Chapter 8: The Hundred Monster Army

Monotony. 

If there was one word to describe this job; it would be that.

Working day in and day out in the dull lifeless office space, spending most of it just staring at your screen for hours on end in a crumpled cubicle. 

Waiting as seconds seem like they take hours to pass by. Then when you're finally off the clock, you're too drained to do anything so all you can do is dread the start of your next shift.

Dealing with bosses who berate you constantly for any minor grievance. Bosses who don't care if you faint from exhaustion. Bosses who only care about you if you finish your work.

This is what the workers stuck spending the night slaving away at their desk call 'daily life'.

"BASTARDS! YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING RIGHT!" 

The source of this noise is the regional manager at the job; a balding middle-aged man by the name of Andrei Lebedev. In one of his greasy hands is a rolled-up newspaper. As he marches down the aisle of cubicles, he makes sure to slam the paper down on each and every desk he passes.

"OUR SALES ARE DOWN BY 25 PERCENT SINCE LAST QUARTER!" Andrei roars, "DO YOU WANT TO BE OUT OF A JOB?! NO? THEN DO YOUR DAMN WORK!"

After his incessant rant, Andrei Lebedev struts his way back to his own separate office room. It's a lavish one, much fancier than the lifeless office outside of it. Lebedev sits down on his black cushioned chair as he pours himself a glass of whiskey.

He glances out into the office space, the only thing separating the two being a frosted glass wall.

"Damn mutts," He scoffs before guzzling down the whiskey, "Can't do anything right."

As he begins to relax, He puts on his sound-proof headphones before leaning into his chair. He stares up at the ceiling and at a wall framed with employee of the month pictures. One of them catches his eye.

"What the hell?" Andrei Lebedev scoffs as he gets up from his chair, "Why the hell do we still have this one, the coward left a while ago."

Andrei lifts the framed photograph on the wall and tosses it into the trash. He takes off his headphones for a second before realizing something.

The rest of the office is quiet.

Too quiet.

Suddenly from the other end of the frosted glass wall, a hand slams into the wall.

Then another.

And another.

And another.

Soon there's 10- no, 20- no, there's too many hands to count all slamming into the frosted glass wall. All of the hands are stained with blood and they're smearing it across the glass. Soon, Andrei hears a cry come from the office and all of the hands let go of the wall. 

As blood-curdling screams and the noises of flesh being ripped apart echo across the office, Andrei Lebedev quickly hides under his desk causing the trash can to fall down. He begins to dial up for emergency services as the tossed-out 'employee of the month' frame lays next to him.

The plaque on the frame reads "Employee of The Month for May 2020: Razor Smirnov".

PROJECT MONSTER

One late night inside the northern division's dorms; Razor is trying to help his sister with her homework in the lobby. Razor has on a long-sleeved black t-shirt and brown cargo pants over his freckled body, he skims through the notes Nadia took.

"The Broken Windows Theory?" Razor questions.

"Yeah I was a bit confused about it and figured you'd be smart enough to answer this," Nadia says.

"Wow, you must be desperate for answers if you're calling me smart," Razor jokes.

"Do you have the answer for this or not?" Nadia groans.

Razor thinks before embarrassingly responding, "Nope."

"All that talk just to not even know!" Nadia teases.

"Hey, Tundrayansk doesn't have as good a school as Rising Heights does so don't blame me for not knowing!"

"Sure, keep telling yourself that."

"Couldn't you have just looked it up-" Razor starts to say but gets interrupted by Tire slumping over the couch.

"So that's where you've been," Tire says to Razor before looking down at the homework and asking, "Oh, your sis goes to school?"

"Oh y-yeah," Nadia murmurs, trying not to make eye contact.

"We've been learning about this in my class too," Tire remarks, "From what I remember, that theory's all about how if you see visible signs of crime, like a broken window, that increases chances of crime since people think they can get away with it."

"Doesn't that sound a bit-" Razor begins to question.

Tire interjects, "A bit stupid? Yeah, but we don't have time to discuss their flaws."

"How come?" Razor asks.

"We just got a call about another monster attack."

"Alright then," Razor says as he stands up before facing Nadia. "Good luck on your test tomorrow."

"Th-thanks," Nadia murmurs, still uncomfortable from the others' presence.

__________________________

Late at night, the busted-up RV zooms through the quiet streets of Rising Heights. Tire makes sure to avoid the bumps and cracks in the road that are still left over from the monster attack Abdulov caused.

Inside the RV, Anastasia sips some coffee before giving a rundown of the situation, "We got a call from a person trapped inside an office building about monsters swarming the whole place. According to him, there were too many to keep track of."

Katina, who is sporting an oversized black t-shirt over a white compression shirt, blue jeans, and checkered shoes, groans loudly.

"It's been a while since we had to deal with a proper horde," Katina laments, "Tire almost lost his arm in that."

Seeing Razor tense up, Dmitri rests his arm around Razor's shoulder and exhales, "Ya worried about fighting all those monsters?"

"Yeah," Razor sighs, "It's just been over a week since I started and-"

"Tip of advice from one bloke to another," Dmitri says, "Forget about all that."

"What?"

"Your worries and shit, once we go in there we won't have time to focus on that," Dmitri explains, "Because the only thing that'll matter is making sure you live to see the next day."

Hearing those words, Razor sarcastically remarks, "Well that's reassuring."

As the RV reaches its destination, Tire hits the brakes. The force of the stop sends Razor falling to the ground while the others hold onto the sides of the RV.

"Can't you stop normally for once?!" Razor groans.

"If you don't like it you can drive!" Tire retorts as he puts the car in park.

As the group of five step outside of the RV, Tire goes to lock the door with the key only for it to get jammed. As for the office building itself, it's currently being blocked off by soldiers and cleaning crew members alike with the one leading the process being Colonel Frank Walker.

Spotting the monster killers approaching, Frank Walker greets them, "Glad you can make it."

As Razor eyes Walker, he still isn't sure what to think of his superior.

Addressing Razor, Frank Walker adds, "And it's nice to see you aren't rushing into things like an impatient child."

After hearing that, Razor's confusion clears up very quickly. Tire, who manages to finally get the key out of the door, Tire joins the group.

"We're in the process of blocking off the building so nobody accidentally enters," Walker states, "While we do that, you five will head inside. Once we're done with the barricade some of our finest members will join you."

"Thank you, we'll try to get most of it situated before you have to storm in," Anastasia Petrova responds.

As the group make their way under the caution tape and towards the entrance, Frank Walker lets out one final warning. "Oh yeah, rumor has it that there's a hundred of them monsters inside."

As the monster killers walk further from the others and towards the entrance, Razor takes a look at the building. Despite it being dark out, the whole place looks familiar to him.

No, it can't be…

"So, we're really facing a hundred monsters?" Tire questions.

"Looks like it, we're all going to have to focus," Anastasia says as she grabs the door handle, "You ready?"

"Ready!" the others chant.

"Very well then," Anastasia sighs as they enter the building.

Now inside the lobby of the office building, Razor looks around. All of the lights in the room have been destroyed in the scuffle and pools of blood are all across the floor. He sees the company's logo on the wall but can't exactly read it due to it also being stained in blood. Though the shape of it… the whole lobby… he's almost certain of it now. All he needs to do is check.

As Razor gets closer to the log, Anastasia makes sure to be on high alert while Tire & Katina seem to be relaxed. As for Dmitri, despite still having the green cloth covering the top half of his face like always and having his hands in his pockets, he seems to be more aware of the surroundings than anyone else.

Razor is now just a few meters away from the logo, about to actually see if his suspicious are true when-

CRACK.

Razor looks down to the ground to see he's stepped onto shards of glass.

"My bad everyone," Razor begins to say, "I need to-"

Suddenly before he can react, a set of hands wraps around the back of Razor's head and begins to slam it into the wall repeatedly.

Razor manages to quickly break free though his nose is bleeding and there are cuts & bruises on his face. He turns around to see his attacker is that of a monster. The pale white monster looks malnourished with a pair of weak legs and two scrawny arms. Bugs and small insects wiggle around its yellow rotten teeth. Though the most noticeable feature is without a doubt its flat head. On it where its eyes should be are holes that ooze out an inky black substance. The holes are in the shape of '01/100'.

The monster lets out a raspy cry before swinging its arms at Razor.

Razor quickly manages to dodge the attack, only to be greeted by another identical monster latching onto him.

Then another.

And another.

And another.

As more identical monsters pile onto him, trying to rip his limbs off, Razor is doing his best to focus on transforming into his blast state. Though it's not exactly easy when he's at the bottom of a massive horde.

Just when they're about to inflict some serious damage, all of the monsters that piled onto him stop moving and slump over. The top half of their heads were sliced off clean causing the black inky blood to pool out of their dying bodies.

Razor looks to see that the source of the attack came from Anastasia who is holding a sand sword. Laying on the sword's blade are the top half of the monsters' heads. As more and more monsters begin to arrive, The heads slowly slide off of the blade.

"Don't lose focus!" Anastasia shouts as more identical monsters begin to emerge from the shadows, "Unless you want your entrails spread across the ground, get up and fight!"

Razor is stunned for a bit before he stands up and remarks, "RIGHT!"

Razor closes his eyes.

C'mon, focus…

More monsters begin to appear and start to surround Razor.

Focus…

One of the monsters is about to take a bite down onto Razor's neck.

FOCUS!

Razor's eyes jolt open as he activates his blast. Green metal coats his skin causing the monster who tries to bite down on his neck to chomp down onto straight metal. The monster's teeth shatter as Razor then grabs two of the monsters' heads and crushes them into the ground.

Another monster lunges toward Razor but before it can attack, Katina in her gelatin state bounces in the way of the monster and kicks it into the wall. She recoils backward toward a few monsters, but she uses that chance to bounce on the creature's heads. This causes her to rocket up towards the ceiling while sending the monsters crumbling to the ground below.

Before they even have a chance to get back up, Anastasia slices off their heads.

"Their cores are in their heads!" Anastasia shouts.

The holes on the monsters' heads begin to morph as they change from reading "01/100" to "01/90".

"Glad someone's keeping count!" Tire remarks as he tries to bunch a monster who's bitten into his sleeve. 

When his fist touches the inky numbers, black inky blood squirts out of the monster as it falls limp.

Seeing this, Dmitri gets closer to one of the monsters and kicks its head. The monster stumbles back and his head bumps into another's. As the identical-looking monsters touch, the ink on their heads begins to spread across their bodies until it engulfs them whole. The ink begins to rise as standing where the two monsters once were is now a taller similar-looking monster. Outside of being slightly more muscular, the main difference this one has from the rest is the ink on its head reads "02/89".

"Don't let them touch one another, they can combine!" Dmitri yells as the 2/89 monster tackles him into an elevator shaft.

As the two fall down the shaft, Dmitri catches himself before the 02/89 monster lands on the end of the shaft. However, it gets back up as if nothing ever happened. Dmitri hops onto the monster's head.

"I get what you are, when you combine your strength multiplies," Dmitri remarks as he sees the monster's hand try to punch him.

When the monster's fist gets closer to Dmitri, Dmitri quickly hops off the monster. However, the monster isn't fast enough to react so its fist goes through its head; killing itself.

"But it seems your intelligence is still below average," Dmitri smirks.

As Dmitri stands at the bottom of the elevator shaft, he sees several monsters begin to fall down into the elevator shaft. As more begin to fall onto him, Dmitri grabs a hold of something. 

He grabs onto the cloth covering the top half of his face.

"I'M TAKING 'IT' OFF!" Dmitri warns everyone.

Up on the first floor, as the four take care of the remaining stranglers, they all start to hear screams coming from the elevator shaft.

Screams not from Dmitri, but from the monsters.

Razor goes to the open elevator shaft and looks down. It's too dark to see what's going on down there but he can hear the bones breaking, bodies being tossed into walls, and the screams of the monsters echo out.

Katina walks over to him and places a hand on his shoulder, "Hey Razor, I don't think we've told you this but we have a rule Dmitri wants us to follow."

"What is it?" Razor asks.

"Whenever he takes off the blindfold on his face, you look the other way."

The screams die out as the only noise coming from the elevator shaft is a dripping noise.

That and Dmitri saying, "Okay! I put the blindfold back on, you mind getting me out of here!"

"I'll go look for a rope or something, stay there!" Tire yells back.

"You don't need to worry about me running off!" Dmitri teases.

Even though he can't see it, Tire flips Dmitri off as he tries to find a rope.

"Katina stay with Tire, you two will help get Dmitri out of the elevator," Anastasia states, "Razor and I will check the upper floors."

Katina nods as Anastasia and Razor turn their attention to the stairway. The two begin to walk up the stairs. They try to get onto the second floor but the doorway has been blocked by several fallen debris. So the two make their way to the third floor. When they enter the third floor, they see it is a regular office space.

A space where people would be working right now, a place that was once filled with the noisy 9-5 now filled with the horrifying silence. The only place that doesn't seem damaged is the personal office of a manager there who has their own separate room.

Razor makes his way to the door of the office when he sees the sign on it reads 'Andrei Lebedev'. Seeing that name, Razor's eyes widened.

"You," Razor growls as the memories begin to flood back.

As Razor starts placing his hand on the door handle, he notices that in the reflection of the door is a huge hulking monster behind him. One that has '50/75' written on its forehead in ink.

See You Next Chapter!~