As the final seconds ticked away from the clock in the sky, the apprehension and anxiety in the crowd reached new levels. Some started to move away from the crowd as if being amidst so many people was dangerous in itself. The officer, who Leo still didn’t know the name, started to gather some people opposite to where he stood. Unfortunately, Leo couldn’t hear what he said as his words were lost to the increasingly louder crowd.

When only a handful of seconds remained, Leo looked to Aya and Kando in front of him. They couldn’t hide their anxiety, but they were quietly waiting in uncertain expectation. Leo stood by them on the outer rim of the crowd. He tried to steel himself to whatever was to come, but he felt the same as most people. The clock zeroed in as everyone collectively held their breath as they watched it.

00:00:01

00:00:00

23:59:59

“Wait, that’s it?” Someone near Leo said and he couldn’t help but share those sentiments.

All around people had mixed reactions to the anxiety filled, but otherwise uneventful, turning of the clock in the sky. Leo looked at Aya and allowed himself a smile as she smiled back at him and Kando. Whatever dark thoughts they had seemed to dissolve as the situation didn’t immediately descend further into the well of chaos.

“It seems we will be fine aft-” Leo couldn’t finish his positive sentence as someone suddenly dashed out of the crowd along the street. It would have gone mostly unnoticed if the person had not bumped in someone else and tumbled to the cracked asphalt only for the runner to immediately get up and sprint away.

Those dark thoughts that had been dissolving in the back of Leo’s mind surged forward to the forefront as he felt the mood in the entire crowd take a turn. Nothing noteworthy had happened among them to justify the running man’s action. Leo frowned as most people seemed to be reaching their own conclusions to the same question.

‘The guide. It must be something his guide told him, which means that we-’

“What the fuck?” Leo gruffed out as someone bumped into him and cut short his line of thought. That was all he managed to get out before the person had already sprinted away without looking back.

People all around him seemed to slowly come to the same conclusion as the man who just bumped him and Leo instinctively reached out to Aya and Kando. He pulled them close by their arms as Aya yelped in alarm and Kando shot him a glare. Leo ignored both and spoke to them as loud as he dared.

“We need to get out of here.” He spoke over their confused protests.

“Why? What is happening?” Aya asked as she did her best to keep pace with the young man dragging them away from the increasingly agitated crowd.

“Something bad is coming, I don’t know what…” Leo stopped to look at the large gathering of people as they moved to the sidewalk and out of the way of the near bursting tension of the crowd. Like popcorn on pan, every second one or two people would run or jog away from the crowd, but Leo knew that soon that crowd would stampede.

“Calm down, Mr Hall. You don’t have to drag us like this. We can walk.” Kando pulled his arm back and grabbed the arm Leo had on Aya.

Leo was taken aback by the old man’s grip strength and decisive action, but when he realized how the situation looked from their perspective, he couldn’t help but feel a little ashamed for his forcefulness.

“I am sorry. I didn’t mean to be so rude.” He let go of Aya’s arm and bowed a little in apology.

“It’s okay dear, I am sure Mr Hall was only worried about us.” She said as she patted her husband’s arm, but Leo winced when he saw that she was rubbing the place he had been grabbing her.

Shouts erupted from the crowd a few meters away from them. People started screaming and running alongside the large street. Although Leo knew the stampede was coming, he didn’t expect it to be so dangerous. He watched as someone fell among the crowd, resulting in a domino effect as people climbed on top of each other to get away from their location as fast as they could.

“What is that!” Leo felt someone squeeze his arm as they watched from the sidelines. Turning to see Aya pointing not to the crowd as he expected, but to one of the sides of the long empty street. Leo’s heart skipped a beat as reason for the furious stampede came into view.

It was hard to make out details in the dark, but there were dozens, maybe hundreds, of small figures running towards them in full sprint. Even if most of their features were obscured by the low light, he could see their arms wildly flailing in the air. Without waiting to figure out what they were, Leo turned to put as much distance as he could between himself and them.

After the first couple steps, Leo turned to see that Aya and Kando were in shock staring at the oncoming horde of small figures.

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“What are you doing? We need to leave!” He shouted at them. “NOW!”

His loud voice seemed to bring them back from their momentary torpor and they wordlessly turned to run. Leo let them pass him by as he followed closely behind them. The street was wide and so was the sidewalk, which meant they had plenty of space to run unimpeded despite a few lamp posts spaced every few meters. The lamp posts didn’t work, or at least weren’t working at the moment, and were mostly obstacles along with benches, garbage cans and other street elements.

Aya and Kando huffed loudly only a few moments after they started running and Leo’s anxiety only grew as the stragglers from the incident earlier in the stampede caught up and passed them. The many side streets offered no more protection than the main one and the people ahead of the trio seemed to leave the main street in any random spots.

Time seemed to slow down as Leo started to hear beastial snarling and screaming from behind him. He had to make no small effort to ignore the part of him that wanted to turn and see what the heck they were running away from, but he kept his eyes facing forward, looking for a solution where there didn’t seem to be one.

Aya stumbled and nearly face planted on the floor, if not for Kando’s quick intervention as he grabbed his wife’s arm. He hit his hip badly on a metal bench and groaned as they both awkwardly sat down on it. Leo had to jump aside to not crash on the couple and make things worse.

His heart almost leaped out of his mouth as he chanced a glance back and saw how close the figures were to them. Leo knew that if he spent even a couple seconds looking he could make out some details, but they were dangerously close now.

“We need to move. Come on.” Leo tried to instill some action on the couple.

“We can’t… keep up anymore… I think Kando is… Hurt.” Aya said between mouthfuls of air. The elderly lady’s face was dangerously red and Leo was afraid she might collapse if they had to run anymore.

“Fuck…” Leo shot another quick glance to the ever approaching horde of creatures. Not that he really needed to look to know they were getting closer. Their snarling and high pitched screaming was ever louder.

Fidgeting in place, Leo looked all around them for a place to hide. He didn’t think hiding was the best way out of this situation, but Aya and Kando couldn’t run, it was their only choice. Luckily, there was a door in one of the narrow buildings a few steps from them. Leo hastily made his way to it and tried to open it.

‘Locked. Fuck! What about the windows?’

Moving next to the window proved to be even more frustrating as the two windows surrounding the door didn’t even have a latch to open. Breaking them would be stupid and defeat the purpose, but he was running out of time and checking the next door would take too long with little hope to a different result.

“Mr Hall… Leonard. You go. We will be fine, you don’t have to stay with us.” Aya said solemnly as she called out to Leo.

“Go kid… You are a good one, you don’t deserve to stick around with us old folks.” Kando said with a strained smile as he had a hand on his left hip.

“Leave? What are you two talking about!” Leo spoke in exasperation. “I don’t know what those are, but I am sure you can hear them. They are not coming here to make friends!”

“We know dear… Just go, okay? We have lived long enough and we have each other. We will be fine.” Aya said with a sad smile.

Leo’s frustration with everything reached his limit and something snapped in his mind. With a guttural shout akin to a roar he pulled on his hair as he frantically looked around while shooting glancing at the approaching horde. They must have been less than a hundred meters now, because Leo could already gleem some of their features. The tooth filled maw being the most glaring of them.

On the corner of his vision he saw three figures limping towards a dark alley. With no better idea of what to do, Leo didn’t think twice before acting. Ignoring Kando’s protests he crouched in front of the old man and pulled the elderly man’s arms on top of his shoulders and started to jog across the main street toward the dark alley where the three people had disappeared.

Balancing with Kando on his back was difficult, but at least Leo didn’t have to look back to see if Aya was following as the woman’s protests were even louder than the approaching horde. Ignoring everything while laser focused on the alleyway, Leo made it in time to see the three people opening a door somewhere halfway across its length.

“Wait! Hold the door!” Leo shouted as he increased his pace to catch up to them.

The three figures turned to see Leo barreling down their way and after a brief moment of surprise, scurried inside the building with unexpected dexterity for people who had been limping just a moment earlier. Leo was forced to jump and extended his arm just as the last one of them was closing the door on him. The person on the other side was young, almost a teenager, and he looked at Leo with wide eyes as the door bounced off his biceps.

With a loud groan of pain, Leo hit his forehead on the edge of the door as he came to an abrupt stop. Kando also made his pain known as he slid from Leo’s back to the floor.

“Are you crazy? What are you doing?” Someone shouted from the inside as they pushed past the wide eyed young man.

“Fuck off, we are going inside.” Leo shot back as he pushed himself back on his feet and opened the door wide. The person trying to stop Leo was an overweight middle aged man with a bald spot. Leo was taller than him by a head and change while also cutting for an intimidating figure as he shoulder checked the man when he turned to pull Kando inside.

Kando protested at being moved, but did his best to get inside quickly. Aya followed closely behind doing her best to support her husband. Leo placed Kando beside the door with his back to the wall as he scanned the dark room. It was hard to make out anything more than a meter away from the door as the weak light streaming from outside didn’t help much. There didn’t seem to be any windows as well.

“What are you waiting for? Close the fucking door!” The middle aged man called out to Leo a few paces away from him. He had put some distance between himself and the door after their brief heated exchange.

Leo had no intention of being goaded by the older man, but he had forgotten about the door for a second. Turning back to it, Leo almost regretted chancing a glance outside. A few of the creatures seemed to be passing by them in the main street at that moment and a number of them entered the alleyway. Although they were louder inside the tight corridor between buildings, it was harder to make out their features in the darker environment. Without any intention of waiting for them to get any closer, Leo closed the door.

“They are here. We should be quiet.” Leo's voice was low but harsh as he held the door handle upwards with both hands.