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Opening my eyes, I sat bolt upright. Catching my breath, I realized that I was no longer in the open but in an examination room. Remembering what had happened before I passed out, I began to wonder if I was not in some sort of trouble anyway. A quick look around revealed that I was alone in the enclosed room, and what windows there were looked out into what appeared to be a warehouse of some kind. Glancing at my arms and legs, I lifted an eyebrow--even though I knew my arm and leg had been broken; they were as good as new.
Sliding off the examination table, I gasped as my bare feet touched cold tile. Grabbing a doctor's coat off the back of a chair by the door, I leaned out of the door and looked up and down the gangplank. With the way clear, I crept to the right wishing I had a weapon of some kind.
The gangplank led out towards a storage facility that had boxes and crates lined up against the walls. As I leaned against the rail to look around, everything suddenly lurched and I was thrown over the rail. Flipping through the air, I landed on my feet and looked around.
"Captain! The Grims have latched onto us!" someone called over the intercom system.
As I began to wonder what Grims were, the cargo door exploded inward in a flash of sparks and smoke. Diving behind one of the crates to my left, I barely avoided catching a shard of cargo door through my forehead. Once all the debris settled, I peered around the corner of the crate--and my jaw became unhinged.
There were sixteen of them swarming into the storage facility. Their clothes, gloves, and shoes all looked one step away from falling off in deterioration. Both male and female had the same shade of skin as that of a corpse, but the torso and legs were covered in web-like tattoos and their ratty white hair was slightly different in shading from creature to creature. Each one had a mouthful of razor sharp teeth and their scleras--which would be white on a person or animal--were black and all their irises and pupils were solid white.
Screeching, one of the creatures pointed at me--which caused the whole pack to rush towards me. Following my instinct, I picked up a shard of the cargo door and leapt over the main body of the creatures as they neared me. Landing behind them, I swung the shard in front of me and cut down four of the creatures before the main body had a chance to turn around. Leaping again into the air, I twisted to the right and landed to the right of the group and cut down four more before they could react. Once more leaping over their heads, I landed behind the group and cut down yet another four--but this time they were quicker to react and managed to grab a hold of my ankles as I went to leap over their heads a fourth time.
Slamming me to the ground, the remaining four--two males and two females--howled in triumph. Wrenching my arm free, I lashed out and killed three of them before the remaining female bit into my shoulder and ripped out a chunk of flesh. Bellowing, I managed to roll away from the creature with a hand clamped over the wound.
With my flesh and blood in the creatures system, its flesh began to ripple as it darted towards me faster than it had before. I had barely enough time to bring the shard of shrapnel up as the creature grabbed my upper arms with its talon-like hands and tried to pull me closer to it. As the shard clanged against the creature's teeth, I struggled with both my good arm and bad arm to hold it at bay.
Over its shoulder, I saw Dugan aiming a pistol at me and the creature. Reading his eyes, I nodded to him to let him know I understood what he meant to do. Pushing the creature away with all my strength, I leapt into the air and kicked it in the chest with both my legs. Landing on my stomach facing away from the creature and Dugan, I heard an electrified gunshot and the splattering of brain matter.
Was that a laser gun? I thought, wincing as I stood up. It couldn't have been. Those things only exist in movies and on television shows!
"What. The fakku. Was that?" Dugan asked.
"You tell me what the hell those things were!" I replied. "I don't know!"
"Not the Grims," Dugan replied. "You were fighting them and lived without a scratch!"
"They actually took a chunk out of my shoulder," I replied, moving to point at the wound--except it was not there. "What the hell? I swear I got bit! I mean look! There's my blood!"
Stepping up beside me, Albin probed at the spot where I had been bitten and said, "You regenerated it."
"No," I replied, taking a step backwards. "I can't do that."
"You did," Albin replied, "twice now. First was your broken arm and leg. Now you healed a wound that should have killed you instantly."
"I was wondering about that," Dugan said. "The instant a Grim bites you, you become one. Yet you, girl, didn't. Why? What is it about you that makes you immune to a Grim's bite?"
At that moment, three other people appeared. Two of them were the gray haired man and woman I saw before I had passed out. The third was a young woman who didn't appear to be that much older myself with cropped yellow hair and blue eyes. She was wearing camouflaged cargo pants, work boots, what appeared to be black golfing gloves with the fingers cut off, and a strappy tan tank top.
"I'm not sure," I replied, rubbing the area where I had been bitten. "These last few couple of days have been insane."
Glancing over at Albin, Dugan asked, "Are you going to tell her, or should I?"
"Tell me what?" I asked.
"Tell who what?" someone asked from behind me.
That voice... I thought, beginning to turn.
"Shouldn't we even find out what her name is first?" the blonde asked. "That alone would help explain why Rorin wants her so bad."
"Good point," Dugan said. Turning to me, he said, "What's your name?"
"Hold on..." I said, still turning.
"That's an interesting name," someone said.
"That's not her name tonchiki," someone else replied.
Directly behind me was someone I did not think I would have seen again. His dark brown hair was, as usual, pulled back into a braided ponytail with his red eyes nearly hidden under his bangs. His clothes were strange, though--they were not something I would have guessed he would have worn. He had on a black long sleeved shirt under a dark blue vest and black gloves with the fingers cut off. A red belt was holding up a pair of stonewashed shorts and he had clunky tan work boots on. Normally, I would see him in something like Old Navy or the Gap or even American Eagle Outfitters.
The person standing behind me was Kyle Foxx--my best friend who died in my arms yesterday.