Chapter Thirty-Seven:
"They're in, they're inside!" someone shouted. Many more screams soon joined.
Moans reached Tessa's ears, loud moans that overpowered the sounds of fear. She ran to Adette's room and threw the door open. The other girl was not in the room. Tessa glanced under the bed, looked in the closet, and even checked the bathroom. It was almost as though she had vanished off the face of the planet.
A woman's scream and baby's wail shot through the Residence, but were quickly cut off. Tessa shuddered at the possibilities of what had happened. She leaned over the fancy bed and vomited. Or, rather, she would have if she had eaten. Instead, her body was wracked with dry heaves.
The roof, she thought. Panic was gripping her mind and she fought to stay calm. The roof would be the safest place; they could make a stand there. If it came down to it, she realized that she could always flee on Phoenix. She told herself that it would be better to live than die protecting people. Especially when there was no chance of winning.
When she left the empty room, someone else screamed. It was a man, but she didn't recognize the voice. Her mind flew to Holt, but she pushed the thought back. She tried to convince herself that it wasn't a great loss, just another man. She couldn't make herself believe it.
Tessa rounded the corner, holding her empty stomach in pain. The chewing sounds reached her ears before she saw it. A couple of Rots were holding a man down, and she saw a severed forearm lying off to the side. A large pool of blood surrounded it and a watch from the museum's gift shop was on the wrist. The man was still screaming and thrashing about, clearly alive.
"Hold on!" she yelled, drawing the attention of the Rots. She pointed her left hand at them and blacks sprays flew out and into their red eyes, a Blind spell.
They wandered around blindly, stumbling into the walls. Tessa slowly weaved between them, trying hard not come into contact. She pressed herself against the wall as one passed.
She was about to give off a sigh of relief when the Rot suddenly stopped and turned back in her direction. It charged at her and she ducked. The Rot, a twenty-something man with severe burns on his face and a charred smell, ran face-first into the wall. Tessa raised her right hand a blasted him with a Thunder spell.
The second Rot reached her and grabbed her arm. Tessa couldn't pull herself from the grip, she was weak and it seemed to be inhumanly strong. She shoved her right hand against its chest and fired off another Thunder spell. It fell, pulling her down as well.
"Let. Me. Go." she said, punctuating each word with equal importance. She grabbed the arm that was holding her at the elbow and cast a Fire spell, burning the flesh off. With a tug, her arm came free, the Rot's with it. She pulled it off and hit the Rot in the head with the severed appendage.
When she had the opportunity to do so, Tessa stole a glance at the man she was saving. Lotak had been a tour guide before Galbadia City had fallen into the clutches of the undead. When he realized what was going on, Divel and he closed down the museum and barricaded all of the doors. The other survivors had already been in the Residence when the shit hit the fan. Only Tessa, Tifa, and Adette had arrived afterward. Everyone else was slaughtered in the streets.
As Tessa looked down at the man, seeing that he had only one attached arms and several organs spilling out, she knew he would die. Comforting words traveled up her vocal cords and into her mouth, but stopped short of her lips. She knew that nothing she said would make him feel better, so she said nothing. Instead, she grabbed his pale face with her bandaged right hand and cast Thunder.
Lotak went into a series of seizures before his brain went out, fried by Tessa's spell. The young warrior said nothing as she slowly turned back to the advancing pair of Rots. She stood up, her stomach rumbling painfully, and backed up, stepping over Lotak's body. They didn't pursue her, kneeling down and tearing off large amounts of still-warm meat. One of the Rots bit off a large amount of his neck, swallowing veins and tendons.
They ignored Tessa, who gagged as she left the carnage behind. If she remembered correctly, there were at least two more hallways. One of the hallways passed right by the staircase that led down to the lobby. She had to pass it to get to the roof.
You should have eaten! she mentally scolded herself. Earlier that day, Tifa had offered her some of the sweets from the gift shop, the only food left in the museum. Tessa had been stupid and refused. It had been right after the Holt disaster, and she didn't want to be around people. She regretted the decision.
Luck gave Tessa a second chance when she saw that the next hallway was empty. Her boots left bloody footprints on the rich carpeting from where she'd stepped in Lotak's blood. When she reached the end of the hall and turned, Tessa had to bite to keep from cursing.
The lobby had become a seething mass of moans and decay. Bodies missing legs drug themselves around with their hands; faces were missing eyes, teeth, cheeks, and a few were even minus jaws; several smaller Rots, which had once been children, swarmed around the legs of the taller ones. Then they noticed their prey.
Out of desperation, Tessa slapped the pin on her chest, activating Phoenix. A light enveloped her and, seconds later, the large bird was filling the lobby. However, as spacious as hit had been built, there was no room in the Residence for a creature the size of Phoenix. Its great head was pushed against the ceiling, the neck twisted, and the wings folded back so that it could fit.
The Rots, at first confused by the sudden change in the environment, immediately descended upon the trapped GF. Tessa turned away, a mixture of sorrow and disgust etched on her face. Another bright light filled the room. When Tessa looked back, Phoenix was gone and the Rots were slowly making their way up the large staircase.
"What do I do? What can I do?" she muttered wildly.
Red eyes, her eyes traveled across the room in search of an escape. She couldn't make it to the other end of the hall quick enough to avoid a fight, which she was too weak to win. The possibility of going back and hiding in one of the rooms was still available, but she didn't want to trap herself. Finally, the red eyes rested on the chandelier.
Tessa held out her right hand, pointing it at the bulk of brass and candles. Her plan was to knock it down onto the Rots and try to escape. The chain it suspended from would be melted.
When no flame jumped out of her hand, she panicked. She had used up her supply of Fire spells. Tessa quickly turned around in search of another means of escape. There was none. A new set of moans broke out and Tessa turned around to find the two Rots that had killed Lotak stumbling toward her.
"No!" she screamed, pointing her right hand at the creatures walking up the stairs. A volley of Thunder spells flew from it, each bolt striking a different Rot and momentarily stunning it. Then she ran out of Thunder spells.
The Rots behind Tessa were only a few metres away when the redhead dropped to her knees and stared at the one whose arm she had removed. Her eyes locked onto its, and the thing stopped. All it did was stare at her with blinded eyes, even as its companion continued moving.
She tore her eyes away and gave the decreasing space around her one final once over. The Rot that had stopped was shuffling toward her again with a loud screech. She closed her eyes and a Rot fell on top of her, knocking Tessa to the floor.
Screams gushed out of her lungs as more and more Rots collapsed on her. However, something was off. She wasn't being shredded and devoured like Lotak had been, the Rots were just pressing on her like dead weight. Tessa didn't consider the irony as she pulled herself from the massive pile of bodies, gagging from the smell.
The Rots on the floor weren't moving, a fact that Tessa noticed as she watched Rots on the stairs fall to the ground and tumble over the railings.
"They were going to kill you," someone said from behind. "Can I take my shower now?"
Tessa whirled around and saw Adette calmly staring at her. In one hand was a Galbadian military-issued handgun with a silencer on the barrel; the other held a blue towel.
"Where were you?" Tessa asked, momentarily forgetting the immense danger behind her.
"I was getting ready for my shower," Adette said as she held up the linen. "Can I get it now? I smell like a sewer."
The moans behind Tessa grew louder and she grabbed Adette's arms. "Maybe later. Can you tell me where you got that gun?"
"The ammunitions room," Adette said as she followed Tessa down the long hallway. She was completely unaware of what was going on. "It's across the hall from my room. Could I get my shower while you get a gun?"
Tessa ran, forgetting her pain and dragging Adette behind her in an attempt to escape the moaning masses. "Where?"
Adette stopped moving and Tessa's feet nearly flew out from under her. She jerked on the girl's arm, but Adette refused to move. She just stared at a solid metal door that Tessa hadn't noticed before.
"Here it is," Adette said as ran her hand over the metal. Then she knocked on it and waited for an answer.
"What are you doing?" Tessa screamed. A Rot had gotten within three metres by that time, but it was quickly dispatched by Adette. "Open the door!"
"I don't want to be rude," Adette answered with a blink. "What if someone's in there?"
Tessa didn't answer; she just pushed past Adette and grabbed the doorknob. The door flew open and hit the wall as Tessa pushed Adette in the room and slammed the door behind them. She locked it and slid to the floor with a sob. Her eyes scanned the room and a woman was sitting in a corner trembling.
"Watch the door," Tessa commanded with a shaky voice. Adette stepped back and aimed her gun as Tessa crawled to the third woman. She sat by her side and put a hand on her back. "It's okay now."
Seconds later Tessa screamed when she realized the woman was Tifa. However, her fear was caused by something else. Tifa's face was smeared with blood and bodily juices and a loop of intestines hung from her mouth, her own intestines. Tifa had been eating herself.
Before either woman could react, Tifa's brain exploded out the side of her head and onto the wall. Her shoulders slumped and she fell forward against the wall, sliding to the floor. Adette calmly turned back to the door and Tessa began heaving again.
"She was going to kill you," Tessa heard Adette mutter. "Now you need a shower, too."
As she fought her revulsion, Tessa choked out a question. "Where is the ammunition?"
"Everywhere," Adette responded robotically.
Tessa looked around and saw that one wall was composed entirely of lockers similar to ones she had seen in the Shinra building at Junon. She wasn't supposed to be there, but a few friends and she had decided to test out their stealth training with an invasion. The footmen had stored their uniforms and rifles in them.
She stood on unsteady feet and walked to the nearest locker. The name "Jacks" was written on a piece of masking tape stuck on the small metal door. Tessa lifted the latch and pulled it open to reveal a shotgun, a semiautomatic pistol, and a metal cashbox labelled "demolition ammo." There was also a holster for the pistol on the bottom of the locker.
Tessa lifted the holster out of the locker and tried to slip it around her waist, but it wouldn't fit.
"It's a shoulder holster," Adette said. "It goes around the shoulder."
"Wow, the name so didn't tell me that," Tessa said bitterly. She readjusted the strap until it slid between one arm and her head, straining against her neck. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, but it wasn't painful either.
"Every weapon in every country is modified to use the same type of ammunition. One of Galbadia's main exports is weaponry," Adette droned as though she were taking an orated test. "All of the specialized ammunition is refined from rare items in conjunction with the GF Ifrit, or through the use of the rare Payload Materia. Only the Galbadian military and the private Shinra forces possess that Materia."
"I don't need a lesson in the history of bullets. Besides, you just point and pull the trigger, right?" Tessa snapped. She picked up the pistol and turned it over in her hand. "Just show me how to load this thing."
Adette dropped her arms and sat her handgun on the floor. She walked to Tessa and took the pistol from her. "This is a Claire .53, one of the more powerful of the handguns assigned to low-level officers in the Galbadian military. It's not very accurate from a distance, but it makes up in the amount of rounds it fires: 17 in one second. There are two settings, single-shot and rapid fire.
"The clip holds 50 rounds, so I'd recommend using the single-shot setting to conserve ammunition. The loading system is spring activated and is controlled by pushing a small button on the side of the handle to eject the empty clip. To reload is as simple as inserting a new clip into the base."
"Blah blah," Tessa said as she took the pistol back and slid it into the holster. She dove back into the locker and produced the box of ammunition. Her fingers slid under the latch and popped open the lid. The box was full of small clips of bullets. "Are these for the pistol?"
Adette nodded and Tessa grabbed a handful, stuffing the clips into the pockets of her "stolen" uniform. When she went back for the shotgun, Adette grabbed her hand. "I'll take that."
"Why not the handgun?" Tessa asked resentfully.
For a brief moment, a flash of awareness crept into Adette's eyes. "I don't want the girl gun."
"What?" Tessa was caught off guard.
Adette said nothing more as she reached into the locker and grabbed the shotgun. She cocked it and held it up in front of her, the towel wrapped around the butt.
Tessa picked up Adette's discarded handgun and held it in front of her with both hands. "We should go, find another way to the roof."
"Why?" Adette asked as she waved her shotgun around. "Can I get a shower on the roof?"
"It's raining," Tessa informed her companion. "It might be cold, but you can take a shower up there."
"Good, I smell like a sewer."
As bad as she should have for lying to the girl, Tessa had no regrets as she opened the door. Adette stepped into the hallway and looked in both directions, and Tessa cast one final glance at Tifa's dead body.