The oppressive silence of the second-floor hallway felt heavier than the darkness it inhabited. Alex moved point, knife held low and ready, senses straining. His steps, guided by a caution born of countless dungeon crawls and now honed by genuine terror, were nearly soundless on the thin, industrial carpet. The faint, intermittent buzz and flicker of the emergency lights overhead did little to dispel the gloom, mostly serving to create dancing shadows that played tricks on the eyes. Every dark doorway felt like a waiting maw, every distant scrape or groan from the building's settling structure sounded like an approaching threat.
Maya followed a few paces behind, her earlier nervousness replaced by a focused intensity. She held the heavy hammer salvaged from the previous apartment in a two-handed grip, moving with a surprising grace and quietness that Alex, even with his Agility boost and gamer senses, found commendable. The shared danger was forging a fragile, unspoken trust between them, a necessary alliance in this world turned upside down.
"Clear left," Alex whispered, pausing at an intersection where the main corridor met a smaller service hallway. He scanned the darkness down the narrow passage. Nothing but discarded cleaning supplies and an overturned bin.
Maya nodded silently, her eyes scanning the corridor behind them.
They passed apartment doors hanging open, revealing glimpses of lives interrupted – silent TVs, scattered papers, sometimes darker stains on the carpet they deliberately didn't examine too closely. Other doors remained stubbornly shut, sealed tombs holding unknown fates. Alex noted a faint, almost invisible blood trail leading away from one doorway – different from the goblin ichor upstairs, darker, more viscous. Human? Or something else? He didn't point it out. No need to add to Maya's anxiety.
At the end of one corridor, they found clear signs of other scavengers. Apartment 2G had its door neatly pried open, not smashed. Inside, cupboards were open, drawers pulled out, but the search had been methodical, not panicked vandalism. Empty cans and wrappers were piled neatly near the door. Someone else was organized. Someone else was surviving, perhaps even thriving. Friend or foe? The thought was unsettling. They didn't linger.
"Anything… specific we should prioritize?" Maya asked quietly as they moved on, her voice barely disturbing the heavy air. "Besides the obvious food and water?"
Alex hesitated. Should he mention potential System-related items? Skill books? Crafting materials? Things only he might recognize? No, too soon. Too dangerous. "Meds," he said instead. "Anything more advanced than what I've got. Painkillers, antibiotics if we're lucky. Maybe tools? Batteries? And anything that looks like it could be a better weapon than this." He held up the chef's knife ruefully.
She nodded, accepting the answer. "My brother… he's diabetic. Needs insulin. Haven't seen him since yesterday morning." The worry was back in her voice, raw and painful.
Alex felt a pang of sympathy but didn't know what to say. Platitudes felt hollow now. "We'll keep an eye out," he offered lamely.
They decided to try Apartment 2B next. It was near the end of the main corridor, its door closed and seemingly intact, unlike many others. Maybe untouched? Alex put his ear to the wood. Silence. He examined the lock – a standard deadbolt, looked reasonably sturdy.
"Locked," he whispered. "Might take some noise."
Maya hefted the hammer. "Let's be quick then."
Alex tried the knife first, wedging the tip into the gap between the door and the frame, trying to pry near the bolt mechanism. The metal groaned in protest, but the lock held firm. He grunted with effort, sweat beading on his forehead. No good.
"My turn," Maya murmured. She used the claw end of the hammer, trying to dig into the wood around the lock plate, aiming to splinter it enough to expose or break the mechanism. Crack. A small piece of wood flew off. It was loud in the silent hallway.
They both froze, listening intently. A floorboard creaked somewhere above them. A distant, echoing howl drifted up from the street below. Nothing immediate.
Alex had an idea. He focused on the lock, on the intent to open it, remembering the strange System prompts he'd seen. 'Attempt forced entry. Skill: Lockpicking?'
A faint, almost subliminal overlay flickered across his UI for less than a second:
[Attempting Action: Forced Entry (Lock). Required Skill: Basic Lockpicking (Untrained). Difficulty: Medium. Insufficient Skill. Proceed with Brute Force? Y/N]
'Yes!' he thought immediately. The prompt vanished. No skill learned, no easy success. Just an acknowledgment. But it meant the System recognized intent, recognized actions beyond just combat. Interesting.
"Okay, try again," he told Maya. "Aim right here." He pointed to the spot where the bolt entered the frame. "Maybe we can just break the frame itself."
She nodded, concentrating. She swung the hammer carefully, landing precise, hard blows right where he indicated. CRACK! CRACK! Wood splintered. Alex threw his shoulder against the door simultaneously. With a final, loud SNAP, the lock bolt ripped free from the mangled wood of the frame. The door swung inward into darkness.
Wasting no time, they slipped inside, pulling the damaged door mostly shut behind them, wedging a piece of broken frame to keep it from swinging wide open.
The apartment was pitch black. Thicker than the hallway. Someone had deliberately blocked all light sources. Alex could smell stale air, unwashed bodies, and the sharp, acrid scent of pure fear. He clicked on his LED flashlight, keeping the beam low, sweeping it across the immediate area.
Makeshift barricades of furniture were pushed against the windows. Blankets were tacked over any remaining gaps. Empty food wrappers – granola bars, chip bags – littered the floor near a nest of dirty blankets and pillows in one corner. Someone had holed up here, maybe since the very beginning.
As Alex's flashlight beam played over a tall closet near the back wall, the door creaked open with agonizing slowness. Alex tensed, raising his knife, Maya lifting her hammer beside him.
A figure emerged, not leaping out, but shuffling, blinking painfully against the sudden light. A man, perhaps in his late thirties, gaunt-faced, with wild, unkempt hair and eyes darting frantically. He was clad in dirty pajamas and clutched a jagged shard of broken mirror, holding it out like a dagger.
"Get out!" the man hissed, his voice a dry rasp. "Leave it! It's mine! Filthy looters!"
"Whoa, hey, calm down," Alex said, keeping his voice level and low, holding his hands up slightly, knife still pointed warily. "We're not looters. We live here. Apartment building survivors. Just looking for supplies."
"Lies!" the man shrieked, waving the mirror shard erratically. Drool trickled from the corner of his mouth. "Everyone wants it! The food… the water… the quiet! You bring the noise! You bring them!" His eyes darted towards the boarded-up window.
This guy – Daniel, maybe, if Alex had to guess a name for the terrified wreck – was clearly far gone, paranoia and isolation having shattered his nerves. Reasoning with him seemed unlikely.
"Look, man, we don't want trouble," Maya tried, her voice softer than Alex's but firm. "We can just check for meds and leave. We won't take your food."
Daniel just shook his head violently, backing further into the room. "No! Get out! GET OUT!"
His final shout seemed louder, echoing in the confined space. And it was answered.
Skitter-Scratch. SKITTER.
The sound came from the main window, the one most heavily barricaded with furniture and blankets. A sharp, chitinous tapping, then a violent rip as something sharp tore through the tacked-up blankets.
All three occupants of the room froze. Daniel whimpered, pressing himself into the corner.
A section of the plywood someone had crudely nailed over the window splintered inwards. A multi-jointed, insectoid leg, sickly pale green and tipped with a razor-sharp black claw, probed the opening, followed by another. Mandibles clicked rapidly.
"Oh god, no…" Maya breathed, paling.
With a final wrenching sound, the creature forced its way through the weakened barricade. It unfolded itself into the room, looking even more grotesque up close. Roughly the size of a large dog, it was a nightmarish hybrid – the segmented, armored body of a cockroach, the raptorial forelimbs and triangular head of a praying mantis, and far too many skittering legs. Its multifaceted eyes swirled with alien patterns, and acidic-looking saliva dripped from its clicking mouthparts. Alex mentally dubbed it a 'Mantis-Roach'. His UI offered no helpful name tag this time.
The Mantis-Roach swiveled its head, multifaceted eyes fixing on the closest sources of movement and sound – Alex and Maya. It ignored Daniel cowering in the corner for now. With a high-pitched chittering sound, it lunged.
"Split!" Alex yelled, diving right as Maya scrambled left. He activated Flicker Step instinctively (Stamina: 80/100), gaining precious distance as the creature scuttled past where he'd been, its claws scraping sparks on the floor.
"Watch out, it spits acid!" Alex shouted a guess based on the dripping saliva, hoping he was right.
Maya, reacting quickly, swung the hammer in a wide arc, aiming for the creature's side. The hammer connected with the chitinous exoskeleton with a dull thud, but seemed to do little damage, skidding off the hard surface. The Mantis-Roach barely seemed to notice, its attention fixed on her.
Daniel screamed again from the corner, a high-pitched sound of pure terror that only seemed to agitate the monster further. He blindly threw a small table lamp, which bounced harmlessly off the creature's back.
The Mantis-Roach reared its head back, and Alex saw a sickening green fluid gathering in its maw. Acid spit!
"Maya, move!"
But Daniel, in his panic, stumbled backward directly into Maya's path as she tried to dodge. She tripped over his flailing legs, losing her balance, falling towards the wall.
The Mantis-Roach struck. It didn't spit. Instead, one of its razor-sharp forelimbs lashed out like a scythe, aimed directly at Maya's exposed side as she fell.
Alex saw it happen in sickening slow motion. He was too far away, still recovering from his Flicker Step. Daniel was useless. Maya's eyes widened in horrified realization, bracing for an impact she couldn't avoid. Death, swift and brutal, seemed inevitable.
In that frozen moment, suspended between heartbeats, something changed.
From Maya's perspective, the world warped. The terrifyingly fast slash of the Mantis-Roach's limb seemed to decelerate, hanging in the air like a still frame from a horror movie. A blinding blue light exploded behind her eyelids, washing out the darkness of the apartment. Information flooded her mind, overwhelming and incomprehensible yet somehow instantly known. A translucent screen, identical to the one Alex saw but utterly alien to her, superimposed itself over her vision.
[System Interface Initialized!]
[Welcome, Host Candidate.]
[Analyzing Biological & Metaphysical Parameters…]
[Basic Attunement Complete!]
[Status Window]
Name: Maya Reyes
Level: 1
Class: Undetermined
HP: 100/100
MP: 60/60
STA: 100/100
Status: Normal, Stressed
Numbers? Levels? MP? What did it mean? Below the stats, another box flashed urgently:
[Threat Detected! Tutorial Prompt: Basic Ward]
[Cost: 15 MP. Effect: Creates a temporary barrier absorbing incoming damage.]
[Activate? Y/N]
Her mind screamed YES! a primal command born of sheer terror and the will to live.
A faint shimmer, visible even in the dim light, erupted from her outstretched hand. A hexagonal barrier of crackling blue energy, barely a foot wide, snapped into existence directly in the path of the Mantis-Roach's descending claw.
CRACK!
The claw impacted the barrier with ferocious force. The blue energy flared brilliantly, spiderweb cracks instantly spreading across its surface. The barrier held for a fraction of a second, absorbing the lethal blow, before shattering into a million dissipating motes of light. [-15 MP!] flashed on Maya's UI, her blue bar dipping noticeably.
The residual force of the impact still threw her hard against the wall, knocking the wind out of her, but the killing blow had been stopped. She landed in a heap, gasping for air, staring wide-eyed first at her hand, then at the impossible screen floating before her, utterly bewildered but miraculously alive.
The Mantis-Roach let out an enraged, clicking screech, momentarily thrown off balance by the unexpected resistance. Its planned kill had been thwarted by… magic?
Alex didn't understand what he'd just seen – the flash of blue light, the impossible shield – but he recognized an opportunity. The monster was distracted, focused on Maya. He didn't hesitate.
Flicker Step! (Stamina: 75/100)
He appeared directly behind the creature, its segmented back exposed. He brought the chef's knife down in a vicious two-handed stab, aiming for a gap between the chitinous plates he'd noticed earlier.
[Lethality Activated! Critical Hit!]
[Damage Dealt: 42 HP!]
Greenish ichor sprayed as the blade sank deep. The Mantis-Roach convulsed, whipping around with incredible speed, dislodging the knife from Alex's grasp. It spun to face him, mandibles clicking furiously, its multifaceted eyes burning with alien rage. It was hurt, badly, but far from dead.
Alex scrambled back, weaponless for a terrifying moment. Maya was pushing herself up against the wall, her breathing ragged, staring at the UI only she and Alex could see. Daniel was still huddled in the corner, sobbing hysterically.
The wounded Mantis-Roach gathered itself, its sharp forelimbs raised, ready to strike again. They were trapped in the dark apartment with a wounded monster, a panicked civilian, and a newly, confusingly Awakened survivor. The situation had just gotten infinitely more complicated.