in, collapsing around us.

My brother enveloped me in a massive hug, crushing some of the already flattened chip packets that I’d forgotten about to my body.

“Are you okay, what was that?” He asked and looked at me curiously as I lifted up my shirt and revealed the chip packets and chips sticking to the skin on my stomach.

“Ariah!” Reese gasped. “What is on your body?”

“Oh it’s just broken chips, I put the packets down my shirt to carry them more easily.” I responded, slightly embarrassed.

“No, not those, that!” She said and pointed at an area on my stomach.

I looked down and saw what looked like burn marks across my stomach and chest, in the places that the monster had held me.

“That must have been from when the monster grabbed me. It had a pretty tight grip.” I said, examining the marks. Oddly I felt no pain which I thought was weird and it hadn’t burnt my clothes, only my skin. My flesh rose in raw bloody bumps where the burns were.

“It was holding you?!” Roderick exclaimed looking at my stomach. “They look like the burns on Eamon’s legs…”

“Eamon!” We all exclaimed and looked at each other realising that in the chaos we’d forgotten about him.

We looked over to where he had been laying and the mess had fortunately missed him, only covering him in a thin layer of dust.

“Eamon!” I called out as I ran over to him and fell to my knees beside him. I wiped away the dust from his face. “Where are the water bottles that I saved?”

The others looked around the floor and managed to find a couple that had survived. Roderick threw me one and I caught it, immediately opening it and putting it to Eamon’s lips. He opened them slightly and I was able to tip some water gently into his mouth. I tilted the bottle a little higher and he was able to take down a fair amount, which I hoped meant that he was starting to feel slightly better. Eamon murmured, letting me know he was done and gave me a slight smile as I lifted the bottle away from his lips. Wiping his forehead, I noticed that he felt hot and his skin was clammy. His eyes stayed closed but he seemed to drift off to sleep again so I stood up and looked at the others.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“He’s okay but I think we need to get him out of here and get something to treat his wounds.” I said putting the bottle of water to my own lips and taking a big sip. My mouth felt dry and full of dust, the water was refreshing even though I could taste concrete.

“Yes, we need to move. This gym isn’t going to remain standing for much longer.” Reese said looking up. Another lightning strike flew across the sky.

“That creature must have been causing the earthquakes and those pink light attacks. They seem to have stopped.” Roderick noted as he looked up too.

“I think so too. It’s occupied at the moment, but for how long?” Reese continued to look up, keeping a watch on what was happening above. A worried frown appeared on her forehead.

“I think we need to take a chance to get out now.” I said putting the cap back on the water bottle and sticking it in my back pocket.

“I think we still need to get to the car park and just see what we can find. Maybe there’s another car we can use if mine’s not functional.” Roderick suggested.

Reese and I nodded in agreement.

Turning to me, Reese walked over and gently grabbed my shoulders, looking directly in my eyes.

“Ariah, so we know what we’re up against, you need to tell us what happened in the foyer. Was there anything that you noticed about the monster that we could use against it if we have to?” She asked with a serious look and firm tone to her voice.

“I don’t think you would believe me if I told you.” I replied.

“I think we believe anything at this point.” Roderick laughed nervously.

“Well, I do think that the source of the pink rays of light is the giant monster. It was glowing pink and seemed to have electricity crackling around it.”

Reese let go of my shoulders and stepped back, still looking at me. “What else?”

“When it picked me up it squeezed me really tight but I didn’t feel any burning. I did feel like it was sapping my energy though, the electricity that it was emitting felt like it was crackling around my body like super charged static electricity.” I explained. “It let me go and I fell awkwardly then something or someone came to my rescue. But I couldn’t quite see what was happening with the way the light was projecting from the monster's fingertips. It looked like the person was floating and shooting lightning bolt lightning bolts from their fingertips and striking the monster.”

“So what you’re saying is that there’s a real life superhero out there combating this thing?” Reese said incredulously.

“I’m not sure but whatever it is I know that I owe it my life.” I said and gulped remembering the tightness I had felt when the monster had grabbed me.

Loud crashing noises came from the other side of the wall and pink light started to seep through the gaps. We ducked down quickly as the pink light swept past us, hitting the wall to the other side of us, igniting the wooden frame of a school championship photo that was hung haphazardly against it.

“Okay, we’ve got no more time to waste, we have to leave now! If this monster has done that to you and you escaped, it's probably going to come looking for you if that other thing doesn’t take care of it. And in finding you, it will find all of us.” Roderick said as he went over to stand next to Eamon.

“While the monster is occupied, let’s move. Ariah, Reese, both grab the end of a steel pole each and I’ll grab the other sides.” Roderick ordered.

I quickly jumped over Eamon and grabbed one of the poles. Reese grabbed the other one and we lifted the stretcher up while Roderick took the weight at the front. Eamon lay still, not moving while we carried him. We shuffled and stumbled back towards the shower block, carefully stepping over debris that was in the path.

“I think we’re gonna have to get rid of this makeshift stretcher and just carry Eamon ourselves. It’ll be way faster.” Roderick panted as he stopped and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

“How did you carry him originally?” Reese asked.

“I just dragged the stretcher along the ground but it’s too difficult to do that with all the debris around.” He replied looking around at the shower room. The walls were mostly piles of rubble with gaping holes revealing the outside. “I’ll grab my sweatshirt from under him and you two pull the poles away from him.”

We carefully lowered the stretcher, placing Eamon on the ground. Reese and I removed the poles and threw them to the side. They clattered making a loud metallic sound on the broken concrete. We stopped and listened to see if the sound had attracted the monster, but luckily it was still battling the unknown being above us.

Kneeling down next to Eamon, I carefully lifted his head while Roderick and Reese slowly manoeuvred the sweatshirt out from under his body. He moaned softly as we executed the motion and rolled his head to the side.

“Eamon, we’re going to pick you up and carry you. It might hurt a bit but hopefully not for long.” I leant in and whispered in his ear. He nodded ever so slightly in agreement.

Bending down, Roderick put his arms under Eamon’s torso and got him into a sitting position. I grabbed one of his arms and positioned it around my neck, Roderick then did the same on the other side then we both lifted him off the ground. Reese grabbed his legs which made it easier.

“My car is right across the carpark, straight ahead. Everyone just stay focused on getting there quickly and quietly.” Roderick said, as we stepped over the rubble of the shower room walls into the outside.

I looked across to the other end of the gymnasium, the monster was still taking blasts of lightning to its body. Small explosions appeared in its form and it started to fall towards us.

“Roderick! It’s coming!” I just managed to get out before the beast fell down in front of us, making the ground shake as it did so. It’s head lolled to the side and it looked at us with its four glistening black eyes.

“Run!”