Sloane gripped her crossbow.

The sounds coming from the neighboring house were a non-stop series of loud bangs and crashes.

The centipede would be a problem to deal with, but at least it wasn't as creepy or intelligent as one of the grinning monsters and she could at least lure it out of the house if things got out of hand.

Maybe she could even keep it alive and use it to kill another one of the humanoids? Sloane would keep that in mind for when she needed to loot another house.

Sloane hefted her cleaver and skittered back to the house as fast as she could, the two monsters have been fighting for a minute now so Sloane assumed that with how brutal these monsters can get, they would have already finished.

Sloane saw the result of the fight the moment she stepped into the hallway.

True to her expectations, it was chaos.

The giant centipede had the humanoid pinned against the wall, the grinning creature's expression never changed even when blood poured out of its lower half.

It tried to desperately hit the head of the insect in an attempt break out of the centipede's hold. The sounds of the impact made Sloane feel queasy.

How powerful was this thing?

Sloane put her cleaver down and readied her crossbow, she aimed her weapon at the head of the humanoid and fired. It screeched, but didn't die.

Sloane fired at it again and this time, the creature fell limp, allowing the centipede to feast on its corpse without being pushed away by the struggling humanoid.

Sloane stared at it casually consuming something that gave her trouble. She's not going to kill this thing. Not that she could in the first place.

All she needed to do was lead the centipede away from this place and she would be able to loot the house in peace. Sounds easy enough.

Sloane primed her crossbow with another arrow and fired, the sharpened stick struck the head of the centipede, taking its attention from its meal and redirecting it to Sloane.

It started moving.

Sloane expected this thing to be powerful, but fast? She had doubts.

So how come it could chase after her with the speed of a moving car?!

Sloane jumped out the door and started running towards another house. From behind, she could hear the centipede catch up to her.

She didn't look back even when something wooden loudly crashed from behind her, continuing to run despite hearing the centipede's hundreds of legs tapping the ground.

Sloane looked around in wild panic, she needed to think fast- how would she even-

Sloane stared at the window of another neighboring house and a light bulb lit up in her head.

She bent down and nabbed a rock from the sidewalk, she tossed it at the window, it shattered from her throw, she considered the hole's size and deemed it large enough for her to fit through.

Sloane made a beeline for the house's door, she had her box cutter in her hand, ready to strike at the grinning humanoid staring at her from behind a wall with one eye and a half-hidden face.

It didn't come.

Sloane rushed through the hallway, she's visited this house before, where was it?..

She kicked a door down and entered the room- she saw shattered glass.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Sloane looked at her feet, sneakers- she should be fine trodding through this. She flinched when a loud crash erupted from behind her.

She didn't hesitate to go inside the room the moment sunlight suddenly illuminated her surroundings. It came from the door.

She made a run for the window and jumped- she felt a sharp pain come from her bicep but before her mind could process it, she landed on hard concrete.

Air left Sloane's lungs as her rib cage collided with the pavement. That's going to bruise.

And worse still...

Sloane looked away from her bleeding arm and glared at the pair of antennae waving out of the window.

She opened her bag and grabbed a bottle of alcohol and a roll of bandages, she patched up the bleeding gash on her shoulder, wincing as pain coursed up her spine and electrocuted her head.

Sloane walked away limping and defeated.

Guess a bit of glass was long enough to reach her arm. This time it was her left, which was fortunate.

Sloane turned her hearing aids on and listened in as a fight broke out between the two monsters. She already knew who the victor was going to be so it's better to wait it out.

She looked at the gash in her arm, cringing slightly once she saw the exposed parts of the raw wound.

The hasty patch up she made to it was something she couldn't afford to have when she goes back in that house to fight the centipede.

And she will have to fight it, but then afterwards she's going to have to take a break.

And Sloane didn't have a single problem with it, being able to loot two houses was good enough for the time being, it will get her enough stuff that she could survive for the next month or at least until her injuries recover.

After that... She'll need to start killing monsters, begin actively hunting them in order to get stronger.

There are forces in this world that she couldn't fight or even run away from without getting more of those stars.

To survive, she needed to become superhuman, that was the only way Sloane saw herself getting through all this and surviving until society re-establishes itself.

Sloane placed a torn rag between her mouth and bit down, she uncapped an alcohol bottle, rolled up bandages around her right hand then snipped it.

Sloane closed her eyes and clenched her jaw as she sanitized her wound. She wished this thing finished faster...

A small ache gnawed at her newly bandaged bicep as she fixed her clothes back in place. Going back out there immediately was probably not a good idea.

Sloane ate a can or two of food and took a small break before continuing with her prior plans.

The two monsters seemed to still be fighting, which meant that the humanoid creature was keeping itself safe in some way. Why? Probably because it knows that she would interfere the moment one of them is losing and is stalling for time.

Sloane glared at the windows as she walked into the general vicinity of the house.

She took a deep breath before entering through the doors, primed crossbow in hand and a cleaver hanging from a belt around her waist.

Sloane found the two monsters in the second floor of the building, the humanoid creature was on top of a cabinet, its body bent to the point of it squeezing itself between the ceiling and the cabinet.

It looked like a crab with its interlocked calves and thighs and hunched back. It kept throwing rocks at the centipede, picking up pieces of the ceiling with the sheer strength of its grip and tossing them down at the insect.

Sloane pulled on the door when she noticed the humanoid's eye tailing after her, when it was about to close, she pointed her crossbow at the creature and pulled the trigger, then she closed the door.

Sloane waited for some kind of reaction from the centipede, she had her hearing aids activated and ears on high alert.

She didn't hear skittering that sounded closer as the seconds ticked by, or even rocks being thrown at the door.

Sloane waited until she heard the sound of rocks being thrown before making another move.

When she heard clicks coming from inside, she opened the door, aimed, and fired her crossbow at the humanoid's eye.

A screech, this time of anger, Sloane closed the door and ran away.

When she was by the stairs, she dared look back, seconds passed before something happened- the wall broke apart into hundreds of pieces and out came a centipede with a grinning humanoid held within its mandibles.

The humanoid kept screeching at her as it pummeled the head of the centipede, its mouth open to the point of its jaw growing unhinged.

Sloane shot it at the side of its head, and unlike last time, the arrow killed it and it suddenly stopped moving.

She wondered what was fatal to these things as she placed another arrow in her crossbow, she pulled until the lock connected.

Sloane aimed. This time for the eye of the centipede. She fired.

The arrow darted across the air and struck true.

The centipede dropped the corpse and raised its head, it waved it back and forth, hoping to dislodge the arrow that was now stuck in its eye.

Sloane had enough time to arm her crossbow and take another shot, it struck another, smaller eye. The centipede stopped flailing its head high in the air and fell to the ground hard enough to shake the house.

Unlike what she was hoping for, the insect didn't die and began skittering in her direction.

Sloane ran away while priming her crossbow.

The centipede started its chase. It picked up speed.

The skittering noise made by its hundreds of legs were the beats of death drums, Sloane heard two dagger-sized mandibles clacking at her from the back, looking to take her life.

Sloane jumped out of the ruined door and turned back, the centipede was close, she raised her crossbow and aimed for its ovular mouth, she pulled the trigger.

The arrow flew into the waiting maw of the giant insect, it entered its sarcophagus and caused a bad enough wound for the centipede to spit out black bile.

Sloane dodged, fearing the effects of the liquid. The centipede continued chasing.

She ran, unsure of where to go, her wounds were starting to hurt and her head was beginning to ache, if she doesn't kill this thing soon, she'll be sliced in half.

Sloane threw her crossbow and grabbed her cleaver, the increase in speed from the reduced weight lessened the strain of her run, it also allowed her to think.

Now, what can she do against a giant centipede? What kind of weaknesses did centipedes have? Well, for one, their bodies were long...

Sloane had an idea, she turned and ran to the left.

Looking back, her guess got proven right when she saw the centipede have a hard time turning after her.

Sloane circled until she reached the centipede's tail, she continued even when her lungs were running out of air and her mind begged for rest, her muscles burned, her bandages got soaked in sweat and she feared her wounds will get infected if she keeps this up...

Sloane pushed herself past her limits, continuing even as the pain piled up, and eventually, the centipede was coiled from all the circular turning.

When Sloane noticed it begin to slow down, she saw the opportunity to stop, raise the cleaver, and strike the insect square in the head.

The blade struck true and left a gash on its carapace, the centipede wasn't able to retaliate with a lunge, coiled as its body was.

Sloane crawled backwards from the clacking mandibles and stood up, then utilizing her full body height, she struck down at the centipede for the second time.

Sloane exhaled heavily as the insect fell limp.

She fumbled back to the front of her house and with an exhale that came from the depths of her exhausted soul, she fell down and crashed against the door.

She steadied herself and eyed the giant corpse on the street.

That...

She would never repeat this ever again.