The air was cool but paradoxically it had a muggy heaviness to it, and the floor had a slippery feel suggesting it had been raining; I heard a distant rumble of a thunderstorm as I cautiously walked out of the door.

Triya stopped to pull it shut and she wedged the plank in the handle, barricading the door.

I felt FUCKING uncomfortable being outside in the pitch black and I could hear some skittering noises that made me even MORE uncomfortable. But, the swarm was definitely nowhere to be seen, or rather heard, which was a plus.

A big bloody plus in a sea of negatives.

Xno's spotlights had been replaced with a thin blue Majik laser that was flicking around, tracing our intended path. I figured it was so that we didn't attract unnecessary attention to ourselves with spotlights. Smart.

The blue laser tracing made the path look surreal and it was a bit jarring, but I was grateful for the fact that it didn't light us up one bit.

Anyone or anything, looking from the outside without knowing, would just see some everyday Majik shittery going on.

"It won't take us long, just an extra few minutes to go through the woods."

Triya's faceless hushed voice released clouds of warm mist that became visible in the strobing blue laser.

"Right okay. Woods way because of danger right?" I replied quietly as I stepped over a curb, being kindly highlighted with a chevron laser pattern.

Good Daemon Xno.

"Yes. Front gates are… not safe and wouldn't have been manned anyways. So we'll need to use the uhh, secret way."

"Secret way??" I asked, tilting my head, which was pointless in the dark since she couldn't see me, but still, it was more of a reflex.

"Um yeah. It was actually for getting out, if things went bad. It's just a rope ladder hidden on the inside of the wall, but Xno can grab it and then throw it over. After what happened at home… I needed to make sure we had escape routes…" she trailed off into silence as our footsteps tapped on the wet tarmac ground.

"Oh right, fair enough, smart thinking." I didn't know how else to respond. It was distressing hearing about escape routes, since I had not thought about such things myself.

Note to self to start doing that.

We stayed silent as our feet reached soggy muddy ground and blue lines started outlining tree boughs, a clear sign we were walking in the woods.

I am really starting to worry about what happened back in the pumphouse when I was unconscious.

It was confusing that everyone had disappeared, but the state Tanner had been in was plain shocking.

Tanner looked like he had been butchered by someone, the knife being a pretty fucking obvious sign… But why would anyone want to do that to him?

It didn't help that I couldn't see Triya, so my thoughts were free to contemplate that she was getting Xno to lead me to my death somewhere.

Would she do that? What would be the purpose?

…

EXP? No way. Surely… not?

I didn't like where this train of thought was going.

My expectations for humanity had always been low, but holy fuck that would be some new depths of depravity and greed if it was true.

"Hey Godu." She was trying to whisper, but it came out as a hiss, and it was closer than I was expecting.

It made me physically jump.

"Argh! Chhhhrist that scared me. All good?" I whispered back.

"Sorry, yeah. Xno says there's nothing around so we should be okay to talk and we have a bit of time before we arrive… soo.."

I heard her swallow nervously before continuing.

"I um, want to tell you a bit about what happened back there. I don't know how to explain everything and I’m not sure how much you were conscious of it, so I'll just start from when we first escaped the swarm by entering the room."

"Okay sounds good, I’ll listen and hold questions until the end." I replied softly.

"Oookay. Umm. So we all got in and we got rid of those crawlers that came in and then I bolted the door shut. Once we were good, we all started to grab boxes and stuff to make a barricade around the corner in case anything was still inside or got in."

Yup. This all correlates with what I remember.

“A few people dragged all the wounded into one area, including yourself and Tanner, and then we rested for sometime, an hour perhaps, before people started to explore the room further.”

She started to choke up, so she coughed into her sleeve to clear her throat.

“And uhh, they found the…nest with the people inside the sacs and um…oh god it was horrible. They were still alive in there but they had swollen bodies and they were slowly growing legs and…all those monsters…they’re…they’re fucking people Godu!”

Ah. Of course.

The penny dropped as it all clicked into place; The adult skull wearer's behaviour, the skulls for heads; the nest sacs and their contents, and the swarm.

They were all people, once.

One of the reasons we weren’t seeing many people, was because those nightmares were the people.

Are we just incubators for them to be birthed into, or are they direct mutations?

“So um, people started freaking out when they saw this and someone tried your last bit of healing water to see if it would fix them…”

I checked and sure enough, my leg pocket was empty.

She sniffed in the way that people silently crying would.

“It…didn’t heal them at all, it frickin’ melted their throat and mouth…and the thing was just gargling and screaming..ugh it was too horrible so I came back to sit with you guys. Tanner was recovering well and he was awake so I told him that the others found the…nest. And that was when we heard screams and shouting coming from the others."

She paused for a few moments before letting out a nervous sigh and continued with a shaky voice.

"A-and um, we rushed back o-over and on the way Xno, he um, h-he was telling me to stay back and that we needed to go because he could s-sense negatives. Damn I wish we had left right th-then.."

She took a deep breath in and out.

"Tanner…shouted something and then some of the others ran at him out of the pitch black and started attacking him. They were going completely berserk, like they were the infected from 28 days later or world war z or something. We tried to fight them off but I couldn't do much and Xno was screaming at me to run and Tanner too…"

Xno made two low chirps.

"It's okay Xno, you don't need to apologise. You were trying to keep me safe. If it wasn't for you I'd be dead…”

“Um, so yeah, we ran, and Xno turned off his lights and led me with the laser pathing. We were being chased for ages until we found a hiding spot and waited until they were far enough away and made a break for the exit. Along the way we found Tanner and..oh god..he um, he was barely breathing, but I dragged him back to you and.. fuck, if we had some healing tonic maybe I could have removed the knife. Stomach wounds kill slowly you know? Sylvie taught me that..but it was that fucking knife that killed him..I couldn't..I couldn't pull it out! I couldn't do it!"

She let out a pained sob and then covered her mouth to muffle further sobs.

*Sniff* "Oh god..Um, he was gone before I could wake you." *Sniff* " and I nearly thought you were dead by how silent you slept." *Sniff* *sniff* "But, ugh bloody nose, I..well, I managed to wake you by slapping you..sorry about that. But I couldn't leave you there to die. Plus, I was too scared to go back alone.."

This was a lot to take in.

Xno made a long series of hushed whirring noises, like a disc being read in a game console.

"Yes, don’t worry, I just wanted to explain everything else first, um..” She spoke with a slight hint of irritation at the orb.

“So um the final thing I have is Xno’s suggestion on why we were attacked. Xno was watching over the group after I left, providing them with light, and he witnessed ‘negative corruption’. Basically the others um, they put the people in the sacs out of their misery, and the shimmer…yeah, well, it is really bad for people to kill other people and then absorb the EXP. Xno said he observed the EXP corrupting the second it touched the recipient, it then went on, infecting and damaging the person's mind. That person then became infectious for other people.”

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST?!

“Seriously? You mean like EXP cannibalism turns people into the infected?! Can we get infected? Can others??” My voice came out a little louder than I wanted, but this was really bad.

We could not cope with some kind of zombie virus.

“Shhh! Jeez, keep it down! Uhh I don’t know, we didn’t stick around to find out..but we just need to be careful and…never open that door again…it is horrible to say, but we can’t risk it…”

We walked on in silence as I digested her horror story.

Just when I think I’m coming to terms with this hellhole, a new layer of horseshit gets dumped right in…

Sylvie… is she still alive? Probably not.

Considering Tanner was taken down..

“Ughh this is so fucked up..it’s all just horrible Godu, I don’t want to stay here anymore, I don’t want to see anymore people die right in front of my eyes!”

“Yeah tell me about it…but I don’t know where to go. I don’t know if there’s anywhere safer right now...we just have to stick together and keep fighting. If we try to escape, I don’t think we’ll survive...” I let out a puff of air, vibrating my lips.

“Christ, I hate that I’m saying words like ‘survive’ and ‘fighting’. Makes me feel like a right twat.. ” I grumbled.

Triya giggled “Heh! oh god sorry, this isn’t the time to be laughing I know.” I heard her cup her hand over her mouth to try and muffle the sounds of her further giggling.

I smiled into the darkness.

“Hey don’t worry about stupid shit like that, we are allowed to laugh no matter what. Hell, I think it’s our duty as the British to laugh even in the direst of situations. Keep calm and carry on..ugh now I feel even more of a twat..”

She burst out laughing and gasped, covering her mouth again.

“Okay.” I whispered.

“That was a little bit too lou-oh I think we’re here.” I pointed into the darkness where Xno was laser disco highlighting the wooden wall and then made a tut noise when I realised she couldn’t see my hand.

“Mhm yep. Xno just needs to go up and release the rope ladder.”

We waited, and a minute later, the rope ladder came tumbling down.

“Ladies first.” I offered, looking back into the darkness anxiously.

“Thank you, kind Sir.” She replied politely, and I’m sure she did a curtsy in the darkness.

She scrambled up quickly and hissed down for me to come up.

As I put my foot down on the first rung, I heard a twig snap behind me.

“Fuck!” I hissed, spun round, ready to fight; I nearly soiled myself.

I still couldn’t see shit, but Xno had already begun his laser dance show, scanning the area.

Nothing was outlined, so I turned back and hurried onto the ladder and climbed up.

Once up, we rolled the ladder back up and climbed down one of the diagonally leaning poles that were reinforcing the wall.

We’re finally inside, should be safe now!

I face palmed, hoping that mental s-words did not count.

The sky was clearing up so the starlight was starting to illuminate surfaces, but I was glad when Xno put on his spotlights and started leading us towards where they were staying.

The place was ghostly silent and I couldn’t see any lights on at all.

Unnerving, but it wasn’t too surprising considering it was probably gone-midnight.

I hope they didn’t send anybody out for us.

“Hey Godu, I’m guna’ grab Syrin my brother and then maybe we can stay with you if that’s alright?”

“Uhh sure I don’t think Sy-...shit...I don’t think Erza will mind…” I cursed under my breath and exhaled.

I wasn’t looking forward to having that conversation.

“...okay um yeah..actually maybe it’s best if we just meet up tomorrow?” She sounded unsure.

“I think that’s probably best. I don’t know what's going to happen or what to say..but I’ll figure it out, don’t worry.”

I gave a reassuring nod.

No point in both of us worrying..I’ll just deal with it and tell it how it is. Honesty is the best policy, right?

She went inside the block of flats and I turned around before realising I had forgotten to ask for a candle lamp to help me navigate in the dark.

Balls.

I stood there awkwardly, shifting from one foot to another, waiting for my eyes to adjust, wondering if I would be a nuisance were I to go knock and ask for a candle or lamp.

I decided to quit being a wuss and just hurry back.

It has been an emotional rollercoaster these past 24 hours, but I was surprisingly feeling very stable and collected.

Which was potentially an after-effect of levelling up one of the attributes; or maybe it is because I have powers and abilities, have nearly died several times AND I have a new part of my mind that can seemingly talk to me in my dreams…

The ground was illuminated enough now for me to job, so I hurried back and reaching for the front door, I went to open it.

It was locked. Of course, I'm an idiot..

I patted myself down for my key.

“Where the pissing hell…did…I put that…thi-AHA!”

I found the key in a lower leg pocket and went to put it into the lock, but I froze when I heard a click-clacking noise from the other side of the door.

My blood ran cold.

NO DON’T TELL ME!

I took a few steps back, and was just about to torpedo through when I saw a glow shine through the doors small window and the handle turned.

A… brown glow?...what?

The door opened, and stood in the doorway, dimly illuminated by a little golem..

Was Steve.

“Oh thank the gods..there you are Godu.” he said with a strained smile, his eyes glinting with moisture.

Hearing his voice hit me like a truck, making me dizzy and causing me to stagger back a step.

“....Steve?” I just stood there in complete shock.

He sniffed and gave me a bear hug with some slightly painful pats on the back before releasing me and grabbing my shoulders.

“Y-you’re..alive? How on earth?”

“Not just me buddy, come on in.” I wandered inside and he shut the door and led me to the living room. Laying on the sofa was Sylvie, looking comfortably fast asleep.

I put my hands on my head and smiled, welling up with happiness.

“Oh man…haha ohhh if there was one person that could cheat death AND cheat it on another’s behalf it would be you Steve! I don’t know how you did it but, damn nice job!” I sniffed and wiped my eyes with my sleeve.

I turned to face him and patted his shoulder in a ‘well-fucking-done’ manner but stopped and glanced at the door.

“...I don’t suppose-” I started to say.

Steve shook his head and looked down.

“I’m so sorry mate…we couldn’t save him or everyone else...just Sylvie and Catara…”

“Shit damn...it ain’t your fault mate..”

There was a solemn silence before Steve rubbed his face and moved to the kitchen.

“Ughh, I need a drink, want one? Don’t answer, rhetorical question.”

He grabbed three beers from the fridge before sitting down and motioned for me to join him.

As I sat down, one of his golems waddled over and opened up the beers and Steve handed me one.

“This ones for Tanner.” He slid it over to an empty chair.

“Here’s to our fallen teammates. It is the least we can do.” He toasted with a sour look on his face.

I nodded with a solemn face and took a sip.

There was another period of silence before I couldn’t suppress a yawn and decided I should head to bed very soon.

I wondered if I should wake up Marri and let her know I was okay, or if it was better to let her sleep.

Probably best to let her know, else she’ll kill me herself… poor woman was probably worried sick about me.

But before that..

“So. Go on then, I’m looking forward to hearing how you gave death the finger several times.” I put on a half smile and nodded to Steve.

He chuckled and gave a shrug while peeling the label off his bottle.

“Ah well you know…it wasn’t anything too special..”

He raised his eyes.

“What do you know about golems?”

***