Chapter 3

Yelling and banging on the enormous mirror did nothing, save to make me feel like an idiot. I discovered the device worked more like a flat screen tv on mute than an actual mirror after I lifted it from the wall a few inches. To my chagrin, there was nothing behind the ornate frame. A rather large part of me still hoped this was all an elaborate prank. The surface continued to show the earth I knew, no matter where I directed it, working like a camera.

Am I trapped in a parallel universe?

Taking stock of the idea, I glanced around the dilapidated lobby again. The stale stench wasn’t as abundant in the open room as it had been in the bowels below. Except for the viewing mirror, lighting here was worse than the basement because of less of the glowing moss. If I’d covered up the mirror, it would be uncomfortably dark.

I was just about to turn my attention back to searching the counter when a sound startled me. A CLANG echoed down from the central staircase, just a few feet from the corner of the check-in counter.

I froze up.

Stupid! Stupid!

The view of earth made me forget I was on the run. My kidnappers had heard the ruckus I’d made, crashing into furniture, and screaming for help like a loon.

I considered my options. Whoever made the noise was near. I might outrun them, but if they had a firearm, I wouldn’t make it very far. But would they risk shooting me? I didn’t know why they had taken me to this strange place. As part of my training as a security guard, I had to learn basic jiu-jitsu. Getting the jump on one kidnapper might work, but if there were two of them, I would get stopped cold. I knew my limitations, and I was no Chuck Van Dam.

Fear of getting shot in the back worried me more, so I ducked down behind the check-in counter and hoped for the best. While I waited crouched in ambush, I mentally went over the gun disarming technique I learned in self-defense basics.

As the moment stretched on, breathing became difficult. I realized I wasn’t being that loud, but my breathing sounded like trumpets to my own ears. I did my best to calm the pattern by taking air in through my nose and out of my mouth.

Just like running, man. I told myself.

For a time, all was quiet. I suspected that maybe the noise I’d made had caused something to fall to the ground. The hotel was old, after all.

I peered over the counter and regretted the action when I spotted a movement near the top of the grand stairwell. With my fears confirmed, I jerked my head back down and listened, hoping that they had not seen me. After a few more uncomfortable minutes, a tick, tick, tick sound emanated from the marble floor near the base of the stairwell. The noise reminded me of those absurd stiletto heels Heather liked to wear on “party nights”. At the rate my life had been going, I wouldn’t have surprised me if it had been her, come to gloat over me with a diabolical speech. It’s not like she could be any crueler.

The truth was worse.

The tick, tick increased in volume until I caught sight of the creature making the noise. Standing in the middle of the hotel lobby was a massive red and black feathered rat the size of a large dog. The bizarre creature stood on its hind legs, sniffing the air, and flicking out a forked tongue around its onyx black teeth. Instead of paws, the rat monster had large eagle-like raptor claws.

Jesus, what is that thing!?

For the second time, I took stock of my options. Firearms were no longer a concern, but running speed was. I figured if an animal had four legs, it could outrun me. Also, since it appeared to be sniffing for me, I suspected it would only be a matter of time before the beast located my hiding spot. My choices seemed to be to scare it off or try to kill it. Killing it did not look fun, given the size of its talons, and may not even be possible; so, scaring the animal would be the smart choice. I hoped it wasn’t smart.

Before enacting my plan to intimidate, I looked around for a weapon, you know, just in case. I wanted something with reach and preferably pointy or sharp, but all I found was an old rotary phone behind the counter. I placed the receiver to my ear to check for a dial tone, but the line was dead. Obviously. A small sigh escaped from me, along with the small hope I had of getting out of this situation easily.

I reached out and grabbed the old telephone from behind the counter, pinching and pulling out the useless cable that connected it to the wall. A deep breath helped me focus my resolve before I sprang into action.

“Yah! Yah! GET!” I yelled, standing up from behind the counter and hurling the receiver at the strange beast. I kept the blocky phone base in my right hand to use as a weapon but spread both of my arms to make myself look bigger. I was pretty sure that was something people did to intimidate animals.

The telephone receiver soared through the air, missing the creature by a good five feet. Both the Eagle-rat-thing and I watched its trajectory. The beast returned its gaze to me, unimpressed by my antics, giving me an angry glare.

“SKRAWWWWWK!” it screeched, before charging toward me. Fortunately, the marble tile made it more difficult for the thing to gain traction, slowing it more than it might have been otherwise.

I only had about two seconds to get into a fighting stance before the feathered nightmare sprang at me with remarkable speed. I hadn’t been expecting it to jump from fifteen feet away, but leap, it did. With little effort.

I dodged out of its way with my newfound agility, and counter punched the beast’s side with my improvised phone weapon. I think the speed with which I moved was a surprise for both of us. A loud RING from the internal ringer of the phone rang out when I contacted the airborne creature, sending it careening away from me. Razor-like scales on the tail of the creature caught my torso as it flew past, leaving a large gash across my chest. Fiery pain bloomed from the jagged cut not but a second later, but I blocked it out with the help of the adrenaline pumping through my veins.

The creature smashed into the mirror behind the counter in a heap, sending shards of reflected earth light across the lobby. But the attack didn’t stop it for very long, as it got up to its feet with unhindered haste.

That thing must weigh close to 200 pounds, and I just shot it across the room with one punch! What the fuck is happening here? My mind raced in wonder, but I clamped it down. The monster was still dangerous, and I needed to focus.

The phone did nothing to it; the feathers cushioned the blow. I needed something sharp.

We studied each other for a second before reengaging. Both of us would be more cautious. The force of the strike hadn’t hurt it much, but it now knew that I had the ability. And I knew it could pounce at me from its still position behind the counter.

Before letting it do just that, I hurled the telephone base at its face with all my might. Unlike the receiver, this time my projectile was a direct hit to the monster’s face, smashing the cracked phone base to pieces with another DING sound. It stunned the creature for a second, so I capitalized on its confusion by leaping over the counter and giving it a soccer kick. The hit landed, sending it flying into the main lobby with a crunch. Like before, the monster caught me with its tail, leaving another bloody gash. This time, it scraped across my leg with a deep cut that made me scream in pain. Blood poured from the jagged wounds onto my ruined dress pants and into my filthy socks.

My plan had worked. I watched the monster from a distance and bent down to pick up a shard of the broken mirror for an impromptu shank. It struggled to its feet slower than before and looked to be limping a little.

An eye for an eye bitch.

That didn’t stop it from coming at me again.

“All right, you rat-chicken creep, let’s see what you got,” I snarled, ignoring the leaking blood from my chest and leg.

The beast understood the challenge and let out a primal “SKWAAA!” of its own, charging me with everything it had. Like before, at about fifteen feet away, it leapt into the air. I danced to the side again but realized too late that the monster hadn’t aimed for me. It connected to the hotel counter with its talons, then sprang at me again before I could stop sliding in my bloody socks. With one hand, I steadied myself from slipping by touching the floor, and with the other I held up the jagged mirror piece in a defensive position.

I had just corrected my stumble when the beast struck. One talon sliced deep into my right shoulder, and the other glanced down at my face, causing a shallow, superficial cut. Both of its back talons cut into my thighs, but not deep.

My shank sank into its neck, which kept it from biting me. Though the mirror fragment broke off, it let a shower of blood out of the jagged cut it made. The devastating neck wound caused the monster to show fear for the first time. It released my shoulder with a backward pounce and tried to scramble away.

“I don’t think so, birdbrain!” I screamed and gave a leap of my own this time, landing on the beast’s back. We both crashed to the ground. I recovered first, sinking my legs around its waist and arms around its neck like I’d learned in my self-defense class. A rear naked choke, they called it. It tried to buck me off, but I kept a sharp hold around its head, even as it continued to stream blood from the neck wound all over my arms. A whimpering sound came from the creature, which filled me with a strange hunger unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

“DIE, you shit!” I screamed into its ear. Its awful razor tail thrashed in the air behind me, but it couldn’t reach me. In retaliation for the damage I had suffered, I bit down on its feathered ear with my mouth as hard as he could and ripped the extremity off. I regretted the action because the feathers tasted like toilet mold. Or rather, what I thought toilet mold might taste like. I’ve never eaten toilet mold.

The rat thing screeched loud enough to make my ears ring.

After I spit the ear out of my mouth, an alien thought invaded my consciousness. Its blood would wash away the foulness! Unable to stop myself, my mouth closed around the awful neck wound and I began sucking on its blood like a repressed lover. A fountain of the black liquid poured over my face, down my throat, filling me with ecstasy. The creature’s life blood was a narcotic, giving me a blessed numbness and a state of purest contentment. I moaned as I drank it in, steadily chewing on the wound to make it larger so I could suck the precious fluid.

Once I could move from the back of the dead beast, reality crashed on to my psyche like a tsunami wave of revulsion. What the fuck had I just done? I moaned again, scrambling away from the corpse on my ass and hands, but this time it was a lunatic sound instead of one of pleasure.

The ghostly scroll reappeared in front of me, interrupting my panic. It said:

[Colo Colo defeated +20% Legacy]

A sudden lethargy came upon me, and I felt myself losing consciousness. My emotions became detached, allowing me to consider my condition. Covered in wounds as I was, and close to passing out, I could not remain out in the open. If I did so, I would die when the next monster found me.

For a brief second, I considered laying there and doing just that. But I caught sight of the eyes of the monster I’d killed. No, not killed, eaten. I fought it with everything I had to survive. In my heart, I knew I didn’t want to die.

“All right Colo Colo, you win. I guess I don’t really want to lie here and give up.” I said to the corpse.

I began the painful process of tending my wounds with what energy I had left.