7 days after the blue-black room and I had by some miracle managed to find myself in a somewhat comfortable routine. How I did that is a complete mystery, but it honestly hasn’t been terrible, or at least not a constant cycle of hell. 

I had been sent out every day, but we had started to run out of places that were easy to reach since everything had already either been ransacked by us or something else. Because of this issue, Eric, Dave, Alexander and I have gone out to clear a path to another point of interest. The thing we needed to clear out was a bug, surprise, surprise, but this time it was a centipede, and though we didn’t know exactly dangerous the thing was, we made a guess based on it’s its description of being a meter tall and around 10 meters long. 

“I’m honestly surprised at how much food we constantly need. I mean I live oh, lived this side of town, and I never realised how few shops there were” Alexander was talking to the group as he usually does. “Nah, you're just an idiot, that was the first thing I noticed when I moved here,” Dave responded to him. 

“Huh, oh when did you move here then?” 

“Last year May, acutely June,”

“What brought you here then?”,

“-but then-”

“-when I broke-”

“..........”

“..........”

“Then what about you, how come you're here?” suddenly a question was asked in my direction. 

“I,ehr?” somehow I had managed to entirely zone out and the sudden need to speak threw me off. 

“How come you’re here?” Alexander repeated his question which wasn’t the issue, but I didn’t say that. “I was just coming here for a holiday, you know, see new things and all,” I finally answered after escaping my stunned state. 

“You know, it’s funny, I hated guns before but, now, I mean,” I decided to follow up with another thing, but realised how little that had to do with the subject. 

“Nah, yeah, I had always been like ‘what’s the point,’ but now all I want is for them to work” but thankfully Dan followed along.

“Yeah, when the-” 

Then the two sprang back into a heated discussion between themselves again.

I turned my head towards Eric and asked him if he was good and he actually responded with a sentence. “I’m doing good, feet fucking hurt though.” turns out, he was quite foul-mouthed. 

As we continued, the two started to talk less, and we all started focusing more on the surroundings. We had somewhat mapped out where it was safe and where it was dangerous, and this place was one of the more dangerous areas in our surroundings. Unlike other areas, where it was large groups of roaches, this was entirely because of the centipede.

…

“Why isn’t it here?”Alexander whispered, like me, he was unnerved. It should be here, by the end of the Street but there wasn’t anything.

We reached a stop, the silence was eerie but no one was willing to break it. Holding the knife in front of my chest, I stepped back so the four of us stood back to back.

It should be here. 

Something was wrong.

The first person to break the silence was Alexander “Do we go back?” he spoke so softly I barely heard it, but the tremble in his speech was obvious. 

Though I heard him, I was too focused on the surroundings to respond, it felt off, but didn’t know what. Usually, I wouldn’t need to worry like this, Eric could always tell where a threat was, but the ominous feeling fade. I looked over towards Eric, and though I could barely see his face, I could tell he felt the same. 

…

A deep breath out, and a deep back in. “I think so,” Dave's delayed response was uncertain, he also felt uneasy. We started scooching back the way we came, maintaining our formation.

“THE LEFT!” Eric shouted, turning with his arm out, light already shining. 

Smash.

Through the second-floor window of a building shot the thing we were here for, an enormous centipede. It fell towards us, barely giving us enough time to evade. 

We leapt out of the way, two on either side. Our position was actually great, since now it was somewhat surrounded. But the sense of luck faded fast.

Its speed was insane, as it managed to skitter away, crawling onto a building and staying on the roof before anyone could launch an attack. if it was going to continue doing that, I’m not sure if we’d be able to escape, let alone kill it. But it just stayed on the roof staring at us, its polished brown shell shining brightly into my eyes. Suddenly, it skittered behind the house, out of view. 

“It went in the left house” Eric called. 

We positioned ourselves facing the house before it pushed itself out through the front door, smashing the frame where it couldn’t pass while rushing towards me and Alexander. Unlike the roaches, jumping onto its back didn’t even cross my mind, it would be far too fast for me to either, time my jump or get a stable grip, so instead I lept to the side to evade again. Alex jumped in the other direction, but the semi-sledgehammer that he was holding slowed him down. The bug's long body twisted as it rushed to face him with its two pincers on the sides of its mouth opened wide. He ditched the hammer and tried to get away, but wasn’t fast enough and the thing managed to get his leg. He let out a cry of pain as he fell forward. As that was happening, I was arcing through the air toward an area close to its head while scanning for any weak spots in its armour. Dave was faster though as he was already by it and while double gripping his jet-sheen sword, he swung down on the end of the thing's body. Not seeing this since I was busy, I got caught off guard by the bug suddenly flinging its head, slamming its body into me and tossing me towards Eric who stood casting. In the air, I tried to land on my feet but instead landed on my knees and received a nasty scrape. But I stopped feeling the pain as much when I saw Alex, who had been slammed into the wall of a building with a giant gash on either side of his leg. Gritting my teeth, I made my way up to a stand. Taking a second to brace myself I gripped the knife, which I was by some miracle still holding, and pushed back towards the fight. I didn’t move to help Alex, since it wouldn’t do much if we died to this thing. The bug had turned itself around to face Dave, so I ran towards him. Both Dave and the bug seemed to be nearly at a standoff, but suddenly, it rushed into a building. Reaching him, he immediately started talking. “I couldn't do anything to it, this is, Fuck, all I got was a dent in the armour!”. I glanced back towards Eric, who was still casting a spell, and the look on his face told me what. It essentially created an orb that just made any part of a living that made contact sort of just disappear. But the projectile itself was slow, took time to cast and all his concentration.

I looked back towards Alex, who was now making his way over to us with a makeshift tourniquet around his left leg. I ran to support him, as he asked if the thing was gone.  

“No, If it were, he would have stopped casting,” carefully omitting Eric’s name, since he didn’t like people knowing for some reason. 

“F-f-f-f-damn, why the he-,” he stuttered under his breath, his whole body shaking, or it might have been mine.

He heaved a sigh and the shaking stopped, a more determined expression grew on his face. 

We were backed by the two others, so I stopped supporting him, it would only put us in more danger if one of us was occupied. 

I hadn’t felt like this before, this horrible suspense, not knowing where it might come from, or what might happen.

The silence continued. 

None of us were talking, but we had created somewhat formation, with Eric furthest from the houses. His attack was probably our best bet. Standing there, just staring at the homes for any movement, was a terrible sensation. 

Movement in the third house to the right.

I didn’t need to say anything and just turned to face it. Being the closest, I moved to the right, attempting to bait it, and it seemed like it was working, but it suddenly redirected itself towards Eric. I can’t get there in time, when he moves out of the way, it will break the spell, he’d have to start it again. I tried to run as fast as possible, but I wasn’t going to reach it. But he didn’t stop casting, he just stood standing until the thing was practically on him. Then, a Black void appeared in front of him. He made it in time, but couldn’t avoid it.  But I didn’t stop running, he wasn’t shading out either, he wasn’t doing anything. A disgusting sound erupted, and a mess of blood spewed from the bug, and it flinched, but only for a second, and was practically over Eric. but I was there, I managed to push him out of the way which only gave me a bigger problem. How do I get out of this?

it was going to slam itself into me, I braced myself but didn’t get much out of it. 

It struck me down into the ground with its upper body.

I didn’t know how much damage I had taken, but the pain was clouding everything to the point I could barely concentrate. It lifted back up, now with its pincers opened. I had one choice, so with everything I could, I turned to lay on my back and grabbed the pincers driving towards my face. It worked, sort of, they were slicing my hands, and I could barely hold on, but it managed to stall it. I managed to hear Dave’s battle cry before blacking out from the pain.