Danger = Opportunities

*Pant pant pant*

After running for over four blocks, Gideon finally arrived outside of his apartment building, soaked in sweat and breathing heavily.

"Wh-wha-what f*cking danger was so bad back at the bus station that I had to run the whole way here?" Gideon asked, looking to the small blob on his shoulder.

The blob simply turned into a pair of fangs.

Gideon simply nodded.

'Must have been a monster, maybe a large wolf or something... Anyways let's get upstairs, I am starving and I have a few frozen meals so I should be okay staying inside for a while.'

As Gideon began to make his way up the stairs, he kept his senses about him, worried about how far the monsters have spread. However as he neared the 3rd floor, where he lived, there was still no movement from Bob.

Bob was the name Gideon had given to the blob, and it just felt like it fit. Gideon relaxed a little, and walked to his apartment. After fiddling with the keys, he finally got the door opened, and closed the door quietly behind him.

Breathing a sigh of relief, that carried all of his tension from the past hour, he slumped on the ground.

"Man, this is crazy. What the hell are these monsters? Also where is the government? I know they must be busy with some attacks, but it must be much larger than I thought... Maybe there will be some news?" Gideon got up and walked towards his bed. He grabbed a remote and turned on his TV, and sat at the edge of the bed to watch. Gideon's apartment was really empty, but cramped at the same time. It only had a bed and a dresser with a TV on top, yet that took up all of his living space.

The TV turned on with a low hum, it had to be said the TV was almost as old as Gideon himself, so he was almost watching in 480p. However he was clearly able to hear.

"Please stay indoors and lock the doors. There have been numerous reports of unidentified beings attacking citizens around the country. Authorities have mobilized local law enforcement along with the National Guard, to restore law and order. Again, at this time the government advises everyone to stay indoors, or with a group of people." the news anchor said. Gideon simply shook his head and walked over to the kitchen.

"They basically told us nothing. Also, who knows if our homes are even safe?" Gideon said, looking at Bob.

Bob simply turned into a large 'O.K.', before turning back and following Gideon into the kitchen. Gideon made a simple frozen dinner set, of Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes and corn. It was a cheap meal that didn't really fill him up, but it was enough for now.

While eating, Gideon dreamed of one day enjoying a real steak, at a fancy restaurant. As he was day dreaming of better food, Bob suddenly became animated.

He began jumping up and down, turning into a star, and pointing at a wall.

"What are you trying to say? There is something good on the otherwise of the wall?" Gideon probed at Bob. It was a constant game of charades, and Gideon was adapting fairly quickly.

Bob, however, turned into a butt.

"There is a 'but'? Is it possibly dangerous but rewarding?"

Bob turned into a large 'BINGO'. Gideon nodded. He thought about his neighbor, it was a cute girl who went to a local college. They had never spoken before but he had seen her in passing. He also knew she had a boyfriend, and that they were in a relatively healthy relationship.

How did he know she had a boyfriend?

Let's just say... The walls weren't terribly thick... Gideon had used it as... A sort of inspiration on some lonely nights. Needless to say he was attracted to the girl, but was much too pathetic to talk to her.

"I mean... if her apartment has something Bob thinks is treasure, I should at least try and find out what it is... But that danger... Hm... Well, let's just go find out what we can, if it's too dangerous we can just leave." As he planned out some small things, he grabbed the plunger from the bathroom.

He felt truly stupid, holding a plunger as a weapon, but the sad reality was he didn't even own a knife. He never cooked at home and so he had no need for actual utensils. However he was not about to head to a potentially dangerous place without anything.

He walked to the door slowly, looking for any movement in the hallway, and when he made it to the door he quietly knocked. After a few moments, where the only sounds Gideon heard were his heart beats and nervous breathing, he decided to try the doorknob.

'Maybe she isn't home? Perhaps she ran away and tried getting to her family for safety...' numerous possibilities floated into Gideon's mind, until his hand finally touched the cold steel doorknob. He jiggled it slightly, testing if it was locked, however to simply turned without resistance.

The door slowly opened until it suddenly stopped a few inches after opening.

The chain was on? That meant someone had to have been inside to lock it... Something must have happened to her.

Gideon slowly closed the door, and made his way back to his apartment to get a few things.

"I remembered this stupid thing I saw on the internet, I just need a couple rubber bands and some tape to make it work, if I remembered correctly."

After making his way back to the door, he followed the steps he remembered from the video, and successfully got the rubber band to unlatch the chain lock.

[Lockpicking Skill has been awarded to the first human to break into another living human residence.]

'I can gain skills through achievements? That might be useful... I'll experiment with that later, but what does it mean living human? So she is alive?'

The apartment was very small, so the moment Gideon got in, he crouched behind the kitchen island, and grabbed a knife from the counter.

His hands immediately felt wet, and slightly sticky from the knife. Gideon looked down and noticed blood on the blade. His breathing became sporadic, as he realized this might have to do with the danger associated with this adventure.

He crept towards the living area, but he saw no one on the bed. That left only one place.

The bathroom. He could see a light coming from underneath the door, but he didn't make a move. Instead he stood up more confidently, and quietly inspected the room with closer inspection.

The blankets were strewn on the ground by the window. Perhaps there was a struggle... Maybe she was being attacked when she came home? She grabbed the knife by the door, managed to slash the attacker, but dropped her knife in a panic. She made her way over the bed, trying to create a distance between herself and the attacker.

Gideon continued to follow the trail he was building in his mind.

'Then she circled around the bed to the bathroom, and made it inside. However whatever was chasing her managed to get in as well... Scratch marks?'

Gideon leaned down and close to the doorframe of the bathroom. There were scratch marks, about the size of a small animals hands. The marks were not human, since they were too thin and deep. It must have been claws, Gideon surmised, and stood up.

He prepared the knife in his hand, holding it properly, because he knew the truth about reverse gripping a knife. While it may look cool, it made it much easier to knock out of his hand, and reduced the distance between him and his opponent to a distance where the knife was less effective.

He slowly turned the doorknob, to see if it was locked, however once again it was not. Just like the front door.

'Wait...'

Gideon took another look around the room. He looked at all the clues he had seemingly pieced together and thought just one thing was odd.

'It's too clean... Everything is too clean for a struggle... If something got slashed, why is there no blood drops on the ground anywhere? The bed had the sheets thrown off of it, however the bedcover showed no wrinkles, as if no one had been on it. The covers were only thrown off the bed to create an illusion...'

'It's a trap... But there is still a live human here? She might still need help.'

Gideon wasn't a Saint or some hero, but he was being influenced by his emotions. He didn't want the cute chick next door to die.

So Gideon opened the door slowly, and prepared to deal with whatever he met.

Once the door was fully opened, Gideon saw the girl from next door standing over a small Goblin with the ceramic toilet back in her hand.

'Not a lot of blood... And her arm has a cut on it? Things aren't adding up...'

As Gideon was trying his best to not show anything on his face, the girl next door started to walk up to him.

"I-I don't know what it is... But I killed it... I-I was so scared..." The girl began to cry, and she walked into his arms. Burying her face into his chest, Gideon was stunned. He wasn't sure what to do. His hand was hovering just over her back, unsure if it was okay for him to touch her or not.

As Gideon was struggling between being flustered and embarrassed, Bob was going crazy on the bed. Gideon looked at Bob, wondering what was going on, because he knew Bob wouldn't react to nothing.

He looked over at Bob, and Bob kept making strange shapes that Gideon didn't understand.

'A girl? A boy? Turning into a mask?'

Bob shook his head exasperated, and pointed at the window jumping up and down. As Gideon laughed to himself at how funny Bob looked, he looked towards the window.

'I don't see anything outside? What could he be-'

It was then that Gideon remembered how he was in danger here. How everything was off and seemed weird.

Outside, on the balcony, was the girl next door. The same girl who was supposedly crying in his chest. She was shouting something inaudible and waving her arms like a traffic guard.

'Huh?'

Gideon thought, but then he caught the reflection of himself. However what was holding him I the reflection was not the girl next door, instead it was a rotting corpse, it was an old decrepit lady with skin falling off her.

Gideon quickly turned back, and saw that the illusion was broken. The cute girl in front of him now was an old lady. Her jaw was visible past patches of flesh on her face. Gideon swung the kitchen knife in his hand, slashing the face of the hideous monster before him.

*SCREECH*

The monster before him realized it had been discovered, and threw away any notions of Stealth. It swung its long arms at him. It's arms were bits of flesh attached the bone at parts, and the rest were visible tendons that barely held the body together. At the ends were sharp claws, that glistened in the light, and looked extremely sharp.

The arm moved incredibly quickly, thankfully Gideon was already moving backwards, so the claws only cut an inch deep into his chest. Four long streaks were now going across his torso, and they immediately began to seep out blood.

'It hurts!'

Gideon exclaimed in his mind. He gritted his teeth as tears began to form in his eyes. It really hurt, and he had never experienced something like this. He gripped his chest with one hand, and began to stagger away from the monster in front of him.

His pupils shook and he began sweating profusely, he was going to die at this rate! He had to fight back. Gideon began to look at the creature before him, frantically putting together a battle strategy. He wasn't faster than the creature's arms, but it was really slow on its feet.

The bed! Gideon jumped to the other side of the bed, putting the bed between himself and the creature. The creature stamped its foot down, in frustration for falling into the same situation as earlier, causing it to lose a prey.

It took its frustrations out on a Goblin that happened to stumble inside, and was angry until it found a new prey. That was until the prey broke free of her illusion somehow, and it even was able to injure her.

'It might be trying to think of a strategy to get around the bed... I need to find someway to kill it!'

It was then that something seemingly broke inside Gideon's head, a sort of limiter to what he believed was possible or within the scope of reality. He came up with a crazy idea, and it could potentially become his last one.