The realization dawned on me when I saw the system notification: the reason the military wanted to destroy the school and the monsters that live here.
"Demogorgons…"
They were using this school as their breeding site. What's more, there were probably hundreds of them still in the school. Last time, it took three of us just to beat the one. If a force of nature like that had found a way to reproduce by laying eggs inside of human corpses, then it made complete sense why the military would want to destroy everything.
In fact, I found it foolish that they hadn't already. The question was, if my hypothesis was correct and there were hundreds of demogorgons here, then where were they all hiding? My mind suddenly flashed back to the woman at the hospital. I remembered hearing her say that they only come at night.
If that was true, then the moment the sun sets…
"What is it?!" Isabella asked after seeing my frozen expression.
"These are all Demogorgon embryos. They are using the corpses as some sort of surrogate to grow their offsprings."
Their eyes widened in terror.
"So you mean all this…" Derrick asked with a look of disbelief. "Is that why their stomachs are so inflated? We must destroy them all."
"We don't have time. There is bound to be more demogorgons here somewhere, and my hunch is that the moment the sun sets, this place will be crawling with them."
Their faces went pale as they realized the true horror of our situation.
"We need to find Allison before things take a turn for the worse," I said.
"But how… How is it possible that they could even still be alive?" Derrick asked in disbelief.
For them to still be alive, they must've hidden somewhere. The question was, where?
There were only a handful of places that they could have hidden and not be seen for days now. Allison was a crybaby, but she was the smartest among us. If I were in her situation, the place where I would try to hide would be the service tunnel.
Large universities like these normally had service tunnels that helped technicians access electrical and plumbing systems. These tunnels were normally locked off from students, making them difficult to access. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that Allison must've hidden there. There were several ways to access the service tunnels, but the easiest was to enter through a manhole.
"I think Allison must've hidden inside the service tunnels," I said, to which Derrick and Isabella looked at me with confusion evident on their faces. "It's the only place they could've hidden and managed to survive this long."
"Okay, so where is it? How can we get to this tunnel?" Derrick asked.
"We can access it through a manhole. Our best shot at finding one is outside."
The two of them nodded, and we exited the building.
"It feels weird leaving the students back there like that. Maybe we should've still done something," Derrick commented.
"They are already dead, and we're short on time. Plus, their bodies will be destroyed in the explosion when the military decides to bomb the university," I replied.
"Yeah, you're right, but still…"
I understood what Derrick was saying. What we saw back there was vile, and honestly, seeing human bodies used like that would surprise anybody. It was a sight forever etched in our minds. The three of us searched the school for almost twenty minutes before we finally spotted a manhole.
The cover looked heavy and probably weighed over 300 pounds, making it impossible for a regular student to lift. Normally, they would use a lever to lift it, but no such tools were needed since I had my freak-of-nature brother, Derrick, here. Isabella could've most likely lifted it too, but Derrick was the obvious choice to ask.
"Do you mind doing the honors?" I asked, to which Derrick frowned and grabbed hold of the manhole cover to lift it. He lifted the cover with both hands and tossed it to the side, revealing what lay underneath. Inside, the tunnel was dimly lit with energy-saving light bulbs. There was a ladder leading down into the abyss.
Luckily, it wasn't too cramped either, as it had space wide enough for the three of us to walk together side by side. Though , it would be hell for someone that suffers from claustrophobia. The service tunnel was like a maze. It was easy to get lost if you didn't have a way out. Hence, why I left one of my shadow hounds at the entrance so I could easily find my way back.
I then sent the rest of my hounds in search of any signs of life while I sniffed the air to see if I could pick up on any scent. I picked up a faint smell of dried blood and decided to follow it. The scent was faint and difficult to fully pick up on where it was coming from. It was as if being so far underground was weakening my sense of smell. But still, I followed what faint trace I picked up nonetheless.
I also used my thermal vision skill to see if I could pick up on any signs of life, but it was impossible to detect anything as my senses were quickly overloaded with heat from the electrical wires that ran through this place.
After a while, I finally picked up on something. It was the scent of rotting flesh, meaning that zombies were close, but when we came across the scene, it wasn't the humanoid zombies I expected. It was a pack of zombified dogs.
They must've retreated down here too. There were chunks of flesh missing from them and wounds that would've killed anyone; man or beast. My guess was that these dogs turned on each other and when they died they became this. The pack of zombies charged at us wildly. They were much faster than their human counterparts; still, we managed to dispatch them with ease, then continued to search for the students.
We searched the tunnels for what felt like hours without managing to find anything or anyone. We found no signs of life, and soon we started to question if anyone was really down here. That thought was completely shattered when an arrow made of what seemed to be ice came soaring at us.
Behind the attack stood a girl with short black hair. She wore a black crop top that revealed the many piercings on her navel. Around her neck was a black choke collar with small golden spikes on it. Her make up consisted of black eye line matched with black lipstick. She also wore a short black skirt that left only a little to the imagination. It was paired with black fishnet stockings and black boots that stopped just below her knee.
"A Goth?" I heard Derrick mumble behind me.
Even I was momentarily lost for words when I saw her. What caught my attention mostly was how thick her thighs were and the lousy job her skirt was doing of covering it up. Even her crop top seemed to be struggling.
The girl stared at us with utter filth as her attack whistled through the air towards us. We managed to dodge the ice attacks with relative ease, but before we could question who the girl was, a man charged at us holding a giant hammer.
It became instantly clear to me that we were being attacked as more strange people showed up. Their attacks were uncoordinated and sloppy. It was as if we were being attacked by a group of middle schoolers. I sighed and readied myself to fight them, but just then I picked up an all-too-familiar scent.
I reacted instantly and dodged through their feeble attacks and snuck up behind a beautiful white-haired girl who was hiding not too far away in a section of the tunnel. I couldn't help but sigh when I saw her from behind. Seeing the timid girl hiding I decided to tease her a little bit. I snuck up so I was just behind her ears then I growled trying to sound like a zombie.
Her ears twitched as she let out a loud yelp and made to run, but fell flat on her face instead.
I shook my head as I walked toward her and knelt down so she could get a good look at my face. It looked like she scraped her knee when she fell causing tears to accumulate in the corner of her eyes but then she saw me and a look of shock crossed her face. Her eyes widened when she realized it was me.
"You're always so clumsy, aren't you, Allison?"