Brief Respite

After taking a couple minutes to catch his breath, Virion finally stood back up. A look of exhaustion covered his face, but he knew he had to continue onwards. He couldn't allow himself to stop now. If he stopped for long enough, another one of those creatures might show up.

Even with thoughts of disgust in his mind, he still got closer to the corpse laying on the ground surrounded by all the things he had thrown at it. Virion slowly inched closer to it, wanting to get the knife he had stabbed it with. It may not be a good weapon, but it's the only one he has, after all.

Virion grabs the knife from the eyeball that he had accidentally stabbed while trying not to puke. Such a sensation of a blade being pulled from the eyeball of a recently living creature is almost too much for him to handle. He manages to push through, however, because of his mind still not having completely processed everything that's happened so far. It all just feels like a bad dream, one that he'll surely wake up from shortly. It has to be.

But sadly, it was not. This was his new reality.

Trying his hardest not to think about it, he looks around and wipes the knife on a handkerchief he finds on one of the desks and stores it in his pocket.

"Why is this happening to me?! Why is this happening in general?! What the hell happened?! I just want to continue my normal life! I don't want to die like this!" Virion seems to be on the verge of a mental breakdown while saying all of these things.

"I can't stop, I have to go, there's still people who need help, they need food. If I can just find some food, maybe it'll help"

Forcing himself to think only of finding food, Virion manages to convince himself to keep going. He slowly makes his way out the door he previously barricaded, the door that is now indented from the creature banging against it to open it.

"How are we supposed to fight these things?"

Not thinking about it for long, Virion continues up the stairs, praying that there isn't anything in the fourth office. The walk-up is accompanied only by the low hum of the fluorescent lights and the clacking of his feet against the concrete stairs.

After making it to the fourth office door, he creeps up to it as slowly and carefully as possible, being extremely careful not to make a mistake like last time.

He reaches the door and peers through the glass to see if there's anything inside. After waiting and still not hearing or seeing anything though he concludes that it's safe to head inside, which he does.

Once inside the fourth floor office, it looks exactly the same as the third, covered in that white mundane paint. Desks lined the floor with only a bit of space to walk between them.

Doing a quick once over and noticing that there was nothing on this floor he headed to the next.

Doing the same careful walk up and wait as last time, he tries to see if there's anything inside. However, it seems his luck had paid off as the fifth floor seemed to be the break room. From his past experiences in working in an office building like this, he knew the break room normally had a couple of vending machines.

Even though he was excited, he still waited a couple of seconds to see if there was anything inside, but he never spotted anything, so he decided to head in.

Immediately upon entering the break room, he noticed there were three vending machines, all of them a bit empty, however, so it only totals up to about a single full vending machine. Still excited over the food he has found, though, Virion quickly approaches the machines, seeing what exactly is inside.

One of the vending machines seems to be dedicated to drinks while the other two are for snacks. Now, he just needs to figure out how to open them. Thinking of his options he realizes he can either break the glass on them, which would be quick and efficient, but very loud, or, he can try and search for the key or try and lockpick it.

Not even knowing where to start looking for the key as well as not knowing how to lockpick, Virion opts in for the first option to break it open. He just prays that there are no more creatures in the building to hear what he's about to do.

"Now how am I going to do this?"

Thinking of his options, Virion figures he should try hitting it with one of the chairs in the breakroom. Chairs are pretty strong after all aren't they? Picking up a chair, he swings it as hard as he can into the glass window on the vending machine.

"Bang!"

A giant thud sounds out, but the only difference to the glass was a small crack appearing.

"Are you kidding me? I'm going to have to hit it so many times!?" Virion complains to himself and then picks up the chair again.

Swinging the chair once again as hard as he can, it only makes the crack a bit smaller. Seeing this, he just continues to swing at it.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Crack!"

A cracking sound echoes out as the glass now has cracks and shatters all over. It looks like one more hit would break it down. Getting excited by the fact of finally being able to eat something, he swings again as hard as he can, and the glass shatters to the ground around him.

"Finally, something to eat."

Looking through all the snacks to see what he wants to eat, he decides on a simple Snickers bar and a bag of chips. Feeling ecstatic, he sits down and begins to eat his food. It may just be because he hasn't eaten in almost a day, but it tastes like the best thing ever to him. Finishing up, he heads back to the vending machines.

"Oh yeah, what can I store all this in?" Thinking this, Virion looks around and sees some lunch boxes left on a counter. It seems he missed them before because he was completely focused on the vending machines.

Excited that there could be some food in them, he quickly checks inside but is disappointed to find out that they're all empty. Sighing dejectedly, he goes back over to the vending machines after quickly getting over it.

"Now to break the others and then store it to take back for the group." Saying such things, he grabs the chair and once again begins to hit the remaining two vending machines.

After a couple minutes of swinging and resting, he finally gets them both broken. Deciding to use a couple of the empty lunch boxes that are left in the break room, he begins to stock them full with all of the snacks and drinks he just acquired.

"Now, let's go back to the group and share all of this." Virion begins to descend the stairs.

As he descends the stairs, however, he hears a giant roar, and it sounds quite close.

Panicking, he quickly rushes down the stairs while almost tripping a few times. However, once he reaches the bottom, he can see just how much danger he's in at the moment.

As he looks out the front windows and door, Virion can see that night has already fallen.