It only took me ten seconds to reach the fifth floor of the hospital. From behind stood the bloodied parking lot and to my left, the memorial pavilion. I dared not look underneath as the two bodies from before were still there (obviously) and I do not want to stare at a bunch of disemboweled corpses. I'm still getting the the shakes just from remembering…
Sol gagged sickly. She was clutching onto dear life like a kid hiding behind their parents' legs after confronting a clown. I could feel her talons digging deeper into my skin the longer we hovered in the air. They were quite sharp, like steak knives cutting through tender meat.
"Sol, how the hell do you have motion sickness while in the air? Aren't you a dragon? Shouldn't the skies be your domain?" I asked, while peering into the window. There was no cloaked figure in sight.
I could hear Sol groaning in my mind.
Sol lifted one of her paws and covered her mouth, as if on the verge of throwing up. I was feeling quite bad for Sol, so I willed the blade to enter through the window. Once I landed on the hospital floor, I dematerialized the mana blade. In front of me was just your regular patient room, except everything was turned upside down. The white hospital beds had been flipped on their side, the pieces of a broken computer scattered near the door, and the walls, couches, and chairs had deep gashes and bright red stains. There were also needles and other medical equipment strewn all over the floor alongside wood shavings. The cloaked figure and the two corpses outside must've been battling inside.
While inspecting the messy room, Sol had already leaped off my shoulders. She hugging the ground right between my legs while muttering, 'Oh how I love solid ground… Please never leave my side…'
I was reading up on the [Thought Transmission] mastery while I was cruising through the air. To summarize the description of [Thought Transmission], I'm able to converse with people who are within a five meter radius. I assume that the distance will increase once the mastery is leveled up, but I don't know the increments. I'll just have to wait until [Thought Transmission] is at level two. Other than that, once I'm connected, the two parties can freely converse as long as they are nearby. If they leave the radius, then the connection is broken.
Besides that, the connection is permanent unless I forcibly cut the signal, or the recipient dies. This mastery consumes no mana, so I'm able to freely use it whenever. Basically, Sol and I share one mind now. Maybe that's why Sol could learn English at an astonishing rate… Then again, it could be for an entirely different reason. That part doesn't matter to me since I can understand Sol.
I turned my head to face the door, which was slightly ajar. "Let's go find Fiey and the others."
Sol, who was still on the ground muttering like a crazy person, tilted her head upwards.
"Sorry Sol, but you'll just have to suck it up. We're on a timer."
Sol sighed and said, <…Fine>
With a little flap of her wings, Sol rose into the air. I extended my arm and she clung to it, her tiny feet scrambling over to my right shoulder, a spot she loves for its comfort. I gave her a quick nod, and I cracked the door fully open, sticking my head through the doorframe. On opposite ends were long hallways that had many doors on each side, which were probably the patient's rooms. What I noticed after was the smell- a mix of soap, bleach, a hint of blood, and many other awful smells that made me gag. I've never been to a hospital before. I was even intrigued about them when I was younger, but that intrigue washed away. This smell is way too much for me!
"So many stretchers," I whispered. To the left was a wall of stretchers and chairs bundled on top of each other like a makeshift fort. There was a small hole in top that could be vaulted over.
"Shh!" I hissed, plopping a finger over the dragon's mouth.
Sol tilted her head in confusion.
Through the gaps in the poorly built construction, a loud slapping sound, similar to two pairs of wet feet slapping against wood was heard. I quickly grabbed my rapier and exited the room.
I had no intention of fighting in an enclosed space. I had thought about jumping out the window and summoning another mana blade to move to a different location, but crashing into a window was not something I wanted to do. It would make way too much noise, alerting every monster on the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors. There were also airborne monsters roosting on top of the hospital too, and I do not want to battle in the air. I hadn't practiced aerial combat that much.
Now out of the room, I slowly backed away, my front side facing the little fort. Sol was watching my back in case a monster were to sneak up on me. The scuttling noises grew louder with every passing second. My heartbeat quickened as I imagined all the possibilities of what it could be. Was it a demogre? Nope, that couldn't be it. They have loud as hell footsteps. Was it a human? Not that either. Whatever is moving had light and nimble feet. Any human in this situation would be booking it for dear life, making quite the racket.
After about half a minute, a menacing shadow crept over the crevice, slowly drawing nearer until a human hand clutched the top stretcher. The hand was a ghostly pale, as if it were made of white sand, and its clammy skin was visible through the thick, blue veins. A small head with sewage for hair peeked over the fort, groaning like a zombie. Its face was peeling all over with lifeless, glossy eyes that seemed to bulge out of its eye sockets. I sucked in my breath at the sight, clenching the rapier even tighter.
Another one of them peeked its head, just as ugly as the one next to it.
The two creepy crawlers finally noticed me standing in the hallway. They let out a terrible ear-splitting screech that shattered a nearby window. Their lifeless eyes, which were pure white just a couple of seconds ago, now had a single red pupil that glowed ominously. And then, one after another, they crawled through the crevice like snakes. As soon as they showed signs of movement, I had already dipped out of the area.
"Nope-nope-nope!" I shouted as I dashed through the hallways. I leaped over many stretchers and chairs that littered the hallways like this was a game of Temple Run. There is no way I am confronting those things! The rotting flesh… their rancid mouths that had rows of yellow teeth… and the rotting flesh! Have I mentioned rotting flesh? Decomposing bodies is one of those things I can't handle. I'm reminded of the time back in the mines when we were looking for Venny because of Solgen's request. We found tracks leading to a magical wall and once Isaac opened it, a set of stairs descending was revealed. Once we stepped through the wall, a trapdoor activated, and we plummeted a long way down and into a dungeon with a pit of rotting, decomposing corpses with maggots and flies taking refuge. I can still remember the stench of dead matter filling my nostrils…
My body shivered uncontrollably just as I leaped over another stretcher. I lost my balance and tripped myself, hitting my head against a nearby wall.
"Oof!"
Sol panicked and rushed in front of me.
"Yea… I'm fine…" I groaned, rubbing my temple. Still groggy, I steadily got up on my feet. Just as I reached my full height, a silver sickle appeared in front of my eyes. With cat-like reflexes, I narrowly evaded the blow by arching my body back, the silver sickle barely grazing my bangs. I glimpsed another rotten human holding hook claws on each arm. Snarling, they lunged forward just like their brethren, but I was prepared this time.
"Hyap!"
Grunting, I thrust my rapier right at its skull, completely puncturing through its pale flesh as if it was tofu. Specks of black blood spurted out from its wound, splattering my clothes. The creature lay dead, hanging onto my rapier like a sack of dirty clothes left out in a dumpster.
I wrinkled my nose at the sight. "I think I'm going to be sick…"
I kicked the corpse off my weapon and rubbed my rapier on the fabric of a stretcher. Content that the weapon was clean, I turned around to face the other creature. It was pacing around in a circle, keeping its watchful red eyes on me. He swung the large sickle back and forth threateningly.
Sol jumped back on my shoulder and said,
I switched over to [Thought Transmission], not wanting the creature to hear our conversation. Actually, can it even understand me?
I ignored Sol's rant about how bad these things smelled and rotated my body to face the other direction. Sure enough, a lot of those things were coming this way, the putrid smell of death emanating from them as they approached. It was quite a horrifying sight, to be honest. These human-like creatures are about five feet tall, but they're quadruped. They have hunched bodies like they got a severe case of scoliosis. The freakiest part is that they can crawl on walls! So basically, I got zombie human creatures on all fours scurrying around the hospital walls like spiders holding dangerous hook-like weapons. If I was a regular gal in a horror movie, this would be the place I die…
From behind, the zombie human released a clicking noise deep within its throat, like it was laughing. It snarled and edged closer. The only way out of here was through these two hallways or the numerous doors that lead to a patient's room... It was either stay here and fight, or trap myself in a room and fight…
I knitted my eyebrows.
Ten mana blades manifested and circled around me. The zombie human shrieked at my magic and retreated, still snarling. It knew that these blades hovering around me were dangerous and that it needed to be cautious.
"Alright, you decaying freaks," I grumbled, glancing at both hallways. "Since I don't want to get my clothes dirtied anymore, I'll just settle with my magic."
The swarm of creatures, alongside the separated zombie human, lunged altogether.