Chapter 4

"Once again, damn you, Reaper!!," Neo said out loud, venting his frustrations.

"Excuse me, who is Reaper?" Scholar asked, raising his eyebrow.

"Uhh, it's... it's nothing. So, this door is our escape route, right?" Neo stuttered, quickly finding a way to change the topic.

"Well, not really. You know, this place has been sealed shut by thick, reinforced metal alloy, and food is being dropped from that hatch in the roof right there. So, since we can't climb up there, I found a vulnerable spot in this room. No need for exuberant explanations, you will understand the big plan soon," Scholar explained, then continued. "Uhh... you might want to step back a bit."

Neo furrowed his brow as he quickly found a place to hide himself. Beauty was also hiding herself perfectly under Shitface's makeshift bed. While Shitface went to the fireplace and scooped some soot to mark a spot in the wall, which Neo suspected to be the vulnerable spot.

"Ready?" Scholar asked Shitface, with a grim expression on his face.

"Ready," Shitface replied, as his gaze darkened.

Suddenly, the sounds of metallic clang rang across the silent room, followed by the grinding sound of scraping metal. The alloy door finally flung open. Scholar quickly hid behind the door, leaving only Shitface in sight of whatever monstrosity was dwelling in the confinement. The first thing Neo saw inside were chains, lots of them. Before Neo could make out the shape of what was inside, a bestial roar echoed throughout the room.

Almost immediately, a blurry figure dashed out of the door. The chains that were supposed to hold it in place, or probably slow down its speed, snapped like threads. Shitface broke out in cold sweat, as he ran towards the marked spot in the wall. Before he knew it, the creature was upon him. Neo couldn't see much of the creature's movements, but he saw the moment when the creature opened its maw wide to harvest Shitface's head off his body. But Shitface was a second faster as he dove out of the way in a desperate attempt for survival. The creature snapped its maw, taking a chunk off the alloy wall as it ran through it like an armored vehicle, sowing carnage and destruction as it advanced through the hallway. The whole room shook, throwing Neo's weak body off the ground.

A while after, everyone came out of their hidden places, still gobsmacked by what happened, Scholar was the first to speak. "What can make a mutated monster that strong?"

"I guess starving it for a week could," Beauty replied, staring at the breach in the wall with a complicated emotion. Neo felt a sense of familiarity to the word "mutated monster", but his thoughts were too messy to think about it. Shitface stood up from the floor, breathing heavily. He ran his hand through his hair as some cold sweat dripped from his face. He was feeling quite ecstatic that his head was intact.

"Let's move," Shitface commanded, leading the group towards the breach.

Neo glanced through the breach, and the scene of carnage and murder made his legs grow weak. There was dried black blood painted all over the metallic floor, with fresh, thick black blood flowing all over it, creating a fiasco of gore and carnage. There were rotten body parts all over the floor, displaying the ferocity with which the mutated monster plowed through the hallway.

"Damn!!"

Neo cursed, trying hard to hold back the contents of his stomach.

Beauty stared with a scowl plastered on her face, while Shitface had an indifferent expression. He seemed to be used to such a scene, or probably he had watched too many horror movies. Neo couldn't really tell which, not that he cared anyway.

Scholar, however, was faring far worse. He was on his knees, sobbing.

"How did the DCC (disease control centre) fall in a week, how? We were the first to contact the ARV, but we survived. Why didn't they have the same grace? Why?" Scholar kept pouring out his heart. His sorrowful voice exacerbated the already gloomy atmosphere.

Neo couldn't blame him, though.

He had been present when the DCC had seen better days, only to witness all his colleagues brutally reduced to mangled corpses within a week.

Shitface walked up to Scholar and grabbed him by the shoulder, helping him up. "No amount of tears can revive your dead friends, nerdy. Let's get moving," Shitface said, staring at the other end of the hallway.

Even though Neo knew the allegiance trial was an illusion, he still held a hint of sympathy for the unassuming Scholar, which was very much unlike him.

"Come on, let's go," Neo said, wiping Scholar's tears with his clothes, as the cohort summoned their courage and walked in the mutated monster's wake of destruction. Unnoticed by all, Neo surreptitiously picked a sharp piece of bone off a mangled remains of an arm and stuck it in his pants.