Standing on the roof, nine men were awestruck at the apocalypse they'd found themselves in. There were creatures battling for dominion in the sky, in the streets and from their vantage point they could even see fighting in other buildings across the street.

*BANG*

Suddenly there was a loud bang from behind them and they all turned around, tense and prepared to fight to the death only to see that the door to the roof had closed.

"Mother Fucker!"

One of the men ran towards the door and grabbed the handle trying to yank the door open, he was quickly followed by several others.

"Try pushing instead of pulling!"

"It's one way you fucking Idiot! I've tried that already!"

The first man who spoke glowered at the man still frantically yanking the door handle, before the man was pushed aside by a larger man.

"Outta the way pussy, I'll get the fucker open."

"Tsk."

Moving out of the way for the large man and walking away from the group with a click of the tongue and a frown, the man went away from the group and started kicking a metal bin.

*BANG*

"That Cunt Toby!"

*BANG*

"He was meant to-"

*BANG*

"-watch the fucking door!"

*BANG*

"Can't even-"

*BANG*

"-Something so simple! AGH!"

*BANG, BANG, BANG*

Kicking the bin three times and finally causing it to crumple in on itself the man put his back against the wall of the stairwell and slid down, resting his elbows on his knees and his hands on his head.

One of the other men was in training to be a psychologist and thought he could help, the young Asian man walked over to the older man who was wearing a green checkered wool shirt and jeans with safety boots on. He crouched next to the man and began to talk.

"Look, it's okay. We've had some strange shit happening and it's fine to let it out man, no one's gonna judge you for it."

Contrary to what the Asian psychologist-to-be expected the man didn't have a touchy-feely moment or breakdown crying, he broke contact between his head and palms, looking at the Asian man with pure rage, he grabbed the man by his collar and threw him backwards before standing up and stomping on his torso, with a few kicks mixed in. It didn't take more than three kicks for the other men to snap out of it and try to stop the enraged man from beating the other to death.

"OKAY? MY WIFE WAS COMING BACK FROM WORK AND I HEARD HER SCREAM THROUGH THE FUCKING PHONE!! HOW IS THAT OKAY YOU PIECE OF SHIT! I'M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!"

The man was tackled to the ground by a guy who used to play football in college but had to give it up because no one would take him on because of his anger issues and violent tendencies.

Pinning the distraught and outraged man to the ground as the man thrashed, the footballer began to say things to the man he thought might help- he'd been through anger counselling multiple times and had learned to let the anger go.

"LET ME GO, THE FUCKER NEEDS TO DIE!"

"Relax, he didn't kill your wife, she might not even be dead. Did you see a body? You heard a scream right, she might've just been shocked or dropped her phone."

"No, she's dead I heard her die! I HEARD HER DIE AND THIS PRICK SAYS IT'S OKAY!"

"THINK ABOUT IT, WHAT WOULD YOUR WIFE THINK SEEING YOU LIKE THIS? BEATING AN INNOCENT MAN TO DEATH ISN'T HOW YOU WANT TO REMEMBER GRIEVING!'

"I.. B.." 

The distraught man felt his ears begin to sting as they turned red and he stopped struggling.

"You're right, she probably would've left me if she saw me acting like this.."

"Then stop, don't act like this, don't let it consume you. No one here is to blame and we need to work together to survive this. He just said some thoughtless words, we've all done it before and he didn't know, so it's fine right? You're good."

The widowed man locked eyes with the footballer and sniffed, bringing up a hand and wiping his left eye with his left hand.

"Yeah.. Yeah I'm good. Let me up."

The footballer got off the man and turned to look at the Asian man who was unconscious and sitting slumped over against the foot high border around the roof. He was being tended to by two of the other guys but one of the guys was shooting sharp glances at the man who beat him in between watching the green glow coming from his palms, he was healing the man, this guy, Harry, had been given the 'gift' of [Healing Touch] or that's what he told everyone the night before when he was helping injured people.

Turning back to the widow he spoke.

"Look, you better apologise later or else I think him and his friend might start trouble. The world is different, there are aliens or monsters running around and the police or military are either doing as badly as we are or too busy fighting to uphold justice; all it would take is for them to push you off the roof when no one's looking and say you slipped. No one would be able to prove they pushed you."

The widow looked at the footballer with a strange look on his face.

"That's really fucked up, how did you even think of that?"

"Well people are pretty shitty, they do shitty things to survive. I saw it when I was-"

*SCREECH!*

Their conversation and those of everyone on the roof were interrupted by the sound of an eagle that almost sounded robotic or messed with to sound metallic.

Something flew by very low overhead, almost too fast to see before disappearing between the other buildings. It was roughly the size of a minivan with wings twice as large on both sides. 

The creature flew back but this time it was even lower and just as fast before anyone even knew it, it had flown over the group by the door and struck out with its talons, impaling the torso of one of the men who tried to scream but the only noise that came out was a wheezing gurgle, the creature flew away before anyone could even react.

Shaking out of it, the remaining eight men (bar the unconscious Asian man) all lay down next to the edges of the building by the one foot tall border walls, trying to avoid being the next one to be scooped up. The men remained that way for around thirty minutes. They were about to get up but heard an almighty crashing sound coming from below them in the building like some part of it had fallen apart and remained where they were, sweating and stressed eyes flipping between the door and the sky waiting to see which horror would come at them first.

After another five minutes passed before one of the men got up, the others reacted.

"Get down you Idiot! It'll get you!"

"You'll die!"

"Fucking lie down!"

The man looked at some of the men like they were retarded and shook his head before pushing his glasses up at the bridge of the nose.

"If that thing was going to come back it would've done it already. I'm going with my gut, that thing took him for a meal so it's probably busy eating somewhere or it has a full belly- the thing to watch out for is something else but if something else comes, lying down probably isn't going to do anything."

The man looked like an office worker. He had black hair and glasses with a light blue dress shirt and plain gray pants with black shoes. He even had a pen in his shirt pocket and a watch on his wrist. He didn't even look like he was a manager or boss and just came off as a background character. So no one listened to him and stayed lying down waiting for him to get pulled away by the flying monster.

He walked over to the edge of the building but before he got there he heard shrieking coming from below, at first they all thought it was the little green monsters they'd run away from on the lower floors but these screams sounded deeper and darker with somewhat of a menacing edge that gave chills. The man kept walking to the edge before crouching down and looking down at the front of the building, just in time to catch two Goblins barrel out of the door in frenzied panic.

He turned and beckoned the others with a whispering shout.

"Guy! Over here! The green things are running away!"

Some of the men made to move to the office worker, but most chose to stay prone and 'safe.'

One other man had made it to the office worker in time to see what was chasing the Goblins, it was the ex-footballer.

Looking down the pair saw a brutish looking creature similar to the Goblins but larger with black and brown skin and little red spikes over its body, roaring and growling as it chased the two small Goblins, it ran like an enraged Gorilla and caught up to one of the Goblins and smashed it into the wall of the apartment across the street, leaving behind a twitching, half-paste before turning back to the other Goblin and chasing that one.

Seeing the other Goblin crushed it tried a different tactic and ran into another building, the large creature followed roaring all the way.

By now several other men had made it to the edge and watched the rest of Ethans accidental fungal zombies pour from the doorway, falling over one another in their pursuit, they didn't have eyes on their prey but they could still hear the large Fungal Zombie roaring in another building and ran after it, some of the smaller ones got confused on where the sound was coming from and went into alleyways or other streets and buildings.

The men were sitting there with concern evident on their races as they watched a few minutes later as half a Goblin dragged itself in a different direction down the road barely leaving a trail of black blood behind as it did so.

"Those things came out of our building, right after that crash earlier. Do you think it's someone's gift?"

The office worker spoke followed by the footballer.

"I find it unlikely, in the event someone got a gift that lets them make things like that I think we'd be in some serious trouble. It's more likely that they came into contact with something in our building and changed or maybe they evolved after killing enough people."

"I'm with four-eyes here, if someone could do that we'd probably have to kiss their ass and hope they don't just kill us. That being said, don't you think it's a bit fucking odd that they all ran downwards and that the Goblins stopped chasing us up the building?"

A third man interjected, this man had been the person on the last barricade guarding shift.

"When we barricaded the stairs we probably stopped them from coming up.. Do you think something else stopped them? Something in our building? Do you think it was the lizard man from the second floor?"

At this moment Jerome spoke up.

"Nah, when the Goblins came up from the first floor they ran right after us and started killing anyone who couldn't run fast enough while laughing- I only got away because I went up the walls and they couldn't reach me. Everyone else from that floor is done for, even if he is like seven feet tall or something, he can't take on all those monsters alone."

"Hmm.."

Four-eyes spoke again and changed the topic.

"Whatever it was, it made the green mutants flee and mutated them further and it did so in our building. Maybe Toby shut the door because they made it up to this floor."

This statement almost caused a riot.

"MY FAMILY IS DOWN THERE STILL!"

"THAT'S RIGHT I LEFT MY WIFE AND CHILD WITH MR. RAJ, THERE'S NO WAY THEY'RE DEAD!"

Footballer was the voice of reason as Four-eyes put his hands up and tried to take back what he'd said.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP! All your shouting might bring those things up if they aren't already, fuck, it might even bring back that flying thing or worse!"

Some of the men paled and shut up, others were gritting their teeth but they all had their fists clenched in helplessness.

Four-eyes spoke.

"So, no one has a gift to get through the door?"

The stunned men looked at one another and shared a common thought.

"We're retarded."

Slowly one man raised his hand and spoke quietly, afraid he'd get the blame for one of them dying for not having thought of it sooner.

"Uh.. my gift is, well, I can consume metal."

"Huh?"

"What the hell?"

"Guys, sh, let him speak."

"Well, I didn't want to say anything because I thought people would freak out but since it can help us here I think I should tell you about my racial ability.."

Four-eyes spoke up again with a relieved sigh.

"You got your race changed too then I take it?"

Footballer was surprised as he looked between the two, ending on Four-eyes.

"What do you mean "got your race changed"? Like Hispanic to Asian?"

"No, the status that gave us our gifts has a race section and in mine it says my race has changed to something else, I would really rather not tell you what it is but I still look and feel Human so I guess it's not a big deal. I too didn't say anything out of self-preservation."

Looking between the two men, some of the other men backed away a bit.

"Come on, we've been changed for days already and you think we're a threat now we've told you? You would've already been dead if we were."

The timid guy was looking around and noticed he was on his own, he sidled up to Four-eyes and Footballer.

"Yeah, I don't want to hurt anyone either guys, come on, calm down and think about it yeah."

Footballer rubbed the temples of his head with his right hand as their crouching huddle had gotten a bit far apart from each other.

"Guys, come on, no one's gonna do anything to anyone alright? Look- if anyone has any other secrets from their status or gifts or whatever, get it out now so we're all on the same page. No one's gonna do anything and I'll make sure of it."

Four-eyes smirked and responded arrogantly.

"Please, I could literally kill everyone here before any of them knew about it, I don't need your protection though I would also like to know what gifts everyone has."

Footballer looked at Timid and spoke.

"Hey, what is your race and how can you eat metal?"

Timid flinched and stammered out a response.

'Uh, w-well, I'm apparently something called a "Metal Golem" now and I-"

He was interrupted by a man with a yamaka.

"GOLEM! Golems aren't people! In the Jewish faith Golems are against God's creation!"

Timid took offense and grew backbone against the diminutive Jewish man.

"Well my status help told me Golems are very real and that we are immortal and I only need to eat metal to survive. So suck it up because I won this lottery."

The Jewish man looked at him and grumbled but decided now wasn't the time to do anything, his survival was more important. Several other men also looked at him in envy and pursed lips.

Footballer looked at Timid.

"Look, how do you eat metal and does it take long?"

"I don't know, I used it on like some trash people didn't want like Coca Coma cans and stuff, it sorta goes into my hand and disappears, I don't even taste it."

"Weird, go try it on the door then."

The trio and Jerome moved to the door and Timid placed his hand on it.

The door began to warp and pull into Timid's hand like it was made out of rubber or something and not metal, slowly but surely the door was being absorbed but Timid stopped for a second.

*BURP*

"'scuse me, t-the door'll be done in a minute."

He got back to absorbing the now deformed door and slowly but surely it was disappearing.

"Right, everyone hang tight, we've got a way out."

Saying so with a smirk, Footballer looked around and noticed Jerome was facepalming.

"What's the matter, guy?"

"I can walk on walls, I could've just gone down and smashed a window to open the door from the other side."

Saying this the whole group mentally facepalmed whilst half of the group physically did it with a groan.

Four-eyes was grinning as he looked at everyone.

"We should take an inventory of our gifts so we can actually use them when we need them, haha."

Footballer's right hand went back to massaging his temples as the group waited for Timid to finish eating the door.

"When we get downstairs we're making that inventory and EVERYONE is going to be honest about their gifts, got it?"

Everyone realised how dumb it was to hide their gifts now, they had to survive and surviving as a group gave them better chances of succeeding, they released a grunting chorus of acknowledgement and agreement. One of the men in the group however wore a scowl.

'If they find out I'm done for, it's me or them I guess.'

DeathSolstice

Late because of my ancient laptop, damn it. Now it's gonna say on the contents I uploaded it on the 5th and not the 4th. RIP daily posting streak. On another note, maybe someone could tell me what direction the want this to go in? I asked last chapter but no one commented so I'm still confused on what to do. I feel like if I time skip, y'all are gonna be mighty mad! It seems like no matter what route I choose no one's gonna like it.