A series of groans came behind the door as the thudding continued. The hinges of the door creaked out under the sheer pressure of the force applied to it. It seemed like they needed to act fast if they wished to stay alive. Erin clutched over Sophie's wrist, leading her along as she approached the shelves near the grill of the vents.

  "Come on! We don't have much time!" Erin groaned out as she started to climb up the shelves after letting go of Sophie momentarily, pulling herself inside the vents once again. But as her eyes peered down at Sophie, she saw that the woman did not move, and rather peered at the door as if she were a deer in the headlights.

  "Sophie!" She called her out once again, her throat burning. "Damn it! Come on! Do you want to fucking die?" Erin breathed heavily after her shout.

  Her last shout seemed to have awakened Sophie from her state of panic though, as the woman followed Erin's lead up the shelves. Even though she was mostly clumsy, she managed to get her torso into the vents. But to her bad luck, that's when the door decided to break.

  Incoherent breathing, wheezing, and coughing filled the room below as several hands tried to grasp the woman's legs. Erin held onto Sophie's arms as she tried to pull her away from them. Her attempts even became fiercer as she heard a scream coming from Sophie.

  "It's got my leg! Help!" She cried out as her legs kicked below. With a powerful push on her part and a pull from Erin, she eventually found herself in the 'safety' of the vent.

  The duo took a breather before Erin turned herself, even though with great difficulty, around in the vent. Her gaze was now diverted toward the location they were facing. "Are you alright?" She asked as she peered behind her shoulder for a second.

  Sophie brushed some sweat off her forehead before nodding her head to Erin. "Yeah... Yeah. I think so. My ankle hurts a... a bit but I will be okay." She uttered in almost a reassuring tone.

  Erin pursed her lips, her head bobbing in place before she started to crawl inside the vents with Sophie on her tail. The silence lasted a short bit before Erin's lips parted again. "So, is this some sort of a disease? Rabies? Do you know what's going on down there?"

  "No. Nothing in our initial tests showed anything like it. Surprisingly all the samples came clean." Sophie huffed. "But before we could get any other samples... 'This' happened. Everyone went mad all of a sudden."

  Erin's thoughts deviated to Matt for a second there. She hoped that he indeed didn't catch whatever disease this was. She then glimpsed behind her shoulder once again. "Fuck. Sorry to hear that."—"How did you survive then?"

  —A few hours ago.—

  The emergency room was filled with the sounds of people groaning in pain. Whether it be due to the emerging number of wounded people or people who came here due to extreme illness.

  Sophie's ears picked up an EKG's alarming beeping sound, rushing toward its direction. She opened the curtains to the small segment where the patient was in the triage area. Her orbs took in the condition of the man in front of her, hooked to the machines as he had gauze planted on his wounds and bandages wrapped around his entire torso.

  She peered at the red band around his wrist as she moved to the bed-side, preparing the automated external deliberator in the meanwhile with the help of the few nurses around her.

  "His vitals are..." As the nurse was about to finish her sentence, the sound from the EKG machine took the form of a normal beeping sound. "...what." She uttered in confusion.

  Sophie was surprised as well, though she kept the AED prepared in any case. "I need someone to monitor him. We have a few more red tags." As she finished her sentence, a few more patients were rolled into the emergency by the EMTs.

  The situation, suspected to be the result of a flash riot, had started only an hour ago. It was only a few patients with gunshot wounds and stabbing wounds at first, some of those gunshots were even inflicted by law enforcement. However, the number of patients kept increasing until the hospital was exceeding its emergency department capacity way more than its limit.

  Sophie tended to the wounded as they kept coming in floods. Even though the doctors and the nurses tried their best, a lot of the patients succumbed to their injuries. But the strange phenomena of the heartbeats of some patients stopping for a good moment before coming back to normal still continued.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The chaos broke loose in an unexpected moment. First came a scream, then a dozen. Blood splattered over the floors as teeth sank into the flesh. Enacted by one first before more joined in the massacre. Patients who were lying helplessly on their beds were now finding the energy to attack other people with what seemed to be an intent to kill them.

  Sophie, during all of this chaos, ran around and around before she realized that she was probably the only person standing still on this floor. Or the only one who hadn't succumbed to this madness.

  She scanned her surroundings cautiously before finding an empty room in front of her. She strode quietly toward it before shutting the door behind her. As she tried to gather her breathing, she could hear the pained screams of the others who were falling victim to those monstrosities.

  Tears stained her cheeks as she huddled in a corner, holding onto herself. Perhaps awaiting her doom or perhaps wanting the nightmare to be over. She stayed there for a few hours, contemplating what to do before she heard a noise above, coming from the ceiling.

  —The present.—

  "Well... Fuck." Erin breathed out as they continued to make their way inside the vents. "I am glad that at least you got out of there alive."

  Sophie cracked out a faint smile, to herself mostly as she somehow managed to escape from the clutches of death a couple of times. "Hopefully there's some hope, hm? A way that allows us to 'live'."

  "There has to be."—"I am sure the military can fix this. They should be able to."

  "You think?"

  Erin didn't respond to that as too many reassurances would've broken the fuzzy feeling of hope she held on to o'-so-dearly. "We're here." She mumbled as she peered down at the floor below.

  It was stained with fluids as well but the blood had assumed a brownish color by now. Erin lifted the ventilation grill, planting it away before she leaned down to check her surroundings. They were in some sort of a janitorial closet with a trail of blood leading toward the door.

  Seeing that the coast was clear, Erin hung herself down from the ventilation, landing on her feet with a huff. She then reached out to help Sophie. Though, as she did, she couldn't help but notice a stain of red shrouding the fabric of the woman's trousers on her ankle.

  "Sophie." She addressed her after making sure that she landed safely.

  "Hm?"

  "Your ankle. It's bleeding."

  Sophie's attention was diverted to her ankle as she crouched, exposing her limb. There laid a bite mark on her ankle. The woman scrunched her nose as she searched about her person to find something to tie around the wound with.

  "Is it bad?" Erin questioned as she handed her a gauze that was stashed inside one of the pouches on her belt.

  "No... No, I will be fine. Don't worry."—"Yeah, I will be fine." And with that, Sophie planted the gauze over the injury, letting out a sharp breath before she bandaged over it. "It's not that deep anyway."

  Erin nodded to that as she moved toward the door. The door had a line-shaped window that allowed her to peek outside even though it was stained heavily.

  Sophie positioned herself behind Erin as the other's hand went to grasp over the handle of the door, twisting it slowly as she peeked her head out the gap.

  A sigh of relief escaped her as she stepped out of the room, gesturing for Sophie to follow along.

  Both of them made their way over to the emergency exit. Erin pulled the door open once again before taking a step forward. Though, to her luck, she found herself on the floor as one of the same monstrosities now tried to take a chunk out of her face.

  His blue orbs amid his bloodshot sclera stared directly toward her with pinpoint pupils. As she tried to push him away from her by pressing against his chest, she almost lost her balance by a weak punch sent to her face. The punches kept coming toward her after, lacking much coordination and strength behind them, though a few of them did manage to connect with her face, one of them managing to bust her nose.

  Sophie, noticing Erin struggle on the floor with the infected on top of her, found a fire extinguisher compartment that wasn't locked. She reached inside to grab the extinguisher before stepping hastily toward the duo on the floor.

  As Erin thought that this was the end over, a loud clang echoed in the air as the extinguisher's bottom hit the infected's skull, causing him to stagger. However, it didn't stop with a single hit. The clang echoed a few more times as blood splattered on Erin's clothing along with some brain matter.

  Erin finally pushed the man off of herself as she noticed him going limp. After getting up on her feet, she turned toward Sophie to see her shaking in shock. Even though she wanted to take a small break there, she realized that they probably didn't have much time.

  One of her hands clutched upon Sophie's wrist and the other held onto her own nose as it bled. She led her down the stairs to the exit with the metallic smell of the man's blood over her clothes accompanying her.

  As they reached the door below, Erin peered at Sophie once again. "Okay. I am going to open the door now... Keep behind me, alright?"

  "Hm... Mhm... Okay, yeah." Sophie uttered, still slightly in shock and in a nauseous state.

  Erin knew that they couldn't wait until Sophie recollected herself entirely, so, she pushed the door open slowly.

  Her eyelids squinted a bit as her eyes adjusted to the dim sunlight. She peered at the vehicle in front of her, crouching next to it immediately as she scanned her surroundings.

  They appeared to be in a parking lot with a lot of cars parked about. Most of them were emergency vehicles abandoned due to guessable reasons. The asphalt of the lot was littered with a few bodies here and there along with darkened blood stains.

  After not noticing any of the infected, she peered toward the direction of the sun, seeing that it was about to set soon. Erin couldn't even believe that she'd been inside the hospital for almost a day straight.

  "It seems clear." She spoke to Sophie, who was crouched next to her as well.

  Sophie only gave away an exhausted nod to Erin in response.

  As Erin was about to move away from the location to find her hoop, a cough caught her attention, making her immediately crouch down again.