Becoming a Monster

Ignoring Mark once again, she asked Jasmine a question that, to the listeners, didn't give them any answers. Everyone was becoming restless and Mark wanted to rebuke her again, but Jasmine realized what Ailetta was getting at before she exclaimed, drawing everyone's attention.

"That's right! The bait doesn't have to be alive, we can make our own zombies."

No one besides the two knew where this discussion was going. All they needed to know was that Jasmine felt that the oddball suggestion would work and they began to feel relieved.

Ailetta discussed with Jas about her abilities when they were in the dorm. It was partly the reason that they had an easier time surviving before they started to incorporate people into their group.

Ailetta also chose the class of summoner, but she chose the darkness element and the unpopular skill of lesser reanimation. Instead of a spirit, she contracted with a slime-like creature that resembled a ball of tar. Using the slime, she could inject the slime into a dead body to have the body essentially come back to like. In reality, it was being controlled by the slime instead so she could only have one zombie at a time for now.

Because the reanimation skill was low, she wouldn't be able to control the corpse of a creature or person that was higher leveled than her nor would she be able to use their skills. But that didn't stop the zombie from being used as a meat shield, which benefited her and Jas a lot during the initial struggle. Sadly they couldn't rely on the skill forever. One, they ended up scaring one to too many females in the dorm, which caused one or two of them to run away to their deaths. And because the zombie being used was a person people knew, it caused a lot of emotional problems for people that knew that person.

After Jas agreed for Ailetta to go ahead with her idea. She could be seen skipping to one of the corpses. A small frown appeared on her face, but then she put on a solemn expression before attempting her spell. There wasn't a chat and at this point no one knew if making a chant would assist in casting spells.

The surrounding people looked on while they saw a dark glob appear and made its way into the body of the headless male before they saw the body move. The sudden movement caused them to panic and even more so when the body finally stood on its feet.

"C-Connor? No….NOOO! What are you doing to him you freak?"

One of the males charged in Ailetta's direction. Thankfully, even though the others also felt conflicted to the change, they valued their life more so they banded together to stop him.

Ailetta wasn't the best when it came to social cues. Especially because of her habit of having tunnel vision in regards to whatever she's doing or talking about at that moment. So to say she was surprised and fearful to the students outburst, wasn't a lie.

It took a while to calm him down but during that time, the buzzing noises returned. No one knew why the creatures or whatever they were wouldn't leave them alone. Were they being hunted for sport or were they being killed for food? If it was the latter then shouldn't the ten people from earlier be enough to satisfy them? The most cool headed of the group thought everything through, hoping that any little bit of information could help them get out of this mess.

"Mark…I can't say I'm 100 percent sure of this, but either there are way more of these things out there or…they are only eating our heads…Maybe with Le(Ailetta) we will be able to know for sure, but if there's more than we can handle then the only thing we can do is make a run for it."

Very few times when she talked to Mark, she would always talk to him with a tone that suggested that he also had a say on the discussion, but not this time.

Mark was aware of this and even though he believed himself to be invincible at this time, that doesn't mean his sister was.

Jas and Ailetta carried on with the plan and had the headless body travel a distance away from them. Even though the creatures seemed to only be attracted to their heads, Jas still believed that they would go after it since they immediately attacked the others who retreated. They would probably do whatever they can to prevent them from leaving even if the 'zombie' was missing a head. Well that's what she was hoping for, otherwise she doesn't know how many people they would lose before they find out what they are fighting.

BUZZZZ!

The buzzing noise seemed to be on the move again and was heading in the direction of the zombie, but as the noise grew further, they caught the sound of another buzzing still near them, confirming that there was at least more than one. But they didn't have time to think about that.

"I-IS THAT A…A BUG??" One person shouted, but no one replied, they were all watching what was happening in front of them.

What appeared was an insect that resembled a branch, with the lower body of a leaf. But the size of it was inhuman, it stood over the zombies body, easily 6ft high!. But that wasn't what caused the students to blankly look ahead in fear. It was the overly large eyes that even though it was focusing on the zombie, it was also staring them down as well. What made that stare so dreadful were the two scythe-like blades it carried for hands. Even from here, its claws appeared deadly which It proved to them in the next moment.

When it appeared in front of the zombie, its triangular head tilted left and right in confusion. The other creatures that lost its head never recovered but this one did. Even though it felt the head was more nutritious, it wouldn't let the rest of its meal run away. It swiped towards the zombie in a grabbing motion and when it latched onto the figure, everyone noticed how one of the arms was cleanly cut off, frightening them even more.

By now, most, if not all of the students there knew what they were dealing with, It was a praying mantis. Yet only one person there knew that they didn't know the real danger of the creature.

"Everyone, we have to go, NOW!" Jasmine ordered before taking off in the direction of the cafeteria. The urgency of her voice was the first thing to make everyone react and most if not all of them were afraid of what they saw, they gladly took that moment to chase after Jasmine who gave them a way out. They weren't sure they had enough confidence to fight the creature if they were told to, even the more competent of the group didn't want to take the chance.

Mark was displeased with Jasmine making the decision all by herself. 'It's just a bug! What are we running for?' He berated them inwardly but he still chose to follow in their footsteps. With his stats, he easily caught back up with his sister.

"Jas what the heck are yo-"

"Not now Mark! Those things…they are able to think! This isn't something we can handle right now!" Due to her panic state, she wasn't able to phrase her words properly. It's not just that they were able to think, of course, even before they grew to such a disproportionate size, animals of all species showed some capability to think. But it wasn't just that, when she saw the utter confusion when it looked at the headless zombie, it clearly showed that it was thinking and processing its thoughts!

Even if they somehow killed it, at what price would they have to pay before they succeeded and what about the other one? She would rather assume the worst and speculated that these things were planning their attacks. That terrified her more than the absurd speed they showed they were capable of.

Mark wanted to argue 'of course they can think!' But before he could, the buzzing sound from before sounded and when it did, screams accompanied the sound.

Thump!*Updated from nov𝒆lbIn.(c)om

Some of the more jumpier of the students turned back when they heard an object slammed into the ground behind them. The ones who didn't were already aware of what the sound could be and when they heard the yells, they were glad they didn't stop, if anything, it made them run faster.

Another person was taken out but the head wasn't retrieved this time and could be spotted a few from the person's body. The mantis were more focused on stopping them from running away then they were eating their heads.

Bodies dropped one after another while they ran for their destination, None of them knew of the exact number of people they lost and no one tried to outrun the other, in fear that they would be singled out from the rest.

"Ugh! We can't keep going like this! We should've stood our ground and fought them!"

Mark couldn't continue to repress himself while he constantly heard bodies impacting the ground. By now everyone knew what it sounded like for a dead body to hit the ground when it had momentum.

Everyone heard him but they all chose to ignore what he said. 'Fight them? We can't even see them killing us, what do you mean fight?'

Even Jas felt her brother was more than delusional. To stop Mark from doing anything stupid, everyone decided not to entertain him as they continued to run frantically.

They were now more than halfway to the cafeteria, the constant buzzing sound continued, but for some reason the buzzing started to become distant before it disappeared entirely.

No one noticed this until a few moments later when they had a clear view of the cafeteria.

"Huff! Huff! Did anyone notice? Huff* the buzzing sound huff* stopped." The once energetic Ailetta voiced out. Now that it was mentioned, everyone started to look around them, not only did they not hear anything but they didn't spot anything either.

"Maybe….maybe we got out of their territory?" They heard Jasmine question, by now the exhaustion from their fear and the constant sprinting was catching up to them now that they felt they were out of danger.

But it seemed that they would never catch a break. Once they began to believe they were safe, the sky above them grew dark. Normally, they would assume that maybe the clouds covered the sun but the shade only covered them while everything else still was affected by the sun light which caused them to finally look up.

"Ar-are you kidding me…?"

"It doesn't matter! Just run! The building is right in front of us!"

They tried to spur one another on after seeing the huge figure in the sky, it was the same vulture from before that caused Noah so much stress. Maybe the bird didn't like to target large groups or maybe its focus was on the mantis from before, but it passed as quickly as it arrived. Its disappearance didn't relieve them one bit. The constant appearance of one abnormality after the other left them vigilant the rest of the way until they arrived at the main doors that were locked from the inside.

By this time, the three extorters were already dead and Henry was there to retrieve them after a few rounds of thunderous knocking.

The first reaction for everyone would be to celebrate being alive, but most of the people left had lost someone on the way. And after such an emotional roller coaster, their emotions got the better of them and began to cry their heart out instead.

Henry was one of the lucky ones and only experienced the terror of zombies, so he couldn't understand their reactions when the group came in. He wanted to ask them, but he noticed Mark raising his sword and his expression was almost distraught.

He didn't know why he appeared so, but he noticed he was always looking in a specific direction. When he also turned to look in that direction, he saw the spider on the second floor landing, still feeding on Phil's body.

Before he could put two and two together, he noticed Mark already making his way towards the staircase and so he hurriedly pursued.

…..

"W-Wait! I'm telling you that's not a good idea! That spider belongs to someone that you shouldn't mess with, I'm trying to help you!"

And the transaction soon led to Noah hearing them before he came out of the room.

"I see you still haven't learned how to listen properly you hero wanna be."