12:30 a.m. April 24, 2015
I stand there and with a flash of inspiration, step down off the table and sweep my eyes across all the people in the room and out in the hall. In most eyes I see fear. Only a small margin of them held a hint of fire in them.
‘They need a push’ I decided.
“I’m going to the end of the hall. I’ll wait for anyone who’s brave enough to come with me to save any survivors on the second floor…you have one minute to make your decision…then I’m going in.” I leave the room, turn right and begin walking down the hall. Five seconds later, the room exploded with noise and I was already almost at the end of the hallway.
Reaching the door to the stairwell, I turn back and see no one following me. I can only hear loud shouting.
‘Oh shit, what did I just do? I can’t go down there by myself…’ my thoughts trailed off.
Five more seconds passed.
Ten seconds…twenty…
My breathing began to quicken, but I forcibly calmed it down, and turned towards the door leading to the stairwell. Fear was clawing at my heart.
My thoughts turned dark, ‘Not even Sarah is coming with me…am I really about to walk into my own death?’
With only fifteen seconds left I attempted to steel my resolve. ‘I’m doing the right thing and I will save them!Those goblins weren’t too tough!’ With fire in my eyes, I strode towards the door and push down on the handle-
“Alex, wait!”
I turn to see Sarah leading about fifty people down the hall towards me and my body loosens some of the muscles that I was unconsciously tightening.
“We, don’t have much time!” I shout down the hallway. “I’m going on ahead! Just join the fight as you come in!” I push through the door and dash down two flights of steps arriving on the second floor. As soon as I made it, I hear the first people who were behind me start thundering down the stairs. Adrenaline begins bursting through my veins once more and as I pull the door in front of me open I catch a gruesome scene.
The closest part of the hallway had around twenty green goblins attempting to bust down the remaining doors with their weapons and fists. Looking further down the hall, there was a six foot tall humanoid shaped furry creature that stood with its large muscled back facing me. It appeared to be issuing orders to more goblins centered on itself. It must’ve heard the door bang open because it turned around and I was shocked because I had expected some sort of werewolf, but was instead met with a hyena-like face. The creature had long arms bulging with muscles and slightly shorter, robust legs. Long, sharp claws curved for six inches at the end of its fingertips and blood dripped off of them onto the carpet.
I cringed at seeing the hyena-human hybrid and inwardly asked myself, ‘What the hell is that ugly thing?’
It was then that the strong smell of blood hit my nose. All the doors further than halfway down the hall seemed to be broken down. Ten or so human bodies lay motionless on the ground against the walls with blood flowing from wounds I couldn’t see at this distance. Their blood was soaking into the carpet and splattered all over the walls. I looked back at the hyena and noticed that it had bared its bloody fangs at me.
Then it dawned on me, ‘This thing must be what mauled and ripped the people on the first floor into pieces.’
With that revelation, I felt fear course through my body. Once more pushing it down, I realized that half the goblins in the twenty or so large group in front of me turned towards me with cruel smiles on their faces and eyes glinting with unwarranted hatred. As they rushed towards me, I stepped to the side of the door and at the top of my lungs yelled-
“Charge!!!”
The door banged open and the group of people that had followed me down ran in at full speed. The people in front slowed down due to the unnatural site in front of them, but were still pushed forward by the momentum of those behind them. Screaming at the top of their lungs, my dorm mates practically bowled over the goblins in front of them due to their superior size. The rush of people filling out into the hallway stopped before reaching the huge hybrid which stood in front of the second floor lounge.
The people around the first group of goblins began swinging their weapons down upon the monstrosities lying below them and beat them to death.
Watching my dorm mates surround each goblin and wail on them over and over again, I cringed inwardly, ‘Oh now that just looks brutal. All I had to do was stab and swing my sword a bit…’
Looking towards the front of my dorm mates, I saw the grotesque hybrid growling at the people in front of it as they kept their distance unsure of what to do. The hybrid began backing up past the lounge in the middle of the second floor hallway and the people in front were keeping a safe distance while steadily pressing forward.
I began to press through the crowd not really caring who I pushed aside to get to the front of the pack. As I made a path for myself, I began to notice some of the weapons people were holding. There were pans, golf clubs, baseball bats, broken beer bottles, brooms, and-
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I stopped and took a double take, ‘Did I just see a toaster?’
Shaking my head, I moved ten more yards forward and finally broke through the front of the crowd.
I ended up standing between my dorm mates and some goblins who had formed a wall in front of the hybrid.
Taking a couple steps back I dryly laughed at myself and thought, ‘Didn’t really mean to move in between everyone like that.’
Suddenly, the hybrid yelped and made a low growl while looking backwards towards the other half of the hall. There came a loud crashing noise and another hybrid on all fours bounded forward and jumped into the glass of the lounge to stop itself.
This one appeared only a little bit shorter than the other, but was built with leaner muscle than the first. It looked at all of us with cold eyes and a shudder passed through the crowd of people behind me.
Turning my head slightly, I speak to no one in particular and say, “Somebody go start knocking on the doors and explain the situation to those still in their rooms. Whether they run or fight is up to them, but let them know the more people we have here, the better chance we all have of surviving.”
As soon as I finished speaking, three people peeled off the front of the group and burrowed into the crowd aiming for the nearest closed doors. Pointing my sword toward the nearest goblin, I give a loud shout hoping it sounded like a battle cry and charged towards it. Those behind me followed suit as they all engaged with different goblins in groups.
The goblin I charged had a short sword in its right hand same as me. It swung the sword in a horizontal arc towards my stomach. I swung as hard as I could with my sword at an angle perpendicular to the goblin’s and blew its sword out of its grip. By a stroke of luck, the sword went spinning sideways smacking into the nearest goblins head. It cried out in surprise and pain dropping its guard just as a golf club smashed into its chest instantly caving it in.
Turning my attention back towards the goblin in front of me, I brought my sword back across its body in a horizontal slash gouging a deep cut into its chest. The goblin fell over onto its back gasping for air. I looked down into its eyes and aside from the usual anger there also seemed to be a hint of fear. Looking into its eyes I was momentarily startled, but immediately masked my emotions once more.
‘It could’ve just as easily went the other way.’
As I had my short internal struggle, another goblin had already come up to me and swung its sword towards my left arm. Not having enough time to divert its blade with mine, I reflexively kicked off the ground with my left foot towards my right, but still felt a hot pain shoot through my arm as I landed. Checking my arm, I see a deep cut on my bicep and blood pouring out in a steady flow. I looked at the wound in disbelief and set my gaze on the goblin who was looking at me with anger.
Lunging forwards, I swung my sword from up high down towards its head, but it moved out towards the side like I had and dodged my sword only to be bashed in the head from the direction it had jumped in with the edge of a tennis racket. The goblin slumped to the ground unconscious or dead. Looking at the owner of the racket I see Sarah looking down at her hands in fear.
“Alex, I-.” She slumped towards the ground and began shaking uncontrollably.
When her knees hit the ground, my eyes widened in horror upon seeing the raised arms of the leaner hyena hybrid preparing to pierce down towards Sarah’s neck. Making a mad dash towards her I yelled out-
“SARAH, NOOO!” As I yelled, the hybrid brought its claws down.
I jumped over her directing my sword to pierce through the right shoulder of the hybrid.
Time seemed to slow and my sword began to slide through the body of the hybrid and out of its back as my left shoulder hit its right arm attempting to knock it off balance. I wasn’t watching my sword though. My attention was all on the hybrid’s unaffected left arm. Its upper body began to tilt back as its feet left the ground. I watched helplessly as its left arm continued to descend down towards Sarah’s frail body. Its claws whistled through the air as it grabbed her covering more than half of her upper chest. The hybrid viciously snapped its hand shut and its claws punctured through the left half of Sarah’s entire upper body.
Sarah began to get pulled backwards along with us and just as we hit the ground, I quickly straddled the hyena and pulled my sword out of it with both hands. With my mind in a frenzy, I began stabbing the sword into the chest of the hybrid over and over again until someone tackled me off the back of it narrowly escaping the swipe of a goblin’s sword.
‘No. No. This isn’t happening.’ I look back over to the unmoving forms of the hybrid and Sarah. She laid there, eyes wide open in fear and mouth slightly open. I looked down and the hybrid’s claws were still deeply lodged in her chest and I just knew that it had punctured her heart.
Sarah was dead.