The police were fighting whatever it was. The popping from pistols sounded feeble after experiencing the thunderous barrage of a Skitter’s weaponry.

Then the gunfire stopped.

I looked back and saw cops running out of the corner of the street followed by an overturned car skidding after them. They dove out of the way. The car came to a halt as it crashed into the traffic light at the intersection. The pole bent down, hitting a couple of cars on the road. More people joined the panic as the inhuman shrieks came closer. What the hell were we running away from?

“Adumbrae!” someone to the back of our stampeding herd screamed.

“It’s an Adumbrae!”

“Everyone, run!”

Thanks for answering my question, guys.

That dreaded name was picked up by others and echoed. Within seconds, everyone understood what was going on.

Which meant more panic.

Before the ‘incident’, putting the events of last Saturday lightly, people wouldn’t readily believe there was an Adumbrae in La Esperanza—after all, this was one of the safest cities in the country. ‘Maybe it was a hoax’, would’ve been the immediate reaction.

Not anymore.

Everyone now knew the danger that lurked in their midst, hidden in the bowels of the city.

Was this Adumbrae one of the survivors from the underground arena and only surfaced now? I slowed down because I wanted to see what it was. I knew I should be more concerned for my safety, but I was just having so much fun running with everyone. I imagined this was what a bull run in Spain felt like.

Wait!

Instead of running down the streets, I veered left, wading against the current of rushing people, inadvertently knocking down a couple of them because of how strong I was. I muttered a quick, “Sorry about that”, as I continued to the sidewalk and entered a two-story brick building. Several bookshelves, stacks of books in the middle, people browsing, a cashier—a cozy bookstore.

All of them were surprised in varying degrees as I burst inside, still unaware of the commotion on the streets. I heavily breathed—fake, I was far from tired—and wore a terrified expression. There was a security camera behind the cashier counter.

“Are you okay, miss?” A store attendant approached the door, curious about what was happening.

“There’s so-something out the-there,” I stammered in an anxious voice. “A-Adumbrae. There’s an Adumbrae outside!”

“What?” she exclaimed in bewilderment, hearing something she didn’t expect in the course of her employment. With terrific timing, shots cracked in the air followed by the terrible cries of the Adumbrae. The monster’s calls sounded curiously familiar. “Is-is it really an Adumbrae?” she said.

Murmuring. Everyone in the store was rooted on the spot, hesitantly looking at each other.

“Run up!” I ordered them. I led the way to the second floor of the building where various school and office supplies were sold. I heard them following me, their steps pounding up the stairs. One of the kids asked his mom what was going on.

As I weaved through the shelves to get to the windows, I noted another security camera. It was just a small store with only one camera for each floor. Small enough for my purpose but I had to be careful of my actions.

Now, where was it? It should be nearby.

A teacher-looking guy followed me to the window to also get a look at what was happening. He fucking screamed, “Adumbrae!” into my ear as the monster came into view. Some of the bookstore’s customers who had no common sense also flocked behind us to watch.

“Oh my god,” I said, selling shock and fear.

It had the form of a serpent, its deep green scaly body was as thick as the banana boat I rode during my Hawaii vacation, and it was long enough to completely cover the car it caught when coiled around it. Maybe a serpent wasn’t the correct comparison for it had numerous human arms lining the length of its body on both sides. More like a cross between snake and centipede…and human. It had an anguished human face, continuously bellowing in pain.

This wasn’t an Adumbrae like the people mistakenly assumed. Just a failed experiment. A horribly mutated human.

Still very dangerous.

“Oh, my god,” I repeated more melodramatically. “What is that?” However, I was cheering deep inside. Snake mutant buddy! You’re alive!

While it did try to kill me, I still felt a strange sort of kinship with it, like how after surviving a hellish exam the entire class was suddenly closer. Something like that. As fellow survivors, I now considered it my buddy.

Some of its arms were mere bloody stumps, the open wounds healing but not regrowing. It had massive scars on its body, large swaths of scales ripped off, the flesh oozing green slime, even large chunks just missing. I had a hunch about what happened to it. The BID agents must've been clearing the tunnels and flushed this guy out of its hiding place. That would explain its injuries. It escaped the BID agents and somehow made it here.

“There are people in the car,” the teacher guy said.

Snake buddy tightened its body around the car, slowly crushing it. The people inside begged for help. A brave cop approached the mutant, his handgun aimed at its head. He emptied his magazine. The mutant's head barely moved, but it cried out in pain. This wasn’t like with Vanessa who I easily killed with a headshot; snake buddy’s entire body was tough as fuck. You’d need weaponry as hard-hitting as that of a Skitter to fatally wound it.

“Let’s hide in the storeroom!” It was the store attendant. She waved at everyone to come to the back of the store.

The mom quickly herded her two kids to the safe hiding spot. The attendant called for us again, and others followed. It was just me, the teacher guy, and a high school girl still in her uniform who stayed to watch. The teacher had a string of beads in his hand, mumbling a prayer while kneeling by the window; I could tell he was a follower of the Mother Core from the design of the beads. The student was engrossed with recording the scene on her phone.

I checked the situation outside. The mutant somehow got hold of the cop, raising him high up the ground by the neck with its two uppermost hands. The lower hands, with their immense strength, tore the cop’s body apart, a handful of flesh at a time.

Ewwwww!

Bitter bile touched the back of my tongue. My lunch was coming up.

I checked the shelf behind me and grabbed a tray of…staplers. I wasn’t sure if this could work, but it was the hardest thing I could throw within my reach.

My plan was simple. One, get the attention of the mutant. Two, draw it inside this building. Three, kill it. And lastly, eat it. Add something about dealing with the security cameras somewhere in that to-do list. I’d be hitting two birds with one stone. I hoped this counted as consuming something as, um, ‘payment’—I guess I could call it that—to SpookyErind for giving me another face. And I would also close this Rule #4 case with my mutant snake buddy.

This wasn’t an Adumbrae, but it wasn't normal either. If it didn’t count, then at least I'd know I should only hunt Adumbrae.

It’s just so nice when everything falls into place.

“Hey! Let’s help them!” I yelled. The student stared at me like I was crazy and then ignored me. The teacher was still focused on praying. “We can still help the people in the car,” I insisted. Probably? The car was already compacted to half its size, and there was no more screaming inside. “We should try to help.”

“What do I do with this?” the confused student said, holding up the staplers I shoved to her hands.

“Stop that with your phone and throw!” I pulled the teacher up and shook him out from his fervent prayer. “You too, get these and throw.” I opened the sliding glass windows and lobbed the staplers at the mutant, aiming at its body for higher chances of hitting. “Don’t kill them!” I yelled at the mutant. “We have to distract it so it would release the car.”

“Let them go!” the teacher shouted with me.

The girl had confusion all over her face, but she decided to copy me too and threw the staplers to get the monster’s attention. Both of them weren’t thinking straight, shocked by the situation. The staplers they threw, the pitiful few that hit their mark, harmlessly bounced off the snake’s back.

“Leave those people alone!” I used my real strength. My staplers broke into pieces upon impact, but the mutant was still busy dismantling the cop. “Shit, I ran out. Wait here, guys.” I ran to another shelf and got a few study lamps. “Here! Continue throwing,” I said, sliding them to their feet. “I’ll get something bigger.” I hurried to the display of models of the earth and other planets near the stairs and grabbed the biggest one I could find. “Is it still there?” I asked them, returning by their side with the huge globe.

“It’s leaving,” the guy said. He raised the lamp but didn’t have the opportunity to throw it. The snake had dropped the barely recognizable skeleton of the cop, stripped of its flesh, and slithered away. “We weren’t able to save them,” he said mournfully. Blood oozed from the crumpled car.

“This is insane!” The girl had her camera up again, her hands shaking but her voice was excited. “An actual Adumbrae. And dead people too.”

“Don’t record the dead,” the teacher said, his voice wavering in contrast to the girl’s. Actually, I didn’t know if he was really a teacher. “That’s disrespectful—”

“My classmates aren’t going to believe this!”

The street was clear, only the dead remained. I sat on the windowsill and leaned my upper body out the window. I had the globe in one hand, my other hand hanging onto the ledge. “We can’t let it get away.”

“Wha—? What are you doing?”

“I’m going to get its attention.”

The girl said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea—”

“Shut up, I’m trying to concentrate.”

“Don’t do that!” The teacher tried to pull me back in, everything clicking in his head.

“Hey!” I yelled at the mutant. “Hey! This way!” I threw the globe as hard as I could at the back of its head. There was distinctive bonk as the globe bounced on top of the mutant. It was a pretty solid and well-made globe, not those cheap, hollow ones. The mutant stopped but didn’t turn around. “Another globe then.”

“Wait,” the guy began to say as I left them.

I heard the girl ask him, “What should we do now?”

I sprinted back to the planet models display. Only smaller ones left. Could I carry two of them? I put one under each of my arms. There were office chairs too. How about tho—CRASSSHHH!

“The fuck?”

Mutant snake buddy was here!

It smashed through the glass windows and forced its body through the opening, crumbling the brick wall. It knocked over shelves as the girl screamed. Rulers, protractors, pencils, piles of papers, all kinds of school supplies exploded along with splinters of wood. The mutant pushed back the shelves that fell over it. It raised the upper third of its body.

The head of the teacher guy was in between the mutant’s jaw, its human mouth stretched to accommodate the size of its prey like a snake’s could. The guy was trying to free himself, punching the head of the mutant to no effect.

I turned my attention to the camera at the corner of the ceiling. I dropped the globes.

“Help!” The high schooler was pinned under one of the toppled shelves.

The mutant, irritated by the punching of the teacher guy, thrashed beside her. It flung the body violently in every direction while clamping on his head. Yep, that guy was done for.

“Help me, please! It hurts!” the girl pleaded. “Get me out of here!”

What do I do? Should I tell her to shut up? The mutant was going to spot her.

I stared at my hand. Why am I hesitating to summon the mask?

The teacher guy's body flew overhead. Just the body. The head was still in the mutant’s mouth.

I dove for the girl. Kneeling in front of her, I grasped her hands and pulled with all my might. The mutant whipped its tail. I braced for impact. The mutant wasn’t aiming for me. Its tail smashed through the shelf on top of the girl. She screamed. I pulled her free.

“Yes!” I celebrated as I dragged her to safe—

Shit.

I was pulling her.

But only her upper body.

Her lower torso and legs were splattered all over the mutant’s tail, the walls, the floor, the ceiling. I held the girl’s hands, her lifeless eyes looking up at me. A shadow fell over me. I gazed up and locked eyes with the snake mutant.

I slowly moved my right hand was over my face, ready to summon the Blanchette face at a moment’s notice. I wasn’t sure what the mutant was thinking. It loomed over me but made no move to attack. I might be imagining it, but its bloodshot eyes seemed perplexed. Its mouth, lined with jagged teeth with bits of flesh on them, gaped open stupidly.

One second.

Two.

Should I transform?

Three.

Four.

At five, I’ll transform.

“Screeee!” it shrieked and slithered out of the opening it made earlier as quickly as it could.

“Eh?”

It left?

Just like that?

“What now?” I lowered my right hand and surveyed the damage. My left was still holding the hand of the dead girl. I didn't dare move my eyes down her body or I might really vomit. I could see hints of her entrails spilling out. I pulled her and laid her head on my lap. It was becoming my favorite move to be caring.

“Sorry,” I mumbled awkwardly. I truly didn’t expect them to die. “I did my best to save you. I guess I could’ve done better. Better luck next time….oh, wait. There's no next time. Sorry ‘bout that.”

I was still wondering why I didn’t put on the face immediately, much less summon it. The mutant had the strength to kill me if I didn’t use my power. The security camera? I could just destroy the recording afterward. I stared at the crystals on my palm.

Was it because….?

No.

What about the two who died? Simple. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. No need for a big drama over them. Still, I was genuinely sorry I wasn’t able to save them. I didn’t intend for them to die. Although, whether they lived or died wouldn’t matter much to me in the end. And it was their fault they stayed to watch.

I shook my head. I better move on.

The deaths of the teacher guy and the high school girl would be in vain if I didn’t get to eat the snake mutant. Yes! That would be the best form of apology to these two.

Happy with the resolution I reached, I got out of the building and went looking for the mutant.

Snake buddy, yoo-hoo! Where are you?