That’s… not good. Okay, I’m going to go away, so if you all just…

  They rush at me, the sound of shopping cart wheels instantly going into overdrive. Predictably, I start running as well, because if I’ve learnt anything from the fish swarm, it’s that even the weakest of the weak, as long as they are many, can fuck you up royally.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck-!

  I don’t even like that stupid sound, it’s annoying as shit! It sounds like I’ve got the entire entourage of a Black Friday shopping spree gaggle nipping at my heels and I’m an airfryer on a threefold sale. My first instinct is to jump into a tree, which works pretty well until the entire crowd of shadows literally crash into my new hiding spot with such force that the whole tree gets uprooted and falls over.

  Okay, great, fantastic.

  I continue running. Apparently, I have lungs, because as I run for life and honour, my breath is rattling through my now burning throat. When did I last run myself this ragged? Middle school P.E? We did have a really stern teacher that one year…

  A cold hand slips around my tail and in a movement so quick it must have been entirely by instinct, I reach back with my left arm and cut it off by the base, releasing me and making the shadow tumble back only to get trampled by all the rest.

  Fuck that hurt! But at least it didn’t get the rest of me, so it’s better than nothing.

  Okay, okay, climbing trees is useless. Great to know. If I wasn’t going on adrenaline alone right now I could probably devise some IQ 200 strategic plan to try and make the shadows fell a tree on themselves, but for some reason it feels like this isn’t a good plan in the long run. Besides, my brain isn’t quick enough to make those kinds of calculations, so here we are going onto Plan B.

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  Run. The shadows should disappear once the sun rises, so until then, I just have to keep running. Simple.

  Haah, haah, simple… plan…

  Okay, yeah, um, maybe not that either.

  Since running through the forest just forces me to dodge trees that the shadows don’t have to care about, I take my escape to the beach, running in circles around the circumference of the entire island, which is not very far. If these shadows were even slightly intelligent, they would probably split into two groups to make a pincer attack around the beach, but they don’t, which might be a good sign.

  My whole body aches like hell. Do digital monsters experience milk acid? I’m certainly experiencing it. I wonder if I would be able to outrun them if I had eaten anything edible the past couple of days. My tail isn’t making any comeback, either.

  Am I fucked? I better not be fucked because of a fucking alien. I can’t let that-,

  Hang on. Alien?

  I stare at the coconut tree containing the alien. I’m running towards him.

  The shadows seem to care about him, so… Hm. I wonder…?

  Reaching the coconut tree, I take a running leap and fly up the side of it, almost instantly reaching the Alien. I press the claws of my gauntlet against his neck.

  Now you listen here you braindead lacks-of-light! If you don’t cut that shit out, I’m going to-,

  But apparently the shadows don’t negotiate with terrorists, because they just crash into the coconut tree like any other, making it snap off and fall into the water with a massive splash that drenches both me and the alien. I blink at whatever just happened. The coconut tree begins floating out to sea, but the shadows are apparently not very happy about it, because they all start wading out into the ocean.

  H-, hey, that’s not fair!

  Plunging my hands and feet into the sea, I begin splashing and swimming, forcing the coconut tree further out. Luckily, the sea got deep pretty quick, because soon the shadows are gone, all of them descended into the depths of the sea. I… are they dead? Did they drown, or are they just hanging around down there, trying to get me? They weren’t swimming or anything, but I once read a book about zombies as a kid that ended with the family taking a boat out to sea only to reveal at the end that the zombies had threaded across the bottom of the sea and they climbed up by the anchor.

  Though, since I don’t have an anchor, I guess I can’t relieve that particular childhood trauma.

  The ABC’s of Death: 3-7/10, Fun/Bad/Okay/Good, D.D: 1-3. I thoroughly enjoyed this anthology series for a lot of different reasons. F for Fart was Fun. Most of them were Bad. About an equal amount were Okay. D for Dogfight was purely Good and Q for Quack was both Fun and Good. It’s a mixed bag of candy, but the sweets are definitely worth it. Very recommended.

  A Clockwork Orange: 8/10, Good, D.D: 1. What’s there to say? I listen to the soundtrack while at the gym and it pumps me up, the world that’s painted in all shades of hyperviolence is stunning, and the characters and the story is fantastic. I only wish I had time to read the book sometime. Very recommended.

  Jacob’s Ladder: 7/10, Good, D.D: 2. I’ve got a deep love for movies where you can’t trust what you see and everything may or may not be a hallucination. So, much like American Psycho, I really liked this one. The effects and music were also stellar. Recommended.

  American History X: 7/10, Good, D.D: 2. I can imagine that this one, much like a few others, is only on here for one particular scene, in this case the curb stomp. I’ve seen this movie twice now, once when I was younger as part of a thing in psychology class, and the scene did stick with me for a bit, but it’s not much compared to what’s to come. Either way, worth the watch. Recommended.

  The Last House on The Left: 3/10, Bad, D.D: 1. For the record, I won’t consider anything on this list as more or less terrifying just because it was based on a real murder or something. It’d skew stuff and the D.D would get fucked. This is different if it’s real or an actual documentary, but the supposed “real life inspiration” of this movie did it no service. Not recommended.

  Final averages for the layer:

  5,8/10

  Okay

  D.D: 1,6