It took eight whole seconds before the first reaction roared through the sky. A cry similar to the one before, albeit lower and softer. Three more followed in the next four seconds, just to be followed by at least ten more. Most of them were much softer, not the kind of cry a house class would produce, but with this many of them, it didn’t matter even if they were smaller. The one she had faced in the training field had been smaller, too, but it had killed plenty of them before they had managed to escape.

“...elp… Help… me…” A light, shaky voice reached her from somewhere to her right, only audible in the short pauses between the blares of the alarm. She narrowed her eyes and stared in the direction the voice had come from, seeing some movement in a narrow, dark alley in between two flats. Movement that definitely didn’t belong to a human.

She tightened her grip on her rifle to stop the trembling of her hands and somehow managed to bring herself to get up, although she stayed low to the ground as she carefully moved closer to that alley. 

Her legs felt so weak as she pressed her back against the wall of the right building that she worried they would give out any second, but whomever had called out to her was cornered in that alley. They were just around that corner, about to be devoured by whatever it was she had seen move. If she stopped now, if she chickened out, their death would be on her. 

She breathed heavily, but her heart wouldn’t stop pounding in her chest. This is why you decided to enlist, she told herself, to be able to protect people, so hurry up and protect them!

She took one big step forward, firmly planting herself in the opening of that alley to assess the situation. A little kid sat crouched at the end of that narrow street, her back pressed against the wall. She used her arms, which were covered in fresh scratches and bruises, to protect her face, or maybe to block the monster standing in front of her from her view as she quietly wept. She no longer cried for help, everything about her defeated, trembling body showed Hyrin that she had already given up on being rescued and that she was just scared now of how much her death would hurt.

It was that thought that made Hyrin shoot forward faster than she had ever run in her life before. It all happened in less than a second. She brought her hand to the trigger, but the drake’s claws buried themselves in her side before she could even raise her rifle high enough to aim. 

She cried out as those black claws pierced her flesh and warm blood streamed down her leg. Behind her, she heard the little girl she had just saved gasp and crawl farther up against the wall, loudly sniveling, and Hyrin gritted her teeth to silence herself. She couldn’t let that terrified child know that she was about to die. She just had to hold out long enough for her to escape.

She slammed her rifle forward, pushing it into that small drakes wide open mouth with its full length, the way you would push your arm as far back in a dog’s jaw so it can’t bite you anymore.

Do they really eat humans after killing them? She wondered in a panic. This one had been about to bite her even after stabbing her with its claws. Did it want to eat her alive? Why didn’t it pull back its arm? Did it think it had a better grip on her like this? 

Her thoughts kept raging through her mind, but she was too scared to be left with only the pain if she would push any of them away.

This drake must have been a lower class, she thought as she tried to focus on it. What were they again? Brick class? Shrine class? She shook her head. She couldn’t remember, but it only reached to about her chest. Not that she could allow herself to feel relieved. She couldn’t help but think that if it had been a house class like the one the others were facing, she would’ve at least been able to grab that girl and run away, but this one would catch up with her in a flash and tear her to ribbons. 

It should be able to do that now too, though, even if she had blocked it from using its mouth. It still had one free claw, two clawed feet, and a barbed tail that swung from left to right over the ground like a cat stalking its prey.

So, why didn’t it? Why did it just stare up at her with those vertical pupils that had dilated so much that they almost seemed round? Why did she feel this weird tension spreading from the wounds in her side? As if the drake didn’t keep his claw there because it wanted to, but because it couldn’t pull it away?

“Hey…” Hyrin spoke softly, scared to break whatever trance that monster seemed to be in. “What’s your name?” She asked the little girl breathing fast behind her.

“B-” The girl started but stopped with a gasp, as if the sound of her own voice shocked her. “B-Brenna,” she eventually whispered so softly that Hyrin had barely heard it.

“Okay, Brenna,” she turned her head slightly to show the girl a reassuring smile, although she was careful not to break eye contact with the drake, “my name is Hyrin. I’m with the Drake Annihilation Force and I’m here to help you, okay?”

The girl didn’t react and she couldn’t see her, but she just assumed that she had at least nodded.

“Are you hurt?” She asked.

“Y… no,” Brenna lied and Hyrin couldn’t help but admire the girl’s bravery.

“Can you walk?”

“I… I think so,” Brenna muttered.

“Okay, good.” Hyrin turned back to the drake, which still stood there staring at her like a statue. “On the count of three, I’m going to let go of my weapon and grab this thing’s arm and shoulder and push it against the wall. When I do, I want you to run away from here as fast as you can, okay? Keep running until you find someone else from the D.A.F. and let them bring you to safety, okay?”

“Okay,” Brenna agreed softly and Hyrin could hear the absolute relief in her voice. “What about you?”

“I’ll be okay,” she lied, touched by the girl’s concern for her. “I’ll hold it down for as long as it takes, so I need you to tell the others to come here to back me up. Can you do that?”

“Y-yes!”

Hyrin nodded, relieved Brenna believed her. “No matter what happens, run the moment I say so and don’t stop. Don’t stop and don’t look back. Got it?”

“Got… got it.”

Hyrin clenched her jaw, cursing herself for saying something that made the girl hesitate, but she had just wanted to make extra sure.

“Okay,” she said softly, more so to herself than to Brenna. “Okay, here we go.” She took a small breath and exhaled, the strange tension in her body growing stronger, almost painfully so. Was it because she knew she was about to die? She couldn’t remember ever feeling like this before, not even when she had faced that drake in the training field.

“One…” she started softly. “Two…” she had no idea she could ever feel this reluctant to say the word three, but there was no going back now. There was no way she wouldn’t at least give this kid a chance to live.

“Three! Run!” She let go of the rifle and grabbed the drake’s right arm as she threw herself forward, forcing the monster to fall back with the full weight of her body. As she fell, she saw the shape of a human flashing past her from the corner of her eye. At the same time, she noticed the drake’s eyes narrowing and suddenly, it came alive. It pushed the claws stabbing her in deeper, slamming her with her back against the wall.

She coughed as the air got pushed out of her lungs and she saw spatters of her blood flying around, landing on the drakes head as that tension she kept feeling pulled at her insides. Or were her insides the one pulling at something else?

She groaned, unable to understand what was happening to her. All she understood was that this monster was trying to take something from her. It was trying to pull something out of her through those claws in her side, and she had to fight it before there would be nothing left of her.

She tried to lift her arm to wrap her hand around its wrist, but it felt like she was trying to move through honey. Her arm felt weird, as if it had twisted and contorted and none of the muscles were where they belonged anymore. 

She bit down on her lip so hard that blood trickled down her chin, but the pain cleared the haze in her mind for a split second, the way she had hoped it would. She had no idea what was happening, but whatever it was, it seemed to happen through that monster piercing her flesh, and if that were the case…

She stabbed her hand forward, burying her fingers in a small cut her rifle had created in the soft flesh on the side of the drake’s mouth. The cut was barely big enough for her to stab her nail into, she had only noticed it because the drake had brought its face so close to her, but she didn’t stop to think about what or how. She just pushed and clawed until she felt the disgusting, sticky warmth of its blood drip down her hand and onto the ground.

The drake froze and so did she. For a moment, they just stood there, both staring at each other, both hurting each other. Then the drake released a soft, pitiful cry and its body started to move. It stretched and curled and twisted and contorted and Hyrin shrank in pain as it started to flow into her own body from her fingertips.

If she could have moved, she may have pulled her hand away and ended that horrifying process, leaving that drake half absorbed in the middle of the alley, but her body refused. She couldn’t even clench her teeth or lean back to ease her pain as a bloodred line appeared under her skin and traced its way from the tips of her fingers up her arm, where it disappeared under her shirt. Tears streamed down her face as she watched the drake disappear completely into her body, the red line slowly fading, starting at her hand. She remained paralyzed until every trace of it had disappeared. The moment it had, her legs gave out and she collapsed onto the dirty street of that alley.

Time seemed to slow down as she blinked slowly. The world around her became hazy. The alarm still blared somewhere in the distance. Drakes were still running around the city. Buildings were being destroyed. People were being killed. But she couldn’t help them anymore. Her body was broken. Violated. 

“...rin! Hyrin!”

She recognized the sound of Seren’s voice coming from somewhere far away, but she wouldn’t have been able to answer him even if she had wanted to.

“Oh my g- She’s bleeding out! Get a medic! Help me push down on it! Hyrin!”

Hands touched her, they pushed and pulled at her, making her face scrape against the rough asphalt, but she didn’t care anymore. She couldn’t feel pain anymore. All she could do was close her eyes and give in to the darkness creeping up on her.