Jennifer strode down a darkened hall, noting the slow, but steady increase of illumination. As it got brighter, she noticed shelves lining the walls filled with DVDs. She picked up a handful and began reading the titles out loud.
“‘Debbie Does Dallas’? ‘Busty Asian Beauties’? ‘Her First Lesbian Sex’? What the fuck? Did I somehow end up in Rob’s room?”
Not that she had ever been in there. It just seemed like what his room would be like. ‘Ewww,’ she thought. ‘I did not need that mental image in my mind.’ She tossed the movies back on the shelf. She continued walking down the corridor, determinedly not looking at the walls. She once more began seeing the trail of blood. To her dismay, the path of blood began to widen and freshen. She was so focused on following the blood, she failed to notice the hallway had widened into a large room with three antechambers branching from the main one.
Soon the crimson stain was as wide as a human torso and wet. A sickly, coppery scent was in the air. The cloying perfume was so thick, Jennifer was able to taste it. She gagged and nearly puked. Resolutely, she forced her gorge back down and moved forward. She looked up from the blood and had to bite back a scream. Her best friend Danni was hanging from a tree with a spike driven into her skull. Blood had turned her blond hair a dull pink. Her blue eyes stared into eternity. She was also missing her lower half of her body as if someone had literally torn her in two.
A growling began behind her and stopped as suddenly as it began. Jennifer whirled, tightening her fingers on her H&K Tactical .45’s solid grip. An enormous monstrosity was crouched and ready to spring. It had the curved, forward pointing horns like a ram, a muzzle like that of a Hollywood dragon, back plates like Godzilla and long, sharp claws. It was poised like a cat ready to pounce: its muscles coiled and bunched. As soon as she had completed her turn, the monster leaped. Without flinching, or even blinking, she squeezed the trigger of the gun as Rob had taught her. Eleven shots thudded home in its torso, but the beast seemed not to have noticed. Its momentum allowed it to crash into her, sending her sprawling. The bullets had done one thing, it knocked the monster far enough off its trajectory that Jennifer was able to regain her feet and look around for another weapon. Not too far away, she saw a rack of middle ages weapons. She ran over as fast as she could. There were a variety of weapons: a heavy-looking battle-axe which she wasn’t certain she could lift, much less wield; a big club with a bigger spike ball attached to the top; a long stick connecting a chain to a spiked ball; and a long, pure white sword. Thinking quickly, Jennifer grabbed the pure white sword and whirled around to fight the monster.
To her surprise, the big thing was directly in front of her. Before she could bring the sword up to defend herself, there was a dark blur before her eyes, a flash of silver and a spray of red. She flinched, expecting to feel the large claws of the monster rip into her, but nothing happened. It just stood there. She hesitantly poked it with the tip of the sword, and as if in slow motion, its head dropped to the ground. She swore with disgust and revulsion when blood geysered over her. She soon forgot her disgust as her attention became drawn to the sword.
The pure white blade slowly warmed in her hand. To her surprise, the blood from the monster was swiftly being drawn into the pommel of the white blade as if the sword was sucking it through a straw. As more of the blood was absorbed, warmth slowly spread through her body, starting from where she held the sword. As the warmth spread through her body, Jennifer found that she was feeling more energized and awake. Within minutes, all the blood was gone. She looked around for her rescuer, but no one was around. She found herself wondering about the odd blur. She went back to her friend’s body, trying to steel herself for the grizzly task of taking her body down and taking her home. However, when she returned to the tree, the only thing there was a bloodstain and a piece of paper. She tore the paper from the tree and read it.
It’s not her.
Keep looking
きれい
Jennifer scowled down at the message and the puzzling scribble, but decided to shove it in her back pocket and resume looking for her friend. Her instincts told her to trust the mysterious author.