SSS+ MONSTER EVOLUTION

Chapter 11 : The Hunted

Chapter 11: The Hunted

The voice spoke, urging me to kill them. It wasn't just the voice—I could also feel the sanguis inside me stirring, starting to hunger again.

As much as I wanted to kill these scumbags, I couldn't risk putting the shelter into any trouble with rival colonies.

"Hey, we just have a few supplies in here. Some torn clothes and stuff, that's all. We don't have to use violence."

The guy didn't seem to believe me. "Then show me. Open up the bag and show me."

Margery was getting frustrated too. "Hey. If we tell your colony representative, you're going to get into a lot of trouble for robbing a fellow colony. We're all humans here, why kill each other! The enemy is over there. The monsters. They are the enemy!"

The guy walked forward and placed his gun right on Margery's forehead.

"Trouble? Who's gonna tell them? You?"

He didn't say it directly, but I knew what he meant. He was ready to kill if it meant getting whatever we had in the bag. Resources were getting scarce, and it seemed some people had no problem resorting to violence to get what they wanted.

"You could kill them," the voice spoke again. My head began to ache. I didn't know whose voice this was. I didn't know how he could talk to me. Maybe it was just me. Maybe I was getting paranoid and hearing voices.

Whether this voice was real or not, I didn't know, but all I knew was that my instinct to kill these guys was very much real.

I dashed at him, my arm slightly transforming. I acted irrationally.

Bang!

The guy got startled and shot me with the gun.

The force sent me slamming onto a car.

"Wilton!" Margery yelled, her voice shaking.

One of the guys snatched the bag off Margery.

"Kill her too. If she reports this, we're done for!"

Margery was shaken. She looked straight at the guy with the shotgun. "People like you don't deserve to live. You're even more of a monster than the sanguis," she said with tears rolling down her cheeks.

I felt the blood pour out of my stomach. It hurt, but most importantly, that shot was too loud. And we weren't far from the supermarket we got the supplies from.

Thumb. Thumb. Thumb.

It was too silent for the others to hear it, but I could. The ground shook slightly. It heard. It was coming.

The guys were too distracted to hear it. They were tearing through the supplies in the bag.

"Ohh boy, we got a score! There's plenty of tinned food and drinks in here."

The guy with the gun pointed it at Margery. "If you don't want me to shoot, you'll tell me where you found this."

Margery didn't flinch. "What's the point? You're gonna kill me either way."

"Hey, do you hear that?" one of the guys asked his friends.

Swoosh!

Bang!

The monster slammed through a building, ran straight for one of the guys, and sliced through him with its claws. It didn't roar. Didn't scream. It moved silent, like a shadow with claws, and the man fell apart before he even knew he was dead.

I saw my opportunity. I ran straight for Margery and grabbed her arm.

"Wait! The bags!" She extended for the bags, strapped one on her back, and I took the other.

"Quick! While it's distracted, we have to go!"

The sanguis that attacked them was different. Unlike most, it walked on two legs rather than four. Its skin was peeled off, pure muscle and blood exposed. Its eyes were black and dilated, and claws protruded from its fingers.

The guy with the shotgun shot at its head.

Bang!

Half its face tore off. But it didn't react. Instead, it slowly turned toward him. Like something from a horror movie.

We ran too fast to see what happened behind us. But all we could hear was screaming and gunshots ringing all over.

We made a safe distance before resting, hiding behind a fire truck parked near a park. We had run too far inside the city. We were in enemy territory.

Margery looked at me in pure horror.

"How the hell are you alive!? You were shot."

I didn't know what to say. I had to think of an excuse fast. If I told her my secret, who knows how she would react.

"I had a bulletproof vest inside my jersey. I got it during the raid with Benson and the others."

She stared at me. Her eyes narrowed. She looked at my stomach—at the hole in my shirt, at the blood staining the fabric. But there was no wound. No blood pouring out. Nothing.

"A vest," she said slowly. "At that distance. From a shotgun."

"Maybe it lacked the force? I don't know."

She was quiet for a long moment. Then she hugged me.

"I'm glad you're alive," she said, her voice thick with relief.

I wondered when we got this close. We hadn't known each other long. I was never really one for friends. It's not that I didn't want them—I just always found it hard making them. For me, this felt nice. I didn't want it to end.

"She's gonna find out one day, you know," the voice spoke with a chuckle. "And when she does... will she still care? Or will she run like the rest?"

I wanted to reply, but I couldn't. Margery would think me mad, talking to myself.

"We need to get out of here," I told Margery.

"Yeah, but how? You saw how fast that thing was. If it spots us, then we're done for."

She wasn't wrong. I didn't want to admit it, but right now, we were cornered.

---

Meanwhile, several blocks away, Victor crouched behind a dumpster, his breath ragged. Four of his men had made it out. The others weren't so lucky.

"We barely got away. Luckily it was distracted by the others," one of them said.

"We have to run back to the colony," another added.

"No!" Victor snapped. "You saw what I saw. Somehow that guy survived. And the girl too. If they report us, we're done for."

"But Victor, what do you expect us to do?"

Victor clenched his fists. "We wait. There's only two routes from the city to the shelters. They're bound to use one of them if they mean to escape. We wait for them here. Once they show up, we get what's ours and kill them."

He was determined to find us.