Author's note: Chapter 4 of 5 for the day :) I think I'll post the other one later haha

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12:30 a.m. April 24, 2015

I stand there and with a flash of inspiration, step down off the table and sweep my eyes across all the people in the room and out in the hall. In most eyes I see fear. Only a small margin of them held a hint of fire in them.

‘They need a push’ I decided.

“I’m going to the end of the hall. I’ll wait for anyone who’s brave enough to come with me to save any survivors on the second floor…you have one minute to make your decision…then I’m going in…I know you’re all scared. So am I…but it won’t stop me from doing what’s right and if we die tonight, then I’d rather die trying to have changed something for the better.” I leave the room, turn right and begin walking down the hall.

Five seconds later, the room exploded with noise and I was already almost at the end of the hallway.

Reaching the door to the stairwell, I turn back and see no one following me. I can only hear loud shouting.

‘Oh shit, what did I just do? I can’t go down there by myself…it’s not like we have a great chance of surviving if we barricade the entrances anyways. The authorities aren’t coming to save anyone if that tremor earlier is any indication of whatever kind of hell is going on outside…’ my thoughts trailed off.

Five more seconds passed.

Ten seconds…twenty…

My heart rate began to quicken, but I forcibly calmed it down by taking a deep breath. I turned towards the door leading to the stairwell. Fear was clawing at my heart.

My thoughts turned dark, ‘Not even Sarah is coming with me…am I really about to walk into my own death?’

With only a couple seconds left at this point, I attempted to steel my resolve. ‘I’m doing the right thing and I will save them! Those goblins weren’t too tough!’ With fire in my eyes, I strode towards the door and push down on the handle—

“Alex, wait!”

I turn to see Sarah leading a multitude of people down the hall towards me and my body loosens some of the muscles that I was unconsciously tightening.

“We, don’t have much time!” I shout down the hallway. “I’m going on ahead! Just join the fight as you come in!” I push through the door and dash down two flights of steps arriving on the second floor. As soon as I made it, I hear the first people who were behind me start thundering down the stairs. Adrenaline begins bursting through my veins once more and as I pull the door in front of me open, I almost lose my dinner for the second time that night.

The closest part of the hallway had around twenty little green goblins attempting to bust down the remaining doors with their weapons and fists. The oily substance on their arms seemed to not be liquefying the wooden doors like it had the cement in the basement floor.

Looking further down the hall, there was a six foot tall humanoid shaped furry creature that stood with its large, muscled back facing me. It appeared to be issuing orders to more goblins centered on itself. It must’ve heard the door bang open because it turned around and I was shocked because, from its frame, I had expected some sort of werewolf, but was instead met with a hyena-like face. The creature had long arms bulging with muscles and slightly shorter, robust legs. Long, sharp claws curved for six inches at the end of its fingertips and blood dripped off of them onto the carpet.

I cringed at seeing the hyena-human hybrid and inwardly asked myself, ‘What the hell…werehyena? The fuck?’

It was then that the strong metallic stench of blood assaulted my nose. All the doors further than halfway down the hall seemed to be broken down. Dismembered body parts were strewn across the hallway floor. The walls appeared to be flowing with blood and it collected onto the ground into a layer that was inches thick.

Quickly closing my mind to the massacre of my dorm mates, I turn my attention back to the deadly hyena hybrid and notice that it had now bared its bloody fangs towards me. There was only a stockpile of raw emotions in the hybrid’s eyes without a semblance of intelligence and on the top of this metaphorical emotional pile could only be one thing…hunger.

Then it dawned on me, ‘This thing must be what mauled and ripped the people on the first floor into pieces.’

With that revelation, I felt a wave of fear course through my body and my spine tingle in anticipation of what was to come. By the time I push my fear down, half the goblins in the twenty or so group in front of me already turned towards me with cruel smiles on their faces and their eyes were glinting with unwarranted hatred.

In the moment, I was frightened because I knew I couldn’t face ten of the goblins alone at once, but then I remembered all the people rushing down the stairs behind me and I smiled in the goblin’s faces.

As the goblins rushed towards me, I stepped to the side of the door and at the top of my lungs yelled-

“Charge!!!”

The door behind me instantly opened, hitting the wall opposite me with a loud bang. Following the door was a stream of people rushing towards the charging goblins at full speed.

The people in front slowed down due to the unnatural site in front of them, but were still pushed forward by the momentum of those behind them. Screaming at the top of their lungs, my dorm mates practically stampeded the goblins in front of them due to their superior size. A lot of my dorm mates fell onto the ground numb due to the oily substance on the goblins’ skins touching them once they ran into them.

“Stop! Stop!” I yelled out in an attempt to restore some form of order so that I could tell everyone about the oily substance’s detrimental effects, but it wasn’t needed since the rush of people filling out into the hallway stopped upon catching sight of the monstrously buff hybrid standing in front of the second floor lounge.

The goblins, enraged upon seeing their brethren trampled underfoot, charged towards the people standing in front of the group.

Those dorm mates of mine in the front frantically began to swing their weapons down upon the monstrosities coming towards them while those goblins that had been trampled were stomped to death by the people around them.

I heard yelps as people’s socks and shoes began to disintegrate upon contact with the goblins’ skin and yelled out, “Don’t directly touch them! It’ll numb your body!”

I wasn’t sure if anyone heard me over the painful wails of the goblins, but some warning was better than none in my opinion.

Looking towards the front of my dorm mates, I saw the grotesque hybrid growling at the people in front of it and they all kept their distance unsure of how to even begin to attack such a monster. The hybrid began backing up past the lounge in the middle of the second floor hallway and the people in front were keeping a safe distance while steadily pressing forward.

I began to press through the crowd not really caring who I pushed aside to get to the front of the pack. As I made a path for myself, I began to notice some of the weapons people were holding. There were pans, golf clubs, baseball bats, broken bottles of alcohol, brooms, and-

I stopped and took a double take, ‘Did I really just see a fucking toaster?’

Shaking my head, I moved ten more yards forward and finally broke through the front of the crowd of people.

I ended up standing between my dorm mates and about forty goblins who had formed a wall in front of the hybrid.

Taking a couple steps back I dryly laughed at myself and thought, ‘Didn’t really mean to move in between everyone like that.’

Suddenly, the hybrid roared. The noise shook me to my core until the roar died down into a low growl. A loud crashing noise came from the direction between the muscular hybrid and another “werehyena” on all fours bounded forward and jumped into the glass of the lounge to stop itself.

‘These things can disregard gravity?? Oh, that’s just fan-fucking-tastic.’ I dryly thought to myself.

The new hybrid appeared to be only a little bit shorter than the other, but was built with leaner muscle than the first as if it was purely built for speed while the more muscular one relied on brute strength. It looked at all of us with cold, yellow eyes and a shudder passed through the crowd of people behind me.

Turning my head slightly, I speak to no one in particular and say, “Somebody go start knocking on the doors and explain the situation to those still in their rooms. Whether they run or fight is up to them, but let them know the more people we have here, the better chance we all have of surviving.”

As soon as I finished speaking, three people peeled off the front of the group and burrowed into the crowd aiming for the nearest closed doors.

Tension hung thick in the air. Our two sides stared hard at the other as if we’d force the other to back down.

Suddenly, an ear-shattering explosion shook the building and, after stabilizing myself, I pointed my blade at the nearest goblin and gave a loud shout hoping it sounded like a war cry and rushed towards it. Those behind me followed suit as they all engaged with different goblins in groups.

The goblin I charged had a short sword in its right hand same as me. It swung the sword in a horizontal arc towards my stomach. I swung my blade as hard as I could at an angle perpendicular to the goblin’s and blew its sword out of its grip.

By a stroke of luck, the sword went spinning sideways driving itself into another goblin’s head causing it to instantly fall to the ground dead.

The one that had lost its sword cried out in surprise and pain dropping its guard just as a golf club smashed into its chest instantly caving it in.

I looked beside me to see my roommate give me a brief smile before he continued heading forward into the midst of more goblins.

Turning my attention to another nearby goblin, I brought my sword back across its body in a horizontal slash gouging a deep cut into its chest. The goblin fell over onto its back gasping for air. I looked down into its eyes and aside from the usual anger there also seemed to be a hint of fear. Looking into its eyes I was momentarily startled, but immediately masked my emotions once more.

‘It could’ve just as easily went the other way.’

My short lapse of concentration was quickly exploited as another goblin had already come up to my side and swung its sword towards my left arm. Not having enough time to divert its blade with mine, I reflexively kicked off the ground with my left foot to dodge to my right, but still felt a hot pain sear through my arm as I moved. Checking my arm, I see a deep cut on my bicep and blood pouring out in a steady flow. I looked at the wound in disbelief and set my gaze on the goblin who was looking at me with anger.

I felt my blood boil in anger at the thought that this little green bastard believed he’d had a right to take my arm from me.

Lunging forwards to the goblin, I swung my sword from up high down towards its head, but it moved out towards the side like I had and dodged my sword only to be bashed in the head from the direction it had jumped in with the edge of a tennis racket. The goblin slumped to the ground unconscious or dead.

Looking at the owner of the racket I see Sarah looking down at her hands in fear.

“Alex, I-.” She slumped towards the ground and began shaking uncontrollably.

When her knees hit the ground, my eyes widened in horror upon seeing the raised claws of the leaner hyena hybrid preparing to pierce down through Sarah’s neck. Making a mad dash towards her I yelled out-

“SARAH, NOOO!” As I yelled, the hybrid swiftly brought its claws down with a mad glint in its eyes.

I jumped over her directing my sword to pierce through the right shoulder of the hybrid.

Time seemed to slow as my sword slid through the chest of the hybrid and out of its back as my left shoulder hit its right arm attempting to knock it off balance.

I wasn’t watching my sword though.

My attention was transfixed on the hybrid’s unaffected left arm as it continued its downward stroke. Its upper body began to tilt back as its feet left the ground.

I watched helplessly as its left arm continued to descend down towards Sarah’s frail body.

I heard the sharp whistle of its claws until a sickening ripping noise cut it off.

I stared in horror at the hybrid’s claws which were covering more than half of Sarah’s upper chest and I knew that those claws had surely punctured through the left half of Sarah’s entire upper body and crushed her heart almost instantly.

Sarah began to get pulled backwards along with us and just as we hit the ground, I quickly straddled the hyena and pulled my sword out of it with both hands.

The sword was broken from the weight of the lean hybrid falling on top of it, but I didn’t care.

With my mind in a frenzy, I began stabbing the broken blade into the chest of the hybrid over and over again until someone tackled me off the back of it narrowly escaping the swipe of a goblin’s sword.

‘No. No. This isn’t happening.’

I look back over to the unmoving forms of the hybrid and Sarah.

She laid there, eyes open wide in fear and mouth slightly agape. Her entire body was covered in blood leaking from where the hybrid’s claws were still deeply lodged within her chest.

I refused to believe it, but there was no denying it.

Sarah was dead.