10 Chapter 10: Shadow Beast and Hope

Lucas stopped listening to the bathroom door and instead focused on his surroundings.

'There has to be someplace I can survive from those creatures that come at night' Lucas thought as he remembered the writhing shadow-clad horrors that came at him his first night in the apocalypse.

The room was sparse with only a single table and four chairs surrounding it. There was a small fridge that was in the corner and was most likely used for the employees to keep their food in while they were on shift.

There was one feature in the room however that made trying to stay safe in this room impossible. There was no door. It was just a doorway that stood connecting the two rooms together yet it lacked this simple function. To hold a goddamn door!

'Think, think, think!' Lucas yelled at himself in his head as he began to come up with a plan, albeit a fairly bad one.

'Perhaps I can just hope he doesn't find me?'

'No that wouldn't work.'

'I'm pretty tough, right? Why not just try and kill whatever creature is coming here?'

'Yeah, that sounds about right!' Lucas concluded as he sneaked his way through the building towards the main store floor.

He could see perfectly clear in the room that would have been pitch black to anyone else and although he had heard a vicious growl moments before, it seemed as if any movement had completely vanished in the building.

'Is it gone?' Lucas asked himself as he let out a sigh of relief but something inside of him triggered like an internal alarm and he felt himself ducking.

A creature that was relatively small compared to the beasts Lucas had seen beforehand soared through the air and scratched what seemed to be hundreds of times in the spot that Lucas had been in moments before.

"Damn!" Lucas exclaimed as he was taken by surprise.

After standing back up Lucas instantly got a better look at the now sprawling panther that was sliding across the floor.

It seemed to be a normal animal, though that is excluding the fact that it seemed to be leaving behind a trail of shadows that even Lucas couldn't see through.

'Is that how it snuck up on me?' Lucas questioned the new sight feature that Nyx had blessed him with before realizing that a prompt was above the creature's head that seemed to have originated from his new skill <Anceint Sense>.

'Holy shit! This feels like a mini-boss from one of those games I have heard about.'

Lucas Readied his bat and got in a swinging stance before the creature finally managed to steady its body.

The creature let out an ear-piercing roar before disappearing into its own shadow.

'This is just unfair now.'

Lucas felt his internal alarm ring once more as he dodged to the side just for the jaws of the Shadow Panther to come down where he previously stood.

"Really?!" Lucas shouted at the panther before swinging back in retaliation at the shadow panther that was currently soaring through the air helplessly.

Lucas felt his bat crunch through the Panther and was fairly surprised to see that it did some damage to the beast.

The shadow panther landed once more before a look of fear entered its eyes.

"Your not so scary now ain'tcha?" Lucas mocked.

The panther began to scramble in place before disappearing once more, this time not returning instantly like before.

"Phew. I thought that I was gonna be a goner for a second there"

Then something happened that made Lucas dye his pants brown. A panther quadruple the size of the previous panther stepped out of a massive shadow portal with a menacing growl.

"And there is Mama Panther..." Lucas said with a look of defeat showing on his face.

'Mini-boss my ass!' Lucas thought while laughing at his nativity.

The panther looked angry as it roared at Lucas and looked at him with disdain.

The words that were above the beast made Lucas wish he was never born as he saw an age he thought he would never hear of in his life.

Lucas cringed at the beast and realized he was done realizing that his goggles had begun to glow and radiate light that looked akin to stars.

Whispers could be heard surrounding him though Lucas could really only catch a single one before something extraordinary happened.

"Suffer!" The voice whispered in a raspy tone before all 24 stars exploded and collided with Lucas's body sending waves of energy coursing through his veins.

Lucas felt the new strength overwhelm his body as he dashed forward and struck with all his might at the strangely stunned Alpha Panther.

The bat soared through the air in a wide ark and hit the center of the panther's head before caving in a portion of its skull.

'They seem relatively fragile.' Lucas concluded as the creature fell to the ground dead.

<The user has killed a <Shadow Puppet: LV: 0> 10 XP rewarded to the user>

"Wait Wha-" Lucas began before he felt a terrifying energy sweep from behind him that seemed unavoidable. His internal alarms didn't even warn him of the incoming threat before he was battered into one of the nearby shelves, caving it in, in the process.

Lucas felt a pain that compared to no other (except getting burned alive and almost killed by an explosion you caused by yourself like a dummy). He turned around slowly as something seemed to be limiting his movement and the system quickly explained why.

"Ugh..."

The panther slowly made its way forward as it stepped out of the shadows just like its child had done and glared at Lucas almost as if it had already won the battle.

Lucas stood up and tried to hobble his way across the isles to get some cover before a familiar creature appeared behind the shelf he was about to use as cover.

The Shadow Panther had arrived. Not the Alpha but the fucking baby.

The creature that looked deeply hurt had a smirk upon its face as it lunged forward one more time as if readying itself for the blow of a lifetime.

And that was it.

The End.

Lucas died at that very moment.

Or at least he wished he did. His life would only get worse from here on out.

A strange blue bubble formed over Lucas the instant the panther lunged forward and a young voice of a girl echoed through the grocery store and yelled the cringiest line of a lifetime.

"Bubble, Bubble, No More Trouble!" and with that, a forcefield protected Lucas from the baby panther's swipes.

The bubble-like forcefield was a stunning blue that looked similar to the waves of the sea(Which Lucas only guessed because he hasn't seen it himself...).

The only thing that remained from the swipes of the panther was calm ripples that slowly resided into a stillness that permeated through the bubble.

Lucas looked around and found his savior. It was a girl that looked no older than a middle schooler holding what looked to be a fairy wand from one of the famous cartoons that played on TV when he could still afford it.

She had light blonde hair and blue eyes that radiated innocence and fear. Though her voice was calm and collective, maybe even confident, she wasn't the picture of a hero at all. She was, quite literally, shaking in her pink leather boots that went up to her knees.

"Hey, Mister! I can save you!" She said almost as if she was a hero rescuing a princess from a dragon... though she was also dressed like a princess... and the princess she was saving was a gruff-looking man in his 20s.

Lucas gave the girl a look that was more perplexed than relieved as the girl proceeded to do a little twirl in her pink tutu and waved her wand erratically before pointing it at the large Alpha Shadow Panther.

She winked at the creature, who looked more puzzled than Lucas did, and though very much still shaking, a burst of swirling blue energy exploded from the tip of her wand and bound the beast in a whirlpool of water like chains.

"Go home silly!" She laughed as the creature began to sink into the whirlpool and began to panic and flail around to no avail.

And while this was happening a young panther stared at its mother/father brutally getting sent to the strange hellscape that was this girl's wonderland. The little panther was visibly shaking and gave out an audible gulp before turning around and attempting to run away.

"No way little man!" The girl shouted 'menacingly' and a smaller vortex of water energy completely drowned the panther into a puddle that slowly disappeared into nothingness.

The little girl, who had stopped shaking at this time, walked forward- no skipped forward towards Lucas as he stood there in disbelief with his Jaw-dropping the lowest it has ever been in his life.

The girl finally reached Lucas after a little bit of carefully traveling through broken glass and quickly tapped the forcefield he was in causing it to immediately dissipate into a mist that felt cool against his skin.

The girl curtsied in front of him and laughed slightly at his strange disposition before introducing herself in the calmest manner he had ever seen after killing a monster while being afraid moments prior.

"The name is Lucy Tina, though you can call me Lina!"

'What the fuck just happened?!' was the only thought in Lucas's head as he found words eluded him.

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