“Summer, it’s me. Are you in there?” Juin says after knocking on the door.

  Juin presses the flat of her hand against the door. It seems like they have upgraded from the standard lock, the new one using both her fingerprints and the little chip most people have in their hand. Not that it improves security much.

  They stand there with only the cacophony of the alarms keeping them company. It smells of disinfectant and that thick, distinctive smell of spilled frying oil. Then the door opens and for a second a small girl appears, before she disappears in an almost violent hug. They look so much alike. Hair as black as freshly poured tarmac frames the same round face. The only spot of color is a scarf thrown over some second hand clothes, the scarf glowing a bright blue with inset lights.

  “Oh, you’re okay! I was so, so worried for you Summer. You must have been so scared, I’m sorry, but everything is going to be okay! This guy here is Spec and…” Juin says as she drags her sister back into the room. Spec closes the door behind them.

  “You know I’m okay sis, I stayed inside just like you said on the aug.” Summer says in a quiet voice while she squirms out of the embrace.

  “Yeah you did! You have been so strong, I know it has been scary.”

  “Sis, I’m twelve, not a baby!! I know the CONTACT are out there.” Summer says as her face moves through an impressive range of emotions in a mere moment. From scared to timid and shy, she moves immediately to rage and finally lands in an expression of curiosity as she steals a glance at Spec.

  Spec just looks at her, both impressed and strangely numb. This temporary lull threatens to let his exhaustion get a hold on him. They need to keep going.

  “Nice to meet you Summer! Are you ready to go? We can’t stay here, sorry.”

  “Fuck! You’re right, my fellow knight, we gotta go. We’ll wait here for a bit while I grab a few things and check Echo, then we’ll go get your dad. Fine by you?”

  “Uhm, knight?” Spec answers while he tries to follow Juins constant change of tone. Aren’t you supposed to avoid saying fuck around kids?

  “She read me stories when I was like five.” Summer says with fondness while simultaneously rolling her eyes. Quite a feat.

  Spec flinches as Summer straightens her back to the sound of a dozen loud cracks before helping her sister grab various items from around the single bedroom. She seems more relaxed, as does Summer. He has no idea if that had been intentional from Juin, but it is impressive nonetheless.

  “So, it seems people are muted or filtered on Echo. It’s way too calm. Some of my friends are just sending me random letters to check if I’ll answer..” Juin says while tapping her fingers against her thighs to type on her aug.

  “What are the official channels putting out?”

  “Quote: a feeble attempt by CONTACT to hit inside the city walls has provoked a fast response from Spearpoint. There is another small post about some fires in the towers. And something about gang violence?”

  “So they admit CONTACT got in, which means it must be really bad. The post about the fire is separate for some reason, I’m guessing they don’t want people to connect them together. The bit about violence probably means a lot of fucking people died and they’re having a hard time pretending they all just jumped into a dumpster.”

  “Hey! We have kids in the room!”

  “Sorry?” Spec says. He seems to understand Juin less by minute.

  Summer watches them discuss with her eyes peeking out under her bangs.

  “We’re fine, right Summer!? We’ll be okay, don’t you worry girl.” Juin says with a practiced smile, crouching in front of her sister.

  Spec crouches down beside her as Summer starts to draw in a breath to protest.

  “Hey. I know. It’s bad out there. We’ll all be going out again and… and you will have to see some terrible things. It’s loud, it’s disgusting and it’s dangerous.”

  Juin turns towards him with worried eyes before giving him a brief nod.

  “He’s right. But we got here, right? Now we have to help someone else. Spec here has a dad. He needs help too.” Juin says, pleading with her to understand.

  Summer immediately pushes between them towards the door. “Come on!”

  “Thank you Summer. We have to be quiet, okay?” Spec asks with an amused smile. His face feels relieved, as if it needed a break from scrunched up tension.

  “Yeah yeah and stick together. I’m born in Eastbridge, you know.”

  “Yeah we know.” Juin says as she gives a small smile and takes her hand.

  He checks on his wound before he leaves. It’s not drowning his sock anymore, so that’s good, though it needs to be sealed. There are staplers in his workshop for shoddy work on plastic. Somehow the thought does not comfort him as his bloody handprint marks the door as he slowly pushes open. The cleaver does not slip from his grip. Perhaps it was designed for bloody hands.

  They move down the corridor to the next intersection then turn right as they arrive, staring at the bodies laying in a circle as they walk by. It looks like a perverted ritual ring as it surrounds the entrance to the stairway taking up a side of the intersection.

  Juin covers Summer’s eyes with her free hand. The air smells heavily of burned plastic. Time is running out.

  Stalls continue to line the wall, repaired clothes or various trinkets scattered across the floor. Spec finds it strangely reassuring that the merchandise will probably be scavenged afterwards in a complete free for all, instead of abandoned and forgotten. They pass a couple hundred apartments and approach the second intersection as Spec’s mind starts to wander. This attack is strange. It is wrong. CONTACT are horrifying, brain eating beasts ravaging the countryside like some unimaginative new take on zombie movies from the 2010s. However, they are not intelligent. Their attacks mostly consist of slaughtering unsuspecting villages or lately throwing themselves at walls of Eastbridge, lining themselves up for slaughter by the Berserkers.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Why are they here? They’re running through the towers uncontested, as far as he can tell. Come to think of it, if that seemed unlikely, what are the odds several fires start at the same time on different floors while CONTACT attack? Unlikely does not even begin to describe it. Arson, planning and ambushes are human actions. Are there actually people insane enough to work with CONTACT?

  Spec’s mind is immediately thrown out of its spiral as something grabs his collar, only to relax as he sees Juin’s hand, only to tense up again as he sees her scared and insistent eyes. Following her gaze, he focuses on the sounds coming from behind the open door they’re approaching. Breaking furniture accompanies some sort of bubbling sound from inside the room, as if the gangs are thrashing an apartment. What should they do? Do they just creep ahead, leaving their backs open to the creature? Perhaps they should kill it. Spec looks down at the gruesome and embarrassing cleaver in his hand. It is covered in blood, but only his own. What an absurd thing to be disappointed by, the sight of your own blood. He slowly limps towards the door, leans against the doorframe and tries to peek in.

  The sound stops. Something sniffs the air.

  Spec barely registers the huge mass moving towards him before reaching out for the door and slamming it towards him.

  It slams against the last bit of tail in the way. He expects something to happen, anything, the tail should be chopped in two, or an enraged hiss should escape from the room before he is eaten alive.

  None of that happens. Spec slams the door again, then for a third time while the giant horror inside tries to turn its mass around in the miniscule space. He is going to die. He slams the door again as that certainty settles in his mind like the comfort of a soft pillow, placed over his face as he chokes to death. He is going to die. Slam the door. Again.

  A shrill warcry pierces reverberates in his ears as an arm falls down towards the bruised tail. Juin has taken the forgotten cleaver out of his hand and raised overhead, slamming it downwards just as the CONTACT almost completes its turn. Just as her cleaver meets the spiky quills covering the tail, she stops. Juin freezes, mid swing, as if her entire body short circuited. Before the creature can launch itself forward Spec’s slam finally closes the door.

  They both stare at their distorted reflections in the plastic door, Spec’s confused exhaustion matching her empty gaze. Both of them are panting, contributing to the background noise of the discordant alarms and Summer’s soft whimper. The door shakes in the door frame as the monster slams into the other side.

  “Fuck.”

  “That was too loud, we have to go. Now!” says Spec as he starts his limping run, dragging the suddenly awake Juin along with him. The blood starts to seep through the bandage again.

  “Come on Summer, go!” Juin says as she pulls free and grabs her sister instead.

  They run, stumble and scramble over falling chairs as they approach the next intersection. Spec has never felt his limp so clearly. Seeing Juin and Summer’s gaze as they urge him on hurts more than the burning in his leg.

  Left leg, sweep the right, left leg, sweep the right. They have no idea if something followed them. Nothing pierces through the alarms and their incessant gasping for air.

  Left leg, sweep the right. They’re so close he can see the reinforced grate he has installed before his door. Only twenty doors left now.

  He keeps stumbling forward. He knows, just knows there are CONTACT at his back. Reach that rusty door, or they are dead.

  As he reaches the outer grate he immediately pulls out his key. The first lock is mechanical, unlocked by the turn of an old fashioned key. It turns silently outwards on well oiled hinges as Spec desperately tries to dry his hands on his pants. Somewhat less bloody, he lifts his right hand and slams the palm against the door, tapping a fast rhythm with his fingers.

  “Look out!” Juin screams, as something hits him in the back of the head.

  Spec falls forward and cracks his forehead against the door. A heavy weight settles against the back of his head and small claws grab at his neck, searching, grasping for purchase. Gasping for air that has suddenly abandoned his lungs he tries to regain control of overwhelmed senses.

  He reaches up behind him and touches soft flesh, sticky and vile. The last dregs of control leave him and he falls to the ground, screaming out his newfound breath.

  As a result he almost misses the dull thunk hitting something above him. Pricks of pain lifts from his neck. He clumsily rolls over on his back in jerky movements, like a corpse given life. Adrenaline fails to dull the pain.

  He can finally see what’s attacking him and it’s a horror from the deepest pits of human imagination. Juin stands between him and something close to a mutated mosquito. About the size of a football it labors to stay in the air, with a thick needle hanging from its carapaced face. The body and legs dangle like dead pig flesh underneath, three legs with too many joints ending in small claws. A loud drone fills the air, momentarily interrupted as it falls down for a split second only to start beating its wings again.

  This flesh mosquito just got hit by a mallet and is somehow still alive. Juin hit it straight on and now she is once again apathetic, staring at it with the hammer hanging limp by her side.

  Spec stares at this new horror, this insult to reality. He is so fucking tired of this. This day was supposed to be a celebration. An entire month of scrounging for parts and pulling his hair over yet another incompatible component, all leading up to today, to his very own eye. The final piece is still in his pocket, still whole. He is close, so close. The only thing standing in his way is this mutated, overgrown pest that has the fucking nerve to not lay down and die. Enough.

  The disgusting alien charges, abolishing any impression that it is a simple bug. Spec meets its charge with one of his own. Empty handed and screaming an incoherent warcry he stumbles towards it, pushing past Juin.

  It flies towards him and at the last moment it tilts slightly upwards, meeting his grasping arms with its claws. He does not try to swing a fist or tackle the elusive thing. He reaches out with his hands as if to grab it and as the claws start to latch onto his arms he simply… falls. He allows his bad leg to fail him in that last step and lets his weight fall to the ground, pulling the bug towards him and twisting in the air.

  It reacts immediately, starting to release its grip and swinging the sharp needle towards his face. Spec sees, fascinated and robbed of the energy for fear, the needle and his face approach the same destination.

  The needle digs a deep furrow across his cheek and over his eyeball as inertia carries it forward to complete its swing. The carapace cracks under him as they impact the ground and Spec’s breath is once again forced out of his lungs.

  Darkness and madness. Spec feels fluids running escaping from his blind eye as he desperately holds down the abomination. It wiggles under him, digging its claws deeper into his arms.

  Putting his knees under him allows him to shift his weight forward, pressing down the monster. Shifting slightly once again he forces his good knee into the fleshy abdomen and ducks as something hits the top of his scalp.

  The monster is trying to hit him with the needle, but it's too long and its muscles too weak and so only the dull side of the needle weakly flails against his head. He releases his grip with his right arm but keeps the pressure on with his knee. Immediately he uses the free arm to pull on the leg holding the other arm. The pain is excruciating, claws digging into both arms as he tries to move.

  He rips a continuous scream out his throat as he grabs hold of the fleshy leg and tears of the claws from his arm.

  He grabs the monster’s leg with both hands. Quickly he bends it against itself and pushes down, through the slick abdomen and into the monster. Fluids squirt out of the puffy flesh, each time he moves the limb in his hand another spray of thick, viscous liquid hits him in the face.

  He doesn’t stop, instead dragging the leg around inside the abdomen until the claws fall limp to the floor, releasing his arm. His blood pounds in his ears as he stops moving, gasping for breath.

  “FUUUUUUUUUCK!!” he screams into the black void until he chokes.