"Begin Husk sequence," she ordered the program, each word carefully enunciated.

He felt the change in the program immediately. The digital world weight down on him like a thick, heavy blanket. He breathed in thick, putrid air, forced to suck in the toxic fumes of a fire that hadn't quite reached them. He coughed uncontrollably, buckling at the knees. His stomach lurched, expelling bile while his mind tore into him for making a scene. He felt pathetic. Worse than pathetic. When Astral tore into him, he felt small, but now, he felt small, useless, and a liability. Panic set in and tears welled up in his eyes, blurring his vision. What use was he going to be on the killing fields at this rate?

His hands found the smooth leather surface of Astral's boots. His fingers wound their way up her feet, anchoring at her ankles. Her presence helped. Knowing that she hadn't abandoned him to his foolish desires made him feel safe. He clung to her ankles as she knelt down. He felt like a child trying to find reassurance from an elder.

In his blurred vision, his world distorted. Astral stared down at him from behind an ebony mask, revealing her full pink lips. Her hair was wild and untamed, pulling in every direction as though it had a mind of its own. "Are you sure you want this?" the grown up version of Astral echoed from the depth of a forgotten memory.

He could taste blood in his mouth. He could hear the distant rumbling of a storm. "Please," he choked.

She reached down. He felt her hand stroking the length of his back as her free hand placed a thin damp cloth over his mouth. The dampness of the cloth pulled him from the memory that wasn't quite his own. "Breath in," she urged, her lips brushing against his ear to stay as quiet as she could. Did she expect such a violent reaction? He sucked in, finding that the air was breathable through the cloth at his mouth.

He held it in place, suspecting that weapon training was not going to be a part of his lesson if ever. Whimpering drew his attention. He listened to the frighten sobbing of what he guessed was a woman coming from the floor below. "Is someone there?" a male voice demanded. The man cursed at his companion. "Shut your hole already!" He seethed.

Astral pushed Seth down, preventing him from rising to his feet. He glared at her through blurry eyes.

Her approach to this lesson didn't feel at all the same as their first series of trials. He wondered if she was play-acting the seriousness of the setting or was there something legitimately off. Were they in real danger? 'Of course we're in real danger,' Seth cursed himself. The program had proven to be able to simulate combat scenarios with real-world consequences. But she could pause the program at any time, right? He was beginning to wonder just how much control his teenage companion had over the ghost in the machine.

He mimicked her, listening to the sounds below. "It's nothing! You! Try those doors!"

"Can't," came a third voice as he pushed on the doors. "The magnetic locks are still active."

"Find something to smash the windows then!" the man roared.

Astral sighed and buried her face in her palm. The captain worried; the A.I. may be out to kill them with their stupidity. The lights in the room dimmed, signaling a power surge. The rumble of a distant storm announced its approach as the woman continued to whimper.

Seth couldn't decide which of the A.I.'s was more deadly. The woman's fear was intense, he could easily hear her barely stifle her sobbing from his hiding place. The raging man was also reacting out of fear. The loss of control over his environment, his efforts in controlling his companions by maintaining a false alpha position, and the inefficiency of the poorly executed orders only added to his frustration. In Seth's opinion, the angry man was the biggest threat to the group. He couldn't get a read on the quiet man, whose presence shifted like a shadow and who only spoke when spoken to. All he did was follow orders. He didn't make a move without his false alpha's command, he didn't make suggestions, he didn't argue, and he quietly took the verbal abuse.

"Oh fuck this shit!" the aggressive man stormed across the room, pushing on the door, rattling the locked doors as though his presence alone would will doors open. He reminded Seth of Erick in many ways.

The sunlight faded as the storm grew closer, blocking out the protective rays of the sun. He watched the way the light washed down Astral's pale skin, and how the light in her eyes was caught for a second longer than it should have. A flash of metal from under Astral's sleeve caught Seth's eye, but she shifted to hide the reflective flash before it alerted the A.I.

From behind tinted lenses, Astral's crystalline gaze snapped to Seth, who flushed with embarrassment.

She leaned into him again, her mouth inches from his ear forcing him to strain to block out the sound of a heavy object bouncing off the window and triggering the wailing calls of the security alarm. "I've programmed husks into the scenario. There are five survivors. Your objective is to lead the survivors to safety." He nodded. Finally an objective he could focus on.

Steel shutters thundered to the ground, rivaling the screeching of the security system. The angry man thrashed himself against the unyielding windows as the woman screamed, smashing her delicate fists against the glass surface as her desperate cries echoed in the darkening entry way. In under a minute, they had dim, artificial lighting as their last hope to slow the encroaching darkness where demons lurked.

The woman whimpered one last time, sliding down the glass panel. "We're going to die," the woman spoke, her voice hollow.

Seth hopes sank, realizing that Astral had waited to tell him of his objectives on purpose. "You're a terrible person," he sighed and climbed to his feet, peering over the edge of the half wall to watch the A.I.

"Is anyone out there?" Seth called, his voice booming in the sudden absence of the alarm. He stood up with the intention of revealing his position.

He was relieved to see that everyone below looked normal, a little worse for wear but nothing looked out of the ordinary given the situation. Confident that they were unarmed, he rose to his full height. 'How would Astral play this?' He wondered. An idea struck him.

"I was supposed to meet my dad here," he told them. He noted that Astral remained hidden. Astral's nose scrunched in disapproval. He thought it best to keep her presence secret, mostly out of fear of what she would do him if he blew her cover.

"You chose a good weekend to turn up," the angry man sneered. 'Right.... it's the weekend,' Seth mentally kicked himself.

He watched the quiet man stare up at him. He was slender whose gaunt features suggested long periods of very little sleep. He could hear Astral's voice in his back of his mind, lashing out at him. 'Are you sure? Check again.' The lights overhead were struggling to maintain power, wreaking havoc with his sight. Did he see what he wanted to see? Was his mind fabricating what he expected to see?

He peered at the quiet man, attempting to take in the details that his mind had filtered out. His tie was loose, hanging like a noose around his neck, his collar undone, stained but not of blood. Food, maybe? His pants were loose, his belt too tight. Part of his shirt hung out while the other half remained tucked in. He lacked muscle definition, border lining on skeletal. Was he wearing someone else's clothes? Or had he lost weight in a short period. He was sweating heavily. Given the circumstances, Seth couldn't blame him.

"I don't live with my dad," he offered, hoping to buy time to finish taking in the survivors. He spoke slowly, hoping to play it off as suspicion. "Mom dropped me off and took off shopping with a friend, you know how it is. I thought I'd wait in his office or something until he turned up. He is expecting me."

He took in the angry man's whose frantic pace unnerved the captain. Every time he ran his fingers over his balding head, clumps of hair would find themselves clinging to his hands, sparking new levels of terror into the forty-something businessman. Seth noted that the angry man was heavily sun burnt with clumps of dead skin peeling away as the man scratched away his discomfort. Most of the damage was hidden beneath an expensive three piece suit.

"What are you, like, nineteen?" the A.I. Seth dubbed 'angry man' narrowed his eyes at him.

"Seventeen," Seth corrected. He realized that it was unusual for a kid his age to want to do anything with his father without wanting something. "I wanted see about a summer vacation with friends." His gaze slid over the catatonic woman whose legs were splayed awkwardly. She brought to mind the image of a discarded doll. Her blond hair was half bound, half undone. Her skirt and blouse were torn, revealing the full vibrancy of her aqua blue bra. She had scratch marks across her stomach as though a claw had tried to pull the shirt from her body. Her heavy eye make-up ran down her cheeks, wet with tears, though it added to the dull, lifeless look in her dark eyes. She twitched. Her nerves trying to force her to keep going, but her will too broken to move.

The angry man grumbled, "Whatever! It's not my problem!"

Seth took this as an invitation to join them and began to make his way around the crouching Astral, whose arm shot out, nearly taking him out at the knees.

"Keep your distance," Astral bade in a harsh whisper. Her voice was so light; he was amazed her heard anything at all. The way her lips shaped her words, baring her teeth told him that something wasn't right. He didn't get it; the A.I. looked harmless enough, damaged, frightened, but not malevolent as far as he could tell.

"Where'd you guys come from?" he asked, looking to the floors above for signs of movement. "Are you all that's left?"

He counted them. Three. There were two more survivors that needed rescuing. Where could they be? They could be hidden in some utility closet, or in one of the offices nearby. He wondered how many floors Astral had programmed into the setting. Husks... he hadn't heard the term before. How many did she include? One demon could be devastating, but then again, Astral had taken out the swarm with ease each time they ran the first simulation. Were they as hard kill as any mature demon?

"Some of us have actually got to work for a living," the angry man sneered.

"It's the weekend," Seth countered. 'Something isn't right with these people,' the back of his mind volunteered. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. They felt exaggerated in some way. 'They're frightened,' Seth told himself. He needed to focus. He needed to find the last two survivors. Where would Astral put them? There would have to be a correlation between these worker and his remaining targets. "Were there others? Did you notice?"

"Looks like we have a boy scout on our hands," the man sneered. "I don't know; I got the fuck out of there when that thing showed up."

The woman's sudden animation caught them all by surprise. She wailed loudly, clutching her stomach and pull her knees up to her chest.

"What thing?" Seth asked, his nerves fraying. "Where did you guys come from?" He cast a quick glance down the second-floor hall, then to the hall on the lower level. He hoped he wasn't playing up the dumb kid role too much.

He suddenly felt very sympathetic toward Astral. She must have been very lonely to have to hide herself, her experiences, just for a chance at something normal. No one would ever know who she was because they weren't capable of understanding what she'd been through. Then again, people had a habit of using a singular identifier to pigeon hole others. Carrying the label of survivor wasn't going to help her socially. Hiding her past was her only option if she wanted something resembling normality.

It was probably why she chose to fixate on teddy bears. Knowing what little he did, he could bring himself to understand why she'd cling to the last remnants of a happy childhood. He felt sad thinking about it. Would he have been any different in her place?

He felt ashamed, using her the way that he was. Maybe in exchange, he could let her be her. Maybe he could accept her instead of buying into the fears of a paranoid populace. But those fears, he was beginning to learn, were in place for a reason. Those fears, though misdirected, were not entirely untrue.

She could be a demon in a little girl suit, but he didn't care. All he wanted to do was hold her. He felt stupid again.

The angry man speech pattern stopped abruptly, then repeated the same statement over. A glitch in the system?

"Looks like we have a boy scout on our hands," the angry man repeated. "I don't know; I got the fuck out of there when that thing showed up." His left hand twitched and his frantic pacing began anew. He cursed, at Seth, at his companions, stopped and repeated himself. The others weren't bothered by his loop. Most importantly, Astral wasn't bothered by it. Eyes shut, crouched in position, her breathing slow and steady.

Maybe the system was waiting for more user input, Seth reasoned. "I rushed out when I heard the alarm! I thought I saw someone and followed them out. Are you sure you didn't see anyone else?"

The angry man's pacing stopped, his head twisting to glare up at the teen. The veins in his neck appeared to bulge as though drinking in large quantities of blood. "Apart from you two?"

Seth felt his stomach knotted. "Two?" Shit!

Astral had included the pair of them as part of her count, he realized. Distracting him with a mission was a trap designed to create tunnel vision. Focusing on survivors meant he'd fail to see what was right in front of him. There were no survivors.

"Yeah, the girl," the angry man raged, pointing to the space next to Seth. "The fucking Hunter!"

Hunter? Seth went rigid, denying his instinct to turn his head, thereby revealing Astral's position. With a tremendous amount of willpower, he forced his gaze to look at the space directly ahead of him, toward the stairs. It was a mistake to take his eyes off of his the false survivors.

The lights exploded in shimmering glass dust, leaving all in complete darkness. The woman's screams shifted to wet gurgles.

From the floor below, he could swear her heard the beast gnawing on bones, breaking them apart like a brittle snack. The wet sloshing of muscles and flesh being torn apart sapped what was left of Seth's terror. His horror had reached its plateau, leaving him numb. He didn't know what to do. At least in the previous scenario he had one clear option: get a weapon. But in this one...

The smell of months old rotting flesh permeated the room, as though the rotting contents had been simmering in a closed container for just as long. Was this the smell he had detected earlier? Was he smelling the presence of the husks?

A flash of light and a loud metallic clash caused Seth to jump in fright. The jolt was enough to pull him from his shocked paralysis. 'Was that a scythe?' His brain followed a different tangent. "HEY! That's not using your environment!" he shouted at Astral.

"Maybe you should run to a weapon cache," she retorted in such a way he couldn't decide if she was serious or being sarcastic.

Dark, slender tendrils wove their way around the arc of the blade, trying to pull the weapon away from her. In between the gaps that made up the shaft of her scythe, he could see the flow of energy rise to the blade. She shifted her stance, pulling the weapon away from the dark beast as the blade grew in length and width, severing its long fingers from its many hands.

'The light isn't real,' Seth watched the intensity of Astral's blade shift as she willed it to take on a new shape. It's glow reminded him of the shifting shadows that no one else could see. It was real, but not.

Seth stared in amazement as Astral leaped expertly to the narrow edge of the half-wall. She ran a few feet away from his stunned position, drawing the slender shadow demon toward her, before lunging toward it, scythe overhead, leaving herself open.

The shadows pulled at the darkness around him, funneling it into a single large hand, ready to plunge itself into her. She pulled the weapon over her head as though expecting the attack, using the scythe's momentum to flip herself over and spun the weapon around to drive it clear through the demon's torso.

The light flickered through the gaps of the steel grates, offering a sense of renewed hope to the area just as the demon's torso hit the ground. The hollow dead eyes stared up at Seth, it's unusually large misshapen mouth opening and closing, attempting to mouth a silent, desperate plea. He noted that the silent employee's gaunt features were recognizable, though at a skeletal extreme. His naked flesh was waxy and pale, nearly translucent. It was strange that something so pale could mask itself in the darkness.

"End Program," Astral ordered the system as though it were a misbehaved puppy. It didn't acknowledge her, leaving them in the obscured darkness.