Sen picked up a trash can and lobbed it behind him, not even turning to see if it hit.

He heard a crash, then the air blasted past him, his long hair flying up as a wall of force smashed into the trash can and scattered litter all over hall. A chorus of clacking claws rushed down the hall after him and Em, the two of them desperately running around a corner to face a set of stairs leading up.

They rushed into the steps, climbing, Sen’s lungs burning deep in his chest. A blast of focused force shot up the stairs after him and Em. It pierced toward her back, but Sen jerked his armored arm to the side to block. It shattered the plates on his bicep and he spun from the impact, staggering, but Em’s hand was there, stopping his stumble, grabbing his hand and dragging him up the steps after her. Sen followed after her as his head started to spin.

Flow level low. Continued skill use will inflict Withering on the user.

Gritting his teeth, Sen forced the skill to activate regardless. Bone plates regenerated along his bicep, protecting his limbs once again. A wave of nausea washed over him, but he stayed on his feet, staggering only a little as he ran after her.

And behind them, the vampires continued to give chase.

They scrambled up the stairs, climbing over each other to get to them. And in the lead was the Tier 1 boss, snarling with its mouth full of spiraling, razor teeth. It opened its mouth and another focused blast of force tore itself free from its throat, blasting over Sen’s head and crushing the concrete above.

A part of the ceiling collapsed in front of them and Sen dove, tackling Em, and the two of them crashed through the debris before it could block the way.

They rolled out into the hall and kept sprinting, down the winding passages of the fifth floor. They ran across the east wing of the school, dodging vampires and desperately running for their lives. But no matter how far, or how desperate, they were losing ground. The vampires only got closer with each second that passed.

Sen and Em rushed up another set out stairs and they burst through the door at the top, exiting out into the university’s rooftop.

Small entrances littered the open space, and scattered among them were gigantic tanks of water and a series of satellite dishes, pointing up towards the night sky. Sen wove around them with Em. Behind them, the essence vampire tore a satellite dish free from the ground and—

Fwoom!

A sound like rushing air burst from its hand and the dish soared, propelled forward by a wave of force. Em ducked and Sen blocked it with his arms. The dish shattered against his armor. Shrapnel tore into his torso and scraped against the plates of bone under his pants.

He cried out in pain, but it even then it felt numb—the adrenaline coursing through him kept him going as he used the impact to whip around and rush away, farther along rooftop’s expanse.

The school was vast, and the wide roof gave them plenty of space to run.

But eventually, that space ran out.

Sen and Em reached the edge of the roof, panting, bleeding, and bruised. The two of them backed up against a disposal chute jutting out from the floor, next to one of the massive tanks of water. They pressed up under its shadow, watching the vampires approach.

“We’re gonna fucking die,” Em breathed, her voice quaking from exhaustion. Despite his higher Body attribute, Sen wasn’t faring much better. He gave her a desperate glance.

“Got any more bluffs up your sleeve?” he asked, and the essence vampire snarled.

Em winced, “I don’t think that thing’s gonna fall for a bluff again. Do you?”

“…Yeah, no. I don’t think so.”

The vampires stalked across the rooftop, navigating around the jungle of satellite dishes and water towers, vanishing in and out of the shadows. In the lead, the essence vampire crept forward under the fiery moonlight, its face twisted into a savage sneer. Slowly, the army of monsters surrounded them. They backed the two into a corner. Like rats.

Like prey.

Sen reached into his pocket with trembling hands. He plucked a cigarette from his pack, and he pulled matchstick from his pocket. Click, click. The sound of it scraping against the wall matched the rhythm of the essence vampire’s claws, snapping as it approached. Like a pendulum. A timer.

The vampires took their time closing in, cutting off all their exits, and their leader displayed an almost sentient intelligence with its sneer.

They had nowhere to run, and it knew.

Sen’s matchstick flared, and his cigarette lit up. He breathed in deep as the monster watched. It enjoyed this. It found pleasure in ending the hunt. Yet, the cigarette calmed him. Sen stared across the rooftop, at the monsters on all sides, and the nervousness that so often plagued him didn’t rear its head. He was trembling, yes. Adrenaline lanced through every nerve in his body. He was afraid. His knees were shaky with tension.

But he wasn't crippled by panic.

This was no boring exam. It was no missed alarm, no meaningless homework, and no trivial problem like missing the bus to school.

It was life and death, and it felt fun.

Not fun like watching a movie, or hanging out with friends. No—it was exciting in a far more primal level. It was the beat of his heart and the ringing in his ears; the frantic, scorching rush of all that his body was built to do, coming at him all at once.

It reminded him of summers in the Spanish countryside, sprinting under a swarm of dandelion seeds with his cousins. The rush of adrenaline and the breathlessness of his chest that only football had been able to bring out came now, stronger than ever. Sen breathed out a plume of smoke.

“I'm going to throw you down a ditch,” he said. Em looked at him.

“What—”

Sen threw a punch toward the wall. She flinched, jerking back, but his fist sailed past her head and towards the sheet of metal behind her.

Bang!

The garbage disposal chute burst open, the thin metal lid blowing off its hinges and clattering down, down, down. It crashed to the bottom, the sound echoing, and before Em could recover from the shock, Sen shoved her into the chute. She screamed and reached for him, but she was too late. Too far.

Em plummeted down and disappeared from sight.

Sen turned towards the swarm of vampires, who were staring at him in confusion. He took the cigarette from his mouth and let it fall to the ground, and his foot came down and stomped it dead. He blew out a plume of smoke from his mouth, and despite the calm in his chest, his entire body trembled with jittery, frantic energy.

So close to danger, he felt alive. His body thrummed with adrenaline that vibrated through every atom, and through the fear—through the tidal stream of his blood and the pounding in his brain, Sen felt it envelop every part of his mind with pure, unfiltered energy.

He gave the horde of monsters all the bravado he could muster.

“I’m a football player, and I’m warning you,” he told the essence vampire, raising his fists. Sen Salazar grinned a shaky grin, “We're very good at running away.”

The leader of the vampires snarled at him and Sen beckoned it forward.

“Let’s see you try and catch me, you telekinetic prune.”

It growled. Moved.

The lead vampire’s arm blurred. Sen dove.

A wave of force shattered the disposal chute behind him. He rushed to scramble up when an impact tackled him from the side and he rolled, the world spinning, as a vampire lunged out from the shadows and slammed into his blind spot. Sen felt it rake at his armored bicep and he kicked with all he had and it connected and the vampire launched off of him, crashing into another that tried to approach. Sen felt the essence gather behind him. He whirled.

And a blast of telekinetic force launched him into the air, sending him smashing through several of the pipes on the roof. Sen felt his armor crack and he activated his only skill again.

Flow overdrawn. You are Withering [Stage 1].

(???) [Stage 0] is progressing.

His skin shriveled. His eyes turned dry. His breaths rasped and his lips cracked and his cheeks sunk. Sen fought to stay conscious against the wave of maddening nausea that coursed through him, trying to smash his brain into pulp. He hit the ground rolling and he whirled into a run, dodging and ducking under the swipe of claws and teeth. A vampire lunged at him and he turned and punched. It crashed to the ground with a splintering crunch.

Fwoom!

A force beam came again, and this one hit him in the side, where it was unprotected. Sen screamed as it clipped him, tearing away at his flesh. He stumbled and kicked, and another vampire staggered off.

Sen frantically looked around, searching, looking for a way out.

There was none.

He stood in the shadow of a massive water tank, cornered. Surrounded.

And so, he went the only way he could go.

Up.

Sen leapt before more of the vampires could attack. He reached up and grabbed the scaffolding, pulling himself up with a grunt, and another blast of force came. Sen whirled and dodged and it split the metal under his feet. He leapt again before gravity took hold. Sen grabbed onto the tank’s legs and started climbing.

It was a mad scramble. The vampire followed him, and they were better climbers, rushing up the bars like beasts. Sen kicked at them, knocking them down as he reached the middle. Another lunged at him from the opposite tank leg and Sen barely jerked out of the way. The vampire missed and soared straight off the roof, hitting the distant ground with a crunch.

He kept climbing, climbing. Sen’s leg lashed out at the next vampire that jumped at him. It smashed into the monster’s chest and sent it down, colliding with the other vampires on its way to the ground. Sen took the opportunity to lead up again, widening the distance further as he pulled himself over the steel.

...Until a shadow fell on him from above.

The blur struck him. Sen cried out as a flying vampire raked its claws across his back. He looked up to find a pair of them circling his tower, and one flew up—dove.

He grabbed its arm before it could reach him and Sen heaved.

He smashed the vampire’s back into the metal bars and its wings snapped. It screeched and reached up, trying to claw at him, only to eat his foot. Like the rest, it toppled and crashed. But even as it did, more of them came for him, the vampires on the roof increasing as they climbed the walls and flooded out from the stairs.

[Elite] Desiccated Bloodfiend – Tier 0

[Elite] Desiccated Ribmaw – Tier 0

They all looked up at him, snarling, and Sen grit his teeth at the sight of the hordes following the two elites.

He kept climbing.

Down below, the essence vampire watched as its horde chased him. It stood with dark eye sockets, a single claw held up in front of it.

A hum filled the air.

Sen felt the essence in the area thicken again. It felt like a physical weight, dragging him down. He turned, just as the vampire raked its claw across the air. A slash of distorted air rushed towards him. Sen leapt for the opposite leg.

It missed him.

But the invisible blade of force severed one of the water tank’s supports.

It wobbled. Vampires fell, but Sen held tight, clutching at the bars as he continued to climb. The tank released whines and creaks and the world tilted to the side, swaying left and right as its supports bent under the weight, until finally, with a resounding snap, the tank swept down and took Sen with it.

Boom!

A crash. The metal burst open. Water exploded in a massive tidal wave, spraying across the rooftop and washing the vampires away. Sen choked, the fall knocking the air out of him, and the water immediately rushed in, forcing its way into his lungs. Sen fought against the tide but it swept him to the side, knocking him into dishes and pipes, and all he could do was curl up, protecting his head beneath the cracked remnants of his bone armor.

A pipe rammed into his side and he kept going, his back colliding with a stray air conditioner’s exhaust, until the wall to one of the exits knocked the air out of him again.

The water fell away from the roof.

Sen kneeled on the ground, coughing and hacking, retching out the water stuck in his throat. He collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath. All the energy in him disappeared as he reached the brink of his ability to stay standing. Sen rolled onto his back, ready to die. He shut his eyes, clenching his teeth in an attempt to ready himself for what came next.

But instead of claws and wrath and pain, there was a buzz of notifications, blaring across his vision.

Absorbing Essence [252/863] – Desiccated Vampire [Tier 0] x33

Absorbing Essence [143/852] – [Elite] Desiccated Bloodfiend [Tier 0] x2

Absorbing Essence [86/460] – [Elite] Desiccated Ribmaw [Tier 0] x1

Sen’s eyes shot open. He stared at the notifications, dazed. The essence flowed into him from all sides in streams of orange fog, barely visible in the darkness. Arms trembling, Sen pushed himself up, up into a sitting position as he cast his eyes around the roof.

Carnage.

Corpses and severed limbs littered every corner of the rooftop, slumped against the rails and exhausts. The dead vampires smoked, their shriveled skin shredded and torn, and what remained of their bodies hissed against the soaked ground. Around the rooftop, the surviving vampires shrieked, fleeing, rushing away from the water spreading across the floor.

And in the middle of it all, the essence vampire stood in a wretched state, snarling. Its flesh hung in ribbons and what remained looked scorched, releasing smoke as the water evaporated against its skin.

Running water was the vampires’ weakness.

It glared at him, baleful, evil.

Sen forced himself to stand, despite having no power left in him. Blood, water, and dirt soaked his clothes. Wounds littered his body.

And he was still in a better state than the dried-up fuck in front of him.

He glared at it.

“Still wanna go, asshole? I may be out of water, but I’ve got piss to spare.”

It snarled, black spittle bubbling with the blood in its mouth, but it didn’t attack. It stared at him and lowered itself, a limp in its gait. Sen watched it stalk to the side as it bled on the ground. But instead of drawing closer to him, it backed away, watching him cautiously.

And then it turned and leapt off the roof, and it disappeared from sight.

Sen relaxed. His legs wobbled and he lurched, holding onto the wall for support. The essence flowed into him, filling his reserves, but it did nothing to alleviate his exhaustion. Sen glanced around the roof, and at the distant vampires fleeing at the sight of water rushing out from the ruptured tank.

They would be back. Once the water was gone, and he was easy prey again.

Sen refused to be here when they returned.

He limped towards the closest vampire corpses, the water sloshing under his feet, and Sen collected as many of the Ability Orbs as he could gather. It was loot. A lucky treasure trove that could save his life. He stuffed the orbs in his pocket.

Then, he stumbled to the nearest garbage chute. The same kind he’d pushed Em into. Sen crawled inside, pressing against the walls to stop his fall, and he looked down, down into the darkness below.

He really hoped there were no vampires at the bottom.

Sen closed his eyes and let go.

And gravity dragged him into the dark once again.

Essence: 2,554