I’ll Level Up So My Friends Don’t Die

I found them again just as the smoke cleared enough to see shapes moving in the street.

The squad.

They were gathered near the edge of a collapsed intersection, weapons drawn, scanning shadows. I limped toward them, blood on my face, dried along my forearms, still wet in my boot.

Nobody said a word when I reached them.

Naevia looked at me first, her eyes flicking from my soaked pipe to my expression. I must have looked different. I felt different.

Rael's head tilted slightly. The other two that were left just stared.

I didn't explain.

I didn't ask where they'd gone while I fought alone, or what they'd done while Mari died.

I just nodded forward.

That way. We keep moving.

Then Sael's voice cut through our comms, cold and clipped, like it didn't belong to a person at all:

"Clear the district. Street by street."

No pause. No comfort. No recognition of the dead.

That was the order.

So we moved.

And I didn't look back.

We pushed forward, boots crunching over glass and shell casings. Firelight painted the buildings in flickering red and orange like the whole district was bleeding out around us.

No one said a damn thing.

I kept walking. When we reached the next intersection, I stopped and held up my hand.

"Two routes," I said, scanning the broken shopfronts, the overturned transport skiffs, the wide-open blind spots. "Left's too exposed. We sweep right."

They stared at me. Just for a second.

I was the newest here. The least trained. I shouldn't have been calling shots.

But Naevia nodded. No comment. No expression. Just followed.

Rael drifted into the shadows behind me, his movements like smoke. Watching. Always watching.

The other two Jensen and Mora, I think looked uncertain. But they moved when I moved.

We turned down the right-hand street, keeping close to the walls.

The sync in my head pulsed. Low hum. 63%. It had started climbing again, almost without me noticing.

Then I heard the click of claws on stone. Close.

I spun just as the crawler pounced from an alley vent. Big. Fast. Sharp.

I didn't think so. I ducked under its first swipe, caught its limb in one hand, and smashed its skull against the side of a dumpster so hard it dented. It twitched. Still alive.

I mounted it, drove my knee into its chest, and jammed my pipe into its eye once, twice, a third time until black fluid burst out like oil under pressure.

It spasmed, shrieked, and died.

I stood up. Breathing heavy.

Another one came screaming from the side street.

I didn't hesitate.

I ran straight at it.

It bit down and caught my shoulder but I didn't stop. I drove both of us into the wall, used the edge of the broken rebar to slice its throat open.

My body moved like it wasn't mine anymore. I didn't feel the pain. Only the fire in my chest.

The others just watched.

No one stepped in. No one needed to.

Jensen blinked. "What the hell are you, man?"

I didn't answer. Just wiped the blood from my face and said, "Clear the buildings. Keep tight."

And they listened.

It happened fast they always did.

We were clearing a collapsed bank lobby, the ceiling sagging like wet cloth, when the walls hissed.

The crawler came out sideways, its claws skittering across broken marble, teeth bared in a grotesque smile. I moved to intercept, pipe raised but I was half a second too slow.

It slashed across my side, just under the ribs.

Pain flared white-hot, like I'd been branded from the inside. I stumbled, dropped to one knee, blood already soaking through the torn fabric.

And then the screen blinked.

[SYNC LEVEL: 66%]

It wasn't a jump, it was a spike. Like the system had tasted my pain and liked it.

I got back up.

Everything felt sharper again. My heartbeat punched like war drums, and the air slowed around me. I lunged forward, grabbed the crawler by the jaw and the back of its skull, and ripped.

Bone cracked. Blood sprayed. It stopped moving.

I stood there, hunched, breathing hard, staring at its body.

And suddenly… I remembered.

The little girl. Mari. Her neck opened like a second mouth. Her eyes are still wide. Still looking at me. Not understanding why she wasn't alive anymore.

I squeezed my eyes shut. But it only made things worse.

Another memory, older. Eli, screaming behind the locked door. The fire dancing around the curtains. My fists pounding on wood that wouldn't break.

His voice, pleading: "Lucanpleasedon't leave me"

I growled and slammed my fist into the crawler's corpse again, and again, and again, until my knuckles tore open.

[SYNC LEVEL: 67%]

It kept rising.

The system didn't care what I was feeling, only that I was hurting.

And now I wasn't sure if it was feeding off my pain… or if it was learning from it. Evolving. Adapting.

Is this the cost?

Not just blood. Not just wounds. But everything I don't want to remember? Everything I buried?

I looked down at my hands red, trembling. Not from fear. From rage. From grief. From everything trying to crawl out of me all at once.

No one said anything. The squad was still checking corners. Clearing rooms.

I just stood there. Letting the blood drip.

Knowing, deep down, the price was only getting steeper.

The stench hit first.

Rot layered over something sweet like sugar left out in the rain. It clung to the inside of my nose, crawled down my throat. We moved in tight formation through the broken doors of what had once been a hospital. The signage still hung from the ceiling, scorched and half-melted: EMERGENCY - INTAKE.

Now, the walls pulsed.

I'm not being metaphorical. They moved. Skin-like flesh had grown across the hospital interior, slick and veined, pulsing slow as a heartbeat. Some parts were red and wet, others the color of spoiled milk. I could see things shifting beneath it, crawling just out of sight.

Rael muttered behind me, "This wasn't here yesterday."

I didn't ask how he knew. I kept walking.

The corridor narrowed into what had once been a surgical wing, now swallowed by this alien tissue. Every light was broken. Every sound echoed.

Then we stepped into the chamber.

It had been an operating theater. Now it was a womb.

Dozens of cocoonstall, slick, shivering with movement lined the walls. Each one looked like it had been spun from blood and wire. Some were human-sized. Some were smaller. One still held a body, visible through the membrane, its limbs twitching like it was dreaming.

Naevia took a step forward, hand on her blade. "This is a nest."

"No shit," muttered one of the others.

I didn't move.

My eyes locked on one cocoon in particular. The one in the far corner.

It moved.

Not a twitch. Not a reflex.

It shifted like something inside was pushing out.

"Lucan," Naevia said, quieter now. "We should burn this place down."

I didn't answer.

I stared at that moving cocoon. My grip tightened on the blood-slick pipe in my hand.

It moved again sharper this time. Faster.

"Lucan"

The cocoon split.

A claw slipped through.

I took a step back. Every nerve in my body screamed. My system chimed in, useless and cold:

[WARNING: UNIDENTIFIED LIFEFORM DETECTED]

I didn't breathe. None of us did.

This wasn't just a spawning ground.

It was a beginning.

And whatever was hatching… it wasn't going to be small.

I raised the pipe slowly.

Whatever was inside that cocoon… it wasn't done growing. But it was aware I could feel it. Like it had locked onto me the second I stepped into the room. My fingers tightened around the weapon until the metal creaked.

The others stood behind me. No one moved. No one breathed.

The cocoon tore.

Not like skin like wet fabric being peeled apart by force.

First, black ichor spilled onto the floor. Then a hand pushed through. Not human. Too many knuckles, the fingers long and jointed like knives. The flesh was the color of bruises, slick and pulsing like it had just been born.

Then came the face.

Or… what should've been a face.

Eyes too many of them blinked open in rows. Flat and black and depthless. They didn't shimmer. They didn't reflect light. They just drank it.

Teeth followed. Dozens. No lips, no jawline just spirals of jagged bone behind something like a grin.

It stared directly at me.

Every system alert in my vision lit up like a wildfire.

[NEW THREAT IDENTIFIED]

[CATEGORY: UNKNOWN]

[DANGER LEVEL: CRITICAL]

"Back out slowly," Naevia whispered. "Lucan, move."

I couldn't.

My body didn't listen.

Not out of fear. Not even shock.

Something in that thing's gaze held me. Not telepathy. Not power. Just… wrongness. Like it didn't belong here, in this world, in this reality and my brain was cracking under the weight of trying to understand it.

The creature unfolded further from the cocoon. It didn't step it crawled, but somehow remained upright, moving in ways no body should.

Then it spoke.

Not from its mouth. From everywhere. The walls. The air. Inside my skull.

A voice like static underwater, broken by whispers that weren't mine.

"You shouldn't have come here."

My blood ran cold.

It hadn't just noticed us. It had been waiting.

I finally moved the pipe raised, heart thundering.

But it was too late.

The thing lunged, and the lights went out.