We rushed through empty streets, the occasional hiss or crunch from afar the only sounds we could hear as the Nature’s Assassins settled down to feed. I bounced in Zahra’s arms as we avoided two in the streets we came across, the creatures immersed in the people they were feeding on. We kept moving without pause, avoiding the buildings as best we could.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had just seen. Amy was dead, and we had nothing to show for it. The beetle thing that did it also resembled my brother, in more ways than I could chalk up to coincidence. It had his hair, his number, and it ran his favourite play.

  Orange sixteen. Sack the quarterback right through the middle, spear formation.

  I resisted the urge to spew the bile swirling in my stomach, each step Zahra made sending a jolt of new nausea through me. There was a massive crash behind us, like the beetle had collided with another building.

  Caleb always celebrated whenever he pulled it off, dolphin diving into his teammates’ arms. He leapt towards whichever group of three teammates were closest, sometimes causing the entire group to fall over as he jumped on top of them.

  Was that… thing. Really him? Or just Graxis fucking with me? So much had happened in the last couple of hours that I barely registered Zahra slowing down and allowing me to stand on my own. My feet were back, along with the rest of my health. They felt good as new, although both feet were still that silver-blue colour from the symbiote.

  “Sorry,” Zahra said, “I should have put you down sooner”. Her voice cracked with emotion as she struggled to hold it together. She had been crying just like I had, which surprised me a bit. She’d always been the stronger one in my mind.

  “It's… okay.” I managed to stutter out. ‘Okay’ felt wrong in my mouth. How could anything be okay again? We had gone through so much, and for what? We had some new information, but I was still weak and I couldn’t help but worry Zahra could see how useless I was…

  But then again, none of that mattered. Neither of us were strong enough to save Amy. It was pathetic, and I hated myself so much at that moment. I was an idiot, and my choices were finally coming to bite me in the ass. People were dying because of it.

  If I had chosen Magma Knight or Reptilian Slasher, I would’ve been able to deal some damage from afar, or distract the creature long enough for the others to save her. I passed up on a class where I could literally turn into lava, and another where I probably could have outran the beetle.

  Instead, I’d chosen a shitty class with a shitty ability, only usable due to how much regeneration I got out of the Ardolon Symbiote.

  But without Art, would I even be alive?

  The thought gave me pause. The abilities it gave me were good, but nothing spectacular. The regeneration was the best, obviously, but I couldn’t survive on that alone. Greater Observation had potential, but in its current state it was basically just a scouting tool. The other skill which allowed us to communicate with other symbiotes hadn’t come up at all. But that would probably change if we pursued the nest of symbiotes in the mountains.

  While Art seemed knowledgeable on some things, it also gave questionable advice. It wanted to abandon the others from the hospital, just in an attempt to save ourselves. I didn’t want to completely rely on it, but that also felt… stupid. It was inside me (ew), or a part of me, whatever. I didn’t know. Either way, the transformation said permanent, so I might as well gain as much from the symbiote as I could.

  I decided that I would ask Art a few questions later that night. If we got back safe, anyway.

  Luckily, we didn’t see any more creatures as we left the campus. We exited from the center of the university, a bit farther away from the hospital as we hadn’t cut through the garden area. Some things weren’t worth the risk. Still, I was focused on the smog around us, waiting for another mantis to try and spring a trap on us.

  We moved back in silence, minus the exhausted heaving and wet sniffling of our bodies processing the emotional trauma we had just endured. Around every corner, my heart jumped. Every shadow in the smog caused me to call it out to the group, only for it to be a garbage can or another remnant of the old world.

  The constant adrenaline was needed, but I was starting to get exhausted. Maria looked similar, her hand raised in front of her, weakly scanning the area as we continued.

  As we turned the corner around the street the hospital was on, I felt a faint rumbling under my feet. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, only that it was getting closer.

  Ritesh slowed down beside me, heaving and placing his hands on his knees as he tried to inhale as much as he could.

  “We need to go!” I said to the man. “Don’t slow down!” I moved beside him to help him, placing his arm over my shoulder so I could carry more of his weight as we ran.

  “Thanks, brother.” Ritesh looked at me, quiet desperation dancing behind his eyes.

  Before I could respond, the rumbling got louder. We were only half a block away from the hospital, the signs for the building popping up into my view. About a block down the street from the safe zone, we saw an explosion of dust enveloping a building completely, as the crumbling structure was completely flattened. Bursting out the other side onto the street was a Corpse Removal Cube of Zengoth, the unholy amalgamation of a flatbed truck and eldritch horror. Six bodies stuck out of the meat log on top of the truck's bed, hellish wheels slick red with blood as it reversed.

  Turning. Towards us, down the street. The engine reverberated in my ears, but I was already moving.

  “Don’t stop! Run!” We all ran forward, our tired and exhausted bodies filled with every bit of energy available as the wide truck got closer and closer.

  I could see a cabin now, but there was no one inside.

  Just entirely black emptiness, and the dark sensation of something we had to run away from.

  But we had to get closer, into the safe zone. The buildings nearby were crumbling or destroyed, leaving nowhere for us to hide or avoid the creature like Zahra and I had before. The bodies on the creature saw us, moaning and swaying upright, their upper bodies swinging from the meat log the flatbed transported.

  It was getting faster. Probably twice as fast as I’d seen one go before, probably close to 20mph as we got closer to safety. Ritesh and I were the slowest, although Maria wasn’t far behind. We desperately pumped our legs, hoping it would be enough as we raced the monster to the hospital doorway.

  Finally, the front entrance to the hospital popped into view, untouched by the rubble and broken concrete around it. We were 10 yards away as Zahra and then Christian made it into the building. The Cube of Zengolth was flattening anything it ran over, the bodies attached to it reaching out to us with their white, bony hands.

  I somehow knew if they grabbed me, that would be the end. I pushed as hard as I could, basically lifting Ritesh with every step as the man wheezed and coughed, nearly doubling over from exertion. Maria was a step ahead, turning back to look at us as she was almost in front of the door. The zombie truck was nearly on top of us, and we were still a few feet away.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  We weren’t going to make it.

  Ritesh tried to push me forward, but I wouldn’t let him sacrifice himself. It wouldn’t make a difference anyway, and I wouldn’t let him face that thing alone.

  It was about to pass over us when I heard Maria grunt from inside the doorway. The ground below us rose up, shoving us forward into the air towards the door, faster than we could react. We slammed through the doorway to the hospital, limbs colliding with the frame as we were forced through, crashing into the wall and landing in a heap on the floor inside. Maria was right beside us, heavily breathing as she looked like she used up the very last of her energy.

  We all collapsed on the floor, surprised and grateful to be alive.

  “What the fuck… was that?” Christian pushed out between heaving breaths. Sweat dripped down his forehead, reflecting the small amount of light breaking through the smog.

  “It's the same thing we saw when we went to Ralph’s.” I said, scrambling to my knees and peaking my head out the doorway as the creature continued on its path of destruction. It was heading the same way we had traveled, towards the University. I shivered as I remembered its description.

  The streets of UCLA were certainly going to need cleaning, and the cube was on a mission. Like a giant, demented roomba.

  I looked back at the group. We had caught our breaths, but the heaviness remained as I felt the tension in the air. We had all escaped death by the smallest margin. This was not a game. Our lives were on the line. If we made one mistake, one misstep…

  Amy’s face flashed in my mind, and I couldn’t stop the tears silently rolling down my cheeks. None of us had really known her, but it felt like she could have been any of us. A regular person, living their life when the System turned everything on its head.

  I wasn’t the only one struggling. We had all held the emotional weight of what we’d experienced, like a dark cloud enveloping our minds. Ritesh was holding Maria, crying. Christian walked further into the hospital, disappearing around the corner as I heard staff call his name, urgency in their voices.

  “Maria!” I croaked to the woman, “you saved us!” She coughed, looking up from Ritesh’s chest.

  “Of course I did!” she gurgled back, shocking both of us as blood spilled from her mouth.

  Oh fuck.

  Ritesh ripped off his jersey, yelling “where did it get you!?” But Maria shook her head, slowly falling over before the man rushed forward to catch her.

  “Used… all… energy.” She managed to squeak out, her voice sounded like it was underwater.

  I scanned her with Greater Observation, noticing a status condition on the woman.

  Energy Depletion

  While at zero Energy, take one damage every second.

  (48 seconds until one Energy recovered)

  She pushed herself to save us, and now she was dying because of it.

  “She needs a doctor!” I yelled, running to my feet and gently picking up the woman from Ritesh’s arms. We needed the hospital’s help, immediately.

  “Shit!” Ritesh exclaimed, following behind as I ran forward, Zahra beside me.

  I ran past the reception, Maria slowly convulsing in my arms. I tilted her head to the side and she vomited a puddle in front of us. A few patients exclaimed in surprise, panic, or anger as I disturbed the presence of everyone there, yelling for a doctor.

  “Sayde! Hekla! Help!” I yelled as we ran towards the cafeteria. Maria was going deathly white. I couldn’t think, I just checked the rooms for either of the staff before running to the next. I couldn’t waste a single second.

  Finally, as I got to the west wing, I saw the doors to the operation room at the end of the hallway burst open, the familiar taller blonde woman looking in our direction. The look of shocked panic turned into professional triage assessment in an instance.

  “What happened?” She said, blue energy bursting from her palms as she ran over.

  “She’s out of Energy! It's making her bleed out!” I called out, meeting her in the middle of the hallway. Zahra brought over a gurney, and Sayde helped me place the girl on top. She was seizing, every muscle contracting with maximum strength.

  Sayde placed her hands on Maria’s chest, blue energy flying inside and illuminating the woman’s ribcage. She was using her healing skill to keep the woman alive until her Energy recovered.

  The following 20 seconds were terrifying. Maria’s breath stalled with every peak, every valley stuttering as her condition fought against the healing. Sayde sent pulses of blue energy into Maria as the woman turned on her side to vomit. It was black and chunky, splattering against the floor as she held her throat.

  I sent a message.

  Levi: Art! What’s happening to her!?

  Art: The Energy from the System spreads through the body like veins. Those channels get wider and stronger the more you use them, overtaking and merging with your anatomy. The issue when you run out of energy is that those channels still need to pull something, so they destroy the nearby red blood cells, veins, capillaries, arteries, everything until the Energy reserve is restored.

  Levi: Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that? I’m getting really fucking tired of being in the dark on all this shit. Do you want us to die?!?”

  I was mad. This stupid, faceless symbiote was never as helpful as it could be. Nearly all the helpful ‘advice’ it had given revolved around our safety and survival. Nothing else seemed to matter. No one else.

  Sayde continued to push her blue energy outward, a look of intense focus frozen on her face. I stood beside the two with Zahra beside me. Maria was still convulsing, her eyes rolled back.

  There was nothing left to do but wait. Venting my frustration at the symbiote helped.

  Art: Our regeneration makes the condition a non-issue. Plus, there’s a warning that shows up from the System before you use a skill that would bring you to zero Energy. Your Energy pool fills pretty slowly, but having none isn’t really a consideration for us.

  She knew this would happen, yet she saved us anyway.

  Before I could respond to Art, Sayde stopped the flow of magical blue particles from her palms to Maria. I looked down in panic, a heart in my stomach before I saw the slow, shaky breath expand her torso. She was alive.

  I leaned back on the wall, slowly sliding down until I sat on the floor. All the stress of the day had scrambled my brain, the only thing I could focus on was my breathing. Zahra collapsed beside me as Sayde let out a sigh of relief.

  “That should stabilize her for now. It doesn’t look like she’s taking anymore damage.”

  I nodded, Greater Observation confirming the status was no longer afflicting the woman. I relaxed, the tension in my muscles twinged in pain as I slowly calmed myself.

  We had actually made it. The safe zone brought some relief, but I was consumed by the torrent of thoughts flooding my consciousness. My body was exhausted, but my mind was running wild as it processed everything.

  Almost all of us had made it. We had lost one, and Maria was barely alive.

  What could I have done? How I could have been stronger, smarter, or done a simple thing differently that would result in changing Amy’s fate. She was around my age, her whole life ahead of her.

  The System had snuffed that light out. In the cruelest possible way, surrounded by strangers, killed by atrocities beyond comprehension. I couldn’t help the creeping feeling that I would be similarly discarded when fate decided it was my turn.

  Actually, the more I thought about it, the more obvious it was that Graxis had no qualms about forcing humanity to extinction. They took 4 items from us. Who knows how useful they could have been.

  The System, on the other hand, was trying to give us something to work with. I opened my menu, looking at the notifications from the System. The first was a rather large banner with a bolded font. Small pieces of ‘confetti’ popped out of the screen as the title flashed in front of me.

  SYSTEM UPDATE: ACHIEVEMENTS UNLOCKED

  Things are about to change, Earthlings! Graxis may have the ability to alter the rewards of creatures they’ve created, but they can’t do a damn thing about the items we give you all here.

  We really don’t like going against a sponsor’s wishes. But if we don’t, pretty sure y’all are on a one-way ticket to a Creeping Wanderer’s stomach. So, to balance things out, we’ve introduced “Achievements!”

  … Yes, we know that this feature is already set up in most System Integrations. Our lovely sponsors, however, decided to manually disable the feature. Usually that comes with lower difficulty and a longer maturity rate. You can maybe tell where the problem is.

  Anyway, we’ve given you all a few achievements based on what you’ve done so far, as well as a few extras for just surviving. Hope you like the taste of Healing Potions!