Chương 4: Orientation Day

A shriek cut through the morning from somewhere to his right. Deep and raspy, followed by a chorus of smaller sounds. Chittering and scratching, like claws on bark. Enzo turned. The intersection ahead opened up the sightline past the rooftops, and the forested hillside above the campus rose into view. Eucalyptus trunks climbed into a canopy streaked with green and crimson.

The leaves dripped in the early light, red running along the edges and falling in continuous streams, and the whole hillside looked like something out of a fever dream. Beautiful in a way that made his skin crawl. He tracked the noise upward but couldn't see anything through the distant foliage. Whatever was up there was welcome to stay up there. Far away from him. He kept walking. The cane found better purchase as the road climbed and the blood thinned.

Down below, it had pooled almost a foot deep, a sluggish red current flowing toward storm drains that had given up hours ago. Up here, it ran downhill, leaving the pavement wet and slick but mostly walkable. The morning was bright, the sun climbing through scattered clouds, the kind of weather that should have had joggers on the trails and dogs in the park. Instead, blood pattered against his hood in a rhythm so steady it was almost easy to tune out. He hoped Murph was okay back home.

Warm, comfortable, and sleeping off the bruised ribs. The first campus buildings appeared along the avenue. A library, windows dark. An academic hall with its main entrance blocked by what looked like a vending machine and two stacked filing cabinets. Further on, furniture pressed against ground-floor glass from the inside, shelving units and desks arranged with obvious purpose. People had organized in there. Figured out the threat, sealed themselves in, and decided to wait.

Through the upper windows of the academic hall, faces watched him pass. A woman pressed her palm against the glass, then pulled it back. A man behind her shook his head. They'd made the right call. Every building he passed showed the same logic at work, and from the look of it, the strategy was holding. He didn't try any of the doors. He wasn't about to be the idiot who compromised their safety by asking them to open up. Not yet, at least.

He didn't know where his sister would have been when the rain started, or where she might be now. The sounds reached him before he understood what they were. Shouting from further east along the avenue, overlapping voices carrying a rhythm that suggested coordination rather than panic. Then a screech cut through, a sound he now recognized as coming from an Eater, followed by several more, then something that might have been an impact. The hospital. It had to be.

The one place on campus that couldn't just lock its doors and wait. Too many patients, too much infrastructure, too many people who would have gravitated toward the building where help would be offered. A figure at a barricaded entrance ahead made him slow down. The Eater hunched at the base of a reinforced door, pounding with both fists in a relentless, metronomic rhythm. The sound carried; a dull thud every half second that the people inside must have been listening to for hours.

Its back was to him, shoulders rolling with each impact. But even from this angle, he could see the glow of its eyes reflecting off the door. Enzo stopped maybe twenty-five feet away. Roughly the distance he'd seen the spell travel before dissipating when he'd missed the first Eater. This one hadn't noticed him. He listened to the wet smack of its fists against wood and metal. Could see the splintered damage it had already done. Not enough to break through, but steady progress. He hesitated.

There was nothing stopping him from simply continuing. Ignoring it. Making his way without dealing with it. The problem was that it wouldn't ignore him if it detected his passage. And the idea of turning his back on the creature felt wrong deep down. Not to mention he was a law abiding man, and galactic law said… He raised his right hand, ring and middle fingers extended, and aimed at the back of its skull.

"Bolt." The projectile crossed the distance in a blink, striking the base of the skull with a wet crack. The Eater's head slammed forward into the door, and for a moment it seemed finished. Its knees buckled. Its body sagged, sliding down the reinforced surface. Then its hands caught the pavement. The thing wrenched itself back upright, turning toward him. Half of the back of its skull was caved in, leaking something dark.

The purple glow in its eyes had dimmed on the damaged side but still burned bright on the other. It opened its mouth, and the sound that came out wasn't quite a screech. Still scary. It charged. Same frenzied sprint as the first one. Arms loose, joints moving wrong, covering ground faster than anything that damaged should have been able to. Enzo took a step toward it. Adjusted his aim to center mass.

"Bolt." The spell punched into its chest and the Eater folded. Its legs went out and it collapsed forward, sliding to a stop in the film of blood that coated the road. It didn't get up. Warmth bloomed inside his mind again. The mana capacity bonus from the kill. He recognized it now after feeling it the first time. Confirmation that the thing was dead, and his reserves had just grown a fraction larger. The Guide said to destroy the brain or heart, depending on type.

A headshot with partial destruction of the brain had only made this one angry, so it was definitely a cultivating-type. The shouting from the hospital was louder now. Screeching too, from more than one source. He could see flashes of purple light reflecting off the windows of the buildings ahead, and the occasional sound of small explosions. The circular drive at the hospital's main entrance wasn't much further.

Rows of cars sat abandoned along the road and in the adjacent lot, some with doors open, all tinted red under the unending drizzle. A concussive blast erupted from behind a parked SUV and caught him on the left side. Raw mana, unstructured, like standing next to a bomb. The force lifted him off his feet and threw him sideways, the cane flying from his grip and clattering across the ground as his back slammed into the pavement.

The rain jacket took the worst of it as he skidded across the wet road, boots scrambling for purchase before he managed to roll and get his legs under him. Behind the SUV, a figure unfolded from a crouch. This one moved differently. Where the cultivation-type had been all brute momentum, this thing was hunched and twitchy, head jerking in small spasms as it tracked him. It had been hiding. Waiting between vehicles, crouched in the gap, and it had let him walk right past before it struck.

Its eyes were brighter than the other Eater's. The purple glow pulsed as it focused on him, and Enzo watched it screw up its face in something that almost resembled concentration. It screeched, took two stumbling steps in his direction, and then he saw it. A shimmer in the air around its head. Like heat haze rising off asphalt, but with a faint purple tinge that intensified as he watched. The glow behind its eyes was building, growing brighter by the second, and the shimmer was narrowing. Focusing. Toward him.

Enzo's eyes widened. He dropped to a knee, making himself as small a target as possible, and threw his left hand up.

"Shield!" The barrier materialized just as the discharge hit. The blast was tighter than the first one, a cone of force rather than a wild burst, and it struck the shield head on. The barrier shattered, purple fragments scattering like broken glass, but the energy behind it spent itself against the construct. What reached Enzo was a hard shove rather than the bone-breaking impact that would have landed without it. The Eater stumbled.

Its legs went loose and uncoordinated, and it swayed on its feet like a drunk trying to remember which direction was forward. The glow behind its eyes had dimmed to almost nothing, but was already strengthening with each pulse. Enzo's fingers snapped out.

"Bolt." The spell hit its left knee. Bone cracked and the joint buckled, folding in a direction knees weren't meant to go. The Eater pitched forward, and Enzo was already tracking downward before it finished falling, his fingers following the arc of the thing's descent, lining up where the skull would be when it landed. The Eater slammed into the pavement face-first. Arms still slack at its sides. No attempt to catch itself. The second Bolt struck the crown of the skull. The glow died.

The familiar bloom of warmth confirmed the kill. Enzo stood, breathing hard but steady. And winced. His left side throbbed where the blast had caught him, a deep ache that sharpened when he inhaled. Pressing gently against the spot, he decided nothing was broken, but also that he'd be feeling it for a while. He glanced down at the body. Two kills in the space of a minute, and the second one had been nothing like the first.

The cultivation-type acted like a blunt instrument, all speed and aggression, the same as the first. This one had waited in ambush, hidden where it had the advantage. A manipulation-type. Capable of firing off directed blasts. and it hadn't even been a day since the end of the world started. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

He filed that thought away with the growing collection of things he didn't particularly like thinking about, and hobbled over to retrieve his cane from where it lay. The sounds from the hospital had grown constant during the fight. Screeching and shouting, the sustained rhythm of people defending a position, punctuated by the concussive pop of magic he couldn't identify at this distance.

He turned the corner of the parking area, following the curve of the road toward the circular drive at the hospital's main entrance. And stopped. The U-shaped drive curved around a landscaped island of concrete and signage, splitting the approach into two lanes. At the bottom of the U, cars had been shoved together, hoods and bumpers mostly touching to narrow the access, leaving only a few intentional gaps barely wide enough for one or two people abreast.

Behind the vehicles, a line of defenders held the barricades with whatever they'd found. Broom handles with kitchen knives lashed to the ends. Sharpened metal poles that might have been part of bed frames hours ago. Shields fashioned from cabinet doors and bin lids. One man wore a cooking pot strapped under his chin with medical tape. Next to him, a police officer in a kevlar vest held a pistol in one hand and a metal baton in the other. The left side of the drive was where the fight was concentrated.

Twenty, maybe thirty Eaters pressed toward the barricade gaps in staggered clusters, some stumbling up from the road to the west, others emerging from the underground parking entrance across the street. They arrived in ones and twos and small groups, a relentless stream that never quite stopped. Purple eyes glowed through the bloody haze from every direction. On the right side, where Enzo stood, the pressure was lighter. A handful of Eaters attacked the gaps, kept at bay by a smaller group of defenders.

The raised concrete divider with its hospital signage cut across the center of the U, splitting the two fronts. Behind the barricades, flashes of purple light. Someone shouted 'Shield' and a barrier flickered into existence at one of the gaps, catching an Eater mid-lunge. Another defender jammed his palm forward and cried out 'Spear.' A rigid line of mana punched outward from his hand, driving into an Eater's chest at arm's length. Close range, but brutal and effective.

The thing folded and two people dragged it over the barricade by its shoulders, where others beat it still with lengths of pipe. Further down, the cop fired twice. The first round hit an Eater center mass. The thing rocked backward but kept coming, the wound barely more than a stumble. The second shot caught it in the forehead, and the Eater dropped. Past the barricades, the hospital's glass lobby entrance was cracked and reinforced from the inside with stacked furniture and equipment.

The lights were on behind the glass. Through the gaps, Enzo caught glimpses of movement in the corridors beyond. A voice cut through the noise from the far side of the barricade. Female, sharp, carrying over the screeching and the clang of metal.

"Rotate! Get Santos back inside, he's bleeding out!" He knew that voice. Enzo pulled up his status and did some quick math. He had enough mana left for seven Bolts or five Shields. Or some combination in between. He dismissed the interface and took stock of the scene one more time. The right side was managed. The left side was a grind, the defenders holding but exhausted, rotating wounded out and fresh bodies in. And somewhere on the far side of that mess was his sister. Because of course she was.

A scream from behind made him spin. An Eater was charging straight at him from the other side of the road, having peeled off from a cluster heading toward the main fight. Arms loose, gait wrong, purple eyes locked on him with singular focus. Enzo's hand came up. He started to aim at its head, then paused. Looked carefully. Then lowered his fingers to target the chest. The thing closed the distance in a dead sprint. He waited until it was ten steps away.

"Bolt." The spell slammed into its sternum, shattering ribs and reaching the heart beneath. The Eater's legs buckled mid-stride and it crashed forward, sliding to a stop in the film of blood at his feet. Six Bolts. Or four Shields. He turned back to the barricade, moving as fast as he could. Enzo fired on the move. The bolt shot across the gap and struck an Eater in the shoulder. The thing spun sideways, stumbled into the one next to it, and kept moving. Didn't drop. Didn't slow for more than a second. Five.

And wasted. His aim had been poor. The target had been moving laterally, another Eater lurching across its path at the wrong moment, and what should have been a chest shot landed wide. Standing still against a single target running in a straight line toward him, he was accurate. This was something else. Targets shifting in every direction, bodies between him and clean angles, and firing on the move stripped away stability he hadn't realized he was relying on. Target practice had found its place in his future.

He kept moving. Ahead, this side of the barricade had its own problem. A single Eater had made it around, realizing there was a gap, and two defenders were engaged with it. A young woman had driven a sharpened pole through its midsection. Next to her, Cooking Pot had buried his broom-spear into its gut from the other side. Both weapons were deep, the shafts disappearing into the thing's torso. It didn't care.

The Eater snarled and shoved itself forward along the hafts, inch by inch, hands clawing at their arms while they struggled to hold it at distance. Their feet slid in the blood. Weapons that should have killed it were just handles now, giving the thing leverage to pull itself closer.

"Friendly!" Enzo shouted as he closed in. He slid to a stop beside the Eater. Pressed two fingers against its temple.

"Bolt." Its head exploded. The body went slack and sagged between the two embedded weapons. The woman wrenched her pole free with a grunt. Cooking pot let his broom-spear go entirely, stepping back and bracing against the vehicle.

"Thanks," he managed between gasps. Four. The woman stepped aside and gestured him through the gap. Enzo squeezed through the barricade and into the space behind the defensive line. He'd received another notification, but had been ignoring them for a few minutes now, since the second Eater kill. That didn't stop the strange mental twinge he felt each time a new alert happened. It was busier than he'd expected.

Orderlies and volunteers moved between the barricade and the hospital entrance, dragging wounded defenders back by their arms and shoulders. Someone knelt beside a man whose right shoulder was caved inward, the bone wrong beneath the skin, applying pressure with wadded cloth while the man stared at nothing. Another casualty sat propped against the base of the barricade, clutching a forearm where a chunk of flesh was simply gone, while someone wrapped it with what looked like a torn bedsheet.

More defenders held positions along the right side of the line, quieter here but still manned. Weapons ready. Eyes on the gaps. A few glanced at him as he passed. He worked his way left, dodging between kneeling medics and runners carrying supplies. The sounds from the far side grew louder with every step. Screeching layered over shouting, the clang of metal on bone, the wet sound of spells hitting spearing dead flesh.

The barricade shook with impacts, the stacked furniture and lashed-together chairs rattling against the car frames they were anchored to. Then he saw her. Valentina was outside the barricade. Past the gap, past the line, out in the space between the defenders and the pressing mass of Eaters. Surrounded. She was small and dark-haired and moving faster than anything human should. An Eater lunged from her left. She sidestepped and drove her fist forward into its chest.

"Burst Fist!" Purple light detonated on impact. The Eater's ribcage caved and it launched backward off its feet, bowling over the ones behind it. Three more converged on her. Val saw them. Didn't turn. Her weight shifted to the balls of her feet.

"Burst Step." She blurred. A single explosive stride carried her back through the gap in the barricade. The defenders at the gap closed ranks the instant she was through, poles and shields forward, sealing the opening with practiced motions that said they'd done it many times already. Val bent over, hands on her knees, controlling her breathing. The combo had cost her. Then she looked up.

Her eyes swept the line and found him standing ten feet away with a look on his face that probably betrayed every ounce of the relief flooding through him.

"Enzo?!" He opened his mouth. An Eater slammed into the barricade between them. Two more hit the line further down, screeching, hands clawing over the top of the barrier. The defenders surged to meet them. Val was already moving, fists up, positioning to take over the gap nearest to where he stood. An Eater climbed onto the car, towering over his sister. Enzo's fingers snapped out.

"Bolt!" The spell took it in the side of the head and it tumbled backward, off the barricade and into the press on the other side. Three. Val didn't flinch. Didn't even look back. Either trusting him to do his part, or too focused to care. Either way, she held the gap while he covered her flank. An Eater pushed forward, faster than the last, already closing before most of the line could react. Val met it with a Burst Fist to the jaw that snapped its head sideways and dropped it at her feet.

Another defender behind her jabbed a pole through its eye socket before it could rise. Enzo tracked the press, looking for the greater threats. A shimmer in the air behind the main cluster caught his eye. A manipulation-type, building a charge. He could just barely see the telltale purple haze intensifying around its head. He fired. The bolt hit its upper chest, too high for the heart. He wasn't even sure if it would be enough for that type, but he couldn't risk the spell being swallowed, doing nothing.

The Eater staggered, shimmer collapsing as its concentration broke. Before it could rebuild, a second Eater stumbled into it from behind, and both went down in a tangle. Two. A screeching Eater rushed the gap where the patchy-bearded wizard was flagging. The man's Spear invocation came out weak, the mana line thin and short, barely enough to wound it, but holding it in place for a moment. Enzo aimed and fired, catching it in the temple. It dropped. One. His reserves were almost empty, and the Eaters hadn't slowed.

They were still streaming out of the parking garage across the street, with a few stumbling out of the surrounding buildings that had clearly been overrun.

"Low on mana." The words slipped out almost unwillingly. Val glanced at him, saw his expression, and understood. She called over her shoulder to someone behind them.

"Swap us out! Two coming off!" A voice from inside the hospital shouted confirmation. Two fresh defenders emerged from the lobby entrance, grim-faced and armed. A third followed behind, weaponless, but with carefully applied handwraps. Enzo and Val fell back as the fresh fighters took their positions. His hands were shaking. Hers too, though she hid it with clenched fists. They made it three steps under the building's overhang before she grabbed his arm.

Without the adrenaline holding it at bay, his knee throbbed with every hasty step.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Coming to get you."

"In the blood rain? Are you stupid?"

"I brought a jacket." She stared at him. He stared back. For a moment, the fighting at the barricade, the screeching, the flashes of magic, all of it fell away. Then she punched him in the shoulder. It didn't hurt as much as he expected.

"Ow."

"You're an idiot." He swept his arms out, gesturing at the chaos surrounding them.

"And you're not?" Val growled and grabbed his arm again, pulling him toward the hospital entrance.

"Get inside. We need to talk and I need to sit down before I fall down. My mana's been running low for the last three rotations and I've just been running on adrenaline and—" A crash from somewhere ahead cut her off. Followed by screaming. Several voices, overlapping, from the upper floors. The sound of something heavy hitting the ground, then another crash. Enzo could see people with weapons running in the corridor, moving toward the stairs. An orderly shoved through them, heading toward the lobby, face white.

"They're coming through the stairwell! We lost the barricade on three!" Val's hand dropped from Enzo's arm. The exhaustion in her face hardened into something else. She looked at him.

"How much mana do you have left?"

"Not enough." She nodded.

"Start absorbing, then catch up when you have enough," she said, heading for the stairs.

"Welcome to campus."