The putrid smell of decayed flesh and the pungency of piss mixed in blood wafted through the air of the street they now observed. Hidden in the cover of broken wooden planks he peered onto the street, defiled by the corpses’ owning it as their new graveyard. Rubble littered the street just like the dead bodies of children and adults, their morbid shadows casted by the little light allowed in by clouds.

Shadows of the buildings flanking either side of the dirt road stretched to provide them cover. Similar setups were created throughout the street allowing refuge to the little light from the waning fog at the sections where the uneven rooftops had caved in or broken down. It provided a murky view ahead but a foreseeable one of their journey, at least. However at the far end, under the shadow of the largest building all was invisible. No enemies could the warrior see and no sound could he hear, even the buzzing in his mind, the unconscious drabbles he was so used too had ceased completely. Hesitating he glanced back at the bunch of wobbly children with him; their scared and tired visages staring back at him.

‘They are unused to staying up late hours so their state would only worsen the longer this goes on,’ he thought before shaking his head. ‘But now is no time to be resting...uneasy.’

Throwing worry to the wind he motioned for the trio and together they cautiously moved onto the next shadowed zone over a pile of rubble. The children laid down to better hide under the cover while the man, clad in his dark armor, kneeled next to the wall in an attempt to blend in.

They were in front of a half broken wall of a food shop when suddenly another shadow came over them. It walked out the, thought abandoned, building and climbed onto the rubble. Whether it was fear, tire, or the dust but the youngest one gave out and squeaked.

*Sneeze*

The undead didn’t hesitate for a moment as it turned around and fell atop the child; it’s jaws open for devouring. The armored one didn’t have enough time to act quietly; he placed a fist to the ground and used his other hand to catch the creature’s mouth before slamming it next to his fist, forcing all his weight over it-“Ghaa-*Crunch*”-crushing it in the process. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the horrified faces of the three children curled up in an infant’s pose. Over their whimpering and chaterring teeth, he could make out the sounds of the corpses communicating. Their voices raspy, like a sigh being forced out with the intent to scream. It wasn’t loud, not nearly loud enough to attract the others from streets over, his instincts told him to run…and that meant the voices had returned, so he didn’t.

Instead he stood up and took out his swords, giving them a swing to loosen up his wrists. He motioned with his foot for the children to follow before running off down the street. Using momentum of his body he swung his swords onto the incoming creatures, cutting their thorax and abdomen. He spun around like a top with the weight of his swords pushing him forward as he continued on cutting.

Soon, he was at the front of the tall building, which had a familiar sign hanging off of a hinge. It was too dark to look inside but the sounds of something alive could be heard inside. The children had, at such time, caught up and were breathing with fervor.

“Is someone there?” a shaky voice squeaked from inside.

“Drac?” Zach asked, looking up at his helmet. He hesitated before heaving a long sigh and putting away one of his swords. He knelt down to trace the ground till he found a sizeable rock. Grabbing it he walked inside, the children following closely behind.

“Are you here to help?” The voice asked almost as a whisper.

“Depends, quite now,” Drac said.

“Who’re you talking to?” Rina asked.

Ignoring her Drac tiptoed into the darkness before he struck the stone. For a brief moment the sparks flew from the rock’s contact to the Inconel allowing him a view of the room. He was in a dining area where a big battle had occurred. With the evidence littered all around them he bent over to grasp something in the darkness.

“Zach, hold this,” Drac said, handing it to the boy. “Firmly.”

“Okay.”

Drac struck the stone a few times before the object caught fire and lit their surroundings. It was the leg of a chair which illuminated the dining hall they were in. It was a familiar hall, with an all too familiar scene. Broken chairs and tables sprawled across the floor; the aroma of dried mead heavily dampened by familiar pungency of piss and blood drifting around the humid room and limps and bodies of fortunate people who died before the magic took control.

“Ha-,” Mina hunched over, clamming a hand to her mouth as she pointed off into the darkness with trembling fingers. Drac moved the light over and found a half broken beam with a broken body at its base. Upon realizing Rina gave a hoarse, muffled scream, straining her voice to cut off midway and quickly covered her sister’s eyes before she puked. Zach had a similar reaction to Mina but he tried to keep his stomach contents in.

Drac walked over and kneeled before the body, hiding it from the children’s gazes. The person, a woman, was dead, nothing he hadn’t seen before. However the way it was being presented in the middle of the room, facing the doorway as if it was placed only for them, for him...

This particular body was mutilated…defiled in the same manner as he’d seen happen all those years ago.

But he’d seen the whole thing, not just the end result of pulp of bone and flesh sticking out so much that it could be seen even from far away. The corpse was clearly a fellow mercenary. Lost to the job she had taken out of desperation.

He knew because of its long hair and slight curves at the hips indicating a plump rump, common to none but the females. But the familiarity to the opposite sex ended there, as from the waist up it was hard to discern it’s identity due to the excessive beatings the body took. While the children shied away, Drac took a moment to engrave the sight in his mind. It would be useful.

While her hairs were intact, her skull had caved into her brain. The bloody organ seemed to have been oozed out of the broken parts of her forehead and onto her eyes. To anyone else it would seem as if the darkness in the undead had evolved to produce innate pleasures, born through mutilating corpses of their kill.

But he knew, someone had forced the undead to produce this…piece, just for him. It was a message, if only he knew what it clearly meant. Someone had taken excessive effort to dislodge the eyeballs from their sockets and burst them, hanging them down to her cheeks like downward fans and adding more fluids to an already beaten face. But the treatment didn’t stop there, due to repeated beatings it was truly a horrific pulp, a concoction of bone shards and torn muscles erupting from the caved in face.

The mess was bloody. Long since dried, the blood had snaked its way onto her torso which exhibited a sickly imaginative horror as if born through the Oshrak’s tales of Grimm Beauty. Whatever breast guard the woman had had been ripped out from its accompanying leather long ago. With shaky hands the breasts had been skinned, liberating the bloody webs of muscles. Insects were nesting into the bosoms of the poor dame, scattered all across her chest and onto her stomach, everywhere except the mound’s tips. Like her face, special attention seemed to have been given to the tips. One was beaten and pulped like her face, while the other was cut out, creating a crater on her right breast. Drac’s eyes slowly travelled down to the disfigured stomach when his attention was caught by the slight shaking on his arm.

Merely a few seconds had passed. A time too long for Zach’s comfort, it seemed, as the boy was using all his courage to shake him. Drac stored away his sword of the time being and shadowed the corpse by carrying the chair leg towards the sounds from earlier.

“Still there?” Drac asked unable to mask his tiredness.

“Y-yes!”

“Where?”

“In the wall,” The voice called. Drac made towards the broken counter. It was merely a few steps away but each one encountered a hand or foot or other body part the closer they got. Drac warned the three to stay behind the counter and gave Zach the torch.

“Step away.” Drac warned.

He waited for a few seconds before punching through the wall with both his fists. Uncurling his fist he slowly pushed his palms down the wooden wall, slowly breaking the planks till he reached the ground. With the supports gone the broken planks came tumbling down, revealing a dark chamber inside. Peering closer two figures could be made out. One laid unconscious while the other sat beside it looking at him.

“The guild,” Drac murmured in understanding. “Green lady?”

“Yes! Yes, I’m the receptionist.” The lady cried as tears began to streak down her cheek. “Please help me.”

“Who’s the one laying down there,” Drac asked as he walked inside.

“She’s my elder, miss Misvo.” The woman sobbed.

“Please move,” Drac said as he bent over to carry her out. The young receptionist followed him out as he laid Misvo on the remaining part of the counter. But before she could wail on any further Drac ordered.

“Introduce yourselves.”

At his command the children revealed to the woman, allowing Drac to leave. While they made acquaintances with each other he explored the dining hall; looking out for rations and an unbroken chair. After a few minutes of failure he took some more chair legs and lit them with his dying flame, giving each to the children upon his return, before throwing his own far off in the building.

“H-hey, what are you doing?” She exclaimed.

“Sit.” Drac said in a deep voice.

Finding no other place, she sat on the rubble of the crushed part of the counter.

“Are you calm?”

“Yes, yes I have calmed down.” The woman said excitedly. “Thank you for getting us out. Please can you get us to safety? I will do anything for you afterwards, please-”

“Shut up,” Drac said gruffly. “You are not calm, gather yourself before you speak next.”

“O-…Okay” She said getting up.

“Sit,” Drac pushed her down. “Tell me what happened.”

“It was horrible, the dead just swarmed in and killed anything they saw. The mercenaries…they…they fought, till it was too much.” The woman trembled. She warped her arms around herself and shifted in her place, deep in thought. “While they swarmed in Miss Misvo opened up a passage into that room, I got in unharmed but one of them attacked her. She cut off it’s head it but was injured instead. She pulled through but a few minutes ago she suddenly fainted. Before…before she fainted she told me not to peek between the boards…we’d were screams.”

The receptionist shivered. She began gasping for air as her eyes traveled across the room, trying to find the source of those screams. Water unconsciously began flowing down her face as her trembling got worse. Drac quickly shifted his attention to the unconsciously woman and examined her body.

She was wearing a more conservative green dress than the other receptionist; the dress extended down to her ankles and the straps covered her up to her neck in a crossed design. One of those straps was ripped out and used as wrappings on her arm. Undoing it he saw that there was indeed a deep bite mark but the bleeding had stopped and a clot had formed. Drac applied another wrapping by ripping another of the straps while ignoring the green lady’s protests. Once done, he attempted to wake up the unconscious woman.

“Hey stop-ah” All her breath left her as she stared at the side of the counter. Hunched beside the shelves was a figure of a black haired woman. She wore similar attire to the others present but the only difference was she was dead. In the darkness, from where he stood, the place of her heart had a darker color than the rest of her body. Under the flames it could be seen as deep claw marks cutting down to left breast, leaving a bloody mess in its aftermath.

“Mi-Milla,” the woman forced out as she knelt next to the corpse. “I…You…No please.”

She began weeping as she scuttled back and watched her colleague from her place, shivering. Suddenly the body atop the counter shook and groaned. Rina moved closer to Drac to shine some more light under which the woman winced as she gathered her surroundings.

“Urgh,” Misvo placed a hand on her head to steady herself. Drac helped her off the counter and kept his hold till she could stand on her own. “Thank you, sir.”

“Miss Misvo,” the receptionist cried as she flung herself into her arms.

“Wha-, Mina? There, there, dear,” Misvo said as she rubbed her head. “Everything will be alright.”

“She’s dead, Milla’s dead.”

“I know. Do not dwell on the past my child.” She broke the hug. “You are not dead; you have a chance to escape. So think of this as lesson number 11; one must fear death if death is the cowardly way.”

“I still don’t understand your lessons,” She sighed, hugging her again.

“In time you will, but you must be strong if you’re going to survive,” Misvo said. “Can you-”

“Is there a way to the roof,” Drac interrupted.

“-Yes,” Misvo affirmed quickly, ignoring the surprise of her junior.

“Lead us.”

“Over here.” Misvo dragged Mina along with her towards the stairs, while the children followed behind them. Drac took out his sword and followed them up.

“Who’s tired?” Drac asked.

“Uh, I-” Mina tried saying but was struck on her head by her elder.

“He’s talking to the children.”

“Uh, we’re not tired” Rina said pulling her sister along the steps.

“Yeah, we-we’re not tired,” Zach said pinching himself.

“Girls, give me your torches.” Drac asked once they reached the top of the steps. Taking the two burning chair legs he bent down and began lighting the stairs on fire. After a few minutes to make sure the fire had set he threw the lit legs towards the undead who began stumbling into the building.

“AHHH-” Mina screamed before Misvo clammed her mouth shut. Soon two more forced their way over their incapacitated dead and hobbled their way towards the stairs.

“Shut up and run,” Drac ordered. Misvo picked up the pace and lead them at the end of the hall.

“Up there,” Mivo pointed to the trap door on the ceiling.

“Up you go,” Drac said. Without hesitation he lifted her by her hips and despite her protests pushed her to the straw. Once she was safely up he proceeded to do the same to the others present. However when the time came for Rina a flaming undead suddenly barreled down the hall. Drac threw her up the ceiling before using his sword to cut the creature down, stomping its burning head for good measure. Another was coming up the stairs, a little girl by the looks of it.

‘Poor child,’ he thought as he took a sword lying around and threw it at the girl, cleaving her head. As the body fell motionlessly Drac took off his swords and one after another threw them over before launching himself through the trapdoor.

“Hrmph,” Drac struggled to pull himself up. Eventually freeing himself Drac readjusted his swords and joined the others.

“You are strong, thank you.” Misvo complimented when he came closer.

“Y-yeah, thank you” Mina followed.

“Keep a look out for them,” Drac said. He stood at the edge and began taking in his surroundings. The layout was similar to when he had looked atop the tower; streets enveloped in darkness and the building tops enveloped in lighter darkness. Further away he could make out a large black building with its fires alight. From where the light could reach, the street before it seemed deserted, as if the undead were purposely avoiding such a place.

“Something’s coming, sir!” Misvo shouted. Without thinking he unhooked his sword and jumped, turning around in the process to face the oncoming enemy. In the darkness a shadow could be made out jumping across the buildings, hunting them.

“Miss Misvo,” Drac said walked in front of her. “Do you see a black building with fires lit atop it?”

“…Yes, sir.”

“Can you get to it from atop the buildings?” Drac shouted as the creature got closer.

“I-Yes, I can sir.”

“The children will be your responsibility. I have a promise to keep with them, you understand?”

“Yes sir.”

“Run, as soon as I cross blades.”

“Alright-”

“Run!” Drac yelled as he stepped forward and swung towards the shadow, slashing it away. To his surprise the blade had not been dirtied by any blood, the creature had blocked his swing. The shadow came from the side and once more Drac swung, drawing no blood again. This time the moon light shone on where he stood, illuminating his opponent to be a female undead.

Whatever little black hair was still stuck to her head covered her face, hiding anything underneath until she tried to bite him, revealing her blackened teeth. Drac swung her away with his sword and saw similarly colored nails clashing with the sword. Taking a second to look at the others running away he sheathed his sword and made to run when the creature caught his attention once more.

It stalked him for some time, slowly exaggerating its movements on all fours before pouncing on him once more, nails first. When she was a mere meter away Drac kicked up with both feet and as he fell, struck the woman on her stomach, breaking her weak bones.

“Wha-,” Drac whispered. He quickly jumped up and stomped her head into the tiles before the she could regain her composure. After he was sure she was incapacitated Drac turned her over to see her entire stomach missing its flesh. All other parts of her body had some flesh still clinging to it, however all around the stomach the flesh caved in, leaving bare bones.

‘A mother!?’

Drac growled as he ran after the others. He could make out two shadows coming from the rooftops on his sides, moving in on the others.

“Stop!” Drac yelled.

Misvo halted in her tracks and pulled the others down with her. Since their movement changed the shadows had to stop and change their trajectory which gave him enough time to act. Taking out his swords he jumped over the bent people and aimed each sword towards the shadows. Sparks flew in their encounter and he saw their teeth flash in the light in attempts to tear his helmet off by extending their necks.

Pushing them away Drac once again placed his sword on his back and assumed the previous grappling stance. Both women jumped at him with their nail pointed out like swords which Drac received with open hands. Curling them like a fist as the nails pierced through his hands and stopped an inch short of his pauldrons. With a grunt Drac turned his hands over, snapping their hands in the process, so that his palms were facing him and their nails them.

While Drac had control of two of their hands, the other two were free and desperately tried to retaliate in any way they could. Stabbing and slashing, his armor became riddled with holes and scratches as he pushed the back of his hands into their heads. As soon as their nails cut through their skull their movements suddenly seized and they went limb, a wisp of colorful light flew out their head before waning out of existence.

“Go,” Drac ordered. Misvo dragged the children to the other building as he slowly laid them down. Placing a foot on each chest he pulled his hands up and took the nails out of their skin along with his hands. The nails were less planar and more cylindrical, resembling blackened needles than any real nails. After pushing them out by pressing his hands against the roof he continued pursuing the others.

They stood at the edge of the last house, overlooking the clearing in front of the large building. After jumping on the tile he barely found some footing before he was called over by the elder receptionist.

“Good sir, you need to see this.”

Drac walked over as the others parted way and squinted onto the street where she was pointing. The grounds were dark; however they didn’t completely mask the darker, shadowy lumps protruding out. Peering closer he could make out smaller lumps of shadows scattered all throughout the grounds till the edge of the building, where the largest heap of blackness stuck to the walls.

“The put out the fires,” He whispered.

“Yes, and those seem to be bodies scattered about,” Misvo added.

“None are approaching the building now, but we must still be careful.” Drac reminded, kneeling to the children.

“That’s the prison,” Mina informed. Misvo turned to her questioningly so she quickly supplied; “Karl the warden’s here, I bring him food sometimes.”

“I thought being the head receptionist meant knowing this kind of thing,” Misvo scrutinized.

“The guild master knew,” Mina shied away. “And Karl didn’t want many people knowing.”

“Will he help us?” Drac said interrupting Misvo from interrogating further.

“Yeah, I mean he’s not that bad of a person-”

“Good, jump down on my signal.” Drac said before jumping down onto the street ignoring Mina’s surprise. Taking a moment to look out for any incoming enemies he motioned for the other to jump down. Soon everyone was slowly approaching the building with Mina in front and Drac at the back.

Now that his eyes had adjusted he could better see the shadowy lumps as burnt corpses piled atop one another. Taking out his sword for good measure he began dragging it along the cobblestone path, sending a trail of sparks to wherever he was.

It was unclear which sound he had missed; the clink of metal or the swishing sounds of an arrow flying through the air. But it didn’t matter because by the time he heard it an arrow was already bound for her.

“Ah-” Mina spat as she fell backwards.

“Get down!” Drac yelled as he bounded for the front.

“Mina, No!” Misvo shouted.

“Get behind me.”

Propping up his sword as a shield he looked down at the figure of the receptionist. She lay beneath him trembling as she grasped for the arrow tail on her shoulder which he broke off. Pushing her hands away he ordered Misvo’s help as they all encircled the lying Mina. A commotion had broken out at the top of the wall as the lights began intensifying, after a cry a figure’s head popped out from between the embrasures.

“If you alive…wave,” the man demanded.

“This is ridiculous,” Drac said. “We’re alive!”

“That’ll do. Well, who’re you?”

“Survivors! You shot Mina the receptionist from the mercenary guild.” Drac said pointed at the women behind him.

“What! You whoreson!” the man fumed as he disappeared from the embrasure. Soon after a large commotion was raised behind the walls as the man hollered curses to another’s screams for mercy and forgiveness.

“Alright, Open the-”

*UUUAAARR* A scream suddenly erupted from behind. Drac turned around and saw several different creatures crouching at the end of the street and atop the buildings. Drac brought out his other sword and took up a stance in front of the children.

“Get in the gates as soon as they open, your revenge is waiting inside.” Drac said quietly as he waited for the shadows to move.

“Open the gates, what’re you kurvas doing.” The man yelled from behind the walls. As the portcullis was raised the beings began bounding towards him like animals. The few that were on the rooftops jumped down and joined others in pursuit.

“RUN!”