Total darkness.A breath. Short... ragged.Kael, curled up in the icy shadow of the storage room, felt his heart pounding like a war drum.A dull throb. Muffled. Beating against his skull, hammering through his ribs.Every beat echoed through his guts, shaking the still air around him.The darkness crushed him. Oppressive. Heavy. Almost alive.There was nothing.Nothing but... waiting.Unbearable.

  Then... a sound.Muted. Soft.A thump against the door?No...A scratching. Faint, almost hesitant.Like nails on metal.Then harder. More insistent.The doorknob turned. Slowly. Deliberately.As if whatever was behind it... was savoring the moment. Stretching every second to the breaking point.

  Kael jolted. Hard. Uncontrolble.Pressed against the wall, he fought the scream rising in his throat.The darkness clung to his skin like tar. He felt like he was drowning in it.His breath came in gasps, raw and painful. Every inhale burned.His hands were trembling. His entire body trembled.His fingers found something on the ground... a tool...A screwdriver. Rusted. Sticky handle.Useless.But he clung to it like a lifeline.“No... no... please...”

  The silence shattered.

  CRACK.

  Kael flinched. A silent scream tore through him, stuck inside.The door shook.A bulge. Swollen. Grotesque.The wood groaned under pressure, creaking like bone about to snap.“Shit... no... no no no... I have to get out...”

  His eyes darted madly, searching for an exit.But nothing.Just wobbly shelves, tangled cables, rusted tools.No escape. None...

  He crawled backward, bumped into a wall.His fingers grazed something... a box.A metal pte. A switch.An old control panel.Shutters...?He jerked upright.

  “Shutters? Yes! FUCK, YES!”

  He lunged for it, hands spasming as he smmed the button.Once. Twice. Three times.And then... a whine.Long. Piercing. Metallic.A sound that sliced through his nerves, shrieking its slow arrival.

  The shutters began to rise.

  But... millimeter by millimeter.Each st weighed a ton.Every click rang out like a countdown to horror.A thin bde of light slowly cut across the floor.

  Too slow.Way too slow.

  Behind him...A breath.A rasp.A stench. Rotting. Thick.The foul breath of carrion leaking through the widening gap in the door.

  Then...

  BANG!

  A strike.The door buckled.Kael stepped back.

  BANG!

  The hinges groaned.

  BANG!

  A scream. No... an inhuman shriek. A beast. Or... more than one.They pounded at the door with everything they had.They were coming in.They would come in.

  “Come on... COME ON!”

  Kael turned. The window was almost there.Still too narrow to crawl through.But it was opening.It was opening!Light. Cold white. Cut like a knife.

  He gnced back.The door bulged.A snarl.Cws.Shadows.

  “FASTER!!!”

  He grabbed the edge.But it was too te.

  The room exploded.

  The door blew inward, ripped off its hinges like a missile.A flood of shattered wood, twisted metal... and bestial shrieks.A tidal wave of snarling flesh tore into the room.Kael saw nothing but shapes.Twisted forms.Disjointed limbs.Bloodshot eyes.Mouths... wide open.Teeth.

  The floor quaked beneath their charge.

  Kael screamed.He hadn’t even realized it.He dove for the window, seized the edge with everything he had left.His feet slipped.His arms faltered.The light seared his dited eyes.

  A blow behind him.A scrape.A breath of icy death brushed his leg.A growl hissed against his neck.

  He pushed.Hard.Again.

  CLACK.His shoulders cleared.

  He dragged himself through, shutters scraping his spine.The metal screeched behind him.

  And he jumped.

  Empty air.Cold wind.No breath.A second suspended in space.

  The ground rushed up to meet him.

  THUD.

  He smmed onto a dumpster below, the metal crumpling under the impact.A cry escaped his lungs.His ankle screamed... but not broken.He moved.Still alive.

  Above him... silence.A breath.Then... screams.And bodies.

  The beasts jumped.

  One after another, they hurled themselves out the window, howling, arms spread wide like nightmare angels.

  Kael rolled, fell off the dumpster into the dirt.Limping.His head spun.

  All around him... chaos.

  Some monsters were already outside, devouring each other.Screams.Blows.Pure carnage.

  The ones that had just nded shrieked as they rose.But they didn’t get far.The creatures on the ground had already torn into them.

  A guttural roar.A jaw.Blood.

  Kael, half-hidden behind a heap of debris, watched.Watched the horror unfold.

  They were eating their own.A savage feast.A cannibal frenzy.The new ones... had become prey.

  He was no longer a priority.

  He was too weak.Too small.'Good.'

  Kael backed away, slowly.Crawling through the dust.Looking for an angle.An opening.A target.

  He spotted a wounded monster.Kneeling.Alone.

  He pulled out the rusted screwdriver he’d refused to drop.Crept closer.

  But before he could even raise his arm...Another creature pounced.Smmed the wounded one into the ground.

  Kael retreated.Another chance... same result.Again. Again. Again...

  He didn’t even have time to exist before death beat him to it.

  His hands shook.Breath shallow.Legs buckling.

  He hadn’t killed anyone.

  And yet...Between two torn bodies... he saw it.

  A glow.An icon.Suspended in the air.

  80%...

  He held his breath. And that’s when he understood. The game hadn’t even really begun...