She moved quietly, staying in the central of the wall. She needed to find the stairs, or some kind of way out. Suddenly, something moved very quickly at the edge of her vision. She froze, stopping on her heels. A shadow darted behind a floating piece of wall. It wasn't the big monster, whatever this was, it was too small and fast.
"Who's there?" she whispered fiercely.
Movements sounded again, this time to get left. As she backed away, her hands accidentally brushed against a locker. The metal shivered and hissed at her, making her to instantly pull back.
"Come out.... I can see you." she lied, her voice laced with fear.
From the shadows near the ceiling, two eyes blinked open. Those eyes weren't human, they were bright, glowing blue-green colour, with horizontal pupils like an octopus's own. The creature dropped silently on the floor in front of her.
It was a cat. Or at least, it was shaped as a cat, and it appeared before her view. It's features was a messy, Calico stray with fur that looked a little bit static and messed up. But it's tail?... It had two tails. And they moved together perfectly, leaving faint trails of black smoke in the air. The cat sat down, and carefully lick it's paw that looked too big for it's body. Then it looked up at her with those unsettling blue-green colour eyes.
It then made a "Meow" sound. But the sound was not a 'meow', it sounded like a grown lady trying to make a cat noise.
Aurora took a step back. "What are you?"
The cat stood up, turned it head towards the dark end of the hall way, and looked back at her. It's ear twitched and it trotted a few steps away, stopped and looked back, as though waiting for her.
"You want me to follow you?" Aurora asked, aware of how ridiculous the situation was. Something immediately popped up in her head, 'In a horror movie, following the weird cat is how you die first.'
The cat actually rolled it's eyes, then let out an annoyed huff, walked back to her, and head-butted her shin. it's fur felt cold, like steel wool. Then, it bit her.
"Ow!" Aurora yelped, shaking her leg.
The cat spat out the fabric of her jeans, and sprinted down the hall, stopping at a corner to look back.
It's gesture said, 'Follow or die'
Aurora glanced back at the entrance. The purple fog outside was getting thicker and she could hear distant howls from afar. She then looked at the cat.
"Fine," she muttered, clutching her sore wrist. "But if you lead me to a monster who wants to eat me, I'm kicking you."
She started trailing after the two-tailed cat, heading deeper into the strange, twisted University. As she trailed along, she passed a row of trophy cases, and the glasses here were somewhat intact. She then glanced at her reflection as she passed, and for a split second, it was different from her.
The 'her' in the glass was not walking, it was standing still, wearing a crown made of black broken pieces, and her eyes were completed gold. Aurora blinked, and the image vanished, replaced by her own scared, sweaty face.
"Don't trust the reflection," she whispered, remembering the radio's strange warning. The cat turned to a sharp corner, and Aurora quickly followed it. She found herself in what used to be the student's lounge. The furniture, however, was piled in the middle of the room, creating a messy wall. And seated on top of a sack of vending machines and watching her, was a calm, terrifying person.
It was not a shadow, nor a monster, but a guy. He was wearing a broken riot helmet, and was holding a baseball that had pieces of glass stuck in the wood. He raised the bar as Aurora rushed into the room.
"Stop!" he muttered lowly.
Aurora skidded to a stop, and raised her hands shouting, "I'm human! I'm human!"
The guy narrowed his eyes behind the visor. He looked at the cat, and looked back at her.
"Check her shadow, Chesh," the guy said to the cat.
The cat walked in a circle around Aurora, sniffling her heels. It then looked up at the guy and gave a quick, sharp nod.
The guy lowered the bat slightly. "You're loud," he said, his voice rough from not speaking too much. "You shout like an elephant, are you trying to call every hollow monster in the five-mile radius area to dinner?"
Aurora stared at him, her chest heaving. "I....I fell through the mirror. My friend is gone, and I don't know where I am either."
The guy jumped down swiftly from the vending machines. He was thin, tall and was covered in dust. He walked up to her, got close, and grabbed her right arm before she could pull it away. He quickly pulled her sleeve up, and stared at the golden, geometric mark glowing on her skin. His eyes went wide with shock.
"Holy cow," he breathed, dropping her arm as if it had burned him. He then looked at her with a mixture of wonder and total fear.
"You're not just a survivor," he whispered. "You're an Architect."
Aurora rubbed her wrist, stepping back. "A what?"
But before he could answer, the entire building shook, as a huge impact hit the roof, causing dust and debris to fall on them.
CRASH.
"They found us," the guy hissed. He grabbed Aurora's shirt and pulled her towards the barricade. "Run, Now!"
The ceiling didn't just fall, it vanished. One moment, they had a roof of acoustic tiles over their heads. And the next? A huge grey hand broke through the concrete like it was thin cardboard. Trash fell everywhere. Different piles of objects, pieces of metals, chunks of concrete, and thick clouds of white dust.
"Run!" the person in the riot helmet shouted.
He did not wait for Aurora to realise what was going on, he grabbed her arm very tightly and pulled her towards the lounge's back door.
Aurora tripped, her bag slipping on the floor, good thing her phone was inside her pockets.
"My bag! I forgot my....."
"Leave the stuff!" he yelled over the loud crashing of the building. If you don't want to get crushed, you need to run.
'Gamer's logic,' Aurora though quickly as she tried running faster. 'Lost inventory, new goal? Stay alive.'
Chesh, the two tailed cat, had already turned into a fast streak of light, running through a gap in the wall. The survivor pushed Aurora through the opening, then jumped over it himself, while hitting a piece of rock with his glass-covered bat to knock it away. As they rush into the back hallway, the floor was slanting.