“Have you got the explosives?” she asks as I hop out of the elevator shaft.

  Before I even deign to answer, I lean into the wall and allow my muscles to rex. If you’ve ever been rope climbing, you’ll know that it is very strenuous on the muscles. Lifting your own body weight for aended period of time is going to tire you out.

  “Da, many bombs,” Boriss hops out of the shaft with a grin. He ys dowato sad then flexes his muscles as though his weight, Cillia, and the bag of explosives weighed nothing.

  Irmgard nods approvingly at Boriss and then looks at me.

  “The way to the elevator is clear. Only the big one remains.”

  “How many guards do you have to help us?”

  “None,” she answers, “I am the only o. All the others died on my way here.”

  Fuck. That’s not good.

  “Well, let's move on. Time is of the essence.”

  “Already?” Cillian whines. “My belly’s still sore from ying on his shoulder.”

  “No choice there. The lohis takes, the worse it gets. Take a look.” I point at the window.

  We all move to the window revealing the ey.

  “Feck me, it’s burning,” Cillian says.

  The fmes we’d created from the molotovs are rapidly spreading throughout the yard. As it spreads, the smoke rises to the ceiling and smothers the lights. In the hour or two, it will be thiough to smother everything in darkness.

  “Let's move,” I look at the Warden, “lead the way.”

  “Folgen,” she says and turns toward the hallway. We follow behind until we enter a room filled with guard and fenriromorph bodies.

  As I stare at the bodies, I note several bded thrusts through fenriromorph eyes. When I g the human bodies, I hat not all of them were mauled to death.

  That expins the red blood on her sword.

  I halt my movement and Boriss and Cillian do the same.

  “You executed yuards.” I point at the sliecks, “Why?”

  She turns to me and gives me an unamused gre. “They were injured. If they are left alive, they would have turned into these monsters.” She uhes her sword and stabs a dead fenriromorph through another eye.

  “The transformation is not immediate. They would have survived long enough to fight with us.” I expin

  She raises an eyebrow.

  “One of my guards was injured and turned into these things in only twenty minutes. He sughtered five more of my guards until he ut down.”

  Minutes? It’s been over an hour since I was scratched. Hmm, maybe it depends on the size of the initial wound?

  Just as I’m about to speak, I feel the pressure increase again. I fall to my knees and grip my right arm as it shakes. Pain spikes throughout my body as every neuron fires into every paior.

  SUBMIT

  SUBMIT

  SUBMIT

  SUBMIT

  I hear the and force its way toward me. It promises relief from the pain and pressure. A relief that no normal human resist.

  SUBMIT

  SUBMIT

  The and tinues, strohan ever before. So much strohat I’m able to feel where it is ing from.

  After what feels like hours, but is more akin to a mihe pain subsides, but the mental pressure tinues.

  When I finally look up, I’m met with a sword poi my face. Irmgard gres at me angrily, ready to stab me through the eye. The only reason she doesnt is Boriss’s dagger to her throat.

  I release a sigh and push the sword away.

  “Boriss, let her go.”

  The Russian removes his dagger from her throat.

  “rade Quasi, is getting worse, yes?”

  “It is, though I think the cause of it is the mo the elevator. If we kill it, this siess should stop.” I make eye tact with Irmgard. “Lead the way. My time is running out.”

  She stares at me for a long moment. Then she slowly nods, sheathes her sword, and turns to lead.

  We tihrough several more corridors and arrive at processing. We stop at a single double door. The same door that I’d passed through on my first day at Downside.

  “We must pn and prepare.” she says.

  I walk to the table in the room and y down my rifle and my rather useless daggers.

  “Boriss, unload everything here.”

  He does as I ask and we are left with a dozen pipe bombs, talm grenades, and several single use shotguns.

  “Irmgard, tell us about the fenriromorph. Is it just a rger version of the usual ones or are there other differences?” I ask

  “The monster is twenty feet tall, covered in armored chitin, and has five sets of horns.”

  “Anything else?”

  She pauses. “It moves slower.”

  “Slower… I work with that? Is it alone?”

  “Yes..”

  “I’m guessing you know this by camera?”

  “No, my office has a full view of the elevator. That thing is the first mohat I’d seen. All the lights went off, then the emergency lights turned on and it was just standing in the middle of the elevator.”

  So, fenriromorphs were teleported in and dispersed throughout the prison at the same moment that the prison was transported. That specifiriromorph is probably the st line of defense and will o be killed or bypassed. sidering a height of twenty feet, it 't leave the elevator. Which means killing it is a requirement for escape.

  “What's the enviro like? If memory serves, there were a lot of boxes and loading equipment.”

  “If you are asking whether there are pces to hide, then the answer is yes. But, I should warn you that most of everything on the elevator is made either of wood or pstic. It will not hold against the monster.”

  “Doesn’t o hold. We just need a way to hide while we get into position.” I expin.

  My hand taps the explosives. “Now, I’m not sure the pipe bombs will be strong enough to pee its chitin, so we’ll have to do a test. If it fails, we’re going to have to lob the explosive into its mouth or eyes.”

  “So, our pn is to throw explosives at the fenriromorph Alpha and hope it works? Is that really it?” Cillian asks, fbbergasted. “Couldn't we try to shoot it to death instead?”

  fenriromorph Alpha. I get behind that name.

  “Yea,” I nod, “but thats far more riskier than lobbing explosives. If it survive explosives, then it survive bullets.”

  He groans, “I don't suppose I use the gun,” he points at the rifle with more than half the bullets spent.

  “Go ahead, but the rifling is pretty damaged. Accuracy is going to suffer a det bit.”

  He picks it up alongside the st few bullets. “I’ll hang bad wait for an opportunity.”

  “Fih me. We’ll divide up the explosives between the rest of us. Then we’re going to ehe elevator and split up. Let's try to surround the thing.”

  ______________________________________________________

  The doors slide open to the st of blood and the taste of Iroer the massive elevator and are met with hundreds of stacked crates and several forklifts hem. Above, two es tower over everything.

  “Where is-,” I begin, but am interrupted by movement and a growl. We look towards the dire of the sound. Above a stack of crates, a massive head rises to peer above them. The head clearly looks like a fenriromorph, except it is far rger with ten horns and what seems like a bination of scales and chitin for its skin.

  Six eyes turn towards us with an intellige before seen by any other fenriromorph. As it stares, a chill runs down my neck alongside the mental pressure. No pai, but that I expect to happen soon.

  The fenriromorph opens its mouth and then howls so loud that we’re all forced to cover our ears. When the howl ends, the monster ducks uhe crates.

  And now the hunt begins.

  “Split up and don't wait in the same pce. If you see it and it sees you, yell loudly so we support. Keep low and always have somewhere to run.”

  We split up and travel through the mazes of crates. I keep my ear open, but find the rge fans above to be drowning out any nuanoise.

  I weave through the boxes quickly while making as little noise as possible. Nothing is out of the ordinary as I enter deeper into the elevator.

  Then I feel it. A spike in the pressure on my psyche from my right.

  Without thinking further, I immediately spri. A sed ter and the crates burst apart as the fenriromorph Alpha stomps after me. To my surprise, though the moowers over me, its movement speed is both slow and surprisingly silent.

  I grab one of the bombs and light the fuse. After two seds, I throw the bomb towards the Fenriromorph Alpha. It reaches the monster and explodes a foot away from its chest. I hear a roar and thehe elevator rumble as the fenriromorph falls to the floor.

  I quickly stop running and turn around to assess the situation of the damage. I grimace as the Fenriromorph Alpha gets back up. Green blood be seen leaking from the scales, but the scales look to be moderately undamaged. Some cracks, but nowhere near enough to do any real damage. I assess the rest of its body, aually realize that the scales on its head are smaller.

  “Aim for the head!” I yell. “Its scales are too thick everywhere else!”

  The Fenriromorph Alpha shakes its head. Our eyes meet and I feel the pressure build up again.

  Then I watch as a pipe bomb nds on its nostril.

  I grin.

  The bomb explodes and the beast screams and falls from the impact.

  I look up and find Boriss standing oop of the e with a crazed glint in his eye. The Russian throws another pipe bomb just as the Fenriromorph raises its head. It bounces ond then explodes.

  Seeing what he is doing, I throw my own bomb at the Fenriromorph’s head. This time, the monster actually rolls to the side and dodges the explosion. When its head rises again, half its eyes are on me and the re up at Boriss.

  Then the Napalm hits from the bad smothers the Fenriromorph’s head in fmes.

  “MORE BOMBS!” I yell. I throw another Pipe bomb that explodes. Followed by another from Boriss. Then Irmgard, the source of the napalm grehrows her own explosives at the fenriromorph. Eventually, Boriss and Ingrid run out of explosive and I am left with a st pipe bomb.

  We all wait with bated breaths as the dust settles for long moments. When the dust clears, the mutited face of the fenriromorph is left covered in green blood. The scales on its face have all beeroyed aed off to reveal bone.

  As I stare at the face, a grimas on my lips. The pressure is still present.

  And just as I’d expected, the beast's eyelids flicker open. Two eyes are destroyed, but four are staring angrily at me.

  “Shit.”

  The fenriromorph, clearly angry, gets up faster than it did before. An arm grabs a nearby crate and thes it in my dire. I try to dodge to the side, but am too slow. The crate makes tact with my body with enough force to shatter and send me reeling into another crate. I feel several bones break and a puncture through my stomach.

  Even so, I ighe pain and tio stay scious until my body slides to a stop.

  Groaning from pain, I force myself to quickly stand back up- only to fall to one knee from a shattered knee. I shift my head upwards ahe pressure on my head increase as I match eyes with the fenriromorph Alpha.

  The fenriromorph snarls at me. It takes a step in my dire.

  Then a third eye explodes followed by the sound of a distant gunshot.

  Fug lucky shot.

  The fenriromorph shifts its head towards the source of the sound.

  A fitting distra for Boriss to hop off the e and ween the monster's horns.

  “Like riding bear!” I hear the crazy Russian yell. Then I watch as he pointbnks a shotgun at its head. The bullets impact bone and lodges an inside. Not enough to pee, but enough to piss it off even more.

  The beast roars in pain. It shakes its head and attempts to force the Russian off, but Boriss grabs a horn and stays riding. The beast, in panic, fusion, fear, and anger rushes around in circles to throw him off.

  Damn. We need something stronger.

  I gnce down at my feet to find my st pipe bomb.

  Maybe if I lob that thing in its mouth?

  I g my body.

  Broken ribs, puncture wound through the stomach, unusable left leg. Yea, I’m not going anywhere… unless.

  My eyes move to my right hand and the slowly rising pain.

  I chuckle as the pain tio rise and spread throughout my body. This time, instead of resisting the pain, I embrace it. The Pressure in my Psyche grows stronger and stronger as does the pain.

  Then I hear it.

  SUBMIT

  SUBMIT

  SUBMIT

  It grows stronger.

  SUBMIT

  SUBMIT

  SUBMIT

  With a thought, I retreat into my mind and relinquish my body.