Feral → newt, tmr

Extras 1: Escaping The Maze

"Watch out!" Aris screams, but it's too late. One girl from the group ends up tossing out of the edge and falls off.

In the immediate aftermath, spears and knives cock for battle and the Springers push the Shade towards the edge.

"The key! Chris, guard Rachel and open the door!" Vera yells over the eerie moans and whirrs of machinery coming from the Shade.

Chris does as he's told, not saying a word, perhaps for the first time in his life.

With a lot of effort, the Springers somehow manage to throw the Shade off the edge. That's when they note more incoming Shades.

"There's more coming!" Harriet shouts, pointing at the Shades approaching them.

"Keep it steady! We got this guy!" Aris encourages the group, getting ready with his weapon.

The crowd whacks at Shade instruments with their makeshift weapons, jumping on them, attacking. The sounds echoing off the walls are a cacophony of terror-human screams, metal clashing against metal, motors roaring, the haunting shrieks of the Shades, saws spinning, claws clasping, girls yelling for help.

A loud bang from above and behind Vera makes her jump. She spins around to see a Shade plop into the tunnel. The thing retracts its spikes and arms to enter-when it lands with a squishy thump, a dozen sharp and nasty objects popping back out, looking deadlier than ever.

Vera faces the creature, holding out her spear as if that will ward it off.

A skinny metallic rod bursts out of the Shade's moist skin, unfolding into a long appendage with three spinning blades, which moves directly toward Vera's face.

She grips the end of her spear with both hands, squeezing tightly as she lowers the knife-laced point to the ground in front of her. The bladed arm moves within two feet, ready to slice her skin to bits. When it was just a foot away, Vera tenses her muscles and swings the spear up, around, and toward the ceiling as hard as she can.

It smacks the metal arm and pivots the thing skyward, revolving in an arc until it slams back into the body of the Shade. The monster lets out an angry shriek and pulls back several feet, its spikes retracting into its body.

Vera heaves breaths in and out. Maybe she can hold it off.

The Shade's spikes appear again, it surges ahead and another arm pops out of its skin and shoots forward, this one with huge claws, snapping to grab the spear.

Vera swings, this time from above her head, throwing every bit of strength into the attack.

The spear crashes into the base of the claws.

With a loud clunk, and then a squishing sound, the entire arm ripped free of its socket, falling to the floor. Then, from some kind of mouth that Vera cannot see, the Shade lets out a long, piercing shriek and pulls back again, the spikes disappear.

"These things are beatable!" Vera yells out a roar and charges ahead to take advantage of the Shade's moment of weakness. Swinging her spear wildly, he jumps on top of the creature's bulbous body, whacking two metal arms away from her with a loud crack. She lifts the spear above her head, braces her feet-feeling them sink into the disgusting blubber-then thrusts the spear down and into the monster. A slimy yellow goo explodes from the flesh, splashing over Vera's legs as she drives the spear as far as it can sink into the thing's body. Then she releases the hilt of the weapon and jumps away.

"It won't open! Aris! There's a code with eight numbers!" Rachel yells on the other side.

"Eight sections of the maze." Aris realizes and turns to the former keeper of mappers. "Hey, Vera! What's the sequence?"

"What?" Barely hearing him, not quite understanding, Vera watches in sick fascination as the Shade twitches uncontrollably, spewing the yellow oil in every direction. Spikes pop in and out of the skin, its remaining arms swinging around in mass confusion, at times impaling its own body. Soon it begins to slow, losing energy with every ounce of blood-or fuel-it loses.

"The sections of the maze, what's the sequence?!" Chris exclaims.

"Five! Three! Seven! One! Six!" Vera yells back, her eyes still on the Shade. Within this time, it stops moving altogether. Vera cannot believe it. She absolutely cannot believe it. She just defeated a Shade, one of the monsters that terrorize the Springers for more than three years which only Aris managed to kill before and it wasn't this way either.

"Yes! Yes! I killed the finching Shade!" Vera laughs in victory as if that one act has solved all their problems.

"Watch out!" Aris screams as another Shade slides down the wall above them and lands on top of Vera.

"Vera!"

Vera screams in horror as she tries to pry it off her, struggling to keep its blades away from her face. "No! Get off of me! Help!"

In the same moment, Chris grabs a handful of arrows from his quiver, loading and shooting on the Shade's flesh one after the other, until and after the Shade loses its hold on the girl.

Vera falls to the floor after being released by her captor's claws and crawls back to the group, her eyes on the Shade. Despite the pain of several lacerations across her back and shoulders, elation surges through her so strongly she doesn't even know how to react. She gasps, then laughs, then choking on a sob before laughing again.

"What's the sequence? Come on!" Rachel screams at Vera, who is still shocked.

Vera comes back to her senses and yells the numbers one by one. "One! Six! Eight! Two! Four! Is it done?"

"Keep holding!" Aris yells when the green light blares throughout the tunnel and the concrete doors shut, crushing and smashing the Shades.

Then the door shuts, leaving them nothing but pitch darkness.