The ruins didn't collapse all at once.
They collapsed in pieces.
The stone cracked beneath our feet as we ran, the dust filling the air. Someone tripped ahead of me and disappeared into a hole in the floor. I didn't look back long enough to see if they died.
The roar came again.
It was closer. Much louder.
It was not an animal.
The creature was angry.
"Keep going to the east exit, don't stop!" I yelled again, not even sure why people were listening to me.
Maybe because someone had to tell them what to do, someone had to at least sound reasonable.
Mira was beside me, a blade in her hand, eyes scanning the surrounding constantly. She didn't panic. She was rather calm given the situation we were in.
Behind us, the stones started crumbling as the ruins kept on breaking. The ruins weren't a shelter, they were a lid, and something underneath, had finally decided to breathe.
A man stumbled into me.
"Please, help me"
The ground shifted.
A stone pillar collapsed between us.
His voice went silent.
The system chimed again.
PLAYER TERMINATED.
There was not a body.
Not much of an echo either.
Just gone.
We went through the east opening and went into the forest again, but it didn't feel like an escape. The trees surrounded us once again, the branches hitting us as we ran for our lives.
The monsters from before weren't very patient.
Shapes moved between the trunks. They were low and fast, it all felt coordinated.
"They're slowly surrounding us," Mira said.
That made my stomach twist.
We reached a narrow ravine, the rock walls were tight.
"Here!" Owen shouted. "We can hold them off here!"
Some people agreed instantly. Others hesitated.
That hesitation cost us a lot.
The first creature lunged from the trees, slamming into a man before he could finish opening his menu. Teeth bit around his neck. Blood sprayed across the ravine wall.
Screams echoed.
The fight became chaotic.
People swung wildly. Magic flared weakly, they were barely sparks and gusts, nothing powerful or decisive. Someone with too much strength and little control smashed their weapon into the rock, the monster struck its hand into his head killing him instantly.
I ducked, heart hammering.
Still hadn't allocated my stat points.
I grabbed a fallen spear, it was crude and chipped, and was probably scavenged from the ruins. It was better than having nothing.
A wolf looking creature leapt at me.
I barely rolled aside. Before its claws tore through the stone where my head had been.
I stabbed it.
The stab was not clean, definitely not skilled.
It shrieked and backed off, not dead.
Mira finished it off with a quick slash to the throat.
It collapsed.
Didn't dissolve.
Just… died.
The other monsters froze for half a second.
That was not enough.
The monsters kept going forward.
We started falling back, step by step, losing ground, losing people. The ravine narrowed further ahead, it slowly became too narrow.
This was all a trap.
"Climb up!" someone yelled.
People scrambled up the rock walls. Some barely made it up. A few slipped, but kept going.
One didn't get up.
The system chimed again. And again.
By the time we forced our way out the other side, more died.
Much fewer people were with us.
We were all breathing hard, our hands and wounds bleeding and shaking.
The forest went quiet.
The system finally spoke.
STAGE 1 CONTINUES.
PLAYER COUNT UPDATED: 9
Nine.
I stared at the number.
There used to be seventeen.
Now there were only nine.
And Stage 1 wasn't even coming close to being over.
End of Chapter 5.