The three froze, stunned to see another person standing on the seventeenth floor. For several seconds, no one moved.
"L-Let's talk about this," Bryan finally said, trying to reason with the man.
"Talk? You took what's mine!" the delivery guy snapped back.
The three exchanged confused looks. What could he mean? They had been living in their room and clearing this floor for more than two months. They had not taken anything from anyone.
"The food boxes!" the man shouted, stepping out from the shadows. His eyes twitched, his face stretched with anger. "Those are mine! Mine! Mine!"
Bryan's temper flared. "What are you talking about? We bought those boxes with our own money!"
He took a step forward, ready to argue, but Thomas caught his arm and pulled him back. Bryan turned to protest, then stopped. He saw it too.
The man had a tail. A long, hairless, twitching rat's tail dragging across the floor.
"Mine! My box! Where is my box! Mine! Box! Mine!" the man shouted, his words jumbling together, slipping into madness.
Then it hit him again, the same pain that had dropped him unconscious the night before. He clutched his chest and screamed.
"WRAHHHH!!!"
The monstrous cry shook the room as he lunged forward.
"Get back!" Thomas shouted, shoving himself in front of the others, arms crossed to block the charge.
The man's hands bulged. Hair sprouted across his skin. His fingers mutated into claws. He swung with wild strength, his strike crashing against Thomas and tossing him several feet back.
Thomas slammed into a heavy beam. Pain shot through his back as a thin stream of blood trickled from his mouth.
Thomas pushed himself back to his feet, wincing. He could now see the man's arm fully transformed, covered in dark hair, the fingers stretched into sharp claws. He realized he had been lucky. The hit earlier came from the backhand. If those claws had landed, they would have ripped into his body.
With Thomas knocked aside, the monster turned toward Bryan and Nevin.
Thomas was too far. Even if he ran, he would not reach them in time. He grabbed a chunk of collapsed wall beside him and tossed it with all his strength.
"BLAGG!"
The piece struck the monster's head squarely. Blood trickled down its temple. Stunned for a moment, it staggered back.
Thomas seized the chance. He yanked a steel pole from the rubble, more than a meter long, with a block of cement still clinging to one end. Taking two quick strides, he leapt forward and swung it down with all his weight.
"PLAKKK!"
The pole crashed onto the monster's skull. The cement shattered, crumbling into fragments that stuck in its skin.
"RWAAHHH!" the monster roared, staggering but still on its feet.
Now its full attention was on Thomas. He had drawn its aggression away from the others.
Bryan didn't waste the chance. He jumped down through the gap to the sixteenth floor, landing hard but still upright. Nevin, seeing the rough landing, chose the safer route. He grabbed the ladder and scrambled down as fast as he could.
Both Thomas and Bryan had known from the start that surviving the end of the world meant being prepared. Guns were almost impossible to get, but they had stocked up on whatever else they could. Bows and arrows, stun guns, bats, swords, daggers, anything sharp or heavy enough to serve as a weapon. They hadn't specifically prepared for monsters, but they knew danger would come sooner or later, so they gathered whatever might keep them alive.
"What's happening?!" Iris gasped when she saw Bryan and Nevin rushing back into the room.
"Thomas is in trouble!! There's a monster on the seventeenth floor!" Bryan shouted between breaths. He ran straight to one of the boxes and yanked it open, digging for weapons.
Bryan grabbed a bow and a handful of arrows. Nevin pulled out a machete. Iris, without hesitation, took a sword and bolted for the stairs.
"Wait, Iris!" Bryan started, but there was no time. Thomas was up there alone, and she wasn't going to stay behind. Bryan and Nevin had no choice but to follow.
When they returned to the seventeenth floor, the sight made their stomachs sink. Thomas was on the ground, his arms crossed in front of him, blocking a relentless barrage of claw strikes. Deep scratches covered his forearms, blood streaking down his skin.
But even as the monster's claws tore at him, Thomas realized something strange. The cuts were shallow. The creature's claws could not pierce deep into his flesh. His body was tougher than it had ever been.
Even so, he was clearly at a disadvantage. He had no way to counter, only the strength to keep blocking as the monster pressed him down.
An arrow suddenly whistled through the air and struck the monster squarely between the eyes. By now, almost no trace of humanity remained in his face. His ears had grown large, his eyes were pitch black, whiskers jutted from his cheeks, and two sharp front teeth protruded like fangs. He looked like a humanoid rat.
The impact jerked his head back. For a moment it seemed like he might fall, but then, like a spring snapping forward, his head whipped back into place. The arrow was still stuck between his eyes, yet he was very much alive. His skin must have been too thick for the arrow to pierce his skull.
That brief pause gave Iris and Nevin the chance to close in. The monster raised his claws to strike Thomas again, but Nevin blocked with his machete. The blow was too strong. The machete clanged away as Nevin was tossed aside, landing hard against the rubble.
Iris charged next. She drove her sword into the monster's side, but the blade sank only a few inches before it stopped. The creature's body was too tough. With a vicious backhand, it knocked the sword out of her grip and sent her flying across the floor.
But their actions bought enough time. Thomas pushed himself up, finally breaking out of his defensive crouch.
"WRAHHH!" the monster bellowed, slashing straight for Thomas's face.
Thomas caught the claws with his left hand, shoving them down hard, forcing the strike away. At the same time, his right fist shot forward in a counterpunch.
"WUSH!" "PLUKKK!"
The punch didn't land on the monster's face directly. Instead, it drove into the arrow still lodged between his eyes. The sheer force rammed the shaft deeper, all the way through the back of his skull. Blood splattered across the floor.
The monster staggered, its attack faltering.
Not wasting a second, Thomas planted his foot and kicked hard into its stomach. The blow sent the creature stumbling backward, straight into the steel pole he had used earlier to smash its head. He had dropped it after the strike, but it had landed at an angle, pointing upward.
"KRASSHHH!"
The pole tore through its back and punched out through its chest, piercing its heart.
The monster froze, twitching once, then went still.
For a few moments, there was only silence. Then Thomas moved, stepping closer to confirm the monster was truly dead. The others followed, their bodies aching.
When they saw it wasn't moving anymore, they let out a collective sigh of relief and collapsed onto the floor. None of them could quite believe they were still alive after facing something like that.
Questions swirled in their minds, but nobody wanted to speak them aloud. They simply exchanged a look, nodded, and began to stand.
"Hey, what's that?" Nevin asked, pointing to something near the corpse.
Thomas bent down, picked it up, and wiped it clean with his shirt. After staring at it for a few seconds, he put it in his mouth.
"Thomas?!" Iris exclaimed.
"It's the same as my snacks. Tastes the same too," he replied casually.
Bryan stared in disbelief. "What now, is that a monster drop? Are we in a game?!"
No one answered, but the thought stuck in all their minds. What was really happening to their world?
Back in their room, they tended to their wounds. Iris brought out the first aid kit, treating the cuts and scratches on Thomas's arms. She had her own bruises, but she managed them quietly. Nevin's back was sore from when he slammed against the wall, and Bryan helped him rub ointment on it. Bryan himself had a bandaged foot after straining it when he jumped instead of using the ladder.
But more than their injuries, it was their emotions that weighed on them. This was the first time they had killed someone. Bryan couldn't shake the image of his arrow piercing a man's head. Iris kept replaying the moment she stabbed him.
"He wasn't human," Thomas finally said. His voice cut through the silence.
The others looked at him. He was right. The blood wasn't even red, but black. It wasn't a man they killed, it was a monster. The words helped, but only a little.
Then Thomas added, "We'll see more of them. Some might still look human. Don't hesitate, or it'll be us with an arrow through our heads."
The message was clear. They needed to harden their resolve. Hesitation meant death.
Still, words were easier than reality. That night, all of them were haunted by nightmares. The next day, no one spoke much. The same the day after. Three days passed, their bodies slowly healing, but their minds taking longer to recover.
On the third day, Nevin finally broke the silence. He was looking out the window.
"Are they… watching TV?"
The others turned to see it too. A generator was running below, powering a television that flickered in the distance.