Instinct kicked in.
Thalia pivoted hard and leapt onto the nearest table, her boots thudding against the surface. She didn't stop. She bolted straight for the hoard.
The groans grew louder.
The slower zombies were starting to shift. They peeled off from the skeleton that had been their chew toy, marching one by one in her direction. The bones of her summon cracked as it stood back up, wobbling slightly before charging back into the fray. But it was only one against a dozen. For every zombie it struck down, another just crawled back up.
"Without a weapon that skeleton is useless," Thalia muttered to herself, eyes locked forward. "Looks like we're both in the same boat."
That's when she heard it.
The sudden rush of footsteps. Heavy. Fast. And getting closer.
Her heart jumped. She turned and saw the boss zombie.
It barreled through the cafeteria, fast as a truck, muscles bulging and twitching beneath half-rotted skin. It snarled as it climbed up onto the the table where Thalia just did
And then it ran straight for her.
Thalia's eyes widened as it sprinted across the table like a charging animal, each step shaking the surface beneath her. Then with one final burst of speed, it lunged at he, arms out, jaws open.
She reacted.
She spun and her hand shot up, gripping the butcher knife tight, and as the creature came flying at her she brought it down hard toward its head.
SHRRK!
The knife didn't hit skull.
It stopped.
Right in its forearm.
The thing had blocked her strike.
The blade sunk into the meaty part of its arm, halfway buried, but it didn't even flinch. Blood oozed from the wound, but the zombie just stared at her with lifeless, hungry eyes.
Thalia's couldn't believe what she was witnessing.
"What. The. Fuck?!"
The zombie raised its thick, rotting arm with Thalia still hanging onto the knife, and slammed her down onto the table with a force she'd never felt before.
"ARGHH!" she cried out, her voice echoing through the cafeteria.
A notification blinked into her vision:
> PASSIVE SKILL UNLOCKED
PAIN NULLIFICATION LV1
Her back flared up like a lightning strike just hit her. She could feel every nerve scream as the pain shot through her spine. But there was no time to recover. The zombie gripped her by the throat and flung her like a broken doll.
Her body flew over two tables before slamming shoulder-first into a folded metal one near the wall. The frame cracked, then she bounced off and smacked into the wall, the force sending a loud crash rattling through the entire room.
The hoard shifted course instantly, their moans growing louder as they turned and began dragging their feet toward her.
Thalia lay slumped with her back against the cracked wall. Her head drooped. Arms limp. Eyes barely able to stay open.
"Damn it… I can't pass out now…" she mumbled, blood trickling down her chin.
Across the cafeteria, the boss zombie yanked the knife from its arm. Blood sprayed from the wound, dribbling down its elbow in thick, dark streams. It tossed the blade aside with a metallic clang.
Then it let out a roar. Not like before, but something different. A war cry. The kind meant to declare one thing,
Dominance.
It charged, ignoring the other zombies entirely. They were just obstacles now. It batted one aside with a backhand that nearly took its jaw off. Another got stomped into the floor. A third was shoulder-checked so hard it flew across the room.
The boss leapt onto a nearby table, feet thudding against it and jumped.
Thalia looked up, barely conscious. Her vision was blurry, black spots crowding the edges of her eyes. She saw its silhouette against the lights overhead.
It was flying through the air, right at her.
She had seconds, maybe less.
And then,
She felt it.
A pull.
A whisper.
Like something… calling to her.
Her fingers twitched. She forced her arm upward, opening it in midair like she was reaching for something. Like she knew something was about to come.
Then...
BOOM.
The ceiling shattered.
Something came rocketing in from above like a meteor. A blur of heat and steel. It blasted through the roof, tore through the cafeteria with impossible speed, and collided with the boss zombie mid-air.
PEWKK
Its head exploded in a mist of red.
Blood splattered the walls, the tables, even the floor by Thalia's feet, but the moment happened too fast to see.
The moment it hit her hand, a shockwave ripped through the cafeteria.
Zombies were blown off their feet. The ones closest to her hit the walls. Even the skeleton she'd summoned staggered backward, struggling to remain standing.
The boss zombie's headless body slammed into the floor just inches from Thalia, flopping like a wet rag.
And then without even slowing down for a second the object shot straight into Thalia's waiting hand. The impact pushed her arm back slightly, smoke rising from the blade and her hand.
Her fingers locked around the scabbard.
It was Gerlads sword.
Its metal still shimmered faintly from the speed it had been traveling, like it had been thrown by the heavens themselves.
She didn't even flinch. She couldn't, she was passed out cold.
Her head hung low. Hair covering her face. One hand still stretched in the air with a sword in it, like a statue frozen in time.
Outside the MidasTech Building
"I swear," one man said to a camera, wide-eyed and pointing, "for a moment it lit everything on this entire street up like a Christmas tree. If you blinked, you woulda missed it. Not like I could even tell what it was in the first place."
The camera cut to a different bystander, a teenage girl in a denim jacket.
"It's Solar, I'm telling you," she said with full confidence. "No other cape shines bright like that. And that speed? Who else could it be?"
Another quick cut.
"It's aliens," a guy in a bucket hat said flatly. "It's gotta be aliens."
"Maybe the army got involved and sent a drone in or something?" Said another woman to the camera
Then the camera cut to a different man.
"Nah, it's a cape. Has to be. Only super who moves that fast is Solar or maybe Stryde."
Then the camera panned back to the news anchor. She stood just outside the caution tape, her hair still slightly windblown from the shockwave.
"Well, you heard it here first, folks," she said, trying to keep composed. "Unfortunately, we didn't have the cameras rolling at the time, but just moments ago a mysterious entity appeared in the sky and entered the MidasTech building at what can only be described as light speed'"
She turned slightly, glancing back at the towering glass structure now eerily silent again.
"Is help finally on the way for the trapped survivors? We'll keep you updated as the situation develops. For now, this is Sadie Hart with Channel 6 Action News. Back to you, Mark."