SOTF Mini

David yelped and recoiled his hand immediately. He dropped the flashlight and pressed his other hand against the wound trickling with sickly golden blood.

"You fucking bitch," he failed to seethe, "I'm just trying to fucking hel-"

An earth shattering scream echoed out, bouncing off the decaying metal and cracked lead paint of the metalwork.

Fuck.

"Fuck!"

Fuck.

His hands bobbed up and down as he flashed between the outline of Astrid and the door back into the concrete hellscape. He blasted air in and out between his teeth, only stopping to say a barely audible "I'm sorry" that got absorbed into the furnacework.

He bent down for the flashlight now covered in alien blood and left the room.

Idiot.

"oh," Astrid's voice quietly said from the darkness immediately after the first burst of Emily's pained screaming.

David ran out of the room.

The glass shank trailed through the air behind the boy at a safe distance, fluorescing like it was covered in glowstick liquid. Once it had passed by the boiler room's heavy door, the shank was accompanied by the noise of goth boots clacking against concrete.

"Wait, wait, I don't, wait -"

The bat opened its eyes and peered through its unfamiliar surroundings. It was too dark to see much, but as far as it could tell, it was alone - which was good. Somewhere buried deep inside its mind was the fuzzy memory of a sense of extreme terror, and though it wasn't sure the danger had passed, the lack of any immediate threat was comforting, at least. However, that was where the comfort ended. A deep ache made its presence known throughout its entire body, and, even worse, it felt as if it hadn't fed in days.

It tilted its head upwards and sniffed intently, soon rewarded by a familiar scent emanating from a nearby corner. Scuttling on its hands and knees, the creature made its way to the pool of vomit, blood and other viscera that lay waiting on the ground. It hesitated for a moment, staring at the foul smelling slush, before leaning forward and lapping at it with its long, rough tongue.

Unfortunately, its meal was cut short by the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps, their volume steadily increasing as they closed the distance to the bat's location. It jerked its head away from the floor, turning it rapidly towards the door in search of the source of the interruption.

"Emily!" David called out, once upon returning to the hallway and another when he traced his steps back to the stairwell. She was gone, like a phantom. David slammed his hat on the ground and ran the fingers of his free non-bloody hand through his hair as he rushed about what to do.

He was such a fucking idiot. At least his hand screeching at him in pain along with the sense of dread of Emily probably being fucking dead because he left her alone for two or five or fifteen minutes was a good distraction from the sound of his heart ripping in half.

He pointed the flashlight up- no. Those screams didn't sound like they came from above. They had to've been from down here. She had to be wandering around down here. If he worked fast enough maybe he could do some damage control before Ximena killed him, though he started plotting the lie in his head if just ditching would've been a better plan.

He thrust open the door into the hallway, nearly knocking it into Astrid. He stared at her for a few seconds, his feet pointing towards her before he broke away with a head shake and flashed the light up and down the corridor now defiled with pitiful yellow drops from the blood on his hands.

There was a bag thrown by one of the doors, near the end of the other side of the hall.

Astrid turned away from David, following the gaze of flashlight down the length of the hallway in which she was standing.

She gestured in the direction of the bag with her glowing glass shank. Then, she shrugged.

David shared another glance at Astrid. He stopped himself from curtly asking if she was gonna apologize and instead he rushed for the discarded bag, picking it up and groping through it, getting blood smears on the outside of it. It had to be Emily's. Unless it was Astrid's or someone else's, but why would supplies be abandoned down here and lying out just for the taking?

It had to be Emily's. Unless it was a trap. But it probably wasn't. There was hope then. Maybe she just got tired of waiting and got spooked by a snake or a scorpion or a mouse or something.

"Emily! Where the fuck you-?" He called out again, only to be interrupted by what could only be described as loud scurrying going on in the room on the other side of the wall. He dropped the bag. It landed on the ground with a soft thud.

He looked at Astrid, at the shard in her hand shining with what was once his. His hand screamed harder, but he had to keep going.

He kept the light pointed down and reached for the door. He gently pushed it open, the darkness of the new room gobbling up all of the light like a glutton. He stayed at the door, holding it open with all his strength. His feet wouldn't let him move.

The first thing that hit David was the stench of bile and something gamey, something like a wild animal but also something he just couldn't quite place but was equally not a fan of all the same.

The second was the heavy grunts and breaths coming from the darkness, like something organic but not quite human was in there and sizing him up, or worse threatening him to leave.

The third was a lone pair of bright red dots from deeper in the room, glinting back at him like ruby eyes as if they were watching, waiting, seeing what he or Astrid would do.

He leveled the light shaking in his hand back up.

The bat remained crouched in the corner, staring intently at the exit as the sounds travelled ever closer to the room. At this point, it was trapped - the only way out of the box-shaped cave it had found itself in was directly in front of the intruders. For reasons that it couldn't understand, its instincts were overcome with a near-paralyzing fear of being seen, precluding that from being an option. Breathing heavily, it wrapped its wings around its body as a sort of protective shroud while it waited for the voices to pass it by.

Unfortunately, they didn't. The bat's gaze was soon met by the sight of a human male standing in the doorway. For a moment, all was still as their eyes met within the darkness. However, the peace was soon broken by the human raising an arm, sending a beam of blinding light straight at the bat's face. It reeled back in pain, its sensitive eyes burning even as it raised an arm to shield them. It was under attack, and with nowhere to run, there was only one option - it had to eliminate the threat.

The bat quickly rose to its full height, letting out an ear-piercing screech before rushing towards the door.

David raised an eyebrow for a split second before he realized there was a big fucking bat right there coming right for him.

"Eep!" he screeched back, his body jumping as much as his heart did. The flashlight slipped from his grip and violently shook around the beam of light before he managed to catch it in the air and bolt from the door as fast as he fucking could.

There was a rapid burst of loud bootclacks of against concrete. Expressionlessly, Astrid swerved past David, brandishing the stabby part of the glowing glass shank at the batperson.

The bat emerged from the doorway, only to encounter another human in between it and its target, putting pause to the chase. Its eyes narrowed as its gaze quickly focused onto the glowing object in her hand. This one had a light too - was she going to attack just like the other one did?

In a split second reaction, it decided not to give her the chance. The bat snarled and lunged forward, its claws glinting against the dim glow of the female's blade as it swiped at her throat.

Astrid flinched backwards, defensively raising her hands in front of her face. One of the bat's claws slashed a horizontal line through the sleeve of her leather jacket, a little bit above her left elbow. Her eyes widened slightly, and she blindly threw the glowing shank in the general direction of the bat. Then, she turned and ran after David.

The bat reared away from the fleeing human, its screams of pain echoing through the darkened halls. The shard of glass had penetrated the purple cloth girding its torso, stabbing into its side. Several seconds passed as the creature pawed frantically at the object before dislodging it - though at the cost of enlarging the wound it had created, staining the fabric around it red with blood.

At this moment, however, that barely registered as a concern compared to the figure rapidly disappearing down the hallway. Immediately, the bat gave chase, running at top speed. High pitched chirps emitted from its throat, barely at the edge of human hearing, bouncing back off of any obstacles with enough lead time to avoid them without having to slow down. It wouldn't be long before it would start gaining on them, if it hadn't already.

David kept running, jumping over tables and turning corners or ramming shit out of the way as needed because he didn't have time to fucking stop and think he just had to keep going. The bat chirps and occasional screech of a table or whatever being pushed out of the way were overtaken by the sound of his own pants and wheezes like he was an overheated greyhound.

He looked back once to make sure Astrid was keeping up. If they could loop back around to the stairs, or hide in one of the rooms maybe. Easier said than done when despite all their effort the chirps and clicks were getting closer and closer. But as long as they kept going, as long as the endless darkness of the hallway stayed hungry...

"Does the hallway loop around?" he huffed out, half-yelling to Astrid.

The red eyes drew ever nearer.

CLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACK

Great talk.

The bat clicked closer.

David kept running. He'd figure it out.

His side started to hurt. His hand and his heart still hurt more.

But he kept running.