Lockdown

The cafe manager called for everyone's attention, moving quickly away from the windows. "Please move away from glass. We're going into lockdown. Security shutters will come down now."

A collective groan went up from the cafe patrons, but they complied, gathering their belongings and moving toward the center of the space. The manager pressed a button behind the counter, and heavy metal shutters began to descend over the windows. Emma and Melly followed suit, joining the patrons stood in the center of the cafe.

The tapping and sensations were getting more intense by the seconds, and it was all Emma could do to try to stand there as if she was experiencing nothing. She concentrated on a random spot, a knot in the wood of a nearby table and tried to ignore the prickling, tingling and the god damned tapping that was hitting her in waves now. Although she managed to keep her head still, and her arms tight against her body, if anyone looked down, they'd see her left leg was fidgeting rapidly.

Melly had been distracted by the alert and was looking at her phone to see if there were any details on the monster sighting, freeing Emma from her inquiry for a brief moment.

"Isn't this like...the third one this week?" A man at the next table complained loudly. "Defense is too busy sending mages on photo ops instead of patrols."

"How many do you think there are this time?" his companion asked nervously.

The question hung in the air, and before Emma could process what was happening, a number came to her mind with absolute certainty: Three.

She shook her head, trying to dislodge the thought. There was no way she could know that. That was just a guess, her brain had thrown out a number in response to his question.

The cafe was positioned such that one side connected internally to the shopping center and the other side, adorned with tall glass panels faced the outdoor plaza. The shutters leading to the shopping center had fully descended, however the shutters facing outside seemed to get stuck before reaching the ground, leaving about a foot of visibility at the bottom of the glass panels. The patrons partially crouched down, trying to catch a glimpse of what was happening outside.

Emma found herself crouching as well, peering through the narrow gap just as two dark figures emerged in the distance into the plaza before them. They moved with the unnatural fluidity that made them immediately identifiable as monsters. There seemed to be no end in the type of monsters that now plagued the world. Some of them were reptilian, some just tentacles, and others like these two looked like they were part shadow, part substance, their forms, vaguely human in shape, as if the entities were forming themselves into the creature they were stalking, seemed to ripple and shift.

As they walked, their shadow head would flicker, distort, and then go normal again. Their shadow legs, when making contact with the ground, would spill into an oily cloud, only to reform into a leg with the next step. Leaving a dark oily trail behind them. One of them dragged something behind it, its shadow arm gripping the collar of a human in a business suit, limp and not moving.

Emma was horrified at the sight. It had been a while since she saw a monster with her own eyes, let alone to see this poor victim. By the site of it, attacked while on the way to work. She thought about the victim from the night before, attacked at the door of the Safehouse. It had been horrible enough without having to have seen it.

The patron was right that these monster incidents seemed to be increasing recently, in the past few incidents Emma had experienced, she was lucky enough to either lockdown at home, in a Safehouse, or at the restaurant. Meaning she never really had to see the monsters. But here she was, eyes fixed on these two creatures, unable to look away.

The tapping and prickling were no longer coming in waves, now it was constant. As she stared at the monsters, the tapping was nonstop, overwhelming her as her heart began to race seemingly in tune with the tapping.

She was terrified yes, but also…

Truly, Emma felt a small sense of relief.

There were two monsters. Not three.

Her strange certainty had been wrong after all, just her imagination running wild. She breathed a sigh of relief, then followed that with a deep breath in. Melly noticed her now. Unlike the other patrons Melly did not crouch down to take a look, she would want nothing less then to see the monsters. But having noticed her friend seemingly breathing rapidly and shivering, she leaned down to put her arm over her shoulder in a reassuring gesture that said to Emma: its going to be okay Em.

Emma looked up at Melly and smiled, feeling reassured from Melly's embrace, her touch bringing a stillness to mind that a second before was reeling. She started to adjust her body to straighten up and glanced back forward while straightening her legs.

While her eyes glanced back to the scene through the glass, Emma froze.

The human body began to twitch.

At first, it was subtle, a finger twitch, a shoulder twitch. Then more rapid, more violent. The business-suited figure convulsed, its back arching unnaturally. A snarl emerged from its throat, inhuman and feral. Everyone now was watching, frozen, breaths caught, leaving the room in absolute silence. They all knew what was happening.

With a sudden move, the body was standing on its two feet, knees partially bent and upper body hunched over. It started stumbling around as if it was still learning how to move its body, snarling and hissing with each step.

"Rampager," someone whispered in horrified recognition.

And with sickening clarity, Emma froze as she watched the Rampager stumble.

A realization struck her. Her count had been right after all.

Three monsters stalked the plaza, two that had come through a rift, and one that had been human just minutes before.