Back to the very dark and very spooky hallway

Getting blood splatters on you?

Gross.

Getting bits of gore on you?

Vomit inducing gross.

That is what Dean is feeling right now. 

Despite backing away from the force of impact, Dean still had blood and bits of brain matter on his suit jacket. He had a plan of attack, but the last part was purely on instinct because he barely used his power for the past week. 

Now he was paying for his actions as bits and pieces were stuck on him. Luckily he was far enough for the blood and gore to splatter on the bottom part of just suit jacket.

Dean looked down seeing the gore stuck on him and-

Cough 

-gagged a little. He forced himself to hold his stomach fluids down while mentally pretending he slayed a monster. Usually Dean, over the years, was used to being covered in gore but usually the gore came from wild alien monsters during class field trips, so the human bits were a first for him.

After taking a few moments of calming himself, Dean was back to his nonchalant form and wipe the gore off of him. This prompted Kat to speak up...

[A little overdramatic on the finisher...doncha think hehe.]

...to lighten the mood.

"Sorry...I wanted to test my strength."

[Don't be], Kat said as she reappear again in front of Dean and pointed at the corpses, [though we should give them codenames to identify them better. I know some great scientific names for them like....].

Dean pondered on it for a brief moment and quickly came up with what to call them.

[....Vesanus or-]

"How about husk for this one", Dean pointed at the undead corpse, "and fiends for these three", Dean pointed at the rest of the bodies.

[-I guess that'll do, but I called dibs on the scientific names for them so that they'll build a statue of me in my home world], Kat declared while slightly pouting and stomping her foot...though the action itself produced no sound.

"Heh go ahead then," Dean chuckled while Kat smiled back, happy that she cheered Dean up a bit.

[Let's go back outside into the dark and spooky hallway, shall we?]

"How long can you stay projected outside my watch?"

[Indefinitely, why you ask?], Kat innocently asked with her big pink eyes making eye contact with Dean.

"Well since you're a hologram, you can act as bait and draw out any enemies", Dean said while pushing his glasses up a bit.

Once Kat heard his explanation, her happy innocent expression quickly turned into an unhappy not-so-innocent expression.

[You're asking a lot here four-eyes], Kat said aggressively while continuing, [I may not be affected by physical attacks but I am weak to their psychological attacks.]

Kat finished her explanation with the most serious expression that Dean has seen so far. However-

"Meaning?"

[I HATE JUMPSCARES EVEN IN MY STREAMS I HATE IT, PLEASE PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME GO IN FRONT OF YOU. I CAN'T EVEN GO FARTHER THAN A FEW FEET FROM YOU. I'LL WALK BESIDE YOU AND WATCH YOUR BACK, DEAL? DEAL?]

-her expression quickly crumbled and Kat kneeled in front of Dean remembering all of the horror games and movies she streamed in her off-time.

"Okay", Dean nonchalantly said though inwardly he was amused at Kat's antics and overdramatic stunt.

[Oh you're the best human ever, mind if I adopt you as my big brother?], Kat asked.

But Dean ignored her and walk outside the dorm room while confused by someone technically younger than him asking to adopt him as their older brother. He was happy that he didn't feel alone anymore after Judy's sudden death, but a little sad that Kat didn't reveal herself to him for the past 4 years.

Nevertheless Dean continued walking cautiously down the hallway that were slightly illuminated by the opened doors. 

"You checked the previous rooms for people?"

[Of course but sadly they're all empty]

"..."

Leaving that thought behind, they arrived at the halfway point of their goal towards Melanie's room.

The lounge area was located in between the hallways separating other half of floor 14. The lounge itself had tables, couches, and flat screens for students to relax together. 

Dean's light illuminated the area revealing the lounge to be a mess with scratch marks and blood everywhere. He walked to his left where a large glass wall was located to see if anything new was happening in Pleasantville. 

Looking outside, it was still pitch black but the artificial moon and some lit buildings provided some light though not enough for Dean to see anything clearly from up here.

Tak Tak

Tak Tak

Hearing something, Dean quickly turned around to see Kat also visibly shaking because of the unknown sound.

"What was that?", Dean inquired tensing up with his sword ready.

[I-I don't know, I can't see in the dark but it sounded like something was crawling.]

Dean walked very slowly to the center of the lounge with Kat reluctantly behind him. He looked around but the light generated from his watch only illuminated up to 3 meters around him.

Both Dean and Kat were quietly looking around to find the source of the sound in the complete darkness.

Tak Tak

[T-the vents its coming from the vents above and below us], Kat whispered.

Dean nodded and slowly made his way to his goal on this floor. 

"Kat, are any of the vents open?", Dean asked as his attention was focused in front of him.

[Yes]

"How many?"

[All that we've stumbled by so far]

"..."

Tak Tak

Tak Tak

Kat was shivering while Dean's heart was beating faster than normal. Both were marching still on edge waiting to see if anything would pop out and attack them. 

.

.

.

.

Luckily, they arrived in front of a door with '11' marked next to it.

"Kat open the door"

Kat silently opened it and immediately closed it once they were inside.

Both breathe a sigh of relief as if the door shutting severed all the tension that Dean and Kat were feeling for the past 10 minutes of slowly marching in utter darkness.

Now as for this apartment's original inhabitant....

**********

A/N: -Dean: Kat open the podbay door

 -Kat: I'm afraid I can't do that Dean

If anyone gets that movie reference XD.

Anyway I'm finally motivated today as last night I had an epiphany on how to get our protagonist stronger as the story progresses. Plus if this novel gets contracted then I'll do a bonus chapter for a few days.