Huff… huff…"
The classroom door slammed open, shaking on its hinges. Juan stumbled inside, his chest heaving as though he might collapse at any moment. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, eyes bulging with a terror, none of his classmates had ever seen such fear in him before.
"They're crazy—killing people like pigs! Run, everybody, get out—empty the classroom!" His words tumbled out in broken gasps, half-screams, half-pleas.
The room went silent for a second, then broke into nervous laughter.
"What is he even saying?" a boy near the back scoffed. "Has he gone senile from playing too many video games?"
"Yeah, Juan's lost it," another added. "Living in his own fantasy."
Juan's voice shook as he tried again, but the others drowned him in mockery. Only Min, the class representative, frowned. She had grown up with Juan in the same orphanage.She knew that,he wasn't the type to exaggerate, let alone burst in like this.
"Juan, tell me what exactly you're talking about," Min said firmly, stepping closer.
Instead of answering, Juan seized her wrist with sweaty fingers and pulled her, hard toward the door and started running towards the staircase.
"Juan! What are you doing?" she protested, trying to break free.
"Min, there's no time!" His voice cracked. "We have to hurry, or—" his face twisted, pale and grim, "—or else we all die!"
Before Min could respond, a thunderous 'BOOM' broke back into the classroom.
The floor trembled under their feet. Dust shook loose from the ceiling tiles. Shrieks erupted from the classroom to the corridor outside.It was sharp and raw, louder than anything,anyone had ever heard in school before.
She turned towards the classroom. "What… what was that"
Juan yanked harder. "Run!",but as the class representative, broke free from the grip and thought to run towards the classroom. The students started running towards the staircase. Chaos devoured the hallway.
Students screamed, pushed each other in a blind rush to escape. Desks lay overturned, papers scattered like snow, the floor smeared with red footprints.
And then, she saw them.
Two figures loomed at the far end. Human-sized, but wrong. Terribly wrong.
Their arms ended in slick, webbed flesh, each gripping a heavy iron chain. At the end of the chains dangled rusted hooks.Their heads—no, their faces—were nightmare masks of scales and gills, eyes bulging sideways, mouths full of small pebble-like teeth.After seeing them,the students ran towards the staircase.
The first swing caught a boy's hoodie, yanking him off his feet. He screamed, flailing, as the creature dragged him up like a fish from water. His shoe slipped off and bounced down, laces still neatly tied.As he got towards the mouth of the fish-like monster-- Murloc, it ate the boy in such a way that, the teeth had crushed the boy's upper body and the blood spattered in all directions. The small intestine fell and the large intestine stuck in between the teeth. The students that saw this can clearly see the murderous intent in the eyes, like they had just started.
Another hook snagged a girl that was running by the strap of her backpack.As the hook snagged her, she fell back. As the hook was slowly being pulled backwards, she tried to snap out of it,but it was all effortless.At last, she removed the bag, but she was already at the feet of it.The Thing caught her's hand by one side and leg by the other, then she was torn in two pieces. The students ran without seeing what was in front of them as the staircase got flooded with students, they pushed each other in such a way that some of them fell of the staircase, some got trampled under the feets.
The things croaked and gurgled in hideous laughter, their throats rattling like clogged drains.The blood was dripping from their mouths.They swung the chains again, tearing through flesh and bone as if harvesting with nets. The flesh of the students was scattered here and there, blood everywhere, the blood flowed like an endless river. The heads of some students were fell, with no body to be seen.A student was dragging it upper body, with all of the insiders to be seen blood flowing like endlessly, he died as the touched the staircase. The staircase had students crampled, the faces were being crushed that the eye balls came out, some fell from the staircase and fell and got spattered like eggs fall to the ground.The monsterwas eating the flesh of the students, the some were gobbled whole while some were tortured by removing the parts piece by piece, smashing their heads under their feet, the heads being snashed of their body and the blood was drank buy them and thrown like thrash. Some heads were still hooked and eyes on the teeth.
Min's mind cannot accept the thing that was in front of it.She thought 'This can't be real, monsters don't exist, this is some nightmare,some prank, something explainable... She was drowning in darkness.
Suddenly,Juan's hand grab hers. "Min! Snap out of it! We have to go—get to a teacher—someone has to help!"
"Teachers?" Her voice cracked, half-sob, half-disbelief. "What can a teacher do against that?"
But even as the words left her mouth, she ran, dragged along the staircase by Juan.
The stairs were a slaughterhouse. As it saw them running, he swung the hook toward them. They ducked in the nick of time, the chain rattled across the railing, striking sparks against the metal.Min fell, her hand spattered on the blood, flesh everywhere. Her stomach turned. Her heart pounded so hard, her vision blurred.
The classmates that talked to her,minutes ago were lying died with their eyes open. Asking her why this happened to them. She was feeling the burden of them as their death was because of her as she saw them without doing anything.
"Keep moving!" Juan's voice cracked. He pushed her forward, his own face drenched in panic.
They hit the first-floor landing, the press of bodies almost suffocating. Juan shoved toward the teacher's lounge, dragging Min with him. The frosted glass of the door was cracked, a shadow moving behind it. He rammed it open.
The smell hit Min like a slap.
Metallic and sweet, like pennies boiled in water.
Mr. Kwon sat on the couch—or what was left of him. His chest had been split open, ribcage gaping like a drawer pulled wide, organs scattered and missing. Blood had flowed beneath the coffee table, soaking into the rug until each tassel was dipped red.
Ms. Park lay half beneath the counter, her arm outstretched. Her hand clutched the phone, two fingers still frozen over the keypad, as if she had died mid-dial. The line buzzed uselessly, cut off.
Min staggered back. Her stomach lurched violently.
No. Not them too. Not here. Not the people meant to protect us.
Juan swore under his breath, pulling her under the counter.
The doorway darkened.
One of the fish-things stepped inside, gills flaring with a wet hiss. Its stench filled the room, briny and rotting. Pebble teeth gleamed as it rolled the chain in its hand, hook dripping blood onto the tile.
Min's body froze. Her throat worked but no sound came out.Min's hand got soaked red with the blood from Ms. Park's body. The upper part of the body laying with their eyes open, Min saw the eyes of Ms. Park seeing the worries of her children, her husband.Suddenly, the Fire alarm started and water started pouring.Due to it, Min accidently pushed the pillar and the pens on the counter fell.
The thing got the sound of it and headed towards the counter.Juan was trembling, eyes darting for a weapon—anything at all.As it got to the counter, the hook that was being dragged was lifted to strike the counter with them who were hiding underneath it.Suddenly the sound,
CRACK.
And an hammer came down.
The monster lurched, skull collapsing with a wet crunch. Blood sprayed against the wall as it dropped to its knees, twitching like a broken puppet.
Behind it stood Nox.
His knuckles were white around the hammer's handle, his chest heaving. His shirt was streaked with blood, but his eyes—steady, burning with something dark—locked onto Min and Juan.
"You two still alive?" His voice was rough, but calm.
"No," Juan muttered, staring at the hammer, still in shock. "Since,when do you carry that?"
Nox pried the hammer free with a grunt, blood threading down the steel,"Didn't,on the way a fire box had it on the wall. It said 'Break Glass.' I did."
Min let out a shaky, hysterical laugh. "Field trip supplies?"
"Emergency shopping," Nox said flatly. He planted his boot on the corpse's shoulder and yanked the hook free with the hammer claw. Then, he glanced at the lounge door, where the croaks and rattling chains grew louder.
"More coming," he said.
He dragged the other two into gym class. It was seen as the class had rain. The fire box shattered by Nox had all the glass laying on the floor.
There was a room, where tools were kept to repair the equipment in the gym class.There was a metal cabinet with only the hand of the coach and key still in the slot. Inside it: a hose, bolt cutters, a hatchet, orange vests, a flashlight that flickered uncertainly.
"Pick your toy," Nox ordered.
He shoved the bolt cutters into Juan's hands, gave Min the flashlight and hatchet, and kept the hammer for himself.
The water was pouring endlessly from their forehead. Shadows moved outside the class. Chains rattled.
Nox rolled the hammer across his palm. His eyes weren't afraid. If anything, they burned with something sharper—hunger.
"Next floor down," he said. "Outside, or we don't make it at all."
And together, the three pushed into the dark.