Ilia starts smacking Caleb’s shoulder “They’re coming!”

The environment is lightly tinted in green by a flare over a kilometre away, further into the city.

“I can hear it!” Caleb quickly snaps their attention to the light, making a quick turn to head in its direction.

Despite Caleb running at an athlete’s pace, the mass rapidly gains ground, quickly coming up to its arms reach. As they pass an alleyway, Caleb steps to the side and releases a burst of spirit that completely nullifies their speed as they reaffirm their hold on Ilia, leaving the mass to skid past whilst they dart down the alley. Already moving too fast to afford to look back, they ignore the walls behind them being torn apart as the mass tries to follow them. Caleb stops for a split second to look around as they emerge on the other side onto a main road, missing the mass backing up to go over. Before it can drop on top of them, Caleb kicks off into another sprint down the road, spirit trailing as they rapidly gain unnatural speed. Despite the record pace, the mass keeps up. Stomping craters as they have gone from a run to full sprint. Then Caleb stops releasing spirit. Their chain is shirt melted in the spots it was released and scars from the heat in its place.

“Run!” Caleb shouts as they throw Ilia towards an open house before turning around to face the mass.

Instead of giving them their last fight, the mass twists and buries a hand into the road, stopping their momentum to follow Ilia. She crawls through the door as the mass bares down on her, then crashes through the front of the house into the living room as they are knocked off course by another concussive egg.

Caleb then continues throwing wrapped eggs whilst repeatedly shouting, “Shit!” After a few, they stop making concussive blasts and start exploding into clouds of thick smoke, then bright flashes and bangs.

Ilia continues crawling in until she hears Roxie’s shouting “I swear, I’m gonna have, ‘use silver and salt!’, engraved on my urn!” And a trill scream from the mass that rattles her to the bone.

Looking back through the hallway, she watches as Jack flies into view. He is mid-air in front of the mass with one hand on the mass’s chest and the other directly opposite. With a shout, spirit explodes from both palms which sends the mass back with a caved in chest whilst the other stops him from flying off. He then gently lands on the ground and gives Ilia a nod, waiting at the doorway with a palm raised. She picks herself up and rushes to be behind him and watch as a bolt zips over her head and punctures into the necromancer’s shoulder. They all then flinch as she screams, necrotic energy pouring from her jaw and shoulder that spills across the bricks and rains down. Roxie picks Caleb up with her tail as she runs backwards as Jack ushers Ilia back into the building and up the stairway as the roiling black washes up against the first steps.

The screaming eventually stops. Everything going quiet. Then, as they slowly start to move, the mass peers through the doorway. Their unblinking eyes landing squarely on Ilia. The necromancer is cradled in their arms as she clutches her shoulder whilst more black leeks into the mass’s hands. A bolt buries into its arm and with only the sound of them sprinting, leave. The tide of black slowly thins and rapidly evaporates into wisps of pained faces. Ilia takes her first proper breath, heaving air before bursting into tears and squeezing Magni. She is gently pulled to her feet by Jack who takes the first tentative steps back onto the ground floor, wincing as his feet touch the still stained ground. He picks Ilia up and brings her outside where, to the left, is Roxie sitting down with Caleb spayed out besides her a couple meters down the road as Frank and Two are discussing over a bolt behind them. To the right are craters of where the mass ran off, now out of sight.

“That thing moves fast” Jack says this more to himself than Ilia as she continues to cry.

Eventually, after checking her and Caleb over for anything that needs immediate treatment, they pick themselves up and leave. Everyone enters another safehouse whilst Two leaves to gather everyone’s things. Inside, everyone finds something to sit on as Caleb enters a side room to talk to Till.

After a while, Magni wriggles out of Ilia’s grasp and sits in front of her before gemstones start appearing in their mouth which they gently place on the ground. Ilia blankly stares at them for a moment before leaping onto the stones and clutching them to her chest.

“You good?” Roxie sits next to Ilia who drags Magni into a hug.

“Yeah” She sniffles and starts rubbing her eyes as she smiles and says, “Thought I lost them”

Donovan waits, watching out the living room window towards the large encampment in the distance. Young Jack and Brandon have already approached the stone walls and gained entry to see their families a little while ago. Donovan is staying behind because he is known to be a supporter of Till and the Traditionalists are openly patrolling the walls.

He squints his eyes towards the patrols, idly placing a hand over his gut before watching as the guards start running and dropping inside the walls. He gets up and rushes out the front door after deciding that that is his que to help. He charges across the open field, only slowing once he reaches the moat around the wall. He takes out a grappling hook as he jumps at it, running up a few steps before using the hook to pull himself up the rest of the way. He freezes at the top as he watches as the people inside begin fleeing in a wave, pursued by a following wave of themselves. The people after them however are far from alright, they are falling over themselves, desperately pursing despite egregious wounds, most of which appear to have been mauled and should be dead. Far in the direction that everyone is fleeing from is a small crowd, guarded by armoured angels. Donovan looks between them and the wave before staring as the fresh bodies start rising again.

He looks up to the distant crowd with his teeth bared and goes to jump down towards them but stops, instead running along the wall towards the fleeing crowd. He scans it up and down and jumps in to help the first person in trouble closest to him. He impales the head of the shambling person with a knife before helping the elf they were mauling up to their feet. They leave, holding their face together as they bleed and the people around them helps them to run. Donovan goes to continue down the line but is cut off by a large group of zombies circling around him; he immediately covers his face as the smell of long rotten flesh assaults him as their insides slowly drip out from between their bandages.

“My oh my” Donovan snaps around to the necromancer that strides into the circle, the grass rapidly dying around them “What a little hero” Their golden skull shifting in sections into a smile.

“Fuck you!” Donovan jumps and dashes backwards, back towards where everyone else is fleeing.

But, instead of a sparsely populated field, he instead lands into the still warm arms of the swarm of zombies which pin him to the ground as the necromancer slowly strides through the horde to stand in front of him again.

He chuckles then tuts with a shake of his head “Didn’t your parents teach you not to swear at your betters”

Then, a loud billowing comes from above “That would be me, actually!”

Above them, standing on air, is the old man that Roxie confronted at the bar, though this time he’s wearing a full suit of well-articulated, marron coloured armour with a large one headed bearded axe, all with orichalcum inlaid into knotting patterns.

He nods down to Donovan “You always find trouble don’t you” Instead of responding, Donovan just starts trying to get free. He shakes his head as he slowly looks back to the necromancer who’s already making a retreat. He sighs but drops, crushing several of the undead that had amassed below him before rearing back, knocking over more of the zombies before making a wide sweep around, decapitating a large portion of the crowd.

He then plucks Donovan out from under the bodies, onto his shoulder before jumping up and landing on air to casually walk to where a new encircling wall has formed that the horde is breaking itself against.

He shakes Donovan whilst asking “You alright there?”

He gets no response and after a few second, swings the axe around to his back where it attaches to a line of emeralds. With his hands free, he picks Donovan off his shoulders and looks at him, only receiving a hollow stare. He puts him back onto his shoulder and picks up the pace, casting a glance to the ever-growing bulge of bodies that follows under him.

Once he reaches the wall, he’s met by a young woman who lifts their wooden mask to get a better look, shifting her cloak to free her arms to examine Donovan, starting with his pulse. She then pulls out a pinch of iron wires from under her cloak that begin to heat up and glow which she waves in front of his eyes.

“He’s alive, and I don’t think he’s been hit across the head” She begins checking his scalp “I think the poor thing just got overwhelmed”

“That’s surprising with all he’s seen before”

“Have you seen anything like this before?” She waves a hand out across the field, the horde of bodies thinning as the least damaged one’s march back across the field whilst the damaged ones throw themselves at the stone wall “Yes, the poor dear has seen more than an unfair share of snuff studios. But the bodies of his fellow people rising and acting against him? And let’s not forget, that thing with the golden skull?” She shakes her head “It was just wrong, even before they showed their true colours”

“Speaking of colours” He looks along the gathered throng of survivors, stopping on the large open space around a single man.

“Do not kill him” The woman pulls Donovan off his shoulder and sets him down as she makes the demand.

He shrugs and states, “I’m juss gonna rip his new arms off”

“No” She points a finger in his face “His little minions are still loyal”

“Really?” He tilts his head before twisting his helmet off and getting a closer look below to the large absent space around him, then to her with a quirked brow “Really?”

“They haven’t enough time for things to set in” She turns away from him and back to Donovan, pulling out a small notebook.

“Fine. Just one arm” He drops off the side and starts pushing his way through the people, causing a wake through the crowd.

She shakes her head as she flips through it, past various blueprints of structures, weapons and furniture before stopping on a bench. She then waves a hand it pulling itself out from the stone, leaving a reverse of itself that is filled in by the surrounding stone. She sets Donovan onto it and sits next to him, watching as the old man is stopped just before reaching the Traditionalist leader.

After a couple minuets, Donovan starts slowly looking around before eventually picking himself up into a proper sit with a lot of effort. He starts rubbing his eyes and taking deep, measured but rapid breaths. He looks to the woman before asking “Becca?”

“That’s my name” She smiles as she rubs his head.

He pushes her hand away and stands up, then snaps around as the sound of screaming comes from below. Donovan squints and asks, “Did Albert just?”

He pushes her hand away and stands up, then snaps around as the sound of screaming comes from below. Donovan squints and asks, “Did Albert just?”

“Rip a man’s arm off? Yes. That is his idea of irony” She sighs before gently leading him back onto the bench.

After steadying himself, he asks “Who is that?”

“That—” She points to the leader who is currently pined to the ground by Albert’s boot as people desperately bandage his shoulder “Is Lucas, Draggus. The man responsible for bringing those things into Blackroom”