Under the guise of darkness, the mercenaries sprinted silently down the hill, their forms blending with the shadows as the compound’s defenders remained fixated on the stampede. Dust and echoes of distant gunfire cloaked their movements, the chaos outside their perfect diversion.

  The leader crouched low near the outer wall, signaling for one of his men to deploy the grappling hook. The cable hissed as it shot upward, catching firmly on the edge. Two other mercenaries peeled off, slipping into the vehicles to position them by the planned escape route. The remaining team scaled the wall with precision, slipping over the top and onto the compound grounds without a sound.

  When on the other side of the wall, they moved with practiced efficiency, clearing each building methodically. Their weapons gleamed faintly in the eerie red glow of the alarm lights spinning overhead.

  The leader kicked open the door to a breakroom, his rifle trained immediately on the soldier inside. The young man froze mid-motion, his wide, terrified eyes visible through the slit of his grey balaclava.

  Behind the leader, several mercenaries entered the room, each pointing their guns at the soldier.

  The leader spoke calmly, "Where is the prisoner you're holding?"

  "Uh," the soldier mumbled, "Which one?"

  "The girl. The kid."

  "She's being held in the tall building. The one near the middle of this place," he gulped.

  "Okay, I thought so," he studied the guy, looking at his waist, seeing a ring of keys and cards attached to his belt. "You have the key to get in?"

  "I-uh," the soldier looked around frantically. On the table in front of him was a walkie-talkie with a large emergency button.

  "Don't do it," one of the mercenaries said from behind the leader, his voice razor-sharp.

  "Yeah," he swallowed, "I do."

  With a swift motion, one mercenary yanked the walkie-talkie off the table while another restrained the soldier.

  Minutes later, the group descended the dim, spiraling stairwell that led deep beneath the compound. The alarm had been silenced, but the oppressive red glow persisted, bathing the narrow corridor in a menacing hue. Each footstep echoed ominously against the metal walls.

  "Which card is it?" the leader asked.

  "The white one with the red streak across it."

  He ripped it from his keychain, holding it up to the sensor. A light ding went off, and the light above the door changed to green, as it slid open.

  Inside the room, a young girl scooted into the farthest corner of her cell, clutching a pillow tightly to her chest. Her wide, pale grey eyes glistened with unshed tears as she squinted toward the sound of approaching footsteps.

  "Who's there?" Her voice was shaky, barely audible over the faint hum of the lights.

  "You," the leader pointed to one of his mercenaries, "Use the cutters."

  "Alright," the mercenary nodded, pulling a small canister from his back. He twisted the nozzle, releasing a high-pitched hiss of gas, then ignited the makeshift blowtorch. A fierce blue flame erupted from the nozzle, with a loud, whoosh, cutting through the plexiglass like butter.

  The flame cut through the thick plexiglass like a knife moving through sand.

  The girl screamed, pressing her pillow tighter against her chest. The glow from the torch illuminated her terrified face—and something else. The leader looked up, a surprised shock on his face, seeing a gold glow from the corner of the cell.

  "What the…" His mouth hung agape, "What is that?"

  A faint gold shimmer surrounded her like a protective cocoon, flickering faintly with every shuddering breath. The leader paused, his eyes narrowing. Melody's wide eyes stared blankly ahead, tears streaming down her face.

  Outside the compound, the crimson beast froze mid-step. Its nostrils flared, catching something on the air—something it hadn’t sensed before. It came from inside the compound. A guttural snarl rumbled deep in its chest as its hulking form crouched low.

  The sand exploded outwards from its feet as it launched itself toward the compound gates. Bullets ricocheted harmlessly off its thick hide as it scaled the walls with terrifying ease.

  The leader glanced up at the ceiling of the cramped room, where the thunderous sounds of what resembled an elephant's stomping reverberated just a few feet above them. The leader’s team turned toward the sound, their weapons raised.

  The door to the room caved inward with a deafening crash, and the crimson beast barreled into the room. It was larger up close, its hulking form drenched in dark red tendons that pulsed unnaturally with each breath. Its glowing, human-like eyes burned with intelligence—and rage.

  In an instant, the creature lashed out. Its claws raked through a mercenary, tearing through his body armor and reducing his chest to a gory cavity. Blood splattered the walls as its tail whipped violently, striking the restrained soldier and splitting his skull. His body collided with the glass and writhed on the floor.

  The leader barely had enough time to aim his rifle as he sprayed the creature with bullets. The fleshy thuds of the bullets impacting its red skin had no effect as it reached out a muscled arm, wrapping its fingers around his face.

  One of the mercenaries ran into the hallway through the hole where the door used to be. The sound of his leader's skull being crushed echoed through the concrete building. The creature's heavy galloping sprint soon overshadowed the sound of his footsteps.

  Palmer sprinted down the stairwell, his heart pounding as he descended deeper into the compound. His worst fears were confirmed when he reached the holding cell. The door, or what remained of it, lay in splintered pieces scattered across the blood-soaked floor. The stench of death hit him like a brick wall, forcing him to cover his mouth and nose. He hesitated, surveying the room. Blood and viscera painted the walls, the aftermath of a massacre. His hand trembled as he wiped away the sticky residue from the glass of the holding cell.

  "Melody!" He called out, his voice shaking.

  "I'm here," came a faint, frightened reply. It was barely above a whisper. "What's happening?"

  Relief washed over him as he spotted the tiny figure huddled in the corner, clutching her knees to her chest, "Don't worry—an accident. You'll be safe; I promise that."

  At this point, Palmer had been in the compound for many years. For better or worse, he had seen just about every nook and cranny of the place; he knew all the secret combinations, where the higher-ups liked to place the keys to vehicles…

  He tapped a small button on the side of the wall; a small keypad emerged from the concrete. He typed the six-digit code and pressed the big blue button on the bottom. There was a loud grinding behind him as the thick glass slid up as if it were a garage door.

  He ran into the cell, scooping Melody up in his arms, and ran out into the hallway, following it down until the concrete hall turned into a dirt tunnel leading to the outside.

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  Back in the room, the crimson beast dragged the corpse of the mercenary it had killed back into the cell. It sniffed the air, prowling in frustration as it realized she was gone. With a feral snarl, it tore into one of the bodies, devouring flesh and bone until there was nothing left.

  After it had consumed everything in the room, it reared back; its eyes shot open. The beast paused, its body trembling as it reared onto its hind legs. A symphony of sickening cracks echoed through the room as its bones shifted and reformed, its anatomy rearranging into a towering bipedal form. Its glowing red eyes scanned the room with cold intelligence, locking onto Melody’s discarded bed. The creature took a step forward.

  It took a moment to steady itself, then another step into the cell. Once it reached Melody's bed, it was fully functional in its bipedal state. Sniffing the pillow, its mouth split open, finding the scent and following it down the hallway and into the dirt tunnel.

  Leo, the wildlife researcher, paused, putting his ear to the ground. 'Yup, the rumbling is mostly gone,' he thought. "Hey," he said aloud to his two colleagues, "we don't have far. I think things are about to get a little interesting, though, so keep up."

  "There it is," Yahd said, nudging Kalimba and nodding into the distance. "That light and silhouette up there. That's it."

  "Ooh," Asher said, leaning between the seats to get a better look. "Doesn't look too bad," he said optimistically.

  "Look at all those animals down there," Kalimba pointed down the side of the hill.

  "Are they sleeping?" Zoe asked tentatively, peering through the dusty Jeep window.

  "No," definitely not," Asher said, almost whispering. "They got a lot of them. Normally, I'd say 'score' because of all the food I can cook from that…but this…"

  The jeep lurched to a stop, "Hold on," Yahd said, taking night vision goggles from the center console and stepping out of the car.

  He walked to the hill's edge, studying the compound a few miles below. 'That thing looks like a mess. I don't want to jump the gun, but it honestly looks like we could walk right inside and be fine,' he thought. Yahd sat back inside the jeep, telling the others what he saw.

  "Nice," Asher grinned. "I had a feeling this was gonna be pretty easy. I was tellin' Damon that he really didn't need to worry about any of this."

  "Woah," Kalimba warned, "We can't be too careful, alright? We can't put our guard down."

  "If we go around back and scale the wall, it we should be fine," Yahd said.

  They watched as Yahd blasted small holes in the concrete wall, each a small distance apart, deep enough for foot and hand holds, creating a makeshift ladder.

  Once the pink aura dissipated from around Yahd, he said, "Alright, let's hurry," and started climbing, "I'll sit up here and scout," he said once he was at the top, straddling the concrete wall.

  Mitani looked to Zoe and gestured at the wall, "After you."

  Once they all scaled the wall, a green aura flowed around Asher. "He said a basement, right?"

  "Yeah," Kalimba said.

  Asher closed his eyes and raised his hands in the air. Several small glowing creatures flew from his aura; each resembling a firefly, they zipped away, each searching a building.

  After a minute, one returned and dissipated once it made contact with Asher's aura. His eyes shot open, "Alright, the basement is in that one," he pointed to the short building across the compound.

  "Do you know if there's anything we need to worry about down there?" Mitani asked.

  "I have no idea. That's not how my ability works. I can send messages, or figure out a general layout of an area, or make a 'phone call' with people."

  They moved swiftly, their auras dimly lighting the way. At the entrance, Kalimba froze. "Oh goodness," Kalimba's voice caught in his throat as he peered down the metal stairs. Blood pooled at the bottom, reflecting the red emergency lights. The door to the basement hung askew, its edges twisted and broken. He was about to warn the others, but he heard a crackling inside the room. A constant drone of static. "Yeah, the girl is gone," a muffled voice said from inside the room. "There's a bloody mess in here." He paused; Kalimba guessed he was listening to whoever was on the other side of the walkie-talkie. "Yeah, the glass was opened, so she could've somehow managed to escape or she's been splattered on the walls."

  The group swiftly descended the stairs. Kalimba made sure to not make any noise as he crept up behind the soldier.

  He gasped slightly as Kalimba jumped on his back, wrapping his arm around his neck and performing a blood choke on the man—cutting off the circulation of blood to his brain, knocking him out in seconds, compared to what would take minutes if he were to constrict the man's oxygen.

  In under thirty seconds, the soldier was out, lying in a puddle of blood on the floor.

  Zoe kept her eyes trained on the ceiling as she entered the room. However, it didn't last long as she felt the squish of something wet under her black combat boots. She controlled the urge to dry-heave. 'The girl isn't here. I wonder if she's one of these piles of…' she stopped herself from following that train of thought.

  "You sure this is the right basement?" Asked Mitani. He poked a jagged piece of bone left on the damp floor with his foot.

  "This is the only building here with a basement," Asher shrugged.

  "There's some weird footprints that go down this hall," Yahd mentioned, pointing outside the room. "Maybe that'd be where she is?"

  "We can't exactly go back to Damon with nothing," Zoe monotoned.

  Using their auras to light the way, they sprinted down the concrete hallway, quickly turning into a dirt tunnel.

  Eventually, they found themselves inside the mouth of a cave.

  Zoe looked down, noticing that some of the footprints before had disappeared, and a single pair of tire tracks led out into the desert before them. Also, the other prints were massive, double the size of her foot, and looked to be a combination of a bear's foot mixed with hooves.

  "If I had to guess, someone took the girl and drove away," Zoe pointed to the tire tracks. "I don't know what the others could be, but our best bet is to follow those. It's not windy enough to blow away the tracks, so we should be able to follow them."

  "Hold on," Yahd walked over to a large object that was covered in a grey plastic tarp. He ripped it off, revealing a dusty doorless jeep. "Hm, this is almost perfect," he looked back to the others.

  "Can we scratch off the logo there?" Asher asked, using his fingernails to scrape the decal on the car's hood. The image was slightly faded but was a black-and-white picture of a skeleton in a tuxedo holding a pistol in one hand and a martini in the other.

  "Alright," Kalimba said. "We don't have any other option. Can you hot-wire it or something, Yahd?"

  Yahd smirked, "Yeah, of course."

  After about five minutes, the jeep flew from the cave entrance, following the tire tracks in the cold sand.