Gilbert coughed as he waved away the dust in front of him. He could faintly make out a person standing in a hole where the wall once was. As the dust settled, he was able to fully see the person—or rather—the creature. It was misshapen and looked like a preschooler’s drawing after a nightmare about chimney smoke. While it had extremely thick arms that seemed to be bulging muscle, its lower half was much thinner and seemed like twigs in comparison. What made Gilbert see it as more of a creature than a person was its head. Grotesque, stumpy, and ragged was the best way he could describe it, looking like a mix between a jackhammer and a tombstone. At the same time, large chunks of the creature were black and gray. The chunks would fizz in and out, making him think of what he had been seeing recently—

"Kyaaahh!!!! Monster!!!!!" 

Gilbert snapped out his thoughts at a girl's scream. The homely atmosphere in the restaurant a few moments prior was completely devastated as the creature began rampaging inside. Wooden splinters and glass fragments flew everywhere as countless chairs and tables became flattened in the monster's path. Gilbert's instincts yelled at him to duck and he did, a broken chair narrowly missing his head. He looked over and saw Cardinal in a daze. The thought of running away by himself briefly flashed in his mind, but he quickly shook it away. Once you picked up a stray, you might as well be responsible for it until the end. “Hey, you can’t be spacing out right now!” Gilbert dragged Cardinal out of her seat, “We need to get out of here!”

“▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

“Shit!” Unfortunately, at exactly that moment the creature had noticed them and charged forward. Gilbert quickly pulled Cardinal forward while throwing a chair behind him at the same time.

‘It probably wouldn’t slow down that thing at all, but it’s better than nothing!’

CRASH!!!

Hearing the sound of wood break behind him, Gilbert ran out of the restaurant with Cardinal. The cold air whipped past his cheek as he continued running. By this point, Cardinal had come to her senses and was running with all her strength as well. “Gil, where are we going—”

“▂▂▂▂▃▃▃▃▄▄▄▄▅▅▅▅!!!” The creature burst out of the restaurant in a similar fashion to its entrance, before howling at the top of its lungs. Gilbert quickly doubled his speed, yanking Cardinal behind him. 

"As far away from that thing as possible!"

Spotting a fallen over scooter, Gilbert rushed to stand it up and quickly motioned for Cardinal to get on. The keys were still in the ignition, most likely left there in the driver's panic. 'Lucky!' Gilbert silently exclaimed as he started the engine and wrenched the accelerator with his hand, zooming forward and barely avoiding a chunk of concrete landing where the two had been.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!!!"

Gilbert grinned as he heard the roar slowly fade behind him. The monster was extremely powerful, being able to rip out chunks of the wall and throw it at them, but who told it to have such scrabbly legs? Its top-heavy body mean that it had no chance of catching up to anything faster than it was. He almost wanted to let out a triumphant laugh when Cardinal tapped him on his shoulder.

"Gil...the ocean...out."

"Hm? The wind's making it hard to hear you, Cardinal. I don't think this is the time to be swimming in the ocea—"

"Gil! We're going straight to the ocean, watch out!"

Snapping his eyes forward again, Gilbert realized that the boardwalk was about to end and only the deep frigid ocean was ahead of them. Twisting the brakes as hard as he could, he swerved roughly, the scooter making a terrible noise as it collided with the guardrail. Gilbert lurched forward, almost being thrown out of his seat. Cardinal rubbed her nose as she got off, "Stupid Gil. I told you so many times that we were going straight into the ocean."

Gilbert gave her a sheepish grin as he looked around. "Sorry, the adrenaline just got to my head and—" He cut himself off as his eyes widened with realization. "We need to run, now!"