Chapter 20: The Last Monarch
365 Words
The ambush hit without a single warning sound.
The concrete walls of the narrow maintenance shaft suddenly caved inward as hundreds of razor-sharp claws burst through the structure from all directions.
"THEY'RE IN THE WALLS!" a woman screamed before a scorpion tail dragged her through the cracked plaster into the dark.
Chaos exploded in the tight tunnel. Guards panicked, blind-firing their rifles in absolute terror.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Every bullet fired into the swarm only created more horrors. The lead bullets shattered the creatures' outer shells, but the acidic blood that spilled onto the dying guards caused the beasts' flesh to violently split, mutate, and regenerate into larger, spiked leviathans.
"Stop shooting! Fire makes them mutate!" Leo screamed over the deafening shrieks of the horde.
It was too late. The darkness became a meat grinder.
The rubber-skinned alpha dropped from the ceiling, its whip-like tongue lashing out and punching through Captain Jax's chest.
"Jax!" Leo lunged forward, grabbing Jax's falling heavy rifle.
Jax coughed a mouthful of blood, looking at Leo with fading eyes. "Live... Boss..."
The alpha retracted its tongue, dragging Jax's lifeless body into the dark to siphon his brain. One by one, every guard, lieutenant, and survivor of the Syndicate was dragged into the shadows, their screams echoing down the subterranean maze until silence fell once more.
Leo stood alone in the dark shaft, his back pressed against the cold steel of a dead-end emergency door. His clothes were soaked in black monster fluid and human blood. His ammunition was completely spent.
Around him, thousands of glowing yellow eyes emerged from the darkness. The rubber-skinned alpha stepped forward, its scorpion legs clicking against the concrete floor, surrounded by its mutated legion.
Leo looked down at his trembling, blood-stained hands, then up at the sea of brain-devouring monsters encircling him.
His uncle was dead. His syndicate was destroyed. The entire world was a graveyard.
Leo drew a deep breath of sulfur and blood, his eyes turning as dark and cold as the abyss he had slept in for five years.
He was the last one left.
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