Floor 26

Tessa stood with her hand over her mouth when the chief came out of the door to the left of her. He saw her and immediately snapped. He called her a bitch then ran at her.

He pushed her down so her back was hitting the floor beneath her. He pinned her against all of her struggling. When she went for her knife she found her pocket empty, knowing it was Zoul who took she cursed his name as loud as she could.

Of course he had heard all the noise and came rushing in, with her knife in his hand, but the chief was already repeatedly hitting her. Hitting her eyes. Her nose. Her cheek. Her lips. All over her face she felt pain and numbness. She could tell that she was bleeding somewhere, she could smell it's irony smell.

Zoul rushes over to them and yanked the chief off of her and held him back. How was he that strong? He didn't look like it. As Tessa started sitting up, her and Zoul locked eyes. He looked to be telling her something but she didn't know what.

As she tried to clear her head she suddenly found the knife back in her hands. The hands and she looked up and saw Zoul watching her. He twisted the chief around to face towards her, giving a clear view of his enraged face and heaving chest.

Zoul locked eyes with her again and nodded to her. She now knew what he wanted her to do. He wants her to stab him. Right in the chest.

Tessa had no reason to complain, he had just beaten her to the point she could barely feel her face. She got to her feet using the table to support her.

She rose the knife over her head and brought it down. It struck him in the center of his chest. Blood started soaking his already sweat soaked shirt even more. Then he made a weird noise that was a mix between a squeal and a gasp.

Then, finally, he went limp.

"Why the fuck did you take my fucking knife?!" Tessa demanded.

"Well…I just...feel more comfortable with a knife," Zoul admitted.

"Well get your own damn knife! Don't take mine! I could of just died because I didn't have it!" She shouted back.

"I saved you! Can't you be a little grateful?"

"Fine! Thank you for saving me. Next time don't take my fucking knife. Go find your own, there's plenty here." She pointed over towards the wall with different sizes of knives hanging from it.

Zoul followed her arm to where she ease pointing. He didn't notice them when he came in since he was too focused on Tessa and the chief. He walked over to the knives and picked the sharpest one out of them. It was a butcher knife, and looked to be recently cleaned and sharpened. It must be the knife the chief used to chop up Robert.

Tessa wondered what the other door was for and went to investigate. Going in she saw it led to a closet. Instead of piles of ingredients, there were buckets and bags full of gore and bones. There was a table with a light next to it, a bucket with discarded bones and hair sat on the floor to the left.

On the table were two buckets on was full of dark red blood and the other was filled with strips of human flesh.

Despite Tessa's best effort, her stomach growled and twisted with hunger. She didn't eat breakfast, she planned on eating it with Grey, it was probably around 10 now.

As disgusted as it seems, they don't know if they would find any other food, so they ate the Robert stew. Knowing what it truly was made of so they couldn't fully enjoy its wonderfully wrong flavor.

They finished their meals without our saying much to each other. Tessa was still upset about Zoul taking her knife for no reason other than he felt safer. What about her? What if she felt safer with a knife in her pocket? Did he not care enjoyed to think about that? Why would he care? They just met after all.

"When are we leaving to go down to the next floor?" Zoul asked. They silently agreed to go down each floor and get as many answers as they could.

"As soon as I find myself a damn bathroom." Tessa was still pissed about the knife. She was so scared she was going to die. Funny how that works, one minute you want to die the next you scared shitless of it.

Tessa left the room and went to look for a bathroom. She wandered the halls until she found that there wasn't a signal bathroom on this floor. She went down to the next floor after some debate.

She wandered the halls until she found a sign next to the door that signalled that it was a bathroom. She had forgotten for a moment that she was in business building. Shouldn't there be more people? The thought never crossed her mind before. There was definitely more people inside the building before Crow Day started.

Tessa walked into the bathroom marked with a ladies' sign. She heard the door click shout as it echoed into the quiet bathroom. She walked over to the bathroom mirror and took a look at herself. She wasn't as dirty as she expected to. She was only covered in blood. Her face was bruised and her eye was starting to swell.

Her nose had two lines of dried, crusted blood under her nose. She turned on the water faucet, cupping the cold water in her hands, she bends her head down to splash the water upon it. She scrubbed at her face getting the blood off. As she raised her head to check her appearance she noticed that one of the closed stall doors were cracked open. She wouldn't have noticed it if it hadn't been swung quickly closed right as she lifted her head.

She wasn't alone. There was someone in here. Who were they? Were they going to hurt her?

Again, her curiosity got the better of her. She needed to see who it was. She needed the advantage case they attacked her. She walked over to the line stalls across the mirrors.

As she walked, she slipped her hand around the handle of her knife, ready to pull it out and strike at any signs of aggression.

As she walked past the first door she slightly pushed open the door and check inside. No one there.. Then on to the next she did the same, again no one was there. One more till she got to the door still cracked open, and two more till she reaches the end of the line of stalls. No one in that one. On to the cracked open door. Again, there was no one in sight.

She turned her attention to the last door. It was closed, and looked like an ordinary bathroom stall. She slowly walked to the stall checking to make sure there was no one in the stall she had just check. Watching that stall she opened the door to the last stall. The dim bathroom light revealed a small girl cowering on the toilet seat.

At the sight of Tessa she raised her hands as if she was able to ward her off. The girl was clearly shaking in fear. She had also started rambling over and over again, "please don't hurt me," poor defenseless girl. What had she gone through to be that terrified? Tessa relaxed and released her tight, sweaty grip on her knife.

"I won't hurt you," Tessa said calmly, holding her hands up as if she was backing away from a fight.

Trying to soothe the girl, Tessa asked,"What's your name?"

"Shay." the girl whispered so quietly Tessa thought she missed heard.

"And, how old are you?"

"Fourteen."

"What's your favorite color?"

"Blue."

"That's mine as well," Tessa said smiling at the child. As she asked the girl questions she slowly stopped shaking and got out of her protective position. Although before she could make anymore progress Tessa started to hear Zoul calling for her. He generally sounded panicked as he screamed her name down the hallways.

"I need to go," Tessa sighed. "That's my… friend. Why don't you join us, Shay?" Tessa held out her hands to the girl. The girl reached out and grabbed her hand.

Tessa felt a yank on her arm instead of the feeling of someone using it as a brace as she expected. She was pulled into Shay. Her head was next to Shay's mouth so she heard her whisper her goodbye into her ear.

She felt the hot stinging pain of the knife entering her body before her brain realized what was happening. Unable to hold back Tessa released a howl of pain.

All she could focuse on was her pain. She couldn't think straight. She could fight back. There was just the pain and that was all that mattered.