The corridor was pitch black. Joy fumbled for her phone, wrapped it with a piece of her own clothing, and kept the beam pointed down to minimize visibility. She felt cold now after leaving the janitorial room—and the company of Ken. But the cold helped her stay alert, listening for any sounds that could mean danger.
The building's maze-like structure didn't help at all. She had only been here a few times. The only visit she could remember clearly was when the printers in the medical and science buildings stopped working. And there had been a last-minute project with charts and printouts, and she had to rush here for that.
But there was another problem: the IT building was partially destroyed. The giant she'd seen outside was probably responsible. She didn't know why it would attack an empty structure—but one thought chilled her.
What if it wasn't empty?
What if there were students here, contrary to what she believed?
She needed to be more careful. She couldn't trust anyone. Nobody—except Ken.
Ken was different. He could've left her behind. He could've avoided those injuries. But he didn't. So Ken was more than trustworthy.
Ken was… well Ken.
Joy had felt a spasm of bliss when he saved her. But now, walking through the empty, dark corridors, that bliss turned to sadness.
"Stupid. Useless. Idiot."
The words repeated in her mind. She blamed herself for everything.
She pinched her arm to refocus and returned to the objective: find a first aid kit.
Campus buildings always had them. Students got injured all the time—believe it or not, it was more common than frontal rain in spring. Put a bunch of twenty-year-olds in a giant playground with limited supervision, and it wasn't a question of how someone got hurt—it was when.
That's how Joy saw universities. A big playground. A place to test boundaries, learn social norms, and hopefully find your craft.
A distant crash of odd rubble jolted her out of her thoughts. She knelt instantly, panic rushing through her—but she didn't forget to search for the source.
Peeking through a window, she saw nothing. The night was still young and the air was dense with mushy, jaded fog. Visibility was terrible. But she could guess.
The sound came from the parking lot they had left a few hours ago.
The golems were still very active.
She sighed and got up, resuming her search. Room by room, she combed through the building: the administration office, old classrooms, and supply closets—just like the one where Ken was.
Eventually, after nearly an hour of wandering, her flashlight's beam reflected off something at the end of a fourth-floor hallway.
"Finally," she whispered, rushing forward.
There it was—a small glass case mounted on the wall, marked with a red cross. The case was cracked, but the contents inside looked intact.
She pried it open carefully, mindful of the glass shards. She kept noise to a minimum and avoided cutting herself. Inside were gauze, antiseptic, bandages, and painkillers. Not much for a mystical mushroom bite, pun intended—but better than nothing.
Joy felt like herself again. This was her element. She was good at this.
Just as she turned to leave, her flashlight caught something in the corner: a half-open door, with a hand sticking out.
She froze.
A thousand thoughts ran through her mind. In the end, she decided to approach. If someone was there, they might need help.
She picked up a long shard of broken glass from the floor, cautious not to injure herself, and crept closer to the doorway.
What she found wasn't thrilling.
It was the corpse of a man in his late thirties. Possibly a professor—judging by his clothes.
Joy's knees weakened. Green veins covered the corpse's exposed skin—his hands, his face, his neck.
It looked awfully similar to Ken.
Her stomach lurched.
There were two reasons. First, she hated corpses, not befitting for a doctor, so dentistry had been a compromise. Second, she feared this might happen to Ken too.
"No, it won't," she whispered.
She forced her shivering body forward and placed her cold fingers on the corpse's neck. There was no pulse. He was dead.
She dashed away.
After some distance she calmed down and discovered she would have to take a different path back. One of the stairways she'd used earlier now looked unstable—something she had failed to notice on the way up.
But the new route turned out worse.
Near a water station, she saw another corpse—this time, a security guard.
He hadn't fared well either. Most of his skin had melted. Only part of his arm remained, lined with the same green, web-like veins.
Terrible thoughts raced through her mind as she ran again through the corridors, through the stairway, heart pounding, until she burst through the door of the small room where Ken lay.
"Hey," he said weakly. "Find anything good?"
Joy forced a smile, hiding the terror on her face.
"Yeah. Got a whole first aid kit. Now let me check that wound."
"Only if you promise not to stab me," Ken chuckled.
Joy gave her best impression of a laugh. It, however, came out fake.
But Ken didn't seem to notice. He just kept staring at the ceiling.