"What do we do?" asked Monti, **his voice ragged, sweat dripping into his stinging eyes as his trembling legs threatened to buckle.**
"I don't know, just wait and see," replied Kínitos, both men whispering, **their backs pressed against the cold hospital wall like cornered animals.**
The creature's glass-like body cracked as it took a step toward the door, **each movement splintering the linoleum floor into jagged spiderwebs.** With each step, the hospital floor cried out, **tiles exploding upward in chalky plumes of dust.** The abnormal creature paused, its unnatural stillness **thick as poisoned air**, then suddenly stopped. Turning its neck slowly left, then right, it creaked like an old rusted door **straining under centuries of rot**. The stench it gave off was unbearable—**a sickly-sweet decay mixed with chemical bile**, as if a garbage dump had been set ablaze.
"I just realized something," whispered Kínitos, **his cracked lips barely moving.**
"What is it?" asked Monti, keeping an eye on the creature, **his breath hitching as he shifted his weight onto bruised, shaking knees.**
"Where are the people? Like, think about it, right?" said Kínitos.
"What d'you mean, th—" Monti stopped to think, **his mind fogged by exhaustion, every muscle in his body screaming from hours of running.**
Memory came to him: **stumbling through fluorescent-lit hallways**, running out of the hospital and away from the killers, passing room after room **void of life, beds overturned, IV poles snapped like twigs.**
"You're right," said Monti. Another loud boom went off, **vibrating the cracked ceiling tiles above them.**
The creature looked back, locking eyes with Monti. Both men ducked down, but it was too late. The creature saw them. It raised its right arm, **shattered glass fragments raining from its joints**, as it walked toward them. Each step **cratered the ground, concrete bursting like gunshots.** Being right above the bed, the creature swung down at it, **the force blasting splintered metal and mattress stuffing into the air** as both men jumped back, the bed breaking in half.
**Monti's heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird**, his blood **burning through his veins as if his body were devouring itself.** Kínitos stood there in awe at the abnormal, **his own chest heaving unevenly**, while smoke leaked from his skin like water through paper. Still, the creature cracked and creaked with every movement it made, **its limbs screeching like train brakes, a machine left to rust in some forgotten, lightless pit.**
*Breathe it in*, said a voice.
"What?" thought Kínitos as he looked up, seeing the creature leap toward them. Both men jumped out of the way, **Monti's shoulder slamming into a supply cart, sending scalpels clattering across the floor.** Grabbing an IV pole nearby, Monti swung it at the abnormal's head, **the metal bending grotesquely on impact, as if it had struck solid steel.**
"What the fuck?" said Monti, hurling the pole at the creature. More black smoke leaked from Kínitos' body, **thickening the air with a choking, oil-like haze.**
*Breathe it in*, said the voice again. Kínitos stared at the creature, then at Monti as it swung toward him.
"Fuck it," he thought, inhaling the smoke. It rushed into his lungs **like molten lead, searing his throat raw**, as if fiberglass had been forced down his windpipe. He clutched his throat, **nails tearing bloody furrows into his purpling skin**, scratching uncontrollably. His body turned violet, **veins bulging black beneath his flesh like poisoned roots.**
"Watch out!!" yelled Monti as the creature swung at Kínitos. With a **deafening crack**, Kínitos flew through the air, **his ribs snapping audibly**, before slamming into a wall. **Plaster crumbled around him as he slid to the floor, leaving a crimson smear in his wake.**
"Kin!!" yelled Monti in concern, **lurching forward on unsteady legs**, but the creature blocked his path, **its fractured body trembling with rage.**
Pain **radiated through Kínitos' shattered body**: his jaw hung **splintered and dislocated**, vision blurred by **blood pooling in his left eye**, his gown soaked scarlet. *Breathe, breathe, breathe*, the voice mocked. He looked up, watching Monti **dodge with sluggish desperation, his movements sluggish, his face gray with exhaustion.** Smoke rushed into Kínitos' veins, **needles of ice and fire stabbing his organs**, latching onto his blood. He shook uncontrollably, **spine arching off the floor as tendons snapped and reknit beneath his skin.**
His body jerked and snapped **like a marionette yanked by a madman**, eyes widening then shrinking as the black smoke around him twisted into numbers and words. Math and problems **flooded his skull, equations burning behind his eyelids.**
**Bones crunched wetly** as his jaw snapped back into place, teeth regrowing **in jagged, mismatched rows.** His skin darkened to a mottled purple, **bruise-like and glistening**, eyes darting left and right **with mechanical speed.** Muscles tightened and convulsed, **knotting like live wires under his skin**, as he stood. The creature froze, then charged, swinging a punch. Kínitos saw its movements **stretched into syrupy slowness**, dodging left, right, then right again.
He threw a punch, **shattering the creature's glass cheek into glittering shards.** Another strike, another, each blow **splitting its face like fractured ice.** Monti stared in disbelief, **leaning heavily on a dented oxygen tank**, as Kínitos fought with eerie ease.
*Focus on hands*, the voice commanded. Kínitos clenched his fist, inhaled, and landed a final punch, **cratering the creature's skull with a thunderous snap.** It stumbled, collapsing to the ground, **glass shards scattering across the blood-smeared floor.**
Both men stared at each other, **the room now a warzone of shattered equipment, collapsed ceiling tiles, and walls veined with cracks.** Monti staggered to Kínitos, **his hands trembling as he gripped his friend's face**, inspecting him frantically.
"Are you alright?" asked Monti, **his voice raw, lungs wheezing.**
"Yeah, I'm fine," replied Kínitos, pushing him away like a child shoving a parent.
"Wow. Look at your… upgrade," said Monti, **gesturing weakly at Kínitos' unnaturally healed body.**
"Yeah. I don't know how this happened," said Kínitos, **rotating his purpled hands, veins still pulsing black.**
"You two just keep getting stronger and stronger, huh?" said The Killer, **his silhouette framed in the doorway, the flickering hallway lights casting his shadow like a blade across the ruined room.
"Well shit" said Monti