The twelfth floor reeked.
Sera kicked aside the twitching stump of what used to be a torso and kept walking, the sticky slurp of blood under her boots echoing down the ruined hallway. Her lungs burned. Her right arm throbbed from swinging too hard, too often. The blowtorch in her left hand flickered like a dying candle, low and sputtering. Not enough heat left in the tank to melt bone, but she kept it close anyway. Just in case.
She didn't need the creature's whisper to know the building still wasn't empty. Somewhere above, maybe two floors up, maybe ten, something moved. Her muscles tensed in anticipation, and the thing inside her purred—pleased at being able to stretch her muscles like this.
This was the twelfth floor she'd cleared. With fire, with claws, with patience. She was running out of fuel. Out of clean air. Out of good reasons to keep going. But this tower was going to be hers, and she wasn't about to share it with anything that couldn't bleed.
