The alley had transformed from a fortress into a press. The walls that had once shielded him now confined him, choking his movement. The climbing tactic had shattered his defense. The next assault could come from the front, from above—or both at once. Staying there meant waiting for death inside a coffin of brick and concrete. He needed a new sanctuary.
He peered out from the mouth of the alley. The street was eerily quiet. The creatures kept their distance, a ring of wary predators studying the passage that had proven so lethal. They were learning. Adapting. Their hesitation was his only window.
His gaze swept the buildings. Across the street, a little farther down, stood a small metal workshop. Low and squat, no front windows—just a solid steel door and a large corrugated garage gate. It looked like a vault. Ugly. Industrial. And at that moment, the most beautiful structure he had ever seen.
There was no time for a complex plan. The plan was simple: run.
Pressing his wounded arm against his chest to shield it, he drew a deep breath. He nudged the carcass of the fallen arachnid aside with his foot and, without warning, burst from the alley.
He ran.
The creatures were caught off guard by his audacity. For a second, they simply watched the broken prey bolt from its trap. Then the collective instinct snapped into place, and the chase ignited once more.
The sound of claws striking asphalt erupted behind him—an avalanche of noise closing fast. He did not look back. Looking back meant losing a step. Losing a step meant dying. Every fiber of his being locked onto the metal oasis ahead. Twenty meters. Fifteen. Ten.
Air shifted at his left—a blur of movement. He flinched instinctively, and a claw whistled past his back, shredding his shirt but slicing only air. He kept running.
He slammed into the workshop's steel door, not to try the handle but to batter it with his shoulder. The door shuddered but held. Locked.
A snarl flared right behind his ear.
Without turning, Artur swung the axe backward in a blind, desperate arc. The blade struck something with a dull thud, and a shriek followed. He didn't wait to see what he'd hit. He rammed the door again with his shoulder—and a third time—throwing his full weight and desperation into the impact.
Metal snapped. The lock gave. The door flew inward.
He stumbled into the workshop's darkness and spun immediately, seizing the door to slam it shut. The face of a hound thrust into the gap, jaws spreading wide. Artur roared and kicked the door with everything he had, crushing the creature's skull between steel and frame with a wet, hideous crunch.
He slammed the door closed and hurled himself against it. The impact of bodies hitting metal began at once.
BAM. BAM. BAM.
The steel door trembled with every blow. The lock was broken. Only his weight kept it sealed.
His frantic gaze swept the dim interior, lit only by slivers of purple light filtering through a grimy skylight overhead. Heavy machinery loomed in silhouette. Workbenches. Tools. And then he saw it—propped against one wall, a long, thick steel I-beam, likely scrap from some project. Well over two hundred pounds. Perfect.
But he would have to hold the door while moving it.
Beside him lay a small iron bar. It wouldn't hold for more than a few seconds. It would have to be enough.
"—Argh!" he grunted as a particularly brutal impact shoved him back a fraction.
He spun, grabbed the bar, wedged it through the door handle to brace it, and ran for the beam. His hands seized it. The steel was cold, slick with oil. He pulled.
It barely moved.
Exhaustion, coupled with the searing agony in his wounded arm, was draining his strength.
BAM! SCRREEEEE! Claws shrieked against metal outside.
"MOVE!" he roared at himself, voice ragged and hoarse.
He ignored the pain. Ignored the fatigue. Narrowed his world to a single command. He planted his feet and hauled with brute force born of pure terror. The beam scraped across concrete, the grinding echo filling the workshop. He dragged it inch by agonizing inch toward the door. The strain tore his wound open again; he felt warm blood slide down his wrist.
At last he reached the door. With one final cry of effort, he heaved one end of the beam upward and wedged it into the horizontal metal brackets bolted across the frame—an old security measure. The steel beam dropped into place with a heavy, final
CLANG.
He stepped back.
The door shuddered under another blow—but the sound had changed. It was solid now. Blunt. The beam held.
BAM. BAM.
Silence.
Artur stood in the middle of the dark workshop, chest heaving, the rasp of his breath filling the space. Outside, the impacts dwindled, replaced by frustrated growls and the scrape of claws retreating.
And then—
silence.
Deep. Blessed. Absolute.
He had done it. He was safe. For now.
The strength left him all at once. His legs buckled, and he slid down the nearest wall to the floor, the axe slipping from his grasp and clattering against concrete with a metallic crack that made him flinch. He remained there in the dark, head tipped back against cold brick.
In that silence, stripped of adrenaline and battle-fury, the true terror finally settled in.
He looked at his arm. In the gloom, the blood soaking his makeshift bandage looked black. The pain, once a sharp background noise, now dominated everything. A deep, throbbing fire climbing his arm. Each heartbeat delivered a fresh surge of agony.
With pain came clarity.
He was not a force of nature. He was flesh and bone. And his flesh had been torn. Dizziness crept in—the cost of blood loss and exhaustion.
The quiet outside was no comfort. It was a threat. What were they doing? Had they retreated? Or were they adapting again? Climbing toward the skylight? Searching for another weakness? The workshop was not a sanctuary. It was a metal tin—and he was sealed inside it.
The hulking shapes of machinery around him shifted in the half-light, transforming into slumbering monsters. A press became a gaping jaw. Chains hanging from the ceiling resembled thin, waiting limbs. His overtaxed mind began conjuring its own demons from shadow.
He closed his eyes—but the image of the father fighting uselessly, the girl screaming, bodies being torn apart, burned against the inside of his eyelids. He had survived.
But what did that mean?
Was he only postponing the inevitable—one minute, one hour at a time?
He tightened his grip on his wounded arm, letting the sharp pain anchor him, dragging him back from the spiral. The pain was real. The blood was real. The barricaded door was real. He had bought time. That was what mattered.
He forced himself to breathe.
Once.
Twice.
The air smelled of oil, metal, sweat, and blood—his own. It was the scent of a small, temporary victory. He was alone. Wounded. Surrounded. Trapped inside a metal box in a hostile universe.
And for the first time since the sky had turned purple, he had a moment to truly feel the crushing weight of his own absolute terror.