"System! Where are you? You said you would help me!" I screamed kicking a rotting businessman in the chest.​He stumbled backward into a horde of snapping jaws, but five more instantly took his place. The red emergency lights flashed casting terrifying shadows across the walls. ​Ding.​[Host. Sorry, I slept.]​The floating screen materialized right in front of my face completely blocking my view of a zombie lunging for my neck. I ducked just in time. My combat knife sliced through its knee.​"Fucker!" I roared pushing myself back against the locked door. "I knew you only come fast when it's time for blood sacrifice rituals!"​[Don't insult me, eh. Or I'll leave you to die.] The robotic voice echoed sounding entirely too relaxed for a situation involving fifty flesh-eating monsters.​"I'm not in your system. Don't try me. I'll beat you!" Midnight suddenly yelled. The black cat hissed swatting a zombie's reaching hand away with a flurry of sharp claws.​[Holy moly, this stray can talk

It sounded like a church bell being struck by a high-speed locomotive. The vibration traveled down the handle of the pan, shot through my arms rattling straight into my teeth. My knees buckled instantly cracking loudly as the weight forced me down into a squat.​But the pan didn't even dent.​Maya's fists had bounced right off the thick cast iron. She stumbled back a step.​[Splendid block, host! The non-stick coating has successfully deflected 90% of the kinetic impact. Truly a versatile cooking tool.] The text floated right over Maya's face blocking my view of her next move.​"Get this stupid screen out of my face!" I yelled pushing myself up out of the squat.​Adrenaline flooded my veins. I swung the frying pan horizontally with every single ounce of strength left in my body aiming right for the side of her bent neck.​BONKKKKKK!​An incredibly ring echoed through the burning hallway. The pan connected perfectly with her jaw. The impact was so hard that a chunk of her hardened as

"Master... Zilu?"​Both Gulp and Drako, along with Midnight looked at me with confused eyes. The dim light filtering down from the cracked pipe above barely illuminated our dust-covered faces.​"Hahahahaha..." My laugh grew louder. "Damn it! I thought this tunnel would lead us straight to the underground lab! But it's just a normal tunnel! An escape route to be precise. Maya made fools of us!"​Hah! Gulp's bony fingers quickly snapped his jaw back into its proper socket. He had already stitched his scattered skeletal body back together though his left arm was temporarily attached backward. "Master, please explain. My brain is missing, so I struggle to follow the logic."​"She didn't run down here to guide us anywhere," I gasped. "She ran down here because it leads completely out of the neighborhood!"​"Well, at least we are not currently on fire," Midnight pointed out. The black cat was sitting on a dry patch of concrete grooming the ash off his front paws. "I consider that a massiv

"​Ah wake up, meatbag. The sun is invading my personal space."​I cracked one eye open. Midnight was sitting directly on my chest, his fluffy black tail swishing back and forth, casually swatting me in the nose.​"Get off me, you overgrown furball," I groaned shoving him aside and sat up, immediately regretting every life choice that had led me to this moment. Sleeping on raw bark in a hollowed-out tree thirty feet above a deadly jungle was not doing wonders for my lumbar support. My spine sounded like a firecracker.​"Ah, the symphony of morning bones!" Gulp cheered from the edge of the branch. The skeleton was hanging upside down by his knees like a macabre bat, casually polishing one of his daggers with a dry leaf. "Did you sleep well, Master Zilu? I didn't! Because I don't sleep! I spent the last seven hours counting the number of terrifying, many-legged insects that crawled over your face."​"You couldn't have swatted them away?!" I snapped, furiously wiping my cheeks.​"And ru

"If anyone steps on my tail in this pitch blackness, I will leave you to the monsters outside," Midnight’s voice hissed from the dark void of the bunker.​"I cannot see my own hands, furry friend," Gulp whispered back. The sound of his skeletal jaw echoed loudly in the tight space. "But I promise to keep my bony feet to myself."The steel door was shut tight behind us. The wind outside howled like a dying animal, throwing yellow dust against the environment. ​"Is everyone okay?" I asked, my voice shaking slightly. The adrenaline was leaving my body.​"I am terrified," Sarah cried softly from the dark. "I can't see anything. We are trapped in a dark bunker or I don't know what to say it is."​"We are not trapped," Drako’s deep voice vibrated the ground beneath my boots. "I smell fresh air. It is weak but it is coming from deep inside this tunnel. There is a way out, I'm sure."​"Then we need to move," Billy said.​His voice made me freeze. It didn't sound right. Back in the marsh, hi