When I opened my eyes, the uncanny crimson light in the room had given way to a pale, gray morning glow. The muscle aches in my body weren't as sharp as yesterday, but with every movement, they reminded me they were still there. I sat up, and my first move was to check that damned timer in the corner of my mind.

  [TIME REMAINING: 14 HOURS 12 MINUTES]

  We had slept well. About seven or eight hours of uninterrupted sleep was the greatest luxury one could find in this world. Beside me, Elara had begun to stir as well. I checked my hair; it now completely covered my head, looking short and thick. At least when I looked in the mirror, I wouldn't see a stranger.

  "Are you awake?" Elara murmured, rubbing her eyes.

  "Yeah. We have 14 hours left," I said, trying to clear the rasp from my voice. "We have time, but we have a lot of work to do. We might not be this lucky when the next quest starts."

  I stood up and picked up my spear near the door. Even as I took it, my heart sank. The tip of the spear had bent during the struggle with the fatty babies yesterday, and the shaft had cracked. No matter how much I reinforced it with tape, it was clear it would snap in my hands during the next hard blow. Only the knives on my belt were sturdy, but approaching those massive monsters with them was suicide.

  "My weapon is done," I said, showing the spear to Elara. "I can't clear another room with this thing. The knives we have will only take us so far; we need something heavier, more effective. Also, our food stock is almost depleted. We can't last another day on just a few cans."

  Elara stood up and came to my side, touching the cracked shaft of the spear. "You're right. My healing ability is great, but if you can't damage them, we're just delaying death. So what are we going to do? The shops around here have likely been looted long ago."

  I visualized the map of the neighborhood in my mind.

  "There's a police station nearby," I said, pointing out the window at the desolate street. "Two blocks away. If we're lucky, there's something useful left in the armory or the evidence room. Batons, knives, maybe even firearms... Though using firearms is too noisy, at least we'd have an option. We need to raid the station, Elara."

  Elara hesitated for a moment. The moral values from the old world were still clashing somewhere in her mind, but she knew we weren't in that old world anymore. "The police station? It could be full of monsters, Alex. The officers... they might have turned."

  "They probably have," I said, dropping my spear and checking the knives on my belt. "But we can't win this game without taking risks. The plan is this: we enter the station, gather every bit of weaponry and ammunition we can find, and get out fast. We're there to loot, not to fight everything inside. Once we handle that, we’ll gather whatever we can from the markets on the way back in the time we have left. When the quest starts, we must have full stomachs and real weapons in our hands."

  Elara took a deep breath and nodded. "Fine. We have no choice anyway; I'll watch the surroundings. You lead, I'll clear the path behind you."

  "Good," I said, shouldering my backpack. "Get ready. The outside looks calmer than it did at night, but that might just be a deception. We have 14 hours, and every minute is worth its weight in gold. If we return empty-handed from that station, we’ll be digging our own graves for the next quest."

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Together, we pushed the dresser away from the door and unlocked the locks one by one. As the stale, mutation-scented air seeped inside, we looked at each other. This time, we weren't just going to survive; we were going to arm ourselves according to the rules of this new world.

  "Let's go," I said in a low voice. "Fast and silent. We take the station and get out."

  When we stepped out of the relatively safe shadow of the apartment, the outside air hit our faces like a slap. Under a gray, hazy morning, the streets were unrecognizable. Where our neighbors once parked their cars, there were now heaps of burnt metal and pools of unidentifiable, clotted black blood. From a distance, the muffled, bone-chilling screams echoing between the buildings reached our ears on the wind. The city was no longer a living space; it was a massive slaughterhouse.

  "Stay quiet and stay close to me," I whispered to Elara.

  I gripped the cracked shaft of my spear in my palm. I was so careful that my steps made almost no sound on the asphalt, as if there were an invisible cushion between me and the ground. As we glided through the alleys toward the police station two blocks away, I heard that disgusting, wet chewing sound coming from behind a dumpster.

  I stopped and signaled 'stay' to Elara. When I slowly peeked my head around the corner, I saw a monster with its back to us, its skin peeled away and its muscles bulging out. It was hunched over a corpse, greedily tearing apart the ribcage.

  You're about to be blindsided, you bastard.

  I held my breath. With the help of my increased stats, I glided behind it like a shadow. The monster was so busy it didn't even notice I had closed the distance. I gripped my spear with both hands and drove it into that soft spot right below the back of its neck.

  CRACK!

  [NOTIFICATION: MUTANT SCAVENGER NEUTRALIZED.] [EXPERIENCE GAINED: 60 EXP] [CURRENT STATUS: 200 / 600 EXP]

  The tip of the spear shattered the creature's spine and emerged through its throat. The monster slumped to the ground without making a single sound. However, the existing crack in the spear's shaft couldn't withstand the pressure of this final blow. All I was left with were shards of splintered wood. The tip of the spear remained inside the creature's body.

  "Damn it," I muttered, throwing the useless piece of wood to the ground. Now I was left with only the two knives on my belt. "The spear ends here. I hope we find something better at the station."

  Elara came over and looked at the creature's corpse with disgust. "At least you handled it quietly. Come on, let's keep moving."

  As we approached the police station, the destruction around us increased. When we reached the end of the street, the white, official building of the station appeared. But the sight we saw was far more horrific than we expected. The main entrance of the station was blocked by what was essentially a barricade of flesh. Dozens of civilian and uniformed police corpses were piled up in front of the door, forming a gruesome mound. Apparently, the officers had tried to defend the place until the very last moment, sealing the door with their bodies. Dried black bloodstains trailed from the steps down to the street.

  "Entering through the front door is impossible," I whispered. "We'd make too much noise trying to clear that pile of bodies, and we don't know what's inside. We have to find another way."

  I scanned the building with my eyes. In a narrow passage on the side of the station, a rusted but sturdy-looking fire escape caught my eye. The stairs extended all the way to the roof of the building.

  "Look at that," I said, grabbing Elara's arm. "Those stairs leading to the roof. Entering from above is always safer. At least we can clear our way down."

  We began to climb the fire escape quickly and carefully. With every step, the creak of the metal brought my heart to my throat; I tried to balance my weight as best as I could. When we reached the roof, the cold wind hit our faces harder. In the middle of the roof stood a heavy, metal fire exit door that led to the building's internal stairs.

  I drew my knife, and Elara lifted her hands slightly, gathering that white light at her fingertips. I placed my hand on the door handle and took a deep breath.

  "Bingo... here we go. Be ready Elara, it’s either an armory inside or a death trap."

  I opened the door slowly, inch by inch. The stale air and the smell of gunpowder were the first things to greet us.