It wasn’t every day that Hannah stuck her foot out and nearly got it pulverized—okay, maybe it happened once or twice in the past. You couldn’t actually blame her on that part if you considered the circumstances.

People were into slamming doors in the faces of their fellowmen trying to survive out there. This action also happened several times over to keep zombies and other monsters out, but Hannah hadn’t been counting on it to happen again, much less for it to happen to her.

But as fate may have wanted it to be, it still happened. When the dark kitten mewled in greeting to the mystery stranger inside and slunked in, it was the exact moment that the man started to close it on her.

So Hannah did what every overworked and underpaid worker did when the elevator door or train was about to close and they were carrying twelve cups of coffee in their arms and a bag of donuts in their hands—they placed their best foot forward.

Ahem. Stopped the closing with their foot, but she digressed.

There really wasn’t even enough time to think about it. Especially with that beautiful hunk of predator just a couple of meters away and slowly recovering from their headbutt with the building opposite of theirs, so Hannah needed to get in this door fast or die trying.

“Excuse me, this cat savior is coming through.” Hannah gave her best smile and leaned back a little to confront the person and was welcomed with a rather… unusual appearance that left her smile faltering slightly.

She may have batted an eye at the door suddenly popping out of nowhere similar to that wandering castle or teleporting door tale she once loved reading as a child, but Hannah clearly had her limits when it came to meeting another face.

Which, by the way, Hannah just needed to mention, was plainly inhuman.

Or perhaps it was as human as it could get except for the key and distinctive features that sent miniature alarm bells ringing in Hannah’s brain. The name was at the tip of her tongue. But for the life of her, she just couldn’t find it within her to speak it out.

A bead of sweat slid down the corner of Hannah’s temples as she encountered her very first creature of the night.

The man’s dark red eyes took one look at her and his rich voice suddenly hinted at a velvet and dulcet tone as he gave her a mildly sycophantic smile.

“Actually, pardon me instead, human. If you’d prefer to keep your foot attached to your body and your bodily functions in optimum state… May I suggest that you remove it from obstructing the doorway?”

There was something about his tone, that sudden glint in his eyes which would have made dozing off apparently easy. It had that suggestive quality that unfortunately no therapist of Hannah ever mustered before.

Hannah blinked, and she struggled at once.

“Oh… okay—but, sorry to bother you, I’m going to die out here!”

Hannah would have gotten dazed by this guy’s dashingly good looks and that hypnotic gaze he was doing at perhaps at any other time. She would have probably jumped out of a cliff in a heartbeat, but with her life already at risk and completely in her literal hands because of the pressuring weight of a monster behind?

She managed to snap out of it.

Instead, Hannah jabbed her bat behind her and gestured with the enthusiasm of a fan who got their hands on some limited color glow-in-the dark sticks at their favorite J-pop Idol’s concert and was serving their heart out in a silver platter to their beloved bias.

“You can’t leave me with this thing crawling about!” Hannah wildly glanced back behind her.

The man, if he could have really been called a man, sighed heavily and fixed his gaze over Hannah’s shoulder and finally found the monster in question. There was a mild look of what appeared to be annoyance written over his face at being disturbed and delayed.

Hannah was clearly stopping him from doing some important business because compared to her haphazard, silly patched clothes where she looked and smelled like she could use about ten hot baths, the man on the other hand was inexplicably dressed in a clean white collared shirt paired with a slick dark vest on him as far as she could see.

She could also faintly hear music and distinctive colorful lights behind him. Unfortunately, the little black cat was already nowhere to be found. Hannah felt a bit betrayed because she thought she had a connection with it, but apparently they did not.

At this point in time, the Predator already had gotten over the concussion of slamming its head on a building and being toppled with the weight of it and now saw that Hannah was just up ahead. It suddenly raged as if it recalled the memory of being tossed an unopened protein bar.

Before it could barrel its way, attack Hannah and wipe her off the face of the earth, however, the man inside of the doorway sighed and twisted his fingers idly.

In a case of morbid fascination and being paralyzed in place, she ended up seeing the effects of that one tiny but powerful gesture. The monster convulsed once as if its insides were suddenly churned and then it exploded like a soda can, spewing out all the pent up air pressure and fizz from within it.

Or it burst out like a popped balloon.

Well… it was more of something like a piñata, now that she had to think about it.

Predator or not, the creature ended up spattering its innards in a miniature explosion which covered the entire street with its entrails, guts and other ingested contents and heavily splashed against the unsuspecting zombies nearby.

Once it was all over, Hannah’s jaw dropped and she involuntarily took a step back away from the man—no, this literal sentient monster that also finished off the other sentient, but less talkative monster.

“Problem solved.” His voice chorused.

Hannah glanced back just in time to see him smile thinly at her and then closed the door on her face. The moment that he did, the presence and sight of the metal door immediately vanished from the brick wall and Hannah was once again alone with the dumpster.

Except this time, she was left with the evidence of a predator lying dead in the open to serve as a souvenir that it actually did happen. Hannah was not fantasizing, and neither had she accidentally unlocked powers or anything.

Hannah sank down back on the street for a moment to gather her bearings.