I stared at the big, stubby tail and the rhythmic crunching sound echoing through the hall. A drop of sweat dropped to the floor as my mind raced.

Fuming on what to do. On which choice to pick. Should I jump in or should I leave?

It was me who left them there, defenseless and buck naked. They were dying because I was too tired to put them somewhere safe.

But if I go, I was definitely going to die.

Seeing the size of that tail, one could safely assume that the body attached to it was fairly big as well. There could also be more inside the hall as well, munching on the rest of them.

But should I just leave them to die?

I couldn’t just turn back and close the door. Hiding while they were getting eaten alive because of me.

Fuck, why couldn’t I just pull them into my room last night, there were only 3 of them that were left alive. They were even lighter than normal people. It would have been easy.

But in the back of my mind, I already knew. That I was just stalling for time. That I had already made the decision, cowardice making it for me. My feet moved backward.

No, I still didn’t know if they would be normal when they wake up. Them killing me in my sleep was still a probable outcome. I thought, rationalizing my mistake as my feet continued walking backward slowly.

But I could have still checked other rooms, put them in there, and locked them in. There were many options I could have chosen from.

Suddenly, my shaking knees, thanks to pushing myself with my new ability, buckled while edging backward. And I fell into my butt, with my back hitting the door with a thunderous sound as it hit the wall.

I stared at my knees, which failed me in betrayal and horror. Too scared to look up.

Di... did it see me?

I raised my head hesitantly to look at the tail, only to meet hungry yellow eyes staring into mine.

We both stared at each other for a moment, which was suddenly broken by the beast, rushing towards me with its head swinging from side to side, while its eyes were still locked to mine.

Fuck!!. I got up clumsily and ran inside my room. My thoughts racing in fear and panic.

The door wouldn’t hold. I was dead. It was bigger than I thought. I was dead.

In my panic, I saw the hammer lying next to my feet, the one I’ve just used moments ago. And Hope welled within me along with an idea. I took the hammer lying on the floor and rushed to the side of the doorway, staying just out of vision from the outside.

Wait, the aura! I berated myself for not thinking of using the advantage I just acquired moments ago and invoked the feeling, vitality rushing into me, dimming my panic along with a surge of confidence.

I corrected my grip on the hammer and took a more natural stance, raising my hammer right above the door. The beast rushed in through the door just as I did so. Its yellow eyes met mine, shock painted in its surprisingly expressive eyes, as it faced a fleeting prey waiting for it with a hammer raised to its head.

I brought the hammer down with my whole body, along with a scream, aiming down at the white skull. The skull broke with a satisfying crunch. The hammer sinking into its soft-squishy brain behind the skull.

But I wasn’t quite done yet.

I was going to hammer its head until I could see the floor through its hole, but just as I was about to raise my hammer from its crushed skull. It braced its legs and with one eye partially sticking out of its head, its head snapped into where my face was, faster than the previous me could have dodged.

I reacted instantly, pulling my head back and jumping back, saving my face barely from the creature’s maw. I landed on the floor a few feet back just as the beast repositioned itself firmly in the ground after snapping its head.

We both looked at each other, my thoughts racing in a thousand, and one of them being that I could do nothing to it without the hammer that was stuck in its head, with my soft squishy human hands.

I was also cornered with nowhere to run if it decides to charge at me. Trapped inside the room.

The time for pondering was over within a second. The large lizard-wolf rushing into me, perhaps sensing its advantage. The hammer lodged in its head, getting thrown out from the force of the charge.

I dashed forward instead of backward. Into its side where its eyes were half sticking out of its skull, held together only by a few muscles. And rolled towards it. We barely missed each other, and our positions were reversed as the result.

The beast at the end of the room and me at the entrance, but I didn’t run away. I had no hope of running away from this quadrupedal beast, but that wasn’t what I was aiming for anyway.

I took the good-old pitchfork that was lying near the counter and took a proper stance, keeping it pointed at the beast.

I could feel my limit closing in, like knowing how much breath one has left in the lungs when breathing out. I knew that I was hitting my limit for using ‘vitality’ which came along with being light-headed and dizzy.

I would fall over by myself if we continued this stare-down, but thankfully the beast charges into me again, and this time I did not intend to roll away from it.

I thrust my pitchfork half-heartedly as it opened its maws and charged me; it ducked under the pitchfork and proceeded to almost take my leg with a giant bite.

I, expecting that it wouldn’t skewer itself like a dumb animal, repositioned my grip on the weapon instantly and stabbed the pitchfork with one hand down into its exposed brain. I was prepared to end it while sacrificing a bite down my leg.

It was much better than the alternative.

But I must have pierced something important in its brain as it froze up in its mid-bite and didn’t fully bite down. Taking advantage of this, I thrust the weapon down with both my hands, pushing its head down into the ground with my pitchfork, while the weapon went deeper into its brain.

It stopped moving altogether, but I raised my weapon from its squishy brain and stabbed it again and again, satisfied only after the brain became a mushy sludge.

I fell into my butt, along with letting go of my ‘vitality’.

I was suddenly hit with an extreme sense of weakness, along with a rush of something entering me, the same feeling I got when I killed the ball of light.

But this time, the rush of this intangible thing flowing inside of me felt bigger, much bigger. It filled me with energy, filled me with a sense that I was much more than I was before. At the same time, the side effect of vitality was causing me to feel the exact opposite, extreme weakness.

The combined experience was disorientating, like experiencing happiness and joy when you break your bone or get hurt.

I felt like puking, weak and energetic, and smiling all at once. A rush of euphoria and fatigue sinking into me.

I laid my head on the ground and waited for this disorienting experience to be over with. Which it did after a few seconds. The ecstatic rush ending, leaving me with a sense of fullness. But the weakness and exhaustion stayed on my body along with an intense headache.

Still, I forced my body, who wanted nothing more than to just lay there, to stand up.

I couldn’t just crash down like last time. I had something to do.

I was sweating and wheezing like I ran a marathon, and my brain felt slow and muddled, but I forced my shaking legs to walk towards the hall.

Where people died for my stupid mistake.

While struggling to walk at a snail’s pace, I thought of yesterday; I stabbed one person who jumped me and punched another to his death; I didn’t feel any guilt for that. I would have died otherwise, and there was nothing else I could have done in that situation. I firmly believed that if I hesitated out of concern for them when I was about to be killed by them, then I should just let nature take its course and let myself be killed.

But this... I looked as I watched a person lying on the floor with his face bitten off. There were some signs of struggle, as he was eaten alive.

I wonder what he felt when he was dying? When he was eaten alive, while futily struggling.

I hoped that at least he died quickly.

I turned to face another person lying on the floor, this one whose face was bashed in, the one whom I punched to death. I could have stopped after knocking him out, but I kept punching him till he died, in rage and adrenaline.

I sighed. My shoulder felt heavier. I struggled to keep my back straight. I didn’t know if this was caused by the guilt or because of using vitality, but I felt like shit, regardless.

I have to go back to ‘my room’, I can’t be out here in this state. I sighed and prepared to walk back at a snail’s pace again, but was interrupted by a sharp opening sound from the locker in front of me.

I looked at it in shock. I was dead this time, for sure. I thought. But what greeted me was a naked woman with a cloth draped over her.

“Um...hey?... You, ok?” she asked me hesitantly.

Huh?....... What the fuck. My foggy brain took a moment to process the situation.

Wait, I knew her. My brain eventually ‘clicked’. she was one of the 3 who was still alive yesterday, the lady I punched. She was still alive!

She must have hidden in the locker. I thought in elevation.

“What happened to that monster? Did you kill it?” She asked in fear and doubt while looking behind me.

“Yeah... I- I killed it,” I spoke with obvious effort, my vision filled with stars.

My body felt like burning and it took effort just to keep standing, my back getting hunched and weaker by the second.

“What! how?” she asked, shocked. “How did you do that? Wait…. are you okay, you don’t look fine,” she asked in concern.

“Was it ...is it because of me, is it the injuries in your face?” she asked, slightly scared and guilty. But at this point, my mind wasn’t registering any of this.

My vision was impaired along with my hearing, and I could only scantly hear her speaking.

I couldn’t keep my balance, not knowing what was up and down. I tried to keep my body straight, but the next moment I felt my body falling and saw the ground rushing into my face.

----

I woke up in a make-shift bed, slightly disoriented and extremely weak, with my body hurting like usual. I tried to remember what happened, straining my brain.

Right…. I went unconscious again. It seemed like getting knocked out was the norm for me nowadays. It had only been a day or 2 but I had been out cold 3 times already.

I noticed I was covered in bandages. My series of wounds finally receiving the care it needed. I turned my head around to look for the person responsible. But the room was empty.

I noticed I was not in the tools shop, but in a much smaller room that looked like a storeroom.

That lady, did she bring me here?

I got up painfully, my body feeling sensitive to touch. But I was used to being hurt all over, so I got up to check the situation.

The door opened at the same time I stood up from the make-shift bed.

“Hey, you shouldn’t move yet,” she spoke in concern, closing the door slowly while carrying a few supplies in her hand.

“You were practically covered in all kinds of wounds. I applied first-aid but you need to take a proper rest now,” she continued as she placed all the supplies down.

“Are you listening?” she asked, looking at me.

“Where are we?” I asked listlessly.

She looked at me with a look and walked closer and sat in front of me. “Well, after you went unconscious out of the blue, I carried you to the storage room since I figured it would be safer to be in here rather than the store which was in front of the building. “

“Then I saw all the wounds in your body. It was in an awful state, so I took the first-aid kit from the back of the building and treated you,“ She stated.

I looked at the bandages that covered me. “I see... Thanks for that. I really was in a terrible state “

“Yeah, I know, I saw. “ she affirmed. “Now it’s your turn,” she spoke as she looked at me gravely. “What the hell is exactly happening out here?”

I looked at her sudden shift to seriousness, then recounted my experience, starting from the beginning under the dim light of the candles in this small room.

She interrupted me a few times as well, to ask some questions. “Wait, you saw those words as well? What about that ominous countdown?“ She asked in surprise

“Yeah, I believe everyone saw it, though I don’t know if ‘everyone' is everyone in the city or everyone in the world “

“What! How does that even make any sense?” she asked to no one in particular. She then noticed my tired expression and changed the topic. “Anyway, sounds like you had no break getting caught up on one thing after the other “

“it’s okay, you can take a rest for now. I'll take responsibility and nurse you back to health since you saved me and all,” she said as she smiled and placed her fist in her chest, imitating a soldier or something.

She got up and took the few foods supplies she brought from somewhere “Here, have some food and sleep for today, “ she said as she extended her hand.

I stared at the food and looked back at her, looking at her face with a big black eye, caused by me.

“Is something wrong?“ She asked, tilting her head slightly.

“No, just… just tired,“ I said as I took the food from her, which was finished quickly.

I laid back down into the make-shift bed. Sleep coming easily to me, and on the brink of sleep, I thought.

I didn’t know my resolve, and ideology was this thin.

-