[3-A]She believed it now. Her home stood no chance against a monster like that. It nearly filled the tunnel and she could feel the weight of it as it lumbered around the corner.

  She wasn’t sure how she felt now. She had finally managed to get around the monster and could recognize the area she was in. Now though, if the monster found her in her home she would be eaten. Her home had only one way in, no way to escape should the monster find her and break the wall. She would need to use everything she had learned to survive now.

  As she padded silently into her home she let the bnket drop. She could at least rest here a while, listening carefully for the noises the monster made. Finding a new pce to sleep would be difficult, but maybe that was for the best. Moving every time she needed to sleep would mean the monster couldn’t learn where she was going to be.

  A pn made, she moved quickly over to the Pages and tried to find anything about the monster. She wanted to ask the people in the box, but they made a lot of noise and might not tell her what she wanted to know anyways, so it was best to just look quietly in the Pages rather than risk getting found. It was difficult, the Pages had many shapes in them and she had only caught a glimpse. A rge shape, tall as the sky, and big enough to rumble as it walked. Her quick look found nothing that reminded her of the monster. She had seen too little of it to compare with the Pages. If she wanted to know more she would need to see the monster completely, get a better idea of what it looked like.

  If it was going to invade her space she needed to learn as much as possible. Especially if she wanted to stay un-eaten. She stood and made to leave her home once more but hesitated. She had done a lot, she was tired and needed to sleep. Once she had though, it would be time to face her fears and stalk the monster.

  Getting a good look at the monster was turning into a difficult task.

  She had thought it would be simple to listen for its noises and sneak up and peak around a corner. Once she had a good look she could return to the Pages and find out what exactly it was. And how to deal with it. The noises turned out to be deceptive however. The smaller tunnels where she could easily get away seemed to make them fade quickly, which was dangerous if she misjudged where it was, and the rger tunnels seemed to have multiple monsters in them. It was impossible to sneak up on one when there was another making noise behind her.

  She had managed to catch glimpses of it at a distance, as it appeared to have the same magic as her trinket and pushed back the darkness. Easy to spot something that big when it stood in a pool of light. The problem was that she could never catch it in the smaller tunnels from far enough away to be safe. It seemed to avoid them, or at least preferred the rger tunnels. She could understand that if it was true. It’s bulk making it hard to move around in the small tunnels she would prefer to catch it in.

  Still, she tried over and over again to catch it alone. Every time she slept it was in a different spot. Every time she needed food or water she would go to the far side of her home, away from where she had encountered the first monster. She was there now, a full sleep away from her home. She had found another rain pce, somewhere she was sure the monster wouldn’t come. So far from her home and in the small tunnels she felt safer.

  It didn’t help the frustration though. As she relieved the pressure below her stomach, she tried desperately to come up with a pn. A way to maybe lure the monster somewhere it was alone and she could safely run.

  Tried too desperately it seemed.

  She stopped, ceasing all noise.

  The thumping was close. This was the second time her thoughts had made her ears stop working.

  How close was it?

  Could she still make it out of the rain pce?

  She began to panic.

  She didn’t have a choice, the rain pce had nowhere to hide. The monster may pass but taking that chance was too much. She bolted for the door. Her usual stealth forgotten in favor of speed.

  She wasn’t sure what was louder, the thumping of the monster or the thumping of her heart.

  It was there just outside the rain pce. Maybe even close enough for it to reach out and grab her. Rather than find out, she pushed herself more and ran as fast as she could, taking a corner as soon as it appeared and continuing on. The thumping in her ears all the motivation she needed to not stop, even if it seemed to match her heartbeat rather than the monsters steps.

  She felt something rush through her, a feeling she didn’t have words for or understand. She had done it, despite the terror of the situation she had managed to look at the monster.

  Now she just had to survive long enough to disappear and make her way back home.

  [3-B]Nothing pulled existential loneliness into perspective like horror movie themes.

  What could possibly be worse than being alone?

  Not being alone, that’s what.

  He sure as shit hoped that what he smelled was a dead body through the vents and not a cloud of scent left behind by a moving person. Though he supposed a person was the better alternative. It had certainly pulled his happy ass out of nonchant meandering mode that was for sure.

  This pce wasn’t big enough to miss someone just casually walking around. That meant either he was being avoided, which begged the question of why? Or something had changed and things that had previously been locked up were not anymore.

  He sure wished he had paid a lot closer attention to which doors had been closed. He had looked for traces where he had smelled whoever or whatever it was but there were no sounds he could hear and the floors and walls seemed to have some kind of coating that prevented stains. No fingerprints, no footprints, nothing. The distinct ck of fluids helped quite a bit in calming the paranoia, but he also didn’t know how the vents worked, so he would need to keep a very close eye out for rooms he didn’t recognize or things that ‘didn’t belong’, whatever that meant in an unknown bunker.

  Grabbing some bnkets to act as a mark, he was just going to have to be systematic about checking pces. The industrial tunnels helped act as grid lines, but it would be incredibly tedious regardless. His best bet was splitting everything into a quadrant and scanning everything quickly from the main tunnel. If he didn’t spot anything he could then go back and actually search each open room.

  If he was reluctant to open doors before, this certainly hadn’t made it more appealing.

  Archaeologists were masters of patience.

  It was the only thing he could think of. While his engineering brain may appreciate the occasional bit of repetitive data collection, the constant sameness of checking each and every corridor was mind numbing. The occasional bout of excitement popped up when he managed to find something useful in an open room but by and rge the search was just walking up a hall and entering each room, only to leave a basically empty space behind to check the next one.

  He did manage to find a notebook and pen, which will help with a great many things, but the major conclusion he was coming to was that, this mysterious bunker had way more rooms than people. At first he thought it was simply that everyone had minimal allowance for personal affects, but as he started to find rooms that actually had personal affects he had to revise that. It seemed that very few of the rooms were actually in use.

  If personal space wasn’t taken into consideration, you could probably stuff over a hundred people here but based on the percentage of rooms that seemed lived in, there might have been less than a couple dozen. A lot of pressing questions and the only answers he had were ghosts and zombies. Both bad in their own way.

  He was more than happy to make friends, but he drew the line at getting his brains munched or possible possession. The logical part of his brain suggested an emergency evacuation of some kind, but that way y madness. If they had to leave in such a hurry that personal things got left behind, what was it that he wasn’t aware of?

  No, best to imagine fighting zombies and not all the horrible things he couldn’t do anything about in the logical alternatives.

  At least he could punch a zombie. Still, with the automatic lights preventing long range vision, he kept his ears open as much as possible and approached corners with a lot more caution than before. Sound and smell the only real options for warnings in this pce. Which sucked, since the second wasn’t exactly a precision thing and the first had to combat the echoes in the rger tunnels. Guess he would have to develop that sixth sense for if he was being watched that got hyped up in media…

  If that even worked with ghosts.

  At least once he had found the notebook, the repetitive nature of his task let him note down general locations and build a crude map. Very helpful with remembering which doors were open now that he knew to pay attention to that kind of thing.

  Honestly, he was looking forward to the rationing math he would have to do once his sweep of the halls were finished. It would be a nice break from the tedium. The day to day sameness might not have been so bad though if it wasn’t for the disappointing showers. He could handle a repetitive day’s work as well as the next guy if he got to have a nice long shower afterwards and rex with a decent book.

  Couldn’t have that here though, he had yet to find a water processor of any description, so he had to assume that water was limited. Add in that there were no books and that led to quick showers and empty nights, which led to a great deal of nothing to do outside what was currently considered work. Which was boring. Not hard to guess why math was looking appealing.

  Even with the possible ck of water though, he sure as hell wasn’t going to go out like a slob, so he was on his way to keep his consistent, if disappointing, short shower schedule. Even though food was probably going to run out before the water anyway, it still felt wrong to waste it.

  Ugh, so pessimistic tely, maybe his brain was broken…

  Like his heart would be broken if it got shot up with that much adrenaline again. Whatever the shit that was is lucky it didn’t get broken too, scaring the crap outa him that bad. Nothing like jump scares and adrenaline to get the digestive system moving.

  Good thing he was near the bathroom.