Dodak could not risk his and Jisung's lives for a stranger. Jisung could call him cold, heartless, or a monster, but he knew that he had made this decision to protect them both.
He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, trying his best to drown out her pleading screams.
"Please! They're coming! They're-"
The crisp sound of slashing was painfully loud. The woman screamed, and several more stabs could be heard. The sound of the dagger going in and out of her body was all they could hear. A loud thud ended the barrage of sounds.
Using the ventilation holes at the bottom of the door, Dodak peeked out. He saw her body slumped against the door, with blood leaking from her back and the knife wounds in her body. She was gone.
Dodak turned around and saw Jisung's shocked expression and before he could cover his mouth to prevent him from making any sounds, Jisung had already let out a gasp of fear upon seeing the body.
He put his finger to his lip, signaling to remain silent, praying whatever was out there had hopefully not heard the loud gasp.
The area fell silent. Deathly silent.
BANG
"Shit, it heard us. We're gonna fucking die."
Jisung cried, trembling in fear.
BANG
Dodak closed his eyes and prayed. He wasn't religious but he prayed to any and every god he could think of.
BANG
Please. Please. Please.
I don't want to die here.
That's when Dodak realised.
Who cares if gods really existed? They certainly wouldn't care if he and Jisung died.
If he wanted to live, he had to ensure his survival by himself. No one but him was responsible for his own life.
"Quick Jisung, if you want even a chance of surviving, find anything we can use as weapons. It's all or nothing."
The two scrambled around the room, looking for anything that was even remotely useful against the creature outside. Jisung was scrambling around in the janitor's closet, thrashing and digging while Dodak was looking in cubicles, hoping to find something-or anything.
BANG
"Fuck man, we don't have much time left. What can you find?"
"I don't have much, just this."
Jisung had now regained enough of his strength to stand upright and had collected a few miscellaneous items in his hands. Dodak too had also gathered a few wacky yet potentially lethal items that could prove useful.
BANG
Together, the two stood side by side, facing the door with their makeshift weapons and a determined look on their face.
"Let's kill this son of a bitch."
With a final slam, the door of the toilet opened. Standing ahead was one of the green figures he had seen earlier. Its face was even more unpleasant up close. The wicked combination of a sleazy grin and a few strands of hair on its green, wrinkled head further enhanced its distastefulness. Its crimson red eyes glowed devilishly under the white light of the toilet as it stared at its next meal. In its hand was a silver knife that had a few unrecognisable encryptions on it, as if it were used for some sort of witchcraft or sorcery.
Dodak made an educated guess that what stood before them was most likely a goblin. It fits all the usual criteria in a fantasy story - short, green, and ugly.
The goblin stared at the duo, who were watching it intently. The goblin slowly advanced forward, grinning and cackling maniacally.
It scanned both of them and locked its devilish, red eyes on Dodak before pouncing onto him.
Dodak quickly lifted up the toilet lid that he had taken from one of the stalls, successfully blocking the goblins' strike. He then kicked the goblin hard, causing it to stumble backwards.
Jisung quickly used a nearby bidet to spray the goblin directly in its eye, causing it to yelp in annoyance and clutch its eye. Taking advantage of this, Dodak dashed forward and swung the lid forcefully into its face, causing it to fall to the floor and drop its knife. He then wrestled on top of it, bashing its skull in with repeated smashes. Soon, the once sleazy goblin had become a lifeless green pulp.
The black blood from the goblin spurted outwards, tainting Dodak's green shirt and the clean bathroom floor. The two plopped down onto the blood-stained floor and smiled at each other, celebrating their little victory against the little one.
However, the adrenaline seemed to have worn off, for Jisung regained clarity of the situation and his smile fell off his face. For the first time, Jisung's face darkened as his expression remained solemn.
"You should have let her in. We could have easily killed the goblin and saved her."
"How would any of us know that? What if it had been a group of them? Or an even greater threat?"
The duo fell silent, the tension in the room evident. No one spoke a word for a while as they stared at each other.
"I hope you know, I did that to protect us."
Jisung's narrowed eyebrows seemed to have loosened a bit and his scowl softened. Sighing as he shook his head, Jisung then gestured at the lock and spoke.
"Sure. But your plan to hide in here is now ruined. The toilet lock is broken."
From his expression, Dodak knew that things between Jisung and him would never be the same. Things like these could not be washed away so easily. But now was not the time, and he did not want to press the matter further.
"Well, we should probably find somewhere else to spend the night. Perhaps get actual, feasible weapons."
Jisung chuckled as he glanced from the bidet in his hand to the toilet seat in Dodak's. Jisung grabbed the dagger from the dead goblin and the duo headed out of the toilet, searching for a new safe place to hide.
~~~
A few hours had passed since the duo's battle in the toilet. The crimson sky beamed down onto the campus, immersing it in a dangerous and malicious aura. The hallways were littered with laptops, papers, dismembered body parts, piles of leaves and a few spilled coffees, but there were no signs of life. The birds that Dodak once hated for their noisy chirping were now dearly missed. The entire campus was empty, no matter where they went. The atmosphere was silent. Pin-drop silent. Eerily silent.
Dodak extended his hand out to stop Jisung from advancing further and analysed the area more closely.
"Jisung, hold on. Something doesn't seem right. It's too quiet. Judging from the body parts on the floor, there should be survivors, or bodies at least. But there's nothing. It's too suspicious."
The area ahead was suspiciously cleaner than the area they were standing in. There were still blood stains on the floor, but there were far fewer objects.
"It seems as if someone swept the area. It's way too clean up ahead."
"Now that you mention it, yeah."
Dodak scanned the area and found a nearby fire extinguisher that he could use. He yanked it out and rolled it forward. It continued to roll and roll down the hallway. Dodak and Jisung watched on in anticipation for something to happen.
It appeared that nothing was going to happen.
It rolled for an eternity before a net, which was covered by fallen leaves and papers, suddenly sprang up and lifted into the ceiling. It was just like an animal trap.
"This isn't good. Quick, we need to hide."
Dodak quickly pulled Jisung into a nearby room and closed the door quickly, using the glass peephole of the door to peer outside at the trap.
Suddenly, a group of 7 goblins ran out, excitedly dancing as they looked for their newly trapped prey. When they saw that the trap had only caught a fire extinguisher, they started angrily shouting at each other.
"What the heck. I thought these goblins were dumb. Now they're hunting in packs and know how to set up traps?"
Jisung murmured, panic arising in his voice.
This revelation was not a good one. The fact that they were intelligent enough to communicate, hunt in groups, and build traps made them much more formidable. Furthermore, while Dodak couldn't get a clear view, he could tell the goblins were definitely not short. They were at least an average human's height, and some were even taller than that.
He realised that the goblin they had fought in the toilet was probably a child. An adult goblin would be much harder to beat. 7 of them would likely kill the duo.
"We can't take them on. There's no way. Let's pray they don't find us."
However, it seems like luck was not on their side this time. The goblins had somehow come to the conclusion that their trap had been deliberately triggered by someone, and they were now hell-bent on finding the culprit.
They then dispersed like a bunch of hyenas, sniffing and looking around the area. While they might have a high enough intellect to hunt and build traps, their intelligence was also limited in other ways. The goblins looked under pieces of paper and inside drink cans. It would have been humorous if they were not capable of murdering them in cold blood.
Then all of a sudden, a pair of crimson red eyes popped up from below onto the glass-looking hole of the door. Jisung, shocked by that, stumbled backwards and fell onto the ground with a thud.
"Oh crap..."
This attracted the attention of the goblins, who all rushed over to the door and started banging again, trying to knock down the door.
"This oddly reminds me of the toilet from just now."
Jisung chuckled, somehow still laughing under the pressure of the situation. Dodak however, was panicking. Because certain death was knocking on their door right this instant.
Dodak quickly scanned the room, looking for other possible exits.
There were none. It was an enclosed room with a single entrance and exit. To get out, they would have to fight.
"Get ready for round 2 with these guys."
The pair steadied their makeshift weapons. Jisung grasped his knife that he had taken from the adolescent goblin tightly while Dodak held up the toilet lid, preparing to strike the moment the goblins entered.
However, the goblins stopped banging, and instead, they were shouting at something else.
"Huh? What happened?"
Dodak quickly rushed over to the glass peephole.
What he saw was...
Mesmerising.