Nora entered the cubicle and curled up into a ball underneath the desk, holding her head with both hands. With needles stabbing her brain, she could pass out at any moment. Her vision turned blurry, and she had chills all over her body.

After the explosion that almost made her plummet down into the void minutes before, she was overcome by intense dread. A primitive, feral, and most importantly, foreign fear. Lilian’s emotions invaded her consciousness and made her feel things she shouldn’t be feeling.

Now, that fear had turned into unbearable pain. She was still gripped by terror, but this time it was her own. Something terrible must have happened to Lilian.

She wanted to go up after her. She had to do it. It was a shame she couldn’t.

The commotion finally subsided, and with it, the screams. All that was left behind was deep, raspy panting. A voice reeking of hostility. Nora covered her nose and mouth as soon as she perceived the disgusting smell of freshly spilled blood.

Who was it? Where did they come from? All she remembered was walking up the stairs along with some more people, following a soldier. Then, someone opened fire on them. Her clouded senses could only distinguish a sudden fuss, and her legs ran on their own.

“I saw you coming in here… Stay where you are, it’s better that way…” said the stranger’s voice, followed by a chuckle.

That man’s voice sounded familiar, although she didn’t need to identify him to understand she mustn’t let him spot her under any circumstances. His steps, heavy and calculated, reverberated around the office, stopping every so often at regular intervals. Nora felt her own heartbeat inside her head. Barely breathing, she waited.

“Aaaaah…!!! No, please!! Noooo—!!!” a man’s screams filled the room.

A dull sound cut the screams short, and the smell of blood intensified. Whatever it was that happened, it was close by.

“There was another one, huh? Doesn’t matter, I know you’re around here…” said the stranger. His steps approached Nora’s position, somewhere behind her back, and passed her towards the other side of the office. “I know who you are, bitch. I always remember faces. You’re the one sticking with that brat. Just as I imagined, you guys are here. Fuck, you have no idea how much you made my day.”

‘I can’t stay here… I can’t, I can’t, I can’t… I’ve got to run…!’

The building shook again. The explosion at the street must’ve significantly weakened the structure. Furthermore, a strange ruckus boomed nonstop from below. She could make use of that background noise to mask herself.

With a knot in her stomach, and fighting to not faint from the pain, Nora left the cover of the desk and peeked outside the cubicle. Both sides of the corridor were clear. She gulped, and began dragging herself on all fours in the direction opposite to the steps, which continued drifting further away from her position.

Not stopping to think or hesitate, she crawled, leaving behind a cold trail of sweat drops. The cubicles should keep her hidden as long as she didn’t stand up.

She reached the office wall and got out of the corridor separating the cubicles, seconds before those ominous steps began coming back in her direction. Was she still safe? Had he seen her? She had no way to know. Looking forward, she spotted the office exit door, wide open, some meters ahead. She kept crawling.

‘Come on, come on, come on…’

She was close. Two meters. One meter. Within arm’s reach. Nora’s fingers closed around the doorframe and, for an instant, she took a breath before continuing.

The steps stalking her accelerated, increasing rapidly in volume and proximity.

Acting on instinct, Nora stood up and leaped through the exit door, slamming it on her way out. A moment later, an arm holding a bladed weapon pierced the door’s glass window, shattering it, and missing her face by an inch.

She screamed and bolted down the corridor.

On both sides, numerous shelves full of books and folders adorned the walls. As she knocked one of them down, blocking the hallway, she saw the office door swinging open, revealing an unhinged-looking bearded man.

“That’s it, damn it! Fight! Struggle!” he said, walking towards her.

“Stay away from me…!! A-Aaah…!! Help!!!”

Her entire body hurt, and the stabs harassing her brain made her lose balance after every step. She stumbled towards the stairs. She needed to get to safety, she needed to find someone. Was she going in the right direction? Her vision was blurry, unclear.

The steps behind her drew closer and closer.

She saw what she thought was the doorway to the stairwell, when an acute burn manifested in her left arm, followed by sharp pain, and the feeling of something cold and hard diving into her flesh. Something metallic. Her body twisted by reflex, a chance the burly man used to ram her, easily knocking her over.

Nora yelled in pain. It was the only thing she could do, no actual words came out, nothing she could use to beg for her life. As if such a thing would do her any good.

The man crouched beside her and extracted the knife, intensifying her agony.

“Not bad, not gonna lie. Let’s see, for you, I’ll—”

Another set of steps rushed them. Nora squinted, in time to spot a dark shadow looming over. Something crashed directly against her aggressor’s face, throwing him a good distance away.

‘W-Who…!?’

Battling her pain, Nora sat up. The newcomer had fallen on top of her attacker and, while attempting to get a hold of the knife with one hand, delivered punch after punch to his face with the other hand.

“Nora!! Leave!! Lilian is upstairs, Claire is with her!!” said a very familiar voice.

“W-William…!?”

The man on the floor grunted and clawed at William’s face, as if intending to gouge his eyes out. William caught the hand and continued struggling.

“Aaah…! W-Wait, I can—”

“I said get the fuck out!!”

Despite loathing the idea of leaving William alone, she ran. Lilian needed her.

‘I’m sorry…! Please, be careful!!’

The environment passed in front of her eyes like a blurry fog, but she managed to reach the stairwell. With trembling steps, she began her ascent.

How far had Lilian gone? Was she at the rooftop? What happened to her? Ever more negative thoughts crossed her mind as she anxiously observed the plaques with the floor numbers. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty—

A figure emerged from the shadows of floor thirty and stood in her way.

“Aaah, Nora…”

She felt that voice gripping her heart and squeezing it with rabid violence, draining it dry of blood.

‘N-No… No, please…’

“Fuck, m-my head hurts… Come, w-we’ve got things to do…”

The man grabbed her hand. Nora failed to react until those cold fingers closed tightly around her wrist. They were hurting her, as they had done many times before. Panic gripped her.

“N-No…!! Let me go!! Let me go!!! Stay away from me!!!”

The man grabbed her neck with the other hand and stepped closer to her, staring at her face. What a stinking breath. His pupils had dilated, and they didn’t seem capable of focusing on anything in particular, they spun around, driven by involuntary twitching.

However, Nora didn’t find him any more disgusting than usual. Logan’s appearance was now as monstrous as his own soul.

The hand tightened around her throat, causing her to wheeze.

“Nora, bitch… W-What did I say about complaining…? Huuh…? C-Come on… This way…”

Nora’s breathing began failing and becoming unstable once again, as the clearly deranged Logan took her out of the stairwell and dragged her towards the floor’s insides.

******

The walls pulsated and whispered things in his ears, things he didn’t want to hear, things he didn’t want to think about. The steps vibrated under his feet, threatening to shrink or sink into the stairs to make him lose balance. One of them succeeded, and Julien stumbled, rolling downstairs until coming to a full stop at the landing, in front of an open door.

Several people came out to meet him, murmuring things in an unfamiliar language. Their faces contorted in apparent disgust, and they kept shaking their heads. Some of them screamed.

Why were they screaming? What gave them the right to scream? They had no idea.

Thinking hurt.

Nobody could be suffering as much as he did. It wasn’t possible. They had no idea.

‘Curse you… Silence… Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up…’

They grabbed him from the floor and took him somewhere. Everything spun around, too fast to see it clearly. A sharp cramp went down his back when one of those people pulled out something he had been stabbed with.

How dare they? It didn’t matter he was stabbed with it, it belonged to him. Was it envy? He was fed up, fed up with everyone envying him. Everyone wanted to take away what was his. Everyone wanted to take advantage of him. Everyone wanted to benefit from that which was rightfully his.

‘Fucking opportunists…’

They helped him stand up. Was he standing up? He was unsure. For a moment, the wall seemed to be the floor, and the floor was the ceiling, and the ceiling was the wall. He gulped. His saliva had a revolting taste. He looked at the people surrounding him, attempting to make sense of their faces.

‘Hold on… Those two… I know them…’

They were the only faces he recognized in the entire room. Small, scared, and treacherous. The one with the glasses stared back at him, with bloodshot eyes. Why would she get in the way? Why wouldn’t she leave him alone? Everything was her fault.

The little one was all he needed. Was that too much to ask? Why was she over there? Why wasn’t she by his side? He needed her. Everything hurt. He needed her urgently. It wouldn’t stop hurting until she belonged to him. He needed the girl. He needed her blood. He needed her entrails. He needed her skin. He needed her. He needed her. He needed her. He needed her—

******

Horrified, Claire took several steps back as soon as Julien began screaming. He howled like a savage animal, all while keeping aggressive visual contact with her, taking long strides in her direction.

“H-Hey…!! Hey!!! Take it easy!!!” said one of the survivors, standing in his way and grabbing his arm.

Julien snapped in his direction, and his whole face became beet red, as if all of his blood decided to rush up to his brain. Not saying a word, he lifted both hands, still connected by handcuffs, and smashed the man’s head.

Surrounded by panicked screams, Julien yelled maniacally while mauling his victim with the handcuffs, soon tinted in blood red. The man had fainted. Another two individuals approached Julien from behind and tried to hold his arms, but he continued assaulting the fallen one as if they weren’t there.

“What are you doing!? Enough!!”

“Stop!!”

Julien lunged at the man underneath him head-first, his teeth chomping on a big chunk of his face. The screams grew louder, and those trying to hold him let him go, stunned and confused.

“I-It’s a shambler…!!”

“Help!! Where are the soldiers!!?”

Claire was petrified. Julien stood back up, staring at her again. He was tinted red from top to bottom. His hands looked bad, several fingers had bent in angles they shouldn’t have, one of them even had an extra joint. His mouth dripped blood nonstop, and Claire saw an unidentifiable piece of meat falling from between his teeth.

However, nothing was as unsettling as his eyes. Not the eyes of a shambler, but those of a madman. Both human and inhuman. His pupils were unnaturally dilated, bottomless pits of blackness occupying almost the entire eyeball.

‘S-Stay away from us… Damn lunatic, stay away from us…! Leave us alone!’

Claire would’ve wanted to yell those words to his face, but she couldn’t speak. Her body had stopped trembling, as if all her strength was focused and on standby, aware of the danger.

They began sprinting almost simultaneously. Claire pulled at Lilian with everything she had, and she followed her without resisting, while Julien tumbled from side to side along the hallway, showing his teeth and growling.

“M-Miss… Claire… Stop… running…! S-She’s mine…! The g-girl… is mine…!!”

Claire turned corner after corner, never letting go of Lilian’s hand. She’d rather not look back. She knew he was right behind them; she could hear him breathing and chattering.

‘Come on…! I have to lose him…!’

She turned another corner and ran directly into a wall, with a single door on one side of the hallway.

‘Shit! There’s no exit!?’

With no other options, she headed inside, shoving Lilian along. She locked the door an instant before Julien crashed against it, making it shake on the hinges.

A quick glance at the room, illuminated only through a tiny window, revealed it to be a storage for office supplies. Her ignorance about the upper floors had taken its toll. They were trapped.

“S-She belongs to me…!! Miss C-Claire…!!!” shouted Julien while pummeling the door.

“Go to hell!!”

“Y-You… U-Ungrateful meddler… I-If it weren’t for you…!”

The blows became more and more savage with every word slipping from his lips. They were powerful and blunt, as if he were headbutting the door.

“I k-know what you’ve done…!!”

Those words made her blood run cold. She knew what he was talking about. He couldn’t be talking about anything else.

“Shut up!! Leave me alone!!” Claire pushed her back against the door and secured her feet on the floor, with hopes of preventing Julien’s ramming from tearing it off the hinges.

“You r-ruined everything…! Gone to w-waste…! B-Because of you…! You wretch…!!”

A massive blow shook the door. The wood began giving way, and numerous splinters stood out from its surface. Another blow. A hand peeked between the splinters for some seconds, desperately looking for a way inside. Claire ducked in time to avoid a third charge. Julien’s shackled arms burst a hole into the room, pulling a scream from Claire’s lips, and waving in multiple directions before pulling back out.

“A-Almost done… Done, done, done… Y-You’ll see… It’ll all be o-okay, I’ll g-grab the g-girl, and it’ll a-all be okay… O-Okay… Okay…” Julien’s guttural grumbles seeped in through the hole.

‘Oh, god…! What do I do!? I need something to fight back! W-What could I—!?’

An even stronger blow rattled the door, and Claire was thrown forward. She yelled and covered her face with her arms, collapsing against a bookcase.

The door was open.

The lock had been twisted and torn by force from the doorframe. On the floor, bloody and beaten up, Julien made great efforts to regain his balance and stand back up. He wouldn’t stop staring at her.

“I g-got you, m-miss… I g-got you…! Don’t you dare l-look at me with those eyes…! D-Don’t look at me like that!!” he said, lunging in her direction. “Don’t you dare…!!!”