TW : A little Gore
In an instant, she was airborne, yanked off her feet as if she weighed nothing, hurled across the room like a discarded doll. Her body slammed into the cold, unyielding stone with a force that knocked the breath out of her. She lay there, gasping, as her fire lamp clattered to the ground, flickering weakly before sputtering out completely.
For a second, she lay still, disoriented, her head spinning from the impact. Slowly, she tried to make sense of what had just happened. Her hands searched the floor blindly in the dim light, landing on something soft. Was that a shoe? A... a foot? She squinted into the shadows. Hair. Her stomach churned with the realization: it was one of the rookies. Are they all dead? The thought hit her like a punch to the gut.
What the hell just threw me like that?
She couldn't see anything, hear anything, but every sense was screaming at her that she wasn't alone in the hall. Her fingers brushed something cold and metallic-the gun rookies had been carrying. She snatched it up, fingers trembling as she loaded it.
Silence. The thick, oppressive kind that makes your skin crawl. Whatever's out there... it's waiting.
She felt the panic rising in her chest, her breath coming in shallow gasps. Get it together. Focus. She remembered the torch and fumbled for it, flipping the switch with shaking fingers. Nothing. No light.
Dammit, of course. She had forgotten it before, but now it made sense why the others had lit the fire lamps-none of their torches were working either.
She cursed under her breath, her mind racing. Byte's gone silent, the lamps are dead, the torches don't work. Great. All she had now was the dull, guttering flame from the last fire lamp, casting long shadows that seemed to stretch and bend unnaturally, like they were alive. She could hear the things outside, their claws scratching at the door, desperate to get in.
Oddly, though, the thought of them clawing at the door was becoming less terrifying. At least they were outside, and she knew what they were. But inside, the darkness seemed to throb with a life of its own, and something far worse was lurking within these walls.
The real problem was in here, with her.
Then, in the blink of an eye, it happened again. One second, she was standing there, trying to regain her bearings; the next, she was snatched up off her feet.
This time, she wasn't just thrown. She was slammed straight into the ceiling. Her skull cracked against the stone, and she tumbled back to the ground in a heap, pain shooting through her body like lightning.
Through the haze of agony, she glimpsed a shadow moving toward her, something impossibly tall. At least seven feet, maybe more. It moved with unnatural speed, closing the distance between them in seconds.
She struggled to get up, but before she could even think, a hand-cold, scaly, and rough-wrapped around her throat, hoisting her into the air like she was nothing. Her feet dangled inches off the ground, kicking uselessly as she clawed at the thing's arm. Its skin was like a crocodile's, thick and impenetrable.
And those eyes. Two burning red orbs staring down at her, glowing with a sick, malevolent light. They watched her with a terrifying calm, as though it was sizing her up, deciding how best to kill her. Its grunts were low, guttural, almost animal-like, and as much as she wished she could understand what it was thinking, it was clear that this thing wasn't capable of anything human.
She could feel its grip tightening around her throat, her vision blurring as the air was squeezed from her lungs. Every second felt like an eternity, her mind screaming in panic as her body failed to fight back.
Then came the pain. Unbelievable, searing pain. Her scream echoed through the vast hall as her right arm was ripped clean from her body. It wasn't a gradual sensation-it was immediate, like a bomb going off in her shoulder. Blood gushed from the wound, splattering across the floor in thick, red pools.
She could barely comprehend it, barely register what had just happened. Her brain tried to shut it out, tried to protect her from the worst of it, but the agony broke through, crashing over her in waves. Her vision blurred with tears as she looked down at where her arm used to be, the jagged stump all that remained.
Her screams reverberated off the walls, loud enough to rattle the stones around her, but no one would come. No one was left to hear her. She was alone.
And then, to make matters worse-because why the hell not-the thing brought her severed arm closer to its face. She watched in horror as it sniffed the blood, tilting its head as if it were considering something.
Then it slurped up the blood from the wound with a sickening sound that sent her stomach churning.
Oh great, just what I needed—a fucking cannibal monster. It was almost too much to take in. The pain, the fear, the exhaustion-it was all piling on top of her, threatening to crush her.
But something snapped inside her. Maybe it was the realization that she was about to die. Maybe it was sheer adrenaline kicking in, trying to keep her alive for just one more minute. Whatever it was, she fought back. With her remaining arm, she lunged forward, biting down as hard as she could on the creature's neck.
Her teeth scraped against its leathery skin, the taste of rust and dirt flooding her mouth. The thing let out an ear-piercing screech, dropping her to the ground instantly. She hit the floor with a grunt, too weak to stand, too weak to do anything but lie there.
The screech still echoed in her ears as her vision began to fade. She could feel her life slipping away with every drop of blood that pooled beneath her.
But there was something satisfying in her last, delirious thought: At least she bit the bastard.