The second floor

Like a discarded toy piece, Ayaan threw the window from the third floor and lifted his half-lidded eyes to see the creature sneering viscously at him and the ground almost shaking with the shriek of wild dogs and cougars. At that moment, he could feel nothing but timorousness in every thought and a gripping desire to do something about it. He wanted to fight, to kill- he no longer cared if it killed him.

He stretched his arms and legs a bit. As his legs trembled, he leapt into the corridor window, grabbing his newly acquired weapon with his left hand and holding onto the other side. His fists pummeled any inch of skin he could find; the throbbing in his head due to Halothane was only a dull pain now. All that mattered was getting his rod through that disgusting creature's throat — Bleed until it can't breathe — shaking, falling into its knees —

“ENOUGH!” he shouted.

The creature shoots him a glare with those big crimson eyes and its not-so-likeable tail swishing like it just got all her birthday wishes at once. He knows what it wants and he is definitely not planning to give it what it wants.

So he curls his fingers around the rod tightly and feels the cool dampness. The creature is still looking at him. As his arm wheels backwards the creature gives a bell-like howl which makes everything 100 times more annoying. Then he throws the rod down the path in front of him on the second floor. The rod thrusts into the eyes of the wild dog making it cry out loud blood splattering. The other wild dog behind him backed down.

Seeing the opportunity, Hilary and Elisue dragged each other slowly to get out of there, as they kept their eyes stuck on the creatures. The cry made other creatures alert. There was too much movement down there, not like that concerned Ayaan at that point. He flew through the air and held the rails on his right on the second floor hanging on it as the wild dogs rushed towards him barking loudly and within no time he pulled himself up and hit the corridor of the second floor with a thud.

Hot blood trickled down his face —He shoots a glance towards Hilary and Elisue, seeing them dragging each other towards the fire exit-he rushed towards the wild dog without thinking much-

"DUCK AYAAANNN" the voice rang through his ears. It had urgency in it.

Lorek threw a test tube half-filled with a purplish-coloured substance with slight ignition. It directly hit the decomposing body of that creature, causing the test tubes to break and the contents to scatter, and there was a sudden outburst of flames. It was almost like a scene from a novel, nothing more, nothing less. The flames swallowed down the wild dog slowly.

After noticing this, the other creature slowly starts to back up his tail, not swishing anymore, and makes a squeaky sound. Ayaan staggered to his feet as he passed the burning dog to the one who had his rod fixed on its eye. The wild creature didn't move still making a squeaky sound as Ayaan stood in front of it and held his rod and pulls it out, the creature let out an earsplitting cry.

Elisue and Hilary stopped in their places and turned around to take a look too if Ayaan is alright but the situation was the opposite, they might want to worry about the creature. Their eyes widened in shock as they saw Ayaan.

“The Cadet Test,” they all heard Ayaan say when he was standing so close to the wild dog. His deep voice boomed in the corridor. “I killed your screaming glare.” He thrust his rod into its unprotected face, taking out a steel spatula from his free hand that he got from the chemistry lab and pushing it into its other eye. “Now, I want to reap you.” Ayaan took out the rod and slammed it into the wild dog's mouth, making it go all across its neck. “Now, I want to smash your fucking head in. Like this.” As he drew back his huge rod, the blood on his rod seemed to smoke in the cold gloomy air. There was a sickening crunch.

Hilary turned her face in the other direction with disgust and mumbled, "He doesn't have to go that far" she pulled Elisue, "Let's go"

Elisue didn't move, his eyes still stuck on Ayaan. He looked at Lorek, who seemed equally dumbstruck as the others.

They had limited time to swallow everything. Instead, more wild dogs and cougars started coming down the stairs. Ayaan pulls out his rod and starts to walk towards the stairs when Lorek pulls him the other way. This is towards the fire exit where Hilary and Elisue were heading.

"There are too many of them, we can't handle them." He gave him a straight look, "Let's go."

Ayaan wipes off the blood from his face and starts to follow Lorek.

They kicked open the door of the fire exit. The door made a raucous sound that echoed down the floors, and the wild sounds of the creatures started to get louder and louder with each second as all of them were coming closer to them. Looking at each other, none of them had to say a word to understand this situation. Ayaan carried Hilary on his back and started running upstairs while Lorek held Elisue and quickly helped him climb the stairs. The third-floor landing was pretty quiet. Hilary tried opening the door but had no luck. It seemed like it was stuck. They started to climb up, but they got slower this time. Guess they were getting tired too.

"Ayaan," Hilary said softly, "How did you do that?"

"Do what?" he asked giving her a side glance, "Carry you? Ah, it takes immense strength-"

Hilary choked on his throat before he could complete his sentence. "Not that, idiot."

Elisue chuckled, "Well, in general, I agree with Ayaan, you do look heavy."

Ayaan gave him a pitiful face.

"Yooo, you guys," she turns her head towards Lorek, "you gotta be on my side."

Lorek gave her a blank look and said slowly, "No comments."

Ayaan and Elisue break out a heartfelt laugh while wiping out his fake tears Ayaan asks, "well, anyways," he lifts Hilary and re-adjusts her on his back, "I remember three of you fell right? Where is the other one?"

Both of their faces darkened. They were not really ready to describe what they saw nor did they want to remember it. It was the first time they actually saw someone dying in front of them.

"It was Xanthe," Elisue said in a whisper, "He is no more, we lost him by the time we got consciousness."

Ayaan just nodded. He nodded again as if he was trying to tell himself everything was okay or it was going to be okay. "I just hope," he let out a sigh, "we don't lose anyone else."

They reached the fourth-floor landing. As they were about to open the door someone yelled out, "DON'T GO THERE, WE CAN'T BRING BACK THE DEAD! "