"What the fuck was that?!" Duncan screamed, in a total panic.
The boys kept running blindly, desperate, through the maze of corridors. They were momentarily dazed by the massive sonic wave that had ravaged their hearing, leaving them with nothing but a sharp, agonizing whistle in their ears. Raiko, in particular, clutched her right ear; it felt as if it were melting from the inside. She stared at the sheer amount of blood coating her index and middle fingers—dull and dark, flickering under the swaying beams of the flashlights as the soldiers bolted forward.
David, also reeling, pressed his left hand against his ear. He turned toward her, his expression a mask of pain and irritation.
"Raiko?! What's wrong with you?!"
The girl began to stagger. Her gait became completely uncoordinated, her legs turning to jelly as if they could no longer support her weight. Her breath grew shallow, gasping for air that wouldn't come. Her eyes went dull, turning opaque, and her eyelids began to flutter rapidly.
Then, her lungs turned to lead, blocked and stifled as if filled with stones, cutting off her oxygen and crushing her chest. Her heart rate seemed to double in response to the pressure, pounding so hard it felt like it might burst through her ribs. She began to cough and vomit blood while still in stride, soaking her armor and the tech underneath. David watched in horror as thick, clumpy, dark blood sprayed from his friend's mouth. Her lips were stained a wet, vivid red, smeared with organic scraps—likely undigested food in shades of white, beige, and orange. The bile dripped repeatedly, hitting the metal of her Kariudo armor with a sickening, metallic clink.
Suddenly, she slammed into the ground face-first. The heavy metallic thud echoed through the dark, hollow tunnel.
"Raiko!" David lunged toward her. She was completely compromised, barely conscious. Duncan and another soldier were right behind him. The three of them tried to hoist her up as she let out dry, hacking sounds, her body wracked by sudden spasms and violent heaving. More blood, hot and steaming, spilled out, soaking the boots and pants of her comrades. Duncan looked on with visible revulsion but stayed silent, masking his disgust with pure concern for his friend.
"What's happening to her?!" one of the soldiers asked, confused. Together with Duncan and David, they threw her over their shoulders and hauled her toward the entrance of the large warehouse they had just reached. The rusty automatic door groaned and screeched as it slowly began to grind upward.
"Raiko, can you hear me?!" David tried to get through. He received only faint rattles in response, punctuated by random, jagged spasms.
They scrambled into the warehouse—a vast, hollow space dimly lit by flickering overhead bulbs. The air was thick with dust and the stench of mold clinging to the damp concrete walls. High metal racks filled with crates, debris, and junk loomed over them. The other soldiers urged them on, terrified by the imminent arrival of the Ijo hunting them. The beasts appeared almost instantly, erupting from the darkness like it was a portal to hell, shrieking in bone-chilling discord. They moved in that familiar, twisted, inhuman fashion that made the blood run cold and the stomach churn with revulsion.
Once inside, a soldier slammed his fist onto the white button to close the door. It began its descent with the same agonizing slowness and grating noise. At first, the door seemed slower than the monsters. "Dammit, move!" the boy screamed, hammering the button over and over, triggered by the repetitive beep. Only a few yards separated them from the creatures. The Ijo seemed to pick up the pace, their numerous joints clicking and snapping. The sound of their movements was wet and fleshy against the damp floor—made even more nauseating by the trail of blood Raiko had left behind as she lost consciousness.
"Come on! Move!" The soldier gritted his teeth so hard they nearly cracked. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead as he watched that swarm of putrid eyes closing in.
A sudden wave of nausea hit him, almost as if it had been externally induced. The boy felt his strength drain away; his hand missed the button, and when he did hit it, his strikes were so weak the signal barely registered. For a moment, the door seemed stuck, trembling as if something were holding it back.
"Hey, you okay?!" a friend asked, catching the soldier as he slumped toward the floor.
"Why won't it close?!" Duncan yelled, as he and David knelt over Raiko.
"I don't know! Maybe it's jammed...!"
"The button isn't working! What do we do?!"
"...Vale, wake the fuck up!"
Tension skyrocketed. Every passing second made the approaching footsteps sound heavier. The closer they got, the more repulsive their grunts became.
But it wasn't just that.
There was a bitter, suffocating sense of dread hanging in the air. Their skin felt tight, the oxygen thin. The stench of rotting corpses was so invasive it burned their nostrils and numbed their senses, even when the Ijo weren't in sight. It wasn't just the monsters. It felt like something macabre was present, watching, manipulating—deciding not who would live or die, but who would break first. Who could endure the longest.
When the door finally hit the ground with a heavy metallic boom, the boys' relief was nothing but an illusion. A fleeting moment before the next disaster.
"What the...?" Duncan stared at the door in pure terror. It hadn't just closed; it had plummeted, as if the mechanism had snapped. What stunned him more, however, was the sudden silence. The Ijo's screams had vanished instantly. It was as if they had simply ceased to exist.
This didn't ease the tension. It only amplified it.
While the young soldier was being tended to by his friends, Duncan turned back to David, who was desperately trying to get a reaction out of Raiko, tapping her face lightly with his hand.
"Raiko..."
David had actually climbed out of his Kariudo armor. He was desperate. He wasn't crying yet, though his eyes were bloodshot and fixed on her. He squeezed her hand tight, pressing it against his chest, which was already smeared with blood and mucus. He felt the wetness being absorbed by the soft, thin fabric of his gloves; his grip was so tight that blood began to seep through the seams of his fingers. He shook her hand slightly, trying to catch her attention, but only succeeded in smearing more blood across her armor. He stared at the bits of undigested food stuck to the metal, horrified and paralyzed with fear.
Suddenly, David's tears began to fall, one or two at a time, landing on his blood-stained hands and momentarily washing them, creating tiny clear holes in the red liquid where they impacted. He leaned in close, resting his forehead against hers. He gave her a weak kiss on the temple—his lips were dry and cracked. He wanted to kiss her again, but he stopped. She wouldn't feel a thing, he thought. She wouldn't even feel the tears that were now cascading down her pale, angelic face. Her cheek was marred by scratches and bruises from the fall. The tears rolled down her jawline toward her ears, which were still clogged with blood that had begun to pool in the folds of her outer ear.