Fortunately, Albert had already expected that most supplies would've been taken by students or staff long before he got there, so he hadn't held much hope.
At least he found something: inside the sterilization cabinet in the fifth-floor lab, he discovered a set of surgical tools normally used for dissection practice.
He stared at them for a few seconds.
In the end, clinging to the idea of "better than nothing," he picked the sharpest scalpel and slipped it into his pocket.
Albert hurried down the stairs.
The moment he reached the first floor and stepped into the corridor, a piercing scream rang out from far ahead—
The girl must've run into danger.
Albert sprinted toward the source of the sound.
The wall facing the corridor had no windows, only solid concrete. It wasn't until he reached the back door of the classroom that he could peek through the small glass panel and see what was happening inside.
A giant spider—its diameter nearly as wide as a grown adult's outstretched arms—had somehow appeared in the room!
Albert took a closer look and saw a large hole smashed through one of the classroom's glass windows, with shattered pieces scattered everywhere.
It must have crawled in from outside.
The girl's frightened sobs echoed across the room. Albert couldn't see her from the tiny window—only two desks pushed tightly together.
She was hiding beneath them.
The space was too small for the spider to reach her—for now.
The classroom was a wreck—chairs overturned, desks scattered everywhere. It was obvious the two had just been through a frantic chase.
Instinctively, Albert tried the doorknob—only to find it wouldn't budge.
He froze for a second before remembering: he had locked the door himself before leaving.
Albert: "…Fuck."
A rare curse slipped out.
If he'd known this would happen, he wouldn't have bothered locking the damn door.
But at least his rattling drew the girl's attention. He heard a long, shaky sob from inside, followed by her trembling voice through the door:
"Is… is that you? Please… help me…"
"I'm here," Albert answered softly from the hallway. "Don't panic. Listen to me carefully—can you hear me?"
The girl murmured a muted "yes," keeping her voice low.
"Good. Don't speak loudly, and don't cry. I'm going to find a way to draw the spider's attention. When you hear me say 'run,' you open the door and get out—don't look back, just run as far as you can. Understand?"
"…I understand."
Albert took a deep breath.
"Good."
He moved swiftly to the classroom's front door, stepped back several paces, bracing himself.
The next second—
He lifted his leg and slammed it hard into the upper half of the wooden door.
Bang!—
The impact rattled the entire door, and the mutated spider—already creeping toward the girl—froze in place.
Albert had kicked far too hard. His leg went numb, a sharp sting shooting up his calf as the recoil sent him stumbling back a few steps. The muscles in his lower leg throbbed with pain—
But he didn't stop.
Seeing that it worked, Albert slammed his foot into the wooden door again. And again.
The building was old, and the classroom doors were even older—thin wooden panels, round doorknobs, the kind that any strong man with a tool could pry open with a bit of effort.
Albert might not have been in great physical condition, but after five or six full-strength kicks, the warped door finally began pulling away from its frame, loosened and barely hanging on.
The mutated spider seemed to have discovered something far more interesting than the girl. Losing interest in its original prey, it shifted its attention toward Albert, crawling toward the already-unstable door with frightening eagerness.
Boom!
Its massive body slammed into the door, forcing a crack straight down the middle.
If that had hit Albert directly, he'd probably have been flung across the hallway.
Albert licked his dry lips, silently counting down.
Three… two… one…
Another heavy blow sent the door trembling like a leaf. Tiny splinters rained down from the frame, the old wood creaking as if in agony.
That was when Albert raised his voice—
"Run!"
A series of frantic thuds came from the back of the room. The girl fumbled with the lock, then burst out like a terrified rabbit, bolting toward the stairwell.
Running down the corridor meant passing the spider—and heading straight into other mutant creatures outside. Too dangerous.
Upward was their only chance. Find another room. Hide. Survive.
Albert sprinted after her.
The door behind him, already battered by both him and the spider, wouldn't last seconds—
The thought had barely formed when a deafening crash split the air.
The door had collapsed.
The spider was out.
Albert's heart tightened, and he didn't dare look back. He just ran faster.
The spider's legs were long like dried twigs or bamboo segments—needle-sharp at the tips. Every step it took produced a harsh, scraping sound, like fingernails dragging across glass.
Skrrrk—skrrrk—
Enough to make anyone's scalp prickle.
Before Albert could even fully process it, the mutated spider had already closed the distance, its speed far beyond what any normal creature could achieve.
In the blink of an eye, it was right behind him.
For one brief heartbeat, Albert had a single desperate thought:
—If only Hayes were here.
The spider's leg struck out, hooking around his ankle—
And Albert was sent crashing to the floor.
Albert's body was yanked backward by the spider before he could react, his back slamming hard against the rising, winding steps.
A muffled groan escaped him—his whole body felt like it was about to fall apart.
The six-eyed sand spider seemed to have stumbled upon a rare delicacy. Without a sound, it lunged toward him, its rows of single eyes—lined up from large to small—fixated on him all at once, hollow and chilling.
—Albert had researched biological organisms in his previous life.
His professional experience allowed him to recognize it instantly: this was a six-eyed sand spider.
It was one of the most venomous spiders in the world. A normal specimen could kill a rabbit within five to twelve hours. Albert boldly guessed that with a spider of this size, its venom yield and concentration could kill him in seconds—so fast he wouldn't even have time to leave a last word.
Albert: "...."
He knew surviving the apocalypse wouldn't be easy.
The venomous sand spider opened its jaws at him.
"Hissss—"
A wave of humid warmth washed over him, thick with the stench of rot.
Inside the abyss-like maw, clusters of tumor-like sacs the size of basketballs filled the cavity.
They pulsed and quivered rhythmically like living organisms. Beneath their translucent membranes, something like embryonic sacs seemed faintly visible… as if the spider's upper jaw served as fertile soil for some creature to gestate.
Albert froze for half a second.
The lighting was too dim; he hadn't caught all the details.
Survival instinct exploded within him. At the instant the spider lunged, Albert braced both arms and shoved them between the creature's upper and lower jaws, forcing them apart.
At the center of that abyss, mere centimeters away from his face, rested the spider's chelicerae.
He could even see the venom glands at the tips.
But something far worse followed.
Suddenly, Albert felt… something. His eyes widened slightly.
Sqrrchh, sqrrchh.
A sticky, nauseating sound came from the spider's throat—something was squirming.
A few seconds later, a bizarre soft-bodied creature emerged at the back of the sand spider's throat.
Boneless and limp, it looked like an octopus dragged out of water.
Its head was basically a fleshy sac, the slimy skin caving inward to form two shallow pits that held a pair of lifeless eyes.
Its body was pitch-black, yet streaked all over with vivid, saturated patterns—bright colors arranged like ancient, mysterious totems, radiating an ominous and unspeakable malice.
Albert had never seen anything like it.
His heart lurched violently—alarms blaring in his head.