Part IV

"I can't believe we're actually doing this." Fuschia felt the same as Christy. She had always wanted to end all of this, but never really gotten this far. A little shiver ran down her spine as she looked at the house again.
"Youreallysureweshouldbe-" Just then, a creature leapt out from one of the broken windows. It gave a bark that sounded almost like nails running down a chalkboard as it walked towards them. Fuschia winced, but stepped back a little to give Selena a little room to maneuver in case she needed to attack. Plus, she had been blocking Selena and it blocking her from view did nothing to help the group.
As soon as she moved though, the creature stopped short, it's small black claws scratching against the ground as it stopped abruptly. Fuschia was confused as she looked at the dog-like creature. (It was dog-like, but...it was dark purple and scaled. And in place of ears, it had...almost tentacles, without the suckers and spikes instead. Also, it had three tails.)
Why did it stop? Her mouth dropped open as it bowed. It had BOWED to them! And then it spoke!
"Forgive me for my rudeness, Mistress." Its voice was deep and gravelly, but completely in submission. Fuschia tried to stop her face from twitching as she gaped at the bowing creature. She looked at Christy out of the corner of her eye, who in turn shot her a confused look. The two of them had no idea what was going on.
Fuschia would have turned around to look at Selena if it didn't involve her exposing her back. But she didn't get a chance anyways, for the creature loped off, its claws clicking on the ground as it disappeared into the piles of rubble.
"What the hell was that?" Fuschia had never heard Christy swear before, and it was a first. She didn't let it stop her from replying though.
"I have absolutely no idea what the hell it was."
"Thatwassuperweird." The two turned to look at Selena who looked panicked.
"There's no need to worry now, the creature's gone." Fuschia nodded at Christy's words and put her hand on Selena's shoulder reassuringly.
"Everything's going to be fine. We're going to go in, destroy the source, and then everything will be better. I promise." Selena didn't look any better, but she nodded and tried to smile anyways.
"Let's go." She closed her eyes and then took a deep breath. Then she smiled at the tall Asian girl.
"Alright. I'm ready."
~*~
Wincing as the stairs creaked under her feet on the way to the door, Fuschia led the way into the house. She didn't feel any more confident than any of the others, but she assumed leadership as she always did. Things felt better when she felt that she had at least some control. Usually anyways. Having leadership now comforted her a little, but she still was scared. If she had been asked, she wouldn't admit that she was frightened, but she was.
As soon as all three of them were past the door, it slammed shut. Selena gave a frightened shriek while Christy pulled at the door, trying to open it.
"It's stuck." Christy's voice was barely a whisper as her fingers trembled around the handle of the door. Fuschia had to pry the girl's quivering fingers from the door before facing her friends.
"We all need to calm down and get this over with. Face it, we're stuck inside unless you want to jump out a window." There was silence for a couple seconds as Christy and Selena took deep breaths in.
"Okay. We can do this." Selena nodded at Christy's words but still looked scared.
Fuschia moved forward, barely able to see in front of her. The broken windows provided light, but not enough to see well. It was almost as if the house sucked away all the light, for even when Christy and Selena both turned on their lanterns, it was still incredibly dark.
They had only gone into the second room when there was a scream behind her. Spinning around on her heels, she whipped a kunai at the source of the scream. The kunai made a dull thump as it hit the wooden floor. Christy had also turned around and was staring at the place where Selena had been.
"She's gone." Shaking her head, Christy refused to believe it.
"She can't be gone. She can't!" Fuschia sighed and motioned for Christy to be silent. They were in a dangerous situation, and they couldn't afford to be noisy or mourn. There would be time later, but now they had to protect themselves. She picked up her kunai and began to head to the third room.
Even though they told themselves not to cry, Fuschia and Christy both had tears falling from their eyes as they went through the other rooms.
The first floor proved to be unsuccessful and they moved towards the second floor, only to have a cockroach-like creature jump at Fuschia right before she took the first step up the stairs. She ducked as it jumped for her head and ripped open its soft underbelly with a kunai, spilling green bug guts on both of them.
Christy made a disgusted noise from the back of her throat as the two of them wiped the green liquid from their faces. Then they continued up the stairs.
The second floor was filled with small insect-like monsters that leapt out at them from everywhere. They had to be on their guard constantly. By the time they were almost done with the floor, Fuschia guessed that they had killed at least 30 creatures. She had lost a kunai and a shurriken from the attacks, and she was a little concerned even though she still had plenty left. Christy hadn't lost her whip at all but now was extremely jumpy, twitching at every creak of a floorboard. Fuschia had thought that Christy was strong mentally, especially after watching her dart around creatures without a care on raids, but all the attacks proved that Christy wasn't quite as strong as she thought.
She had the urge to hug the wide-eyed girl, but she didn't dare take her eyes away from in front of her. They hadn't talked since the door had slammed on them but now she felt that words were needed.
"Christy?" Fuschia tried to talk as quietly as she could so as not to frighten the other girl. Still, she jumped a little at Fuschia's voice.
"What is it? Is something wrong?" Christy sounded panicked in Fuschia's opinion so she turned around so that they could look face to face.
"No, nothing's wrong. I just wanted to make sure you were alright."
"I-I'm okay."
"Are you sure? You're shaking."
"Yes, I'm..okay no, I'm not okay. I'm so scared. I feel like we're walking through black soup in this house." Fuschia felt the same about the air in the house. It seemed...thicker here, harder to move in, almost as if they were trying to walk in a pool.
"I feel the same too, but we have to be strong. We've gotten this far and-" She paused for a moment to throw at a kunai at a dragonfly creature behind Christy. "-it's no good to back down now."
"I know, but..." Christy hesitated, looking down at her feet.
"It's going to be okay. I promise." She tried to smile, but failed, the corners of her lips merely twitching.
"How can you promise that when you don't know for sure?" Wide brown eyes pierced through Fuschia, filled with questions and doubt.
"I just..." Fuschia bit chewed her lower lip for a moment before continuing "...have a gut feeling. Will you trust me?"
"I...I will." Christy gave Fuschia a grateful smile before flicking her wrist to slice something beside Fuschia's head. Fuschia couldn't figure out what it had been, for now it was just shell and guts, but she gave a sigh of relief that it hadn't gotten her.
She slipped behind Christy to scoop up her kunai before they continued to the last room on the second floor. It was empty except for a lonely window desk and a small wooden chair. Fuschia gave a growl of frustration before she turned around again to head back down the stairs.
It seemed when they had been upstairs, the first floor had filled with creatures, and bigger ones at that. There were large spider creatures, like the one that had killed Zinc. And there were waist-high reptilian monsters of all kinds.
Where ever they hadn't been covered in bug-creature guts, they were now covered in red reptile blood. Fuschia felt disgusting and guessed that Christy probably felt the same. If she could have, she would have completely stripped and cleaned herself until her skin turned pink. Of course, it wasn't the best time to do that kind of thing...
They had been going in circles on the first floor until Christy tripped. Fuschia spun around, dark brown hair swirling in the air, and cut off the head of the snake-like thing about to eat Christy and then held out a hand to help her friend up. She didn't dare kneel, for she'd be too vulnerable in that position.
"Does anything hurt?" Fuschia flickered her eyes around as she spoke, making sure there were no creatures ready to attack them.
"No, but... I think there's something under this carpet."
"What?" She thought about the possibilities of this discovery.
"I said-" Fuschia cut her off.
"No, I heard you. Is there really?" Could it just be something stuck underneath the carpet, or was there something more important?
"I'm pretty sure." Fuschia stood guard as Christy peeled up the moldy old carpet from the ground, sending up clouds of dust and the smell of mold. Sure enough, there was a trapdoor with a small circular handle, which was what Christy had probably tripped on. The door opened after a couple tugs and a foul, indescribable smell rose from the opening.
"That is disgusting." Fuschia nodded, wrinkling her nose and turning her face partially away from the entrance.
Christy was the first to go down the stone stairs with Fuschia following, though not before slaying yet another snake-creature. As they carefully stepped down the steps, their lantern grew dimmer and dimmer.
"It can't be dying out on me now! I just put in new batteries!" muttered Christy who was starting to hyperventilate. She fiddled with her long black hair with her left hand; a nervous habit that she had developed when the door had slammed shut by itself.
"Christy, you need to calm down. Use your senses and instincts." In reality, Fuschia's heart was ready to jump out of her throat too, but she kept her voice and body steady.
The lantern gave out as they reached the last step, but they weren't in total darkness. There was a glowing orange circle in the middle of a metal circle. And there were creatures pouring through it, making the orange circle wobble. It wasn't a solid color of orange, more like different shades of orange constantly shifting in its protective metal guard.
Both girls watched in horror as the number of monsters grew larger and larger. But they made no attempt to attack them. Instead, they milled around, talking to one another.
"Big JJ is coming."
"The great one is coming."
"We will be able to feed as we please."
"No more creatures attacking us." At this, Fuschia resisted the urge to scoff even though she was trembling now. So they thought that humans were creatures? Those monsters needed to get a reality check and take a look at themselves.
Suddenly, all the talking stopped. Every single eye turned towards Fuschia and Christys' direction. But they weren't looking at them. They were looking behind them.
"Hello Fuschia. Hello Christy."