A gunshot. The tension on her throat released; she could breathe again, although with difficulty as she got into a coughing fit. Trying to understand what had happened, she saw Matt lowering his gun and looking at her. He quickly leaned in closer to her.

“Are you alright?” he asked. He placed his hand on her shoulder, but she quickly slapped it away.

“Don’t touch me!” she screamed at the top of her lungs before coughing again. He flinched in surprise.

“It’s me! It’s just me! I’m not your enemy!” he yelled back, although less aggressively than she did. She didn’t care, though. She didn’t want to be touched.

“I don’t think that killed it!” he said after a few seconds. “We need to get out of here, quick!” he urged her. She was furious, but he was right. They had no room to maneuver in here. If they were facing an entity that could appear and disappear in unpredictable ways, being cramped in a car put them at a disadvantage; they needed freedom of movement.

She reached for the handle, pulled on it, pushed on the door. No effect. She tried again, using her supernatural strength; it still wouldn’t budge. “What the fuck? It’s stuck!” she screamed again.

She felt herself panicking. She hated this car, hated this town, hated Matt, hated everything, especially being so powerless. She didn’t want to be confined to this small space. She had to get out.

Blood came out of knuckles, solidifying into spikes on her fists. She flailed them at the vehicle in hopes to destroy it, to smash it to pieces. I’m going to fucking shatter it, she thought, aiming for the window. Her attack felt void of any real power, the target soft, like she had punched cotton.

Her vision blurred. She couldn’t quite understand what she was seeing – her brain had trouble interpreting the image. From what she could decipher, the outside had been distorted by the window, adopting a metallic gray color, almost silver, while the general shape of the landscape was still somewhat perceptible.

“Watch out! It’s coming back!” Matt yelled. It made her shift her gaze away from the door’s window, focusing now on the windshield. And there, she saw it: the shape of a man, translucent, transparent, almost invisible. Where its face would normally be, it only wore a blank surface with vague bumps emulating a nose and indents for eye sockets, but lacking actual eyeballs. It had no hair but appeared to be wearing some sort of hood over its head. Its gaping mouth was filled with a set of what seemed to be razor-sharp fangs.

There suddenly was a constant shrieking noise, worse than a thousand forks scratched against a thousand chalkboards. She was under attack; that much was made even more clear when the thing in front of her moved through the car to rush her.

It grabbed at her shirt; rage and panic filled her entire being. She had to get out. She had to survive. She had to find her sister and see that she was safe. She summoned all her strength and produced blood spikes all over herself, then stretched them in all directions. Matt let out a cry of pain. One of her spikes must have hit him, but she didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was getting rid of the attacker before it grabbed her again.

An unfamiliar sense of displacement occurred, and she suddenly found herself to be outside. She looked around to get her bearings as she retracted her biological weapons.

“Did you do that?” she asked before turning towards Matt. He had a knee on the ground, panting heavily and covering with his hand the bleeding wound she had inflicted on the inside of his shoulder.

“I think I did,” he said. “I didn’t know I could. I don’t think I’ll be able to do it again.”

She attempted to calm her own breath to get her composure back – her friend was down for the count, and she was the only one they could rely on now. She needed to be in control.

She analyzed her surroundings. She felt watched, exposed. The invisible eyes were still watching and, no doubt, the thing that attacked them was going to come at them again, and soon. They had to get out of the town. However, exhausted as he was after a shift of about five meters, there was no way that Matt could phase them out of Cape Grindstone. He was also too weakened to fight, or even run, at this point. She had to find a temporary refuge, give him time to catch his breath.

She put his arm around her, grabbed the back of his belt and started walking, dragging him along. She went for the nearest building: a commercial complex that had a cinema and two popular restaurant brands. A few large windows to look outside, some tables and chairs to barricade the main door and, hopefully, some unspoiled food would make this place a good hideout until the threat moved on, or until Matt recuperated enough to get back on his feet. At least, that’s what they would usually do when facing the Corrupted elsewhere. With that ghostly figure appearing and disappearing seemingly at will, she feared that their temporary bunker would ultimately prove useless. Still, it was better than doing nothing, she hoped.

As she worked to fortify the position as much as possible, Matt stumbled to one of the windows and kept vigil. He had a very good view of the parking area and the main road.

“Looks like they’re leaving us alone for now,” he said.

“First the Corrupted, now this? Fucking Fel,” she snapped.

“Nah,” he answered. “I don’t think he’s responsible for this one. If I’m right, it’s something else entirely.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Matt rubbed his face with his hands as if he was incredulous about what he was going to say.

“Shit, okay. Listen, I only know bits and pieces; remember the Dark Lady? She talked about how there are small pockets here and there where reality doesn’t exactly apply.”

“What? You’re not making sense. Whatever, just tell me how we can win this.”

“We can’t,” he said. He turned his head towards the window again. “We try to get outta here as fast as we can, assuming it’s not already too late.”

“You think you can transport us out of here once you’re rested?”

“Not a chance,” he admitted.