Rona hurriedly started packing four bottles into her bag whilst wrapping them in thick cloth. Making slightly more noise than she was comfortable with, beads of sweat started to form on her forehead. Had she dared to look over, the unsettling swirling coil was now raging violently. An ominous cracking resounded, much like a glacier splitting on rock.

  Trying to put as much distance as possible between herself and the maelstrom, Rona had already turned tail. This thick, shattering cuts straight to the bone. On the stone staircase, another inexplicable sound that stabs deep into the core. It was as if lightning was ripping and tearing the very sky asunder. Departing becomes more of a lag as she suddenly feels it laboriously. Her nimble feet, now cement blocks. Legs laden with lead, and then, for the first time since she was a little girl, fleeing the market, she froze. Why am I doing this? Why now?

  Body locked in tight. The darkest recess of the room behind her lets out a guttural growl from its deepest chasm. Panicked gasps, it was all she could do to lower herself down onto the steps in front of her, and turning to meet her imminent demise. Rigour mortis has already set in, despair pouring in. The cloying darkness starts to take form, hastily clawing towards her. Fumbling at bandoliers, hands that she could barely feel, let alone see, sought anything tangible she could use.

  There is a strong rush of air. Rona is certain now that it is actually real and not an imagination, feeding off fear. It instantly bears down upon her, maw gaping. Masses of smoky tendrils surround her. A heartbeat had gone by in slow motion. A hand found its mark and clasped. Last possible moment, she slings out a flarestick and cracks off the end at the same time.

  A bastion of flames gushed out, and for a second, revealing something inconceivable. A plethora of sharp blades and spikes slicked in columns along six limbs. A widely opened mouth with a ring of four fanged jaws, layered within, even smaller fangs, and on either side, next to its mouth, two sets of beady, spider-like eyes. Startled, it recoiled, its tendrils had already shrunken back into its body.

  In that extra moment, her feeble, lying body jump-started, kicked herself up like a self-righting mechanism. Leaving the flare, she slipped away in an instant. With pure shock and adrenaline, she shot up the stairs, not daring to look back or process what that thing was.

  Seeing some form of bleak natural light restored hope. Still dazed and blinded by that flare, even though she had looked away. The walls of the stone spiral staircase began to clatter and screech its way up. In front, the light became brighter and filled her up as she scarpered upwards. There were voices ahead, but she couldn’t distinguish anything over the heavy and hard beating pulse she could feel in between her eardrums. The commotion grew louder as she rose, yet it was still inaudible, given also the dreadful clamour behind her, which was also nearing closer.

  Rona burst through the doorway and, without hesitation, dove on the floor in front of her, mostly by accident when she saw five long, pointy glaives surrounding her. There was no second to react or explain anything to these hapless men. She tightly pressed her forehead against her forearm, concentrating on her ragged breathing and heaving chest. With eyes closed, she was alone with her rhythmic panting for what seemed like eternity, passing by in a few seconds.

  Then sounds like paint being slapped against walls, dull thuds and some clanging. There were also shouts, mostly cut short. As the bloodcurdling chaos ensued, Rona took this chance to push herself up and dashed away to the hallway on the right. Two more men approached the opposite corridor just in time to see the last man’s grisly demise. The sheer shock and gore caused them to freeze in front of the insatiable horror. They were too petrified to make a sound.

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  Rushing through the hallway, she almost crashed. A taller man who had just rounded the corner nearly charged right into her with a steely face. His expression became alarmed when he got a good look at Rona as she slipped around him like fog. It was only a glance, and his momentum was uninterrupted as he charged towards what was left of his comrades. With one hand, he drew a long silver rapier, and then Rona realised that he was a high-ranking Last Guard. Knowing that he did not stand a chance, she did not round the corner and instead turned to ready herself.

  The horror had also turned around to face them both and lunged from afar. Before it could sink straight into the Last Guard, it had impaled itself on an incoming thrown dagger. As it came to a momentary halt, the man was also completely taken aback as he became acutely aware of the creature’s ability to instantly gain the distance. It recovered quickly and rose above him, poised to skewer him with its four long, sharp limbs.

  Streaking past the man's shoulder came a second silver dagger that staggered the other-worldly being. This time, the man found his composure and took up a counter stance, wielding the silver rapier and a sanctified censer mace in the other hand. The creature slashed at him, scraping sparks off the wall, but he parried. It then pounced, using its two pairs of forelimbs to snatch him in a vice grip trap. The man bent down as he sidestepped backwards whilst parrying one of the middle limbs.

  He brandished the censer, and a ray blazed on the creature, searing it with agonising pain. It let out a shrill shriek that made him flinch as the noise pierced his eardrums. They rang with a deafening din that silenced all other sound. The creature flailed, swinging down its front limb on top of the man to split him in two. He pointed up his sword to meet the executioner’s blow, then reinforced it with the mace as it became a solid block.

  The sword-like appendage severed itself off the silver rapier in one fluid motion. He quickly followed up with a spinning slice. The creature turned tail, slamming him against the wall. The middle of its tail was spiny and spikey; it was all the man could do in time but to bear the brunt of the blow with his mace, shielding his abdomen. He was still punctured by one of the many spiky vertebrae and began to stagger over.

  Rona seized the opening and unleashed another clear shot at the beast. It narrowly evaded as it rallied up the wall and upside down on the ceiling. It could’ve easily dived on the man, who was a much easier target now, face down on the floor. Lucky for him, it scuttled off out of line of sight back down the spiral staircase.

  She thought about helping the man despite the dire consequences, but before she could decide against it, they were flooded with foggy apparitions. Rona knew well enough what they were, and even still, found them all the more deterring. She cut her way through the fog, dispersing them to break free.

  Guards were passing by outside the boarded-up windows with their torches, flickering through. It seemed like there are a big group of them on their way in. Rona returned to the main hall, wound up her hook-rope and slung onto the bannister of the upper gallery. The grapple hook latched on as she pulled it tight while fleetingly scaling up a wooden pillar. As soon as she hoisted herself over, she ducked behind its pony wall.

  A mob of guards stormed inside the main doors all at once. A voice shouted out from the hallway, “I’m over here!”

  Rona saw a small, round window up high under the eave. She ran up, clung to its frame and prized it open with a dagger in the other hand, then catapulted herself through, swinging around to slide down the outside of the steep roof. As she landed on top of the gutter, she heard someone calling out to her, “Hey, you, get down from there!”

  She ran along the gutter until she came to a lower, adjacent roof, which she vaulted over, out of sight.