"Trying to be a hero will only get you killed. That's exactly why you should go out with a bang!"

- Hunter Daniel 'White Holf' Williams, moments before jumping into the gates of a Major Outbreak, never to be seen again. (2036)

The air outside was cold. With the main districts being swarmed by the first waves of the scorn, the electrical and thermal systems that held up the barely manageable temperatures of lower Athenea had failed. And the reserve batteries were probably being served as a dinner on a silver plate for the monsters to devour and deposit back into their gates like good little fetch dogs.

Making my way up the stairs was nerve-wracking. Holding the gun in my trembling hands felt terribly wrong, like something just wasn't working in my body. Maybe the concussion was still fucking me up, but I didn't have time for that, so I just kept going, hoping that everything would go well and there would be no need for me to even pull the trigger once. With that objective in mind, I took deep breaths to calm myself and started to walk a little slower, taking care to make as little noise as possible as I reached the exit into the surface.

It was pitch-black. If I was one of those people that believed in the purity of the body I wouldn't have been able to see shit, but my Oculus activated low-light aid, helping me see a little better. Of course it wasn't straight up night vision or a flash-light, but it wouldn't give away my position. Plus, I knew these streets like the back of my hand. Being a pickpocket meant that I needed to know my terrain, and I just happened to be the best runner amongst all my friends. All of whom needed prosthetics to move and were quite clumsy at that.

The thought did bring me some calm, but my nerves didn't die down just yet. Hiding every five steps, I stood still for a few moments, hearing, watching, waiting for anything to happen or to pass me by. I couldn't see the scorn, which meant they were either busy or already expanding their control area. Either way, it was a good thing as far as I knew, since I wouldn't be bothered to deal with them just yet.

Slowly but surely I made my way towards the apartment complex, out of reflex I was going to head to the front door and ring the bell, but I stopped myself in time before I did so. Although...I did hear the sounds of the scorn prowling about in the audio Roach had sent me, so calling their attention down here before climbing up the stairs felt like a good plan. It would keep a good few of them busy while I carried Roach to the undercity again.

But then what? We wait until those monsters figure out where we're hiding and eat all of us? It had been nearly an hour since the start of the outbreak and not a single Hunter was in sight. I could tell since there were no flashy explosions or lasers firing out everywhere, instead there was just silence and darkness. There was uncertainty. A scorn may have followed me without me noticing it, the mosnter may just be waiting behind me, smiling with its crooked and malformed jaw, ready to devour half my body in a single bite.

A shiver was sent down my spine as I approached the front door. I lifted my left hand and prepared to run, pressing as many of the buttons as I could, evading Roach's of course, and sprinting at full speed to the side of the building, jumping up to grab onto the fire ladder and start climbing immediately. I could hear the bells ringing through the walls and broken windows, as if the apartment had suddenly become permeable to sound.

The silence around me was such that I could almost hear my own heart beating faster and faster with each floor I reached on my way up. The scorn seemed to prowl with caution on the upper floors, as I could notice due to the low volume of their footsteps and their slow pace. But at ground level the creaking of metal and guttural sounds of flesh could be heard. A small group had gathered due to the sound, but they seemed to be dispersing.

I couldn't catch much of a glance at them before I reached my destination. Instead of knocking on the window, I glared through it to try and identify any threats inside the room. The main bedroom seemed fine, and with the angle I had to look into the bathroom, the rest seemed safe as well. Gently, I lifted the window up and stepped through the gap. Heading to the metallic plate on the ground of the bathroom, I knocked on it three times.

"Roach, it's me, Raven." I said, trying to comfort him. "I came to get you back." There was no response.

I moved my right hand forward to open the latch before a masculine voice whispered from behind me, sending shivers down my spine before I noticed it was Roach's. He sounded...about as terrified as I would've expected.

"Shhh....To the window..." He muttered, the metallic sounds coming from beneath the latch made me realize the true monster that resided within.

With no words to say, I did as I was told. Moving to the window in silence, I passed through the gap again and helped Roach to do so as well. He was clumsier than usual, his prosthetics seemed damaged. Bite marks covered his metallic hand and somewhat plastic-y leg. The thing that was inside his safe was no doubt the one that had put those in him. How did he manage to trap it inside? I didn't know and I didn't have time to ask.

"Alright, follow me. We escaped to the tunnels below, Bill is there too. Help should come soon..." I tried to explain myself but words weren't my strong suit right now, so it was more like I was trying to make sense to myself instead of constructing a plan for both of us. Still, a place to hide was better than waiting for the scorn to get you inside your own room.

"Hunters should already be dealing with them...Why...Why haven't they come yet?" He asked, terror flashing through his eyes.

"No idea, just stay quiet and follow me, okay?" He knew more than I did about those kind of people, but an outbreak this deep into one of the mega-cities, while the reactors should still be active and the security systems should be keeping these gates outside the populated areas? It smelled fishy.

True to my word, we remained in silence as we used the ladder to lower ourselves towards the ground level. The pack of scorn was already scattered, but the second wave should be appearing at any moment from the enormous set of void gates that remained open. The only source of dim light in the entire area probably.

Since I doubted Roach could make the jump on his own, I hopped down first and caught him when he did so. If only for a moment, I felt my knees giving up so I put him down on his own feet as fast as I could. My body was still not working well, and I was feeling dizzy again. But there was no time, the ground started to rumble again.

"Fuck me..." I said, taking Roach's hand and starting to head as quickly as I could manage towards the nearest entrance to the undercity. While being sneaky that is.

Roach didn't make a single comment, but I could feel his tightened grip around my hand as a signal that he was getting scared again. He may have been a scavenger, but he sure as shit wasn't a brave kid. We were three blocks away from the entrance when the ground rumbled again, the gates seemed to grow even larger, now encompassing the entire intersection, and starting to devour the nearby buildings into that void portal that seemed to warp reality itself.

The second wave was at the very edge, about to spawn already.

"Run." I said as soon as I turned back to notice the first scorn already taking a step outside.

"What?" Roach replied with fear in his eyes, he was still in shock, so I had little more options other than grab him as tightly as I could and will the two of us forward in a desperate race against time.

"RUN!!"

The ground quaked. I could feel the street almost being pulled from under my feet as the gates grew larger and they finally opened again. A medium outbreak, by the looks of it. Desperate, with scorn already on our track, I pushed Roach to his limits. We were both rats from the streets, he knew that when someone says to run, he books it. And so he did. My concussed head flinched again.

Something inside my brain was being tugged at with too much strength and my focus faltered. For a second, I let go of Roach's hand just as we were about to enter the entrance to the undercity. From the corner of my eye, and with the horror crawling up every single hair in my body, I saw a scorn launching itself towards us. Jaws wide open.

For a moment, the colour from my eyes vanished, and it seemed as if time had stopped for a few moments.

'So this is what they mean by life flashing before your eyes...huh?' Was my last thought before I noticed the colour starting to return again.

If this was how it was going to go, I may as well get Roach to safety right? Pushing my right hand forward with all my strength, I pushed the clumsy boy into the staircase. Due to the many levels and the structure of the stairs, he should survive a fall of a few steps even with the little push, but the rest would be up to him.

As I saw the scorn flying through the air directly at the direction in which Roach was standing at just a moment ago, I noticed my arm was in the way. Unluckily for me, it was already too late to dodge the bite.

Pain. Searing pain.

I don't even remember what sort of obscenities I cried aloud when those metallic and fleshy jaws snapped around my arm. But I did know that I had a loaded handgun in my empty hand, and the safety was turned off. So, by pure reflex, I lifted my hand aimed directly at the scorn's deformed head.

Multiple shots were fired at point-blank, and after three or so pulls from the trigger, the scorn laid on the ground. Dead.

My vision faded into black and white again, with tones of red clearly taking notice of my now bleeding mush of an arm. Thankfully, thanks to the swift death of the monster, I was able to pry its jaws open and afford enough lucidity to turn around and keep running.

Roach had already disappeared into the darkest of the stairs beneath, so I followed. I had no idea if the scorn would follow us, but it was for certain that people down into the undercity should be able to take care of a few right? Hunters would surely arrive in time, and we would be rescued.

I tried to cling to life with such delirious hopes running through my head, my limp, broken and bloodied arm hanging at my side as I sprinted down the set of stairs, following the cries of who I assumed to be Roach, until I reached the undercity again. The pain was starting to fade, which wasn't a good thing, it meant that arm was almost done for.

There wasn't much time, and by the metallic sounds from above and below, I could tell they had already started their brutal attack on the remaining survivors of the initial outbreak. By the time I made it down there Roach had already disappeared into the crowd, no doubt trying to find a hiding place, that was always his first response to danger: Hide.

In my case, it was to run. But with my vision going blurry and my balance practically giving up on life itself, I had little to do. A handgun on my non-dominant hand, a broken and bleeding limb, a concussion and colour-blindness. Finding Roach or Bill would be impossible, and as I saw the hordes of scorn pouring in from every possible entrance, I could do little other than laugh.

Laugh at the miserable hand that fate had dealt me. Laugh at the injustice of this world I had been born into.

Laugh at my lack of power to do anything about the massacre that would happen right in front of me.

I could do nothing but wander into the crowd, returning to the spot that Bill should've been at. Only to find an empty blanket and a trail of blood. The screams of the ones dying all around me didn't even matter anymore. I could feel my heartbeat slowly stopping, so I sat down, gently placed the blanket over myself.

I held tightly onto the handgun and lifted my hand towards the horde of horrible monsters. And before my vision completely snuffed out and my consciousness failed me, I pulled the trigger as many times as I could manage.

And with the last pull, my eyes closed to the familiar sound of a BANG!