An ambush

Kai followed behind James.

"Where exactly are we going?" Asked Kai.

"We'll go through the houses a bit further from here, since we already searched the ones close to the store."

"I see. But is it alright for us to steal from these houses?"

"A lot of people disappeared on Violet Day, so most of them are ownerless anyway. And those people that didn't, escaped to the shelter and I'm sure they resolved themselves beforehand for this, since they ran away and chose to wait things out. As long as we don't take anything personal like photos or something, it should be fine."

"I guess..."

"My house is not too far from store and we already took everything useful from there."

"..." Kai suddenly thought of his house. It was in Outer Neighbourhood, so it should be fine, right?

After a moment of silence James spoke up.

"Kai, look." He pointed at the sky.

Kai looked up and saw monster-like birds. They were bigger than normal birds. While the hounds were size of the wolfs, these birds were size of 4-year-old human children. Their sharp talons looked like they could tear through steel, they had 2 pairs of wings and spikes at their backs. They looked terrifying covered in only black feathers, with crimson eyes looking down on them.

Kai quickly took out his knife, which he prepared earlier. James took aim with his pistol.

When the monsters started gliding down, James immediately shot one of them. Kai on the other hand had to wait for them to get down. Knowing that waiting for them wasn't the best idea, he rushed to the closest building.

"James, let's go inside for now!"

"Alright." James replied, while shooting another one of those monsters down. While he killed two of them already, there were still around eight more flying towards them.

The two quickly took cover inside one of the houses.

"How unlucky to meet them at day." James said.

"Yes, but what now? Do we wait until they go away?" Asked Kai.

"No, that will take too long. We will have to deal with them somehow."

"How many bullets do you have left?"

"Enough for them, but it's better to preserve them as much as possible for now. At least until we go to police station for more."

"I see."

"But right now we have other problems to deal with."

"You're right."

Kai looked outside the window. The crows were still there, waiting for them. He could probably deal with them with his power, but he still didn't want to reveal it for now.

"But why aren't they coming through windows? They should be able to easily destroy them."

"It looks like they are smarter than the hounds. They realize that fighting inside will be disadvantageous for them. Kai, fighting them with knife is not a good idea, go find something with longer range. I will be watching them and thinking of a plan."

"Alright."

***

Kai looked around the house for something useful to fight with. He only really found mop so far, but that wouldn't be really helpful. It was to be expected, since James and others already cleared nearby houses from anything of use.

"Sigh... There's nothing in here."

Kai's sight then landed on radiator hanging on the wall. There were metal pipes coming out of it.

"Pipes..."

Kai came closer and looked around to make sure James wasn't coming. Then after confirming that he was alone, he made a small axe out of his blood and cut two pieces of the pipe.

"Alright, this should work."

***

Kai went back to James, who was staring outside the window, lost in thought.

"James."

He looked away from the window and saw the pipes that Kai brought.

"Where did you even find that?"

"Back there." Kai pointed at the room behind him.

"But, nevermind... We can work with these."

Kai then handed one of the pipes to James.

"So, what now?" Kai glanced outside and saw eight monster-crows sitting before the building.

"We can't deal with these many of them at once. I will shoot one of them, that will scatter them. Then we will rush at them and kill at least one more. Afterwards we ran back inside."

"And then we repeat?"

"And then we repeat."

"Alright."

"Get ready, I'm opening the door."

"..." Kai nodded.

*Creak* *Bang!*

James swiftly opened the door and shot one of the birds. Then we hastily ran at them. James killed two more birds in quick succession. Kai swung with all his might at one the birds and crashed its head. The brain matter and blood splattered all over him. Kai immediately felt nauseous. He didn't expect it to explode like that. He didn't manage to kill another one, because of that, so he retreated alongside James. That makes four more crows to go.

"Blegh..." Kai almost threw up as he entered the house. He quickly cleaned himself up, but the blood didn't want to go off.

"Are you alright?" James asked.

"Ugh... Yes, I'm fine."

"Then let's do this again fast."

"Yes..."

***

They repeated the process and killed the rest of the crows. They were now standing atop their corpses. Even though Kai felt sick a moment ago, now that he looked at all the blood around him, he felt good. Really good.

"Kai." James's voice returned Kai to reality.

"Yes."

"Let's go before the smell of blood attracts more monster."

Kai nodded and went along with James.

***

Kai was starting to get worried. Every time he killed, he felt that weird feeling welling up inside of him. He didn't know what it was, but it felt good. And that scared him.

"Kai, we are here. I will take this house and you that one." James pointed at two houses.

"Alright."

Now was not the time to be worried about that. Kai slowly entered the house.