Sen poured water into the girl’s mouth, letting it trickle in. She swallowed. Coughed. Some of the water came back up, but they helped the dried husk of a student through it, stopping only when Sen pulled the bottle back.

Prince put a hand on his arm; he was pale, his grip tight and his eyes darting between him and the dying girl, “Why’re you stopping, mate? She looks like jerky—she… she needs more, doesn’t she?”

Assad looked away from the husk and shook his head, “He can’t give her more than that for now,” he muttered. “This is…”

“It’s fucked up,” Sen nodded, before turning to Em, who stared down at the girl. Her mummified stare unnerved them all, but Sen forced the feeling down. “We can’t give her too much. Em, take out one of the colder drinks from your pack. We can use it as a cold compress.”

Em blinked, snapping out from the dazed stare she levelled at the girl.

“O-Okay," she said. "Give me a second.”

She moved off to the side, stuffing her hands inside of her pack. As she ruffled around for something cold, Sen checked the girl’s temperature. She was feverish—like the blood under her skin was on the verge of boiling. Sen recognized the symptoms, having been in the same situation himself in the past… and more recently. He paused for a moment, remembering the sunlight.

He hadn’t paid attention to how much he drank then, and yet he still recovered within minutes. All he’d needed was water.

Flow. The sunlight had drained his Flow, and the water had helped him recover it.

Sen hesitated, then tipped the bottle into her mouth again.

“Hey, you—Sen!” Assad jumped, stopping him. “I thought we weren’t giving her any more!?”

“This dehydration isn’t natural. She—did any of you get hit by the sunlight?”

“We were underground, mate. It was the only reason we survived the bloody end of the world. But what does that have to do with this?”

“I did. I got hit by a bit of the sunlight, and it felt like it was—look, it left me in a condition like hers. Just not as severe. Right now, I think more water is what she needs. Em, you have that drink?”

“Yeah, I do. Catch.”

She tossed it to him and Sen plucked it from the air. No longer arguing, Assad cursed and wrapped a handkerchief around the bottle. He pressed it to the girl’s forehead, letting her skin soak up the cold. As he did, Sen tipped the bottle into her mouth, and as more of the water entered her, the girl’s skin flushed—reddening, like her blood was trying to crawl out of her skin.

But instead of blood, she groaned, and steam started flowing out of her in thin, curling streams. Sen emptied the bottle and reached for another. Out of water, juice was all he had. Yet, the juice didn’t have the same effect. She spat it out, coughing, the steam no longer running from her flesh.

“Juice isn’t doing anything,” Sen murmured, pulling the carton away. The girl didn’t look like a dried date anymore, but her condition was nowhere near good. She laid on the ground, eyes dazed, her breathing slow and weak.

The needed to get her to more water. Either to the bathroom, or down to the underground pools, where the rest of the survivors were.

Assad seemed to come to the same conclusion.

“We have to—”

“…un.”

Their group paused. They turned to the weakened girl who had just spoken, her cracked lips trembling open. She whispered something again. Something they couldn’t hear. Frowning, Em leaned in close, placing her ears next to the girl’s mouth. She spoke. Em froze, stopped, and looked up to meet everyone’s gaze. She was pale.

But Sen wasn’t looking at Em.

He looked at the girl they’d rescued, and her eyes weren’t on any of them. Instead, they pointed straight up. Up at the ceiling. Sen saw tears form in the corners of her eyes. He followed her gaze up, and…

“W-Well?” Benji said, but Sen and Em were already moving. Sen tackled Assad out of the way. Em and Prince toppled to the ground. Benji opened his mouth a second time as something in the shadows above moved.

“What did she sa—"

Slurkch!

The top of Benji’s head burst like a hammer-struck melon. Blood, bone, and bits of brain sprayed across the floor. A line of it splattered against Sen’s cheek, and frozen, the four of them watched Benji stare blankly at the wall. Then he toppled backwards, and his head smashed into the ground with a wet splat.

Tainted by the embermoon, his blood seemed to glow as it pooled around his corpse.

A silhouette drifted down from the ceiling. Slow, uncurling the arms and legs that had been tucked into a fetal position. Seeing it come down reminded Sen of a spider, eerie and silent, lowering itself onto prey caught in its web. It landed in the middle of the room, where it stood in the orange light of the moon.

[Boss] Awakened Essence Vampire – Tier 1

It was in the shape of a person, but that was all the similarity it shared. Its eyes were dark sockets; its skin was barren—cracked like desert stone—and from the crags on its skin, orange light burned as if magma ran through it instead of blood. The creature’s mouth hung open as it released a raspy, shuddering breath, and Sen saw the legion of serrated, black teeth spiraling down into its throat. It raised a hand tipped with claws the size of knives towards the corpse in the middle of the room.

Benji’s corpse deflated.

The blood on the ground dried. His skin sunk inwards, his muscles atrophied, and Sen saw streams of orange light drain out of his friend’s corpse. It gathered around the tips of the creature’s claws, forming into a glowing ball of swirling, orange light.

Essence.

Sen staggered up, and Assad crawled away, his jaw trembling. Sen watched the creature gather the essence into a ball, even as Em and Prince moved to pick up the dehydrated girl in the corner of the room. Assad used the wall as support to get to his feet.

This wasn't right. There weren't supposed to be any monsters here. They were supposed to be below, gathered near the distractions, looking for prey that wasn't there. But then Sen realized why the upper floors were empty. It wasn't because those floors had less people in it, or that the vampires preferred so soak in the embered moonlight.

No, the reason was simpler.

The upper floors were empty because it was claimed, and none of the vampires dared to contest it.

Sen stood, watching. He felt his flesh prickling as he stared at the lithe, brutal form in the center of the room. He felt the creature’s gaze on him, even when its head was looking at Benji’s corpse.

It saw them. All of them.

It didn’t even need to look. It could taste their presence simply by the blood in their flesh.

The essence vampire opened its wide, wide mouth. Its jaw unhinged itself until its chin was down to the base of its neck, and it shoved the handful of essence down its throat, the entirety of its shriveled forearm disappearing into the pit of teeth. It gulped once. Twice. It drank away without a care in the world as Em and Prince started creeping towards the door, the girl they rescued unconscious against Prince’s back.

Distracted as it was, the boss almost seemed harmless.

But Sen knew it was the furthest thing from it. They all felt it, somewhere deep in their minds, in the oldest, most primal corners of their psyche. They knew what this thing was, because it was them. What humans were supposed to be.

And it was the only thing worse than the relentless brutality of a predator:

The slow, calculated regard of a hunter.

Em took a step out of the door.

The vampire raised its arm.

Sen moved, screaming—

“Get down!”

Boom!

An explosion shattered the air. Em dove and Prince ducked, and an invisible mass of force destroyed the wall and the door. Concrete shattered. The windows burst open. The metal in the walls bent, crunched, and in that one instant, a section of the classroom wall vanished.

“RUN!”

Prince roared. Em dashed. Assad slammed his way past the door.

Sen sprang into action.

Plates of bone armor exploded out from his arms and legs. His fifth rank Body attribute filled him with power and he shot forward, straight into the creature, tackling it even as it pointed its claws at Em again. Sen felt the essence build in its body, so thick that it made the air feel like tar. He screamed as he crashed into it and the essence it built burst.

He and the creature clashed.

Sen lost.

Invisible force rammed into him. It felt like a punch the size of a truck, striking him everywhere at once. It roared across the room, sending chairs and tables flying, and it flung him back and battered him against the wall with enough force to give a normal human a concussion. His attributes were all that kept him whole.

Sen bounced off the wall and rolled across the ground, coughing, scrambling to his feet, and the essence vampire dashed. A blur of movement. An impact. Sen raised his arms to block just in time to take another blast of force up front. He felt the armor on his arms shatter, bursting away in shards of white bone.

[Bone Armor].

The skill activated again. His Flow drained away. Bone armor crawled out of his skin as quickly as it shattered and Sen threw a wild kick. It connected with the creature’s knee. It stumbled, crouched, lunged.

Claws raked across his chest. Blood sprayed. Sen screamed. The creature opened its mouth and essence built inside of its throat and—

Bang!

Assad and Prince threw a vending machine into the shattered classroom wall. It smashed into the creature and sent it to the ground, and then Sen felt hands on his shoulder, dragging him back and away, out into the hall, and the creature stood and aimed its claws at them again.

Another explosion rocked the corridor. Another section of wall disappeared.

Sen heard Prince cry out as a blur of motion dashed out of the room. It reached him and he flew back with a wet crunch. A blast of force sent him flying straight into Em and the two of them crumpled, the impact sending them rolling. Sen tore Assad’s hands from his shoulder and dashed for the two even as the Arab shouted after him.

Sen reached Prince and Em. The creature raised its claw and essence surged. Sen raised his arms to block.

Crash!

He flew, his armor shattered again, more of his Flow draining away as he reactivated the effect. Bone crawled over his skin as he crashed through a classroom window. The creature rushed into the room and Em threw a chair at it and it swatted at the air. An invisible force crushed it into splinters that rained over Sen’s back. He stood up, the adrenaline pumping through him, and Sen rushed it as it was distracted. He threw a punch.

It connected.

The creature’s head rocked back and Sen screamed, desperation fueling every strike as he bore into it. He drove a fist into its jaw, then its stomach, then kicked, sending its knee bending, its face falling, and his fist hammered its face so hard that the armor on his knuckles cracked. It stumbled back and bumped against the wall and Sen stood, panting. Watching as the rest of the group stared on from the hallway.

The vampire looked up at him, silent, calm, and despite his assault…

It was unharmed.

A brief distortion flickered over its body, just like when it launched blasts of force at them. It had armor. A coating of unseen protection, dampening each strike into nothing. Its fingers twitched.

Click, click.

Its claws clacked against each other, and the sound filled the silence of the classroom. Like a pendulum. A timer, ticking down. It stared at Sen with its dark eyes and he knew.

They were never going to win.

“We need to run,” he said, his voice soft. Afraid. The creature took a step towards him, and Sen felt himself take a step back. He gulped. “We need to—”

He couldn’t even finish.

Next thing he knew, he was soaring through the air, the wind knocked out of him. He crashed into the drywall separating the classrooms and it splintered. He tore his right arm out from the man-shaped hole he’d smashed into the wall. Outside the classroom, he heard the others running. Sprinting away. Sen wanted to follow them. He wanted to—

Another blow. The force wave pummeled into him and the drywall crumbled and he felt himself go through it, out the other side, stumbling past chairs and tables even as dust billowed out from the hole he’d been blasted out of.

Sen turned his back to run. Another blast punched into his side.

He crunched through the window and the glass rained around him, spraying over the hallway on the other side. He hacked, his entire body trembling, his flesh bruised and sore and cut. Blood dripped down from a gash across his forehead and stained his eyes, filling his vision with red.

Outside of the windows, the other vampires watched from a distance. They didn’t snarl or lunge or attack. Instead, they watched the hunt. They watched the strongest of them move to claim its meal.

Sen tried to stand. He failed. His knees gave out and he fell on his ass, looking up at the vampire as it stepped out of the classroom. Black spots danced across his vision. It moved towards him.

And someone stepped between them.

Sen looked up to find Em holding up Assad’s metal pipe, the weapon raised in her trembling grip. “Get up,” she said, her voice barely audible against the ringing in his ears. Em glanced at him, “I didn’t come back to save your ass just for both of us to become some creepy vampire Jedi’s food.”

She took a step forward even as Sen struggled to stand. Em raised her sword into a stance, angled forty-five degrees forward, tip pointed at the vampire. Sen got to his feet, staring at the unfamiliar look on her face.

Focus. A deep, unwavering singlemindedness.

“I didn’t want to use this,” she said, taking another step forward. “But it looks like I don’t have a choice anymore.”

She looked up at the vampire and spoke.

“The moment I picked up this sword… you were already dead.”

The tension in the room spiked, and Sen found himself stunned. Looking at her, the pipe in Em's hands seemingly morphed into a blade. She held it like one, with a confidence that seemed to give the blunt weapon an edge. The vampire narrowed its eyes at her, a low growl building in its throat, and for the first time, it looked wary.

No one but Em knew what she could do.

Em took a measured step the side, moving around it, and the vampire followed suit. They circled each other in the hallway, watching, gauging each other, until the vampire stood in front of the window outside. Orange emberlight fell over its shoulders, lighting its twisted snarl under the embermoon’s vicious glow.

It was the moment. Just like in the shows. Just like in the movies.

Em’s eyes sharpened. The vampire tensed.

She raised her pipe to strike, and—

Thunk!

Em threw the pipe. Sen didn’t even see it coming. It blurred, thunked against the vampire’s skull, and its head rocked back and bumped against the window, and Em was moving, dashing towards it, and before it could recover—

Crash!

She shoved it through the window and the glass shattered and the vampire smashed through, howling with all its terrifying rage. The sound faded until it crashed to the ground four floors below, out of sight.

Em stood by the window, bent over, panting as she put her hands on her knees.

Sen stared at her. She looked back and frowned, looking self-conscious.

“What?”

“I…”

Sen trailed off as a roar split the air outside. He and Em jerked their heads out of the window and they found the vampires crowding, no longer watching, as an entire swarm of them rushed towards the building. They latched against the walls and climbed, moving up towards where they were.

And on the lead was the unharmed essence vampire, its dark eyes smoldering with rage as it clambered up the walls. It stared straight at Em with all its terrifying fury.

“Oh,” Em said. "It's immune to gravity, too. Of course. Shit."

Sen grabbed her arm and winced.

“Yeah,” he said. "Shit.”

She nodded.

And the two of them turned and sprinted down the hall as a legion of angry vampires surged after them.