Glancing back to make certain that Rebecca had went back and was waiting around the corner, Matthew finally let out a deep sigh of relieve. A slow, crooked smile formed at the corner of his lips as he tucked the pistol down into the waistband of his pants, and a dark light slowly enveloped his eyes and shimmered around them. Taking a second to rub his ring, Matthew opened up the small black dimensional hole which held his prize possessions and pulled out a few items before closing it. Glancing a second time to make certain Rebecca wasn’t watching him around the corner, he slowly draped a midnight black cloak across his shoulders and pulled the hood up over his head.

“I’m heading out now, ‘kay?” Calling back to her in his normal voice, Matthew gave the door a hard shove and forced it open, sliding whatever was propped against it as he did so. “I’ll be back in just a moment. Wait there for me.” With the dark glow from his eyes covering most of his face beneath the hood, he calmly stepped out into the hallway and pulled the door shut behind him. Without even bothering to glance around, he patiently took the time to stick the key back in the door and lock it.

Once he heard the satisfying click, he pulled the key out and slowly stuck it in the dark hole that hovered about a foot over his left hand, and then he rubbed his ring again to make it disappear. Finally satisfied that Rebecca couldn’t come out and interfere with anything – or see anything inappropriate for her to see at the moment – he calmly looked down to check on what had been blocking the door. The bloodied corpse of a young gentleman was lying faced down against the door, and a pool of dried reddish-black blood was smeared all around where he’d died, but what appeared to have been a serious attempt to pull his spine out whole from his back while he still lived.

“You’re in the way, bastard.” Annoyed that the scumbag would block his path with his corpse, Matthew kicked the body and sent it flying down the hallway to slide and flip several times before it ended up ass-over-head in a tumbled heap in the middle of the hall. Watching the body as it flipped and slid, Matthew finally noticed what was perhaps half a dozen of the gibberlings staring down the hall in his direction. Glancing in the other direction, there were perhaps another five or six starting to bunch up into a pile and snarl to each other.

Seeing he was surrounded, Matthew calmly strode out away from the door to the center of the hall and then sat down. Waiting patiently, he crossed his legs and began to inspect his fingernails and pick at the dirt underneath them. Confused by his odd behavior, the gibberlings approached slowly, growling and sniffing with each step. Several others peeked their heads out from different classrooms up and down the hallway, curious about what had their brethren acting so oddly, and then they too came out and joined the rest. After several cautious minutes had passed, a circle of the creatures had completely surrounded Matthew, sniffing and growling incessantly louder with each passing moment.

Stretching, Matthew finally looked up and glanced around at the mob surrounding him. “Are we all here, then? Are we ready to do this?” The eerie black glow leaked from the corner of his hood and the creatures that saw it stepped back involuntarily, suddenly filled with an indescribable coldness that chilled all the way to their bones. The gibberlings on the other side, seeing the odd reaction of their brethren, suddenly lurched forward in a swarm, howling and gnashing as they leaped forward in a wave at their target.

But, it was already too late.

Suddenly standing, in one fluid, graceful move, Matthew spun to face them as the shadows of the hall seemed to suddenly gather and leap to his hands, forming themselves into a set of pure black sickles. Long black blades curved and spun in his hands as he spun, bobbed, and weaved in a graceful dance, seeming to absorb the light and leave a cold trail of dark nothingness where they passed. By the time the first gibberling had hit the floor, four others had joined it.

The creatures thick fur parted like it wasn’t there, and the ripe flesh of their skin sliced as if it was made from hot butter. Even their thick, rubbery bones did nothing to stop or slow the shadowy blades that whispered through them effortlessly. In no more time than it would’ve taken an onlooker to say “What the…”, it was over and Matthew was standing alone in a pile of crumped corpses, stray body parts scattered and littering all around.

With one single burst, it was finished.

Calmly glancing up and down the hall, Matthew paused and waited for several moments to see if any more were going to come out, and when they didn’t, he finally released the shadows and let them retreat back to their normal positions. Slowly, almost lazily, he drew the sword which he’d buckled to his waist earlier and then casually walked over and stabbed it into several of the corpses one by one, until it was covered in the gibberlings’ foul green blood.

Satisfied that his job here was finally done, Matthew took his time and eased over to the water fountain and took a moment to slate his thirst, and then he strode down the center of the hall – not bothering to hide his footsteps, or conceal his movements in any way at all – and purposefully walked back to the classroom where he’d met Rebecca in that morning for the first time.

Inside, the room was just as much of a mess as he’d imagined that it would be. From what he understood, spawnings tended to occur in numbers relative to the population of the place where they occurred. Being the time of day it was, the school was considerably populated, so large numbers of creatures appeared out of thin air and swarmed the place. Truly, had it been anywhere else, he might’ve been a lot more cautious with his actions, but the fact that he was at a school led Matthew to the conclusion that there probably wasn’t anything in the world here that he had to worry about at all, at his level.

Creatures didn’t just spawn in numbers relative to the population; they also spawned with a matching degree of difficulty. Some place such as an army barracks would’ve been hit with a large number of high level opponents. A dojo might be hit with a small number of difficult opponents. But a school, which was filled with countless children and only a small number of grown adults? The game would’ve marked it similar to a ‘noobie zone’ and spawned the weakest of opponents to challenge the people inside.

And, looking at the relatively low number of corpses, Matthew was certain that he was right in his assessment. The creatures had started to appear out of thin air, the people panicked and trampled each other as they headed towards the exits, and only a few students had been grabbed, clawed, and left to bleed out as the others ran for safety. Taking time to check the bodies in the room, Matthew checked for signs of a pulse or even a slight rise of their chests, but didn’t find any. Honestly, he hadn’t expected to – the gibberlings had been allowed to roam and search the halls themselves for too long.

Even though he was certain that the only thing left on this hallway now, besides him and Rebecca was the dead, Matthew made certain to take the time to walk up and down the hall and check into each classroom and storeroom. Much to his surprise, he did find a survivor down at the other far end of the hall – a small, calf-eyed boy wearing glasses and hiding in a broom closet. If it wouldn’t have been for the enchantment upon his sight, he never would’ve noticed the boy either, as he was huddled and curled up under a basket of what appeared to be greasy rags the janitor or maintenance guy used to wipe his hands on.

When he first walked into the closet, the glow of the boy’s spirit shimmered and shone brightly to Matthew. “Glad to see another survivor in here,” he called out slowly and calmly to the bundle where the boy was hiding. “Come on out,” he coaxed, and then joked, “I’ve got candy...”

Slowly, the bundle of rags trembled a few times and then fell off to the left and right as the young man squirmed up and gazed big-eyed at Matthew. “Is it safe? Are tho... tho... those things gone?” Stammering, he trembled and shook as he started to ease up and stumble toward Matthew, his knees weak and trembling.

“It’s fine. You’re perfectly safe now,” Matthew assured him, as he held his hand up calmly, palm up and fingers out. “Those creatures aren’t going to harm you,” he soothed, as the light in the room seemed to dim slightly, before pure darkness blanketed everything. When the darkness receded, the young man’s body was crumped in a heap on the ground – hair ashen white and skin a dull, lifeless gray. “You don’t have a thing to worry about now. You’re going to Hel.”

Whistling lightly under his breath, Matthew turned and eased out of the closet, closing it behind him. Merrily, and without a care in the world, he continued his search for any other survivors. Not finding any more on this hall, he finally turned started to head back to the bathroom where he’d kept Rebecca locked inside and waiting for him.