Shit, this one looks way more dangerous I don’t think we can take it on.

The hallway vibrates as the beast charges after the three, it waves its arms as it runs, piercing into the walls with its horned arm.

“How are we gonna shake this thing?” asks Cyrus josh as he tries to keep up his pace.

“I’ll let you know when I figure it out”

“We can’t bring it back to the room with us, we can’t risk the other’s lives”

Cries Gregg

He’s right, we can’t just lead it back, that’s a dumb idea but we can’t fight it either, especially with how messed up my arm is.

“We need to lose it somehow” Cyrus explains while trying his best to keep the bag full of supplies over his shoulder.

They all run in a direction different from where they came from, noticing some doors that have been left open and certain possessions such as phones and children toys left on the ground.

They manage to increase their distance from the beast and eventually reach the door that leads to the common room in the middle of the floor.

There’s two entrances for this, maybe we can lose it here.

Cyrus gestures towards the door as they get closer to it “This way”

They all quickly burst through the door, closing it shut behind them before the beast is close enough and manoeuvre as agile as possible through the furniture and games tables to the other side of the room for the exit.

As they reach the exit, they hear the door behind them smash open as if the beast walked through a wall of sand.

Dust fills the air obscuring the beast’s vision and providing them enough time to get out.

“Quick, we need to find a room to hide out in for a while.”

Yells Cyrus.

They rush down the hall till they find an open suite, quickly entering it and shutting the door behind them just as they head the second door to the common room shatter to the beasts force. They stand in the room in absolute silence as they listen to the beast’s heavy breathing like an ox, searching for them. The beast lets out a cry before charging down the hall in an unknown direction.

The three still remain silent and still being cautious to not attract any attention to themselves, they let down their bags and find places to sit to rest.

“Heh, that was kinda exciting?” Cyrus said with a smile on his face

Josh and Gregg both look at Cyrus in disbelief then look to each other with confused eyes, before returning their gazes back at him.

“You’re joking, right?” asked Josh “We could have been killed!”

Cyrus still smiles as he leans back pulling out a lighter from his pocket to play with. “Yeah, but that was kind of stimulating. Haven’t really felt anything for a while”

Gregg chooses to not participate in the conversation and changes the topic. “So what’s the plan, we just going to stay here?”

“We need to wait a while before it safe to leave the room and go back to the others” explained Cyrus

But that begs the question of what to do when we inevitably encounter it again

“That thing didn’t look like the first one at all… It looked so much more dangerous” Gregg says hopelessly.

“Yeah man, did you see its fucking arm? I don’t think we can handle that the same way we did with the first one, this one’s a bloody behemoth” Explained Josh

Cyrus looks to the two as their eyes are filled with fear, contemplating on what to do next. He rolls his thumb off the flint of the lighter leaning back into his seat.

There’s something more going on but I can’t quite put my finger on it. The way the first monster seemed like it seized up, the way my lighter ignited, why did Emily even collapse?

Josh noticing Cyrus in deep thought nudges him to get his attention “Bro what you thinking?”

Cyrus breaking out of his contemplative zone noticing the two staring back at him curiously.

“Nothing, I’m just weighing out our options” Cyrus looks towards the mini-fridge in the room, unopened “one of you clear that fridge out while we’re here, then we head out I think it’s been long enough, that thing should be a few floors away by now”

Gregg gets up and packs his bag while the rest get what things they think they might need around the suite before all getting ready to go back into the hallway.

Hopefully we can get back in one piece

BRRING –

Josh’s phone plays a high pitched message tone.

“What was that Josh, I’m guessing you’re finally receiving messages now?”

Josh looks at his phone and sees a notification. He presses it opening an unknown app with a message prompt.

Josh gets curious about the application and selects yes instinctively.

“What are you doing, we don’t have time to be messing around with games, can you contact anyone?”

Gregg says in a slightly irritated tone.

Josh checks the signal, still nothing, “no there’s still no signal, but this app just popped up its really weird”

Josh feels something leave his body and enter the phone from his fingertips. He almost drops his phone in surprise

“What the fuck was that?”

Josh looks confusedly at his phone at the text.

“We don’t have time to fuck around, that monster could be going for my kids”

Gregg remarks angrily.

“Ye, lets leave whatever is on your phone for later, we have to move”

Agrees Cyrus.

Josh puts his phone away into his pocket.

“Sorry I just saw something weird”

Josh mumbles apologetically.

“We can deal with it once we’re back with the others”

Cyrus responds.

They all group up by the door as Cyrus slowly opens it leading them out, checking both ends of the hallway and listening out for any unusual sounds.

“It seems clear, let’s move”

Cyrus explains while leading them out

“Make sure to stay close.”

Man, this hallway is giving me a really eerie vibe.

“Look at the state of this hallway, it’s like a bulldozer drove straight through it.” Josh remarks.

The lights still flicker as the group walks down the hallway.

The generator is probably running out of juice, we’ll need a plan for that eventually. For now we need to get back to the others in one piece.

Cyrus leads the group with Josh right behind him and Gregg following closely behind.

They move at an even pace, powerwalking with careful steps, while listening to the occasional rumble and sound of growls coming from the lower floors.

“We need to get out of this hotel soon man” Josh says with a subtly trembling voice.

“Yeah… I don’t think it’s going to be easy, we’re pretty much on our own we haven’t found a single human soul on this whole floor.”

Responds Cyrus

Maybe there’s some people here on the other floors in the hotel, this floor is pretty exclusive to the extra wealthy anyway.

The hallway starts to become more familiar as they get closer to their original rooms, returning to the splatters of blood and the smell of burnt carpet and wallpaper.

The group finally reach the room where the others are, upon entering Gregg is greeted with his children running up to him and hugging him, as his wife stands by with concern.

Emily is still sitting on the bed, looking better than earlier.

“Are you guys okay? We heard a lot of noise and were worried…”

Emily says with concern in her eyes.

“Yeah we’re fine, but we have company” Responds Cyrus in a wary tone.

“Company? You found more people?” Sandra asks in surprise.

“Not exactly…”

Gregg responds while putting his daughter down from his embrace.

“We saw another one of those things but this one was terrifying… We just about managed to get away from it”

Cyrus drops his bag of supplies next to the bed as he lays himself down on the bed

“Yup, this ones like twice the size and seems like its also twice as strong”

He says while hitting his head against the soft silk pillows

“We need to get out of here, problem is we’re so high up and who knows how many more of those things there are.”

Josh sits himself down, pulling out a bottle of beer from the bag and forcing the tip of the bottle against the corner of the table, causing the bottle cap to fly off.

“There’s something I got on my phone I wanted to show you guys”

Josh says, as he takes a sip from the bottle.

“What is it? I hope it’s not a GIF, I hate when people use those in conversations…”

Emily asks, Josh takes out his phone and shows the group the mysterious app that appeared when they turned on the Wi-Fi.

“Did you lot get this notification as well?”

Josh asks with a curious expression on his face.

The group all check their phones, and on every single one there is a notification

“Okay, this is weird”

Cyrus exclaims.

The room goes silent for a moment, as everyone attentively looks to their phones at this mysterious message.

“I don’t remember downloading an app like this”

Gregg mutters.

Cyrus reads the text on his phone screen.

Register? What is this, the UI is terrible. Ahh I hope I don’t get hacked in the apocalypse.

He hesitantly presses his finger accepting the Yes button.

The app switches to a blue pixelated screen.

After a few moments, a bar appears that slowly starts to fill up.

What is it analysing exactly? I didn’t give it permissions to any of my data

The bar eventually fills up transitioning the screen to a blue UI. He also feels a sensation that something left his body, and entered his phone.

Cyrus looks closely as his phone.

How does this app know my name without me inputting anything? It shouldn’t be able to see my personal details without my permission.

Cyrus looks up and around to the rest of the group in the room. Everyone else is staring at the blue UI on their screens in confusion.

“Energy gain? Does anyone know what this all means?”

Emily questions.

Cyrus gets up from the bed and approaches Emily, reading what the UI on her phone says.

Ability is unknown. what could it mean?

“This must be from one of those anarchist hacker groups I keep hearing about on the news”

Sandra explains.

Gregg looks to his wife and nods in agreement.

Emily looks to the couple with a contemplative look.

“It’s suspicious how my full name is there, only my close friends know me by Emilia. But I don’t think it’s a hacker group, doesn’t make sense for them to broadcast that they have access to our phones”

Emily says with a slightly concerned tone.

“This whole situation is just getting weirder and weirder. But I can’t help but feel like this app is connected to everything that’s going on and those things that we’ve seen”

Cyrus responds.

Maybe whoever is behind this app knows more about what’s happening.