✧ 34 ✧
The device never stopped ringing in a straight lengthy beep.
Ilya's ears rang, his eyesight turned blurry, and his legs became numb and powerless. Suddenly, the room spun. The ceiling seemed to go further away, and the floor became closer.
Ilya was falling. His knees bent and allowed his back to slide; he no longer held the door shut.
The moaners shoved the door open, pushing Ilya's collapsed body as they entered the room.
Ilya heard all the voices, but as muffled sounds under the surface of a thick dark pond. When the voices evolved into louder pitches, they felt like needles drilling and ringing in his head, amplifying this painful headache.
Ilya no longer sensed the world around him. Everything was like a dream or a soul-sucking nightmare that took away all his feelings except for endless agony.
When the muffled voices got closer, he closed his tired eyes and held his head. He could sense it coming, the next stage of his illness. If he wasn't helplessly weak before, then he was going to be.
And the zombies would eat him alive.
A grip tightened on his shoulder, followed by another painfully sharp grip.
Ilya forced his eyes to half open and noticed the hand that grabbed him. It had no skin, only bones connected with strings of muscles.
The hands pushed him to the ground and pinned him down. A large mouth appeared in front of him. A stinky moaner's mouth was about to eat his face off.
Ilya closed his eyes and waited for it to happen.
Then a sharp deafening scream mixed with the beeping of his device pierced his ears.
Ilya touched his head and winced.
A thud shook the ground after that shriek. A moment of clarity snapped Ilya's attention to the lightness of his body. There were no longer hands pinning him down and no moaner on top of him. Something, or someone, pushed that thing away from him.
His eyes scanned the spinning room, which only made him dizzier. Then he saw them.
Three moaners were fighting a faster monster. Ilya propped himself up on trembling elbows, hoping to see his savior. However, his hopes turned into terror when he saw that the other monster was of the same height and shape as the moaners.
A shrieker went berserk on its own kind to get a hold of the human boy's brain. When it ripped the moaners' limbs and left them immobilized, it snapped its head towards Ilya and screamed. Its teeth were full of black goo and dripping blood.
"Oh, shit."
Ilya tried to crawl back.
The shrieker lunged and, with frightening speed, clutched Ilya's hair. Not a moment too soon, it started pulling his head up and slamming it down on the hard floor.
"Ow!"
Ilya helplessly tried to reach the shrieker's hand, to untangle its fingers away from his hair and break free, but the zombie kept slamming him down as hard as it could. Once. Twice. Thrice.
It was the shriekers' way to split the human skull open and directly consume the brain.
The third time it tried to smash Ilya's head, Ilya started to lose consciousness. His hand slumped down. The side of his head felt sore. One of his eyebrows split in half, oozing blood that made the shrieker go crazy.
More screams joined that one shrieker's screams. More zombies were about to enter the room, attracted by the noisy beeping of the glucose monitor watch and the smell of fresh human blood.
One last hit was all it would take. One last slam into a hard surface would crack Ilya's skull. One last injury would kill him.
"ROOOAAAARRR!"
Out of nowhere, a werewolf's growl echoed in the room. A powerful angry growl that shook the walls, furniture, and creatures alike. A growl that stopped that shrieker from finishing its job.
Ilya's eyes were closed when gravity pulled his head down. The painful grip on his hair was gone. He lay limp on the ground without a single sign of life. Blood smeared his pale face. A reddening bruise decorated the right side of his head.
Then all hell broke loose.
The room was filled with the gruesome sounds of ripping, slashing, and clawing of flesh, the screams and growls, the breaking and bumping, and all the heavy drops of bodies that followed. A deadly battle sat foot in a room where a helpless human lay unconscious on its dirty floor.
And a continuous beeping drew more monsters to the room.
"Shut it off!" the werewolf said.
Ilya's eyes twitched once his ears caught that voice. His eyelids slowly moved, and a pair of green irises peeked at the battle.
Ilya watched a large gray werewolf with a ripped plaid shirt on his back growling at a horde of shriekers. They kept coming through the door, one after the other.
That werewolf was quick and ruthless, ripping his enemies apart like pieces of paper.
"I said, shut that thing off!" the werewolf repeated.
Ilya didn't realize what he was telling him until he heard it the second time. When he gradually regained a bit of consciousness, Ilya hissed as he moved his injured hand to his wrist device. With a click, the beeping finally stopped.
Thud!
A body landed next to Ilya, startling him. It was one of the shriekers. But then it turned on its belly and screamed in his face. Saliva splattered, and a horrible stench entered Ilya's nose.
Ilya turned away and instinctively put his palm out to avoid a direct attack on his face.
"Caught ya!" the werewolf shouted.
Ilya waited for the shrieker to tear his face, but the shrieker's scream seemed to be traveling far away. When Ilya turned to see what had happened, he watched the werewolf split the zombie in half. Guts and other organs hit the ground with a splat.
It was horrible. Ilya was glad that this unknown gray beast was on his side. For now, at least.
Ilya forced his body to function just one more time to move away from the battlefield. Trembling, he crawled to a corner and lay his back on the wall. He closed his eyes and sighed.
He didn't know that by closing his eyes this time, he dozed off. His head fell on his shoulder and went into a much overdue rest.
Once the battle ended and the noises stopped, Ilya felt big hands shaking him.
"Hey, lad," a manly voice whispered. "Hey! Wake up."
Ilya slowly opened his eyes and met a pair of hazel eyes staring right at him. A short smile formed on his lips when he saw that ridiculous cowboy hat and that thick gray beard.
Then his smile turned upside down. His lips trembled. His eyes flooded with tears.
Ilya hugged the man and cried, "Charlie."