Now we were just waiting for the end to come for us. We had to do everything perfectly, or else none of us were coming back. We stood ready upon that hill with mortars, ready to make as big of a ruckus as we could to draw out as many monsters as possible. We could only pray they all came in a straight line and orderly so we could take them out easily.

  "Everybody! Ready yourselves!" Shouted Plague.

  I sent a little prayer at that moment to whoever would listen to me.

  "Fire the mortars!" He shouted.

  We had three of them, all manned by members of the core. They all dropped the rounds into their tubes, and we all heard three almost simultaneous thumps as the projectiles flew from the tubes. It took them a couple seconds to arch down, and during that time we could only hear a faint whistle that grew louder as they neared the ground. I was expecting a big explosion, with a big fireball. Instead, I got a deafening pop with a small ball of smoke and a blinding light through the night vision goggles. Then, after the pop, we heard the roar. A monotonous shout of about a thousand rotten beasts echoed down the mountain and towards us. The night vision showed only a few wandering zeds in the beginning, but now we could see hundreds swarming to where the explosions had been from.

  Plague ordered the core to fire again, this time a bit quieter.

  The three thumps this time were too much noise, and we got the attention of the horde. But not without having blasted at least a couple dozen with each round. It was then when I felt powerless. What good was a flimsy saw against a wall of rotting and hungry flesh? I wasn't cut out for this. There were about two hundred meters between us and the horde.

  "Ayla, the shield, now!" Said Plague. I didn't know just how effective that thing would be against the horde, but I guess it was better than nothing. I twisted the blade clockwise, and it detached from the handles with a click, and now I had a Frisbee. I hovered it in the air, now effortlessly thanks to my extensive training, and spun it in place before force-pushing it towards the horde. I had severely underestimated my ability and the saw's. It sliced like a hot knife through butter through the heads of the zeds. The saw was drawing a line of gore and brains wherever it passed through, and the zeds were tripping over the bodies, winning us some time. Now the horde was a mere fifty meters away from us, and the elementals opened fire. My brother, Firstimosa, and two others from the wanker core shot lightning. Sofia and another one from the core shot fire, and Cooper shot ice. The three elements were tearing through the horde, and all doubts of us surviving were gone. Like a wall of death, the fire, lightning, and ice were stopping everything that didn't get chopped up by my blade, which was a lot. Mary, however, wasn't of much use then. But she'd have her moment of glory; I was sure of it.

  However, I noticed a problem. From the forest to our left, I thought I heard a commotion, and I wasn't wrong. About twenty or so zeds had crept through the forest, covered by the density of the trees. They were now basically on us at that moment.

  "Mary! On our left!" I shouted. She turned her head and saw the zeds. I saw her hesitate for a moment; her memory of the time she lost her brother was probably kicking in. But she did act. She quickly made two long scimitars from herself and, with surprising speed, began cutting them the moment they appeared through the trees.

  The smell from the rotting corpses coming towards us was being masked by the smell of fire and ozone from the lightning and fire. But whenever I caught a whiff, I was reminded about just what these creatures were. The noise was also being masked by the thrumming of the reverberating air expanding and contracting thanks to the heat. It was like a constant low hum that engulfed my ears.

  The onslaught continued for who knows how long. I lost track of time about midway through the whole slaughter. It was hard not to feel even a little bad for the zeds, even though they were horrible monsters. But there was no use feeling bad for them; we couldn't do anything to help them other than end their suffering. A quick death was preferable to what I imagined it felt like living as a monster every day for them.

  After a couple of minutes that stretched on for what seemed like hours for me, the flames stopped, as did the horde. Now there were no more zeds left; we had killed them. But as Plague already mentioned, the facility runs deep underground, and there would still be a substantial mob in the lower levels of the building I was in charge of. And it just so happened that the servers were at the lower floors to help keep them cool.

  "That's one part of the mission down; good job, teams." Said Plague. He began walking through the scorched grounds. There were a couple small fires caused by Sofia Briggs and the guy from the core. Cooper began putting them out. I felt off, like something was wrong. I felt like I shouldn't be glad that we had just won. I was feeling remorseful, but I didn't have a reason to; I shouldn't have been. I should have been glad they died, as revenge for Mary's brother, as revenge for everyone they took.

  Speaking of Mary, she was now dirty with brownish blood. She had splatters of blood sprinkled all over her face, and her clothes were damp. She looked mad, really mad. She was also holding back tears. As everyone followed Plague down the hill, I went up to Mary.

  "How are you doing?" I asked softly.

  "Good, I'm doing fine." She answered harshly. "Bloody bastards got what they deserved." She muttered under her breath. Right from the beginning I had expected her to immediately freeze up when we finally began, but she was acting like an exterminator. She had a look in her eyes that plainly said that she was going to stop at nothing until every Zed was dead.

  "Hey, just know that if you need to tell me something, I'm here for you." I hugged her there, but she pushed me away.

  "Not now, Ayla; let's finish this first." She answered bluntly. We were lagging behind the group, and Mary speed-walked ahead, and I followed.

  I then remembered about the shield, which I found embedded into a pile of corpses, almost half buried under the pile. I retrieved it and latched it to my arm.

  The rest of the group was doing fine, or at least it seemed that way. The core were acting disciplined, and none of them were slacking off, as were Sofia and Cooper. They had their heads low and eyes darting all around, almost as if trying to find a sniper or something. Whatever school they had gone to must have been a serious one. Firstimosa was talking to Plague, and my brother was with me and Mary.

  "That was sick, especially you, Ayla." He said.

  "You really think so? You and the other did most of the killing." I answered.

  "Yeah, but seeing that thing fly through the air and through Zeds almost effortlessly was cool."

  Yeah, I guess it was, but I still felt bad about it. Seriously though, why do I feel this way? I shouldn't have felt that way! I couldn't! For two months I had spent trying to survive through the bloody monsters just one more day, and now that I got my revenge, I began feeling bad?

  "Yeah, I guess it was cool. Now for the worst part. You two, you two stay by my side now no matter what, ok?" Donn and Mary turned to me. "Be my shadow, both of you." I was stern; I had to be.

  "Ayla, I'll be fine." Mary brushed my order off.

  "No, you won't." I said.

  "Ayla, I don't need you to survive! I've been doing it perfectly fine for the past couple of years by myself and taking care of my brother! I don't need you now." Her words hit like a bag of bricks. It was true that she had been fighting for her life for far longer than I had; she had endured so much. And maybe I was underestimating her a lot, and she didn't like that.

  "Mary, this isn't some scrap for survival; this isn't a scavenge through a dumpster. This is a meat grinder, a slaughterhouse for us. Most of the people here will probably die! Can't you see that I'm just trying to help you?" I said.

  "Help yourself first. I don't need your pity or your overbearance." She said. I couldn't understand where all this spite and venom was coming from; it wasn't like her to be this way.

  My brother could feel the tension in the air building up. He then tried to de-escalate the situation.

  "Let's not tear at our throats, come on. Be nice to each other." He tried playing it off as a joke or a game. It didn't work.

  "Go woo the tomboy; let us talk in peace." She answered harshly. I saw my brother's eyes flash electric blue, and I saw some sparks coming from his hands. I had to move him away before he did anything.

  Mary was being weird, really weird. And I didn't like that.

  "Listen, I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you, but you better cut that shit out now." I said.

  "Maybe you'd know if you thought a bit. But I know that's above you. Look at me, Ayla, look at me! You're not the only one here who can hold their own in this stupid place! I don't want your protection!" She shouted. So yeah, it was me trying to keep her alive that was making her angry. Plague noticed and came closer.

  "What's going on?" He asked bluntly.

  "I don't need her protection, but she won't listen." Said Mary.

  Plague sighed and put his hand to the bridge of his nose, exasperated.

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  "Listen here, dipshit. I don't know what fairy tale place you think we're in, but you are sorely mistaken about what you need. Your girlfriend is in a whole other league! I don't give a flying fuck about your childish ambitions of power, but you're fucking weak! Now stick to her before I stick my foot up your ass!! Got it!?" He was practically screaming at her. Her face went from defiance to compliance really quickly. She nodded, and I heard Plague mutter, "Fucking kids." As he stormed off. That left us alone again.

  "Look, just stay with me. Please." I sounded desperate, because I was. She was clearly over her head, and I knew that would get her killed.

  "Fine," she spat.

  And so we headed out with the rest of the group, ready to tackle our deaths.

  We were now somewhat in the middle of the base, and it was time to split up. The wanker core would be doing the antennae, Sofia's squad would be doing the breakers, and we would do the big scary building.

  "Bill, remember. If you finish, you leave, and that's an order. I don't want any of you waiting for us. And if Sofia is done, you take them with you, got it?" He said before we parted ways.

  Now we had to go to the building. I had always wondered what the entrance to one of these would look like. Would there be a reception area? Would it just be a hall that brought you to the different rooms? I didn't know, but I was about to find out. The building on the outside was extremely plain, just a big rectangle of concrete and rebar; it only had a couple spotlights on the walls that would have given us good light if it weren't for the fact that the power was out. If I remembered correctly, there was a solar plant or a hydroelectric dam around here, so the moment Sofia flipped the breakers, we would have light.

  We all marched into the building, me and Plague at the front, with my shield whizzing in front of me, ready to slice anything I thought harmful in half. To my surprise, there was a reception area, and it reminded me a lot of a hospital, what with the size and the labyrinth that it was. The first order of business was figuring out where the servers were, and after we looked at a fire escape plan, we found them to be basically at the bottommost floor, great.

  "Ayla, up front. Tyrone, you stay beside her and tell her if anything is wrong." Said Plague. I had forgotten about that. Thanks to his higher intellect, Tyrone had much better senses than the rest of us. He could basically echolocate, it seemed.

  There really wasn't much distance in between all of us. Plague covered the rear in case either my brother or Mary decided to fall out of line.

  The building was massive, but it was also dead empty. We didn't see or hear any zeds for the first three floors, which all had differing layouts, and the stairs were in a different place in each of them, making this a proper labyrinth. It was also pitch black, so we all had to use night vision to move around. Throughout all of this, I had this feeling of dread oppressing my chest, making it hard to breathe. I just knew something was going to go horribly wrong, like Plague said. And there was still the threat of that monster Plague had told me about, the one that had made him nervous. What could it really be? Maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him, or maybe he was right.

  We finally made it to the third to last floor, and that was when we heard the first one. A guttural groan was heard from around a corner, and we all froze up. I felt a tap on my shoulder and saw Tyrone hand-sign me to peek slowly around the corner.

  I slowly moved my head around the bend, terrified of even breathing, and saw it. A mere three meters away and feasting on what looked like a corpse.

  I turned back towards Tyrone and signed a one followed by a three. Meaning there was one three meters away. He was going to sign something back, but Mary had other plans. With a machete she made, she crossed and, with a quick swing, decapitated the zed.

  Tyrone was confused, I was worried, and Plague was absolutely seething. If we hadn't needed to stay dead silent, there would have been trouble. I finally understood it. She wanted to prove herself; she wanted to show she wasn't the useless person she was before. She had probably thought that after being well able to take care of a couple of zeds, she would be able to take all of them on, which obviously wasn't the case.

  Now that the hallway was cleared, we could continue moving through the place, not without trouble though. Mary was beginning to be even more reckless than before, and she was threatening the whole operation. I had to stop her before she actually fucked up for good.

  I caught up to her and pulled her arm.

  "What are you doing?" She asked me.

  "I should be asking you the same. Are you trying to get us killed or something?" I said back.

  "I'm just trying to get this over with. Got a problem with that?" She said.

  "Yes, yes, I do in fact. You're being reckless, and you're going to get us all killed!"

  "Ugh, stop being such a snob. You know this is fine; we killed almost all of them before with the big fire show. This place is basically empty." She tugged her arm away. Our little conversation had reached others, and Plague wasn't going to have it. With a quick move, he slapped her across the face.

  "Shut the fuck up before I actually hurt you. You know nothing of this. We are surrounded by them. Most of the zeds on the base are in the lower levels of this building. If you act out again, I will kill you. Don't try me, Mary; I will do it." He stared her down, with a presence so overwhelming that it would make kings kneel. It was a bit excessive, what with the threats and all, but she wasn't thinking clearly, and somebody had to make her snap back to reality.

  "If we're so surrounded, then why are we alone?" She answered.

  Plague was nearing his limit.

  "Don't you even think of doing it; don't you fucking dare."

  Mary was clearly thinking of something, something bad.

  "Mary, don't." I said.

  "I don't need your help!" She shouted loudly.

  Suddenly, we heard a noise that can only be described as a stadium united in a shriek. It reverberated through the dark hallway, and it meant we would all die.

  "Ayla! You know what to do!" Said Plague. We had prepared for this. I would try making a forcefield around all of us, and then we would have to think of some way of taking care of them.

  Mary was feeling full of herself and walked towards the end of the hall from where all the noise was coming from. I couldn't let her.

  Before I could reach out for her, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I knew it was Plague's, and I understood that I had to focus on doing my job, even if I had more pressing issues.

  I focused and cleared my mind; I was hoping that Mary would come back when she saw the wave coming towards her.

  Then I saw it, the horde. Well, more than a horde, it was a living wave of putrid flesh advancing towards us. Plague was right; most of the zeds were in the building. There must have been more than a thousand of them, all piled one on top of another. Mary's shoulders dropped the moment she saw the horde; she was frozen in place and would have died if I hadn't brought her to me. Her face was pale, and her eyes were watery. There was no more time left. I focused and made a force field. Like being pulled back by invisible strings, the horde stopped around us. It was like watching them through a glass dome, but an issue quickly arose. I wouldn't be able to hold it up for much longer, and we didn't have a real way to deal with them. My brother couldn't zap them because he risked hitting us, I couldn't muster up any more strength, Mary wasn't capable of taking them all on, and Tyrone wasn't of much help here. That only left Plague, who, as you can imagine, also didn't appear to be helpful at all.

  "Close your eyes and hold your breath!" He ordered. I looked at him and saw he was holding two smoke grenades. We all did as we were told. I couldn't see nor hear anything, but after a couple moments, the groans from the horde quieted down, and Plague tapped me on the shoulder.

  I opened my eyes and, to my surprise, found that all the zeds weren't moving. All of them were collapsed on the floor.

  "What did you do?" I asked.

  "Cue grenades. It's a little something I developed. They basically just kill them by messing with their strand. You guys are immune, but it would have still burnt your eyes and left you coughing blood." He answered. I looked at him, and I saw he had four more grenades.

  Now we were safe, or safer than before at least.

  Plague then choked Mary against the wall.

  "Listen here, you fuckwit! We almost died because of you! This whole operation would have gone tits up because of you!"

  He shouted. Mary was terrified.

  I didn't know what to do; I knew she sort of deserved it, but at the same time he was being too excessive.

  "Plague, that's enough." Said Tyrone, the only person capable of doing something then. He pulled him off of her, and I went to get Mary out of there.

  I didn't catch what Tyrone was telling Plague, as I was too focused on Mary.

  "Hey, are you ok?" I asked her.

  She sniffled up tears. "Yeah. I'm so sorry!" I don't know what's gotten into me. I could have gotten you killed!" I could tell she now understood our predicament.

  "It's ok, it's fine. I understand why you did it, but just try not to lose your cool again, please. I know you were just trying to get revenge." I said. She widened her eyes, probably confused that I had nailed my theory.

  "I'm so stupid." She began sobbing; she buried her face in my neck. "I thought I could take them on; I wanted to take them on. But then I realized my mistake; if you hadn't pulled me back, I would have died! I'm so fucking useless." She was crying, and the rest knew that. Plague still looked really angry, and he would probably stay like that for a long time.

  "C'mon, let's get this done; we don't have any time to waste." He said. Tyrone seemed to suddenly understand something; his eyes widened at the thought. But he was smart, and he probably caught on to what Plague wanted to avoid, which was telling us what the issue was.

  Plague trod on, now with a quicker step than before. I saw sweat beginning to shimmer on his face, even though it was cold like a fridge down there.

  Whatever he was worried about, it sure was bad.

  We continued down the base, finding only stray zeds and some abnormal muties that couldn't move. We eventually found the server room, and just in the nick of time, the lights turned on. Sofia's squad had completed their task and would now be making their way to find the wanker core to help them and escape with them. The control room was a four-man terminal, and none of us but Tyrone knew what the hell we had to do. But Tyrone didn't seem to care. He booted up all the servers from the control room and somehow managed four terminals simultaneously. His power was his wit, and it showed. His fingers glided across the keyboards faster than I could see. He was maneuvering through settings, BIOS, or whatever the hell he had to do to get the servers online.

  "It's going to take about three minutes for the antennae to boot, and then I'm going to have to do some more wizardry, but it shouldn't take long." He confidently said. His power didn't really show, but when it did, it was more impressive than anything we could do. Sure, being able to lift a truck with my mind was cool, but being able to predict everything like he could or calculate whatever he needed to in an instant was objectively just as cool, if not more so.

  "We don't have that time, Tyrone, sorry." Said Plague.

  "This soon? Are you sure?" He asked back.

  "Certain." Plague answered dead serious.

  Tyrone looked at me, worried. So I guess I was going to be the one taking care of whatever it was. Hopefully it was nothing and Plague was simply overreacting, hopefully. But in all honesty, what could possibly be so dangerous that he had to worry that much? We had me! I'm already a one-girl army! Surely I'd be able to take it on, whatever it was.

  "Ayla," said Plague.

  "Yeah yeah, I know. "C'mon, Plague, let's kill this thing." I answered, annoyed.

  "Kill what?" Asked Donn. "I'm going with you."

  "No! You and Mary stay and protect Tyrone. This is between Ayla, me, and whatever we find up there. Ayla, let's go. Through the roof." Plague said. This was going to be the moment when my training in structures and engineering was going to come into play.

  We both went to one of the hallways, and with my telekinesis, I carved a hole straight from here to the surface. And then we heard a noise like no other. An earth-splitting roar was heard, like some ancient mythological beast was waking from its slumber, ready to erase humanity. The floor shook, and my head shook. I could feel the noise through every one of my senses.

  I continued carving and climbing until we finally arrived at the surface, and I wish I hadn't.

  Trying to describe what I saw to someone would make them think I was insane.

  Pale red skin, looking almost like muscle tissue, a quadrupedal stance like that of a silverback gorilla, and forelimbs heavier than I was.

  It was a nightmare to behold. God help me.