"Z!" Beatrix pleaded. Zera fired the last two shots before running to aid Beatrix. They managed to pull the metal shutters up, waiting for Jaspreth and Astherielle to make it back to them.
But the flood of zombies kept halting them from time to time. They needed to keep them off the surroundings of the building, or they might discover Zera and Beatrix, and everything would have been in vain.
"Come on, you two! HURRY!" Zera screamed; her arms were about to give up. Jaspreth and Astherielle were close. Only several inches separated them from where the building stood.
"Hurry!" Beatrix pleaded once more.
Jaspreth glanced towards Zera and Beatrix. They were both red in the face.
"Damn," he muttered, surveying his and Astherielle's progress. He took a moment to assess how they could hurry and finally rest their bodies from the running and firing.
Because of Zera, the path behind them was clear. But one or two zombies would come and approach at one moment before either he or Astherielle would be able to shoot it.
"A! We need to run very fast," Jaspreth stated. He caught sight of Astherielle headbanging one of the zombies when they had simultaneously crossed her path.
"I can do fast! You need to worry about yourself."
"Right," Jaspreth muttered. She had an upgrade. "At the count of three, A! We would be running towards the safe zone. Just running, do you hear me?"
"Copy!"
"Ready?"
"Ready!"
"One," Jaspreth fired five bullets in front and two shots to the right.
"Two," he had to push one zombie off before firing a bullet through its skull.
"Three!"
Boom!
Another loud eruption shook the ground. It had Jaspreth and Astherielle losing their footing.
The ground-shaking caused Zera's and Beatrix's hold on the metal shutter to slip, lowering it close to the ground if they weren't able to catch themselves and pulling it open with all their might.
Two zombies to the right, three on their left and ten at the front, running at an average human speed, Jaspreth scrambled to get back on his feet.
Astherielle did so too, and before Jaspreth could fire, she already beat him to it.
"Run, Jay!"
Shaking his head in defiance, Jaspreth tugged Astherielle's hand, dragging her unwillingly as they neared the opened building.
The ground shook once more; this time, it was because of the second stampede approaching.
With all his might, Jaspreth pushed Astherielle as they slipped inside the safe zone building, Zera and Beatrix following after them, finally letting go of the heavy metal.
Zera hung her head low, her breathing ragged and her arms numb. She sat side by side with Beatrix. They heard and felt the small ripples as zombies threw themselves towards the metal shutter.
"Dang," Jaspreth breathed. "That was close."
"I can't feel my arms," Beatrix murmured, her shoulders sagged.
"Ditto," Zera added. She eyed her friends. They were all out of breath.
"Sadly, this is only a temporary shelter. We still have to figure out how to kill all the zombies around. As per the game instruction." Astherielle wiped at the sweat that had broken out on her forehead.
She had one of her legs splayed lazily on the floor while she bent the other to rest her elbows, allowing her to hold her head.
Jaspreth muttered a curse. He lay down on the cold marbled floor.
His chest heaved in and out heavily.
"By the way, Z," Beatrix turned to Zera. "How did you figure out the code?"
Jaspreth sat back up, his eyes imploring Zera.
Zera took a moment as she realized she had no time to explain to her friends earlier how she came up with the code that unlocked the padlocks.
"Well, 7-1-0-1-7," she muttered. "It was a weird experience. You know how I've been trying since earlier? And then, while I caught myself staring at the signage with the butterfly on it, it suddenly came alive."
She paused and eyed her friends. They were all waiting for her to finish.
"When it flew away, I stared at it for a long time. The structure of the butterfly. 7-1-0-1-7. It's... I don't know. It was what came to mind," Zera shrugged.
"Jeez, things are getting weirder," Beatrix muttered.
Just as she had said it, a bluish orb appeared in the middle, slowly descending from the ceiling.
The four fiends watched it come down, taking the shape of a small kit with a plus design on top of it.
When it landed on the floor, a few inches away from Jaspreth's shoes, the translucent screen appeared on top of it.
[Congratulations on making it inside Building A! You have acquired one health kit. The Priestess wishes you good fortune!]
The mechanical female voice echoed in the minimal space of the building. The red lighting overpowered the bluish glow of the box.
Since Jaspreth was the closest to it, he immediately reached out and opened the small box.
There were four chocolate bars wrapped in silver foils. It bore the name of being a chocolate bar on its font.
Jaspreth took the bars one by one and tossed them towards his friends. They still didn't feel any hunger or thirst. But they could use a good rest after that non-stop gunning down hordes of zombies and needing to run for their lives.
It was the only content of the kit. Nothing else.
The four silently opened and finished the chocolate bar, each lost in their thoughts.
"Now that we have ourselves locked inside, would we be kicked out after a few minutes and faced off with the zombies once more?" Astherielle voiced out. She wasn't really asking her friends.
She was hoping for someone else to respond to her, like the system, perhaps.
But it was in vain as the preceding silence echoed around her. She and her friends eyed each other, not having any clue what was happening now.
While they were contemplating, from one of the corners, on the left side of where Zera and Beatrix were facing, a bluish line formed around what must be a door.
After tracing the shape of two adjacent rectangles, a metal door resembling an elevator appeared before them.
Minus the lack of buttons on the side and the digital displays for which floor they'd be at, it could have been mistaken as one.
"So," Beatrix drawled. "This means someone is watching over us, right?"
Zera got to her feet, her eyes transfixed on the closed metal doors.
"Perhaps," Zera replied. "Else, the choco bars and this door wouldn't have appeared."