"It doesn’t seem to be coming from this floor," I said after Rachel and I had conducted a rapid sweep of the ninth floor.
The checking process had been extrely cursory, barely more than jogging through the corridors and glancing into rooms with open doors rather than the thodical, thorough clearing we’d been doing before. We simply didn’t have ti for proper procedure when investigating an active threat.
We’d encountered two Infected inside one of the rooms, forr hotel guests based on their clothing—but we’d dispatched them quickly with minimal effort before continuing our search. Christopher and the others would handle a more detailed second pass of this floor eventually when they worked their way up here during the normal clearing progression.
For now, Rachel and I moved imdiately to the tenth floor, taking the stairs two at a ti.
Obviously I seriously doubted the sound had originated from either the ninth or tenth floors—my enhanced hearing suggested it had co from significantly higher in the building, maybe the twelfth or thirteenth floor based on how the acoustics had traveled through the structure. But I wanted to do at least a quick visual check of the intervening floors just to be certain, and to ensure Christopher, Sydney, and Cindy wouldn’t encounter any surprises when they eventually passed through these areas.
Better safe than ambushed.
"Ryan, I’m starting to doubt it was actually a person who made that noise..." Rachel said beside as we moved through the tenth floor corridor.
Her voice was tinged with unease that I absolutely understood because I was feeling it too, a growing sense of wrongness that had nothing to do with normal Infected.
"I was thinking the sa thing," I admitted. "But it could potentially have been a gunshot hitting sothing solid, maybe? Soone shooting at an Infected or testing a weapon?"
Even as I said it, the explanation sounded weak and unconvincing to my own ears.
"You don’t actually believe that any more than I do," Rachel said, stopping to look at directly. "I’m not the only one who felt Dullahan’s senses suddenly screaming a warning right after we heard that sound, am I? That instinctive alarm reaction that sothing dangerous is nearby?"
Yeah, I’d definitely felt it too. The symbiote within had reacted to whatever made that noise with what could only be described as alarm—a recognition of threat that bypassed rational thought and went straight to survival instinct.
But I didn’t want to acknowledge that out loud yet, didn’t want to confirm what we were both thinking: that we were about to encounter sothing significantly more dangerous than ordinary Infected.
"Just stay behind , Rachel," I said, positioning myself slightly ahead of her as we continued our ascent. "If things go bad, your barriers are our best defense. I need you protected so you can keep protecting both of us." I added before she could say anything.
Rachel nodded wordlessly, adjusting her position to follow close behind without getting so close that she’d interfere with my movents if I needed to fight suddenly.
We conducted similarly rapid checks of the tenth and eleventh floors—moving quickly through corridors, confirming no imdiate threats, but not stopping for detailed room clearing. The sense of wrongness, that uncomfortable prickling awareness that sothing was nearby, continued growing stronger with each floor we ascended.
By the ti we reached the twelfth floor, I was feeling genuinely irritated by the situation.
"Can we ever get a break from weird dangerous shit?" I muttered, my voice having more annoyance than fear. "We were supposed to just deal with ordinary Infected inside this building and get it over with. Simple, straightforward clearing operation. But apparently that’s too much to ask for."
"I suppose not encountering anything particularly weird or dangerous during the past several days had actually been our break," Rachel said with a dry humor that didn’t quite mask her own tension. "We should have known it wouldn’t last."
She had a point. Since leaving Jackson Township—or more accurately, since Elena’s and Alisha’s capture and loss—we’d experienced sothing resembling a peaceful period as we’d traveled. Sure, we’d dealt with Infected regularly, but just the standard shambling variety. No Enhanced types, no Hybrid mutations, no Starakian technology or alien threats. Just ordinary post-apocalyptic survival.
But apparently that grace period had ended the mont we’d arrived in Atlantic City, which seed to have its own concentrated collection of problems and dangers.
"You can speak for yourself," I replied, rembering an encounter Rachel hadn’t witnessed. "I already ran into a Hybrid Infected yesterday, though Emily dealt with it before it could do serious damage..."
"So she’s awakened abilities like the rest of us?" Rachel asked, genuine curiosity breaking through her wariness. "I’d been wondering about her status. You successfully transferred Dullahan to her?"
"Yeah, but it feels different with Emily," I said carefully, trying to articulate sothing I didn’t fully understand myself. "Maybe because I didn’t properly stabilize her the way I did with you and the others. She isn’t entirely in her right mind—there’s sothing off about her ntal state, like the symbiote didn’t integrate cleanly or sothing else entirely...."
"Well, let’s hope Elena will be ntally stable until we can reach her," Rachel said, worry coloring her voice. "You did stabilize her sufficiently before she was taken, right? She won’t deteriorate while we’re trying to organize a rescue?"
"Yeah, I stabilized her multiple tis, so it should be fine," I replied, though uncertainty gnawed at . "But honestly, I don’t know whether hosts need constant, regular stabilization. The chanics of how this works aren’t exactly docunted anywhere."
And I honestly didn’t trust that White Lady. She was purposefully keeping informations for to reveal them only at so monts.
Regardless, I’d perford the stabilization procedure with Elena several tis during our relationship, so theoretically she should be fine for an extended period. But what if hosts experienced so kind of withdrawal symptoms after a few months without contact? What if she started experiencing the sa kind of ntal degradation that seed to have affected Emily?
Let’s hope not. That was just another item on the growing list of things to worry about.
At that mont, I felt a sudden chill run down my spine—not a temperature change, but more like goosebumps raising across my skin as I sensed sothing like an energy wave emanating from sowhere above us.
I imdiately raised my gaze toward the ceiling.
"Ryan..." Rachel called my na quietly, her voice tense as she looked upward as well.
She’d felt it too. Whatever was generating that sensation, it was strong enough that both our Dullahan-enhanced senses were picking it up clearly.
"Yeah, it’s definitely on the floor directly above us..." I said.
The thirteenth floor. Of course it would be the thirteenth floor. Even in the apocalypse, unlucky numbers apparently ant sothing.
I gripped my hand axe harder and imdiately headed for the stairwell access, with Rachel following carefully behind.
I pushed all my enhanced senses to their maximum sensitivity as we climbed the stairs—listening for any sound of movent, feeling for vibrations through the structure, even trying to detect any unusual scents that might give us advance warning of what we were about to encounter.
The uncomfortable prickling sensation grew stronger with each step upward, like invisible needles lightly pressing against exposed skin. Not painful, but definitely unpleasant and increasingly difficult to ignore.
When we erged into the thirteenth floor corridor, I paused to glance back at Rachel.
"Be ready for absolutely anything," I warned her seriously. "We don’t know what we’re walking into, but whatever it is, Dullahan is treating it as a significant threat."
Rachel nodded, her expression focused. I could see faint traces of red energy already beginning to shimr around her hands—her barrier ability priming itself for imdiate deploynt.
I was similarly prepared, ready to activate Ti Freeze at the slightest indication of danger. The ability had saved my life multiple tis, and I had a feeling I might need it again very soon.
We walked slowly and through the corridor, our footsteps quiet against the dusty carpet.
There was no need to check individual rooms as we progressed because we could both feel the source of that unsettling energy signature with increasing clarity. It was like following a beacon that grew stronger and more directional the closer we got.
The uncomfortable needle-prickling sensation intensified until it felt like my entire body was covered in pins pressing just hard enough to be noticed without actually breaking skin.
I clenched my right fist unconsciously, and I felt the tattoo on my right forearm beginning to glow with that distinctive dark green luminescence.
Finally, we reached the door.
The source was definitely inside this room. No question, no ambiguity. Whatever had made that loud sound, whatever was generating this threatening energy signature, it was just beyond this door.
I gestured for Rachel to position herself slightly to the side, giving her an angle where she could see into the room once I opened the door but wouldn’t be directly in the initial line of attack.
Then I positioned myself squarely in front of the door, took a deep breath, raised my leg, and kicked with all my enhanced strength.
The door exploded inward. The door swung violently open, giving us an imdiate clear view into the room’s interior.
And sothing jumped directly toward my face with terrifying speed.
It looked like so kind of chanical dog, roughly the size of a large German Shepherd, constructed from sleek tallic components that glead dully in the dim light filtering through the room’s window. Its movents were fluid and organic despite the obviously artificial construction, and its eyes glowed with an eerie blue luminescence.
Rachel reacted with incredible speed, imdiately summoning a crimson barrier directly in front of .
The chanical dog crashed into the energy shield with significant force, its tal body clanging loudly against the barrier. But rather than bouncing off or retreating, its head imdiately snapped toward Rachel with precision—as if it had instantly identified her as the source of the defensive ability.
One of its front legs suddenly elongated with a chanical whirring sound, the limb extending like a telescoping spear. Then it stabbed forward with blinding speed, the sharpened tal tip aid directly at Rachel’s torso.
"Rachel!" I shouted in warning.
Rachel summoned another barrier quickly, the red energy shield materializing just in ti to intercept the stabbing attack.
But the tal leg punched straight through the barrier as if it was made of tissue paper rather than solid energy.
The shield shattered into dissipating fragnts of red light, completely failing to stop the attack.
What?!
Rachel’s barriers had stopped bullets, absorbed massive kinetic impacts, held back multiple Infected simultaneously. What the hell just happened?
"Ughn!" Rachel grunted in pain as the tal appendage drew blood from her side, tearing through clothing and skin.
She’d managed to dodge at the last possible instant, turning what would have been a serious blow through her vital organs into a painful but non-fatal wound along her ribs. Blood imdiately began soaking through her shirt.
But the chanical dog wasn’t finished. It imdiately retracted its extended leg and launched itself directly at Rachel’s now-vulnerable position, clearly intending to finish what it had started.
I reacted quickly.
My hand shot out and caught the creature’s chanical tail as it sailed past , my fingers closing around the segnted tal appendage with an iron grip.
"You’re not going anywhere!" I snarled, planting my feet and using every ounce of my enhanced strength to arrest its forward montum.
The tail imdiately began writhing violently in my grasp, the chanical segnts shifting and reconfiguring. Then I felt a sudden sharp pain as dozens of tiny needles sprouted from the entire length of the tail, stabbing into my palm and fingers from multiple angles.
I groaned through clenched teeth as the needles penetrated my skin, so of them sinking deep enough that I could feel them scraping against bone. Blood welled up around the puncture wounds, making my grip slippery.
But I refused to let go.
Ignoring the pain as best I could, I maintained my death grip on the chanical tail and physically dragged the struggling creature backward, pulling it away from Rachel’s wounded form.
Then, channeling all my anger into the movent, I swung the chanical dog like a flail.
The creature’s body whipped through the air in a wide arc before I released my grip, sending it flying down the length of the corridor.
It tumbled end over end through the air before finally crashing into the wall at the far end of the hallway with a thunderous tallic impact that echoed through the entire floor.
The collision left a visible dent in the plaster and structural supports.
"Sonny!"
The voice ca from inside the room.
I imdiately whirled my head toward the wide-open doorway and felt my eyes widen in genuine shock at what I saw standing there.
A girl or at least sothing that appeared roughly girl-shaped and approximately my ag —stood in the center of the hotel room. But she was absolutely and definitely not human.
Her skin was a grayish-white color with an almost ethereal quality to it, like polished stone or marble that sohow seed to emit a faint luminescence. Two curved horns protruded from the sides of her head, growing upward and backward through her short black hair.
Her eyes, large and very light brown fixed on with obvious hostility.
She bore resemblance to the White Lady so...
Are you fucking kidding right now?
A Starakian.
The girl was glaring at with anger, and her hand gripped sothing that looked like a tallic cylinder approximately the size of a flashlight. She had it pointed directly at like a weapon.
Every survival instinct I possessed suddenly scread danger in unison.
I didn’t hesitate, didn’t stop to think or analyze or consider options.
I imdiately activated Ti Freeze.
The world around instantly crystallized into perfect stillness.
I released a deep, shuddering breath of relief as I examined the frozen scene more carefully.
The cylinder device in the alien girl’s hand was glowing with a faint blue energy that had clearly been building toward discharge. If I’d delayed activating Ti Freeze even a fraction of a second longer, whatever that weapon fired would have hit —and given what I knew about Starakian technology, it almost certainly would have been lethal or at minimum catastrophically damaging.
Okay. Ti to deal with this situation while I had the advantage.
I moved quickly but carefully, first approaching Rachel’s frozen form. I gently grasped her arm and physically guided her suspended body through the doorway and into the hotel room, positioning her against the wall in a relatively protected corner where she wouldn’t be in the imdiate line of fire when ti resud.
Then I turned my attention to the Starakian girl.
I approached her frozen figure cautiously.
Moving carefully to avoid any potential proximity triggers or defensive chanisms I didn’t know about, I reached out and firmly grasped the cylindrical weapon in her hand. A bit of manipulation allowed to work it free from her frozen grip without damaging her fingers.
I examined the device briefly—smooth tal construction, no obvious controls or triggers that I could identify, clearly advanced technology far beyond anything human civilization had produced. Dangerous. I set it carefully on a nearby table, well out of her reach.
Then I positioned myself directly behind the Starakian girl.
In one smooth motion, I wrapped my arm around her neck in a restraining chokehold—not tight enough to actually strangle her, but firm enough that she’d know imdiately upon unfreezing that any resistance would result in her airway being completely cut off.
My other hand gripped her wrist and pulled her arm behind her back, immobilizing it in a controlling position.
Okay. Let’s deal with this.
I released Ti Freeze.
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