Sorry this took so long guys, I've been really busy lately and then my internet was down for a few weeks T^T
Anyways I hope you enjoy the chapter and I'm working on the next one, I'll try and get it done ASAP :)
"Get down," Alex whispered, ducking down behind the rubble. Arwyn joined him. They could just see what was on the other side. It was a man this time, wearing only and dark brown apron like cloth over its lower half. Its feet were covered with thick leather boots, causing its footsteps to be even louder than without. Its chest was bare and surprisingly clean. Most of the blood was on the apron. It wore thick, dark gloves that went up to mid-bicep. It looked fairly normal, except for two things. The first was it had no head. In its place was a large and sharp pointed metal pyramid. It was brown and rusted, with bolts covering it, holding it in place. It jutted far in each direction, particularly in the front. It made him wonder how the thing could even get around, considering there was no way it could see through that. The second thing was its weapon. It was rusted just as much as the pyramid shaped helmet, probably the same type of metal in fact. It was a gigantic blade of some sort, looking almost like a cleaver except much, much larger. It was longer than the man's entire body and frighteningly thick too. It must have been heavy, because he had to drag it behind him. It was serrated on the top and sickeningly sharp. The sound of the metal dragging across the floor made Arwyn cringe.
The beast paused right in front of them, not turning in any direction just stopping. Arwyn tensed, feeling nervous immediately. How could they possibly fight that thing. One swing of that blade and they'd both be dead. It turned towards them, dragging its blade with it. It's looking right at us, Arwyn thought. It stared right at them for some time, and Arwyn thought maybe it couldn't see them. But that only made him wonder why it looked this way. But after a few more terribly long moments, it turned back away, continuing the way it had been going and dragging that horrible blade behind it.
Arwyn looked to the man next to him with wide eyes, "What was that thing, Alex?"
"I…I don't know. I've never seen it before…" Alex stood, "Come on, we'd better get outta here before it comes back."
Arwyn nodded, rising to his feet to join the other. And then, suddenly, the door to their left burst open, but those bugs came from the right. The latched on to the two of them, gorging themselves on the sweet flesh and blood of their human enemies. Alex gripped the creatures by their bodies, tearing them off of himself and throwing them to the floor, stomping down and crushing them. Arywn was not so lucky. He was smaller and not quite as strong as Alex, he couldn't seem to pry them off fast enough. But Alex saw this struggle and immediately went to help. He tore the creatures from the other man's arms and face, crushing them as he did their brethren.
Once they were all dead, he turned to the other, "Arwyn, are you alright?" He inspected the other's wounds, not liking what he saw at all. There was a decent sized bite in the other's forehead, not too much skin was missing but you know how head wounds bleed. He found a strip of fabric that the British man had torn himself from his shirt, wrapping it carefully at an angle around his head. It laid just above his eye, only slightly over the brow. Arwyn lightly touched his fingertips to it, wincing. "Thanks, Alex." Not giving the other a chance to respond, the smaller man headed off towards the newly opened door, entering yet another drab hotel room.
Alex quickly followed suit, coming in behind the other. Just to the right of the bed, there was a gaping hole in the wall, level with the floor. The duo headed through into the next room, knowing it would lead them over to the other side of the hallway which had been so inconveniently blocked off by all that rubble. Light flooded in through the two curtained windows, illuminating the empty bed. They did a quick search and saw nothing important, moving to continue on. Alex lead the way once again, keeping a close eye on Arwyn who was a bit sluggish now, the adrenaline wearing off quickly and pain settling from the bug's attack on him.
They headed out of the room, ignoring the horrible stench which flooded in through the open bathroom. Back in the hallway, they went straight across. The door was locked, but to the left was a boarded up hole, the bathroom visible through the seams. Alex calmly told Arwyn to keep his distance as he removed the wooden fire axe from the strap on his back. He hacked at the wood, bracing his ears as it splintered, until the space was clear. He went through, the English man following close behind. They immediately heard the sound of what was yet another bug, and poor Arwyn flinched at the sight of the thing. But luckily, Alex took care of it right away, stomping down on it with his heavy boots, listening to the crunch as it splattered on the floor.
Alex turned to Arywn, noticing the dizzy sort of look he had. "Are you okay to keep going? We could stop for a while if you need the rest." Arwyn shook his head quickly, "No, I'm okay. Let's keep going." Alex nodded, glancing over to sink and noticing the briefcase. There was a serum inside. "Here, Arwyn. This will help you heal faster." He trusted Alex, letting him inject the thing into his arm without protest. Then, he followed the other back out of the room, down the hall and to the left. They followed it all the way to the end, finding yet another hole boarded up on the far wall. Alex hacked it down again and helped the other through.
They went straight up the staircase directly in front of the opening, Alex hopping over the sudden gap at the top of the first flight, steadying Arwyn as he barely landed on his feet behind him. They continued up, reaching the top of the second flight and heading through an open doorway. The second they reached the top, they saw the a little boy, brown hair and brown eyes just like Alex. His hair was shaggy, hanging in his dark eyes. He was thin and pale, wearing baggy green cargo shorts and an orange t-shirt. Before Alex could even yell for him to wait, he was gone. In his place was another of the creatures with the metal legs. It latched onto the wall, crawling up and onto the ceiling, peeling back bits of the wallpaper as it went. Limbs hitting the ceiling with a metallic thud, it came at them before dropping to the ground just at their feet. Arwyn carefully watched, dizziness swarming his head, as Alex took the thing down with his knife.
Further down the hall they went, taking note of several boarded up areas as well as a hole in the floor twice the size of Alex's body. Arwyn also noticed all of the small bugs crawling across the peeling wallpaper. He held on loosely to Alex's jacket, sticking as close as he could. The other said nothing. Hearing a creak in the ancient floorboards caused him to jump, temporarily letting go of the other's sleeve. The second he did, another creature fell from the ceiling, landing directly on Alex, all its weight bringing him to the ground. His green eyes grew wide as the metal legs dove for the other's shoulder. He rolled away just in time, but the metal nicked his jacket, cutting a thin line in the fabric.
Snapping out of his state of shock yet again, Arwyn reached for his gun. Pulling the silver pistol from his pocket, he placed a trembling finger to the trigger and prayed his aim would not fail him. He buried two bullets right between its beady black eyes, watching as its legs folded beneath it and it fell on top of Alex with one last pained squeal. He immediately went over to shove the dead beast off of him, kneeling beside him.
"Alex, are you alright?" Concern shone through his soft features, and was present in his voice as well.
Alex moved to sit, "It's fine, don't worry," he put a hand against the other's forehead where the wound still was. "How's your head?"
"It's better..." As he spoke, a light pink tone rose quickly to Arwyn's cheeks, but he brushed it off as nothing more than a light flush from feeling so feverish.
He got up quickly, before Alex could say a word. Making his way over to the broken off part of the wall near the hole in the floor, he ducked beneath dangling boards and into a bathroom. Alex followed close behind, wearing a puzzled expression momentarily. Alex lead the way into the room which was another with a gaping hole spanning nearly the entire room. Beneath the rim where the broken floorboards dipped down into the next level was a chest of drawers. Alex tested it cautiously and found it stable enough, climbing down and helping Arwyn down behind him. The room was empty and all the doors were sealed tight save for the bathroom which hung open and leaked its terrible scent into the once clean air. Following Alex in, Arwyn noticed a small postcard in the sink similar to the one they'd found before. He picked it up, showing it to the other. "Do you think this is the second memory?"
Alex glanced at it, comparing it to the other in his pocket. "Yeah, looks like it."
Arwyn handed it to him, watching him put it in his pocket to join the other. After trying the doors all once more, they decided there was no other purpose to be down there. Climbing back up the dresser, they exited the room into the hall. Almost immediately upon their exit, another of the needle legged creatures -needlers, that was what he would call them- climbed from the hole in the floor, clicking along the wood towards them. Arwyn went at it with a knife, conserving bullets of course, missing at first and hearing the clang of metal against metal. He cringed at the awful sound before ducking around the legs, and slicing knife against already scarred flesh. Repeatedly he slashed, not letting up even for a second. A second needler climbed from the hole, and Alex took care of that one with ease as Arwyn finished off the first.
As the creatures fell dead to the floor, the pair noticed a boarded up doorway. Alex removed his axe from the strap on his back, hacking it down as Arwyn stood slightly off to the side. They entered in to another nearly empty room, though took note of a container of bullets on the bed. Arywn pocketed them, as Alex had little room to carry things on his person. The British man then noticed a sort of gleam behind the dresser. Something was there, but he didn't know what. "There's something behind here. Help me move it Alex."
Alex did as the other requested, pushing the item as far as he could. A child's drawing leaned up against the wall. Arwyn carefully picked it up. "Joshua must have left this for you. Maybe it's some sort of clue?" The other took it, nodding. "Yeah, that's his. There's others like it, too..." Nothing more was said on the subject, and they left the otherwise empty room.
Again they headed down the hall, a ways down finding another doorway like the last. Alex hacked through the doors, careful of the splintering wood. The large hole was easily visible from the doorway. They moved the dresser aside to go through it. A shining postcard was lying just on the edge of the bed. Alex picked it up, putting it in his pocket to join the rest of the set. "We should get these memories back to that woman."
They went to the bathroom just to be sure there was nothing else in this particular room, seeing as their was no way out. Alex spotted a red drink with a green cross on the front, immediately handing the bottle to Arwyn. "Hold on to this, you might need it."
They then turned around, went back through the hole in the wall -careful for handing boards- and out into the hall. The two headed all the way to the end of the hall and left, going down the only accessible stairs in the whole place. The second they turned around the corner at the bottom, something was there.
It was female this time, or so he thought. She was a nurse, with the red cross in the center of her hat and the white dress leaving most of her breasts bare and coming to mid-thigh. It was skin tight and absolutely drenched in blood, some dry and some so wet it dripped down her legs. She would actually be quite lovely if not for one thing: there was something wrong with her face. It was as if her face had been contorted with eyes squinted shut and mouth and nose gone altogether, brain peeking out from the top corner of her head, and a rumpled paper bag had been wrapped around the whole mess. She came at them fast, swinging the long, serrated blade in her hand straight for Alex's chest. Luckily, he ducked out of the way just in time, plunging his own knife deep into her back -one, two, three times- until she fell to the floor with a pained shout.
A second came not long afterward, closely followed by a third. Arwyn went after one, with wide eyes, while Alex took care of the other. The English man avoided getting too close, aiming for her head and pulling the trigger until he was sure beyond a reasonable doubt that she was dead. After an abnormally deep breath on Arwyn's part, they entered into the room that the nurses had just come from. There was a hole in the left wall, which the two easily slipped through before going back out into the hall on the other side of all that rubble. They continued down until they reached the last right, going in and knowing precisely where to go as they'd been this way once before. They went back down the hole, climbing off of the dresser and onto the creaking floorboards. Heading through yet another hole in the wall of the dilapidated building, they headed left into the hall, then left again, going until they were stopped by the creature from the lobby. Arwyn held his gun protectively out in front of him, wide eyed, and looked to Alex.
"You get it Arwyn, I'm here to back you up." He offered a gentle smile.
Arwyn slowly nodded, ducking out of the way of the poison smoke -smog, that's what it was, maybe that's what the creatures should be called- and aimed for the beast's lungs. He emptied the remainder of his rounds into the vibrant, pulsing organs, watching it fall dead to the floor with soft thud. Remembering the pack of bullets they'd picked up in one of the rooms, he reloaded.
Alex lead them back to the last left, heading through the small, damp, and dark passageway which lead to the woman's door. Alex passed the postcards through the doorway to the old woman, "Is this what you wanted?"
"Thank you," she said in her kind yet somehow eerie voice.
Through the hole in the door, she handed him a key, and the pair immediately wondered what it was for. Alex simply shook his head, stating that they'd figure it out tomorrow and that they should get some rest for now. They could sleep in shifts, he said. So they headed to the room across from the woman's door, shutting the door behind them. With the help of Arwyn, Alex moved the dresser up against the door along with anything else they could move to barricade the door. They didn't want anything getting in, even if one of them was watching the door.
Alex smiled in the other's direction, "You can sleep first, I'll wake you up in a few hours, okay?"
Arwyn nodded, not trusting the bed in the slightest and lying down on the floor beside Alex instead, feeling the warmth from the other's body as his head rested against their thigh. He could hear the woman's soothing lullaby through the door, and he fell asleep quickly. Alex looked down at the other, but said nothing. He let them sleep for several hours and nothing had come in by three. Not long afterward, he woke Arwyn, taking the man's place on the floor. The English man smiled down at the other occasionally, keeping watch for at least an hour before a noise in the hall caught his attention.
Before he had so much as s second to think, their barrier came crashing down, the creature with the pyramid head smashing it in with ease. The creature waved its hand and two others just like it came in, lifting up Arwyn -they were without blades- before the man had a chance to shoot.
"Alex!" The English man screamed, struggling against the brown-helmeted creatures who were completely unfazed by each attempted hit. One easily held his arms, the other his legs.
The red pyramid head, the master, was directly facing Alex who had awakened at the sound of the crashing barricade. It raised its mighty blade, swinging at Alex with all its strength. The man ducked away, the blade just missing his body. He took quick notice of the blade getting stuck in the floor, sprinting for the door. By the time he entered the hall, Arwyn and his captors were nowhere to be found. They were gone.