Autophagy

"The darkness will consume us!" Damien shouted. He jumped out of the bed with his eyes wide open. There seemed to be some kind of craziness in them. As he jumped out of bed, this craziness disappeared quickly.

"What..?" Song Lei asked. Damien's sudden actions made him nervous as he jumped backward.

"No... Sorry," Damien said. His cheeks were flushed because of embarrassment. "I... Nevermind. How long has it been since I fainted?"

Song Lei raised one of his brows and answered, "it has been around 2 hours. Are you okay..?"

"2 hours? Yeah yeah... I'm okay," Damien answered while rubbing his neck. His normal attitude was long gone, replaced by a timid one. "We have to go now," he continued.

"We can't be sure that we are safe. That thing might be still waiting outside the room," Xu Chang said. "It's better to wait some more."

As soon as she mentioned that darkness, Damien closed his mouth with his hand, as if he was trying to hold himself back from puking.

"Okay then..." Song Lei answered. Although he was concerned about Damien, he didn't seem to want to talk about whatever was happening to him.

After waiting for another hour, they decided that it was time that they should leave. In this hour, Damien had recovered a lot and went back to his normal demeanor.

"I'm opening the door," Xu Chang said. "If we meet those darkness' again, we'll have to hide in the nearest safe room. The problem is, not everyone is friendly like me or Damien."

Song Lei nodded as he had the first-hand experience on this topic.

"They may not open the door for us even if we run to them for help. We could always choose to fight the darkness but as we don't know what it is, it's better not to do so," she told. Although she took a short glance at Damien, Damien didn't seem to want to talk about the darkness. Seeing that he wasn't going to say anything, she continued, "When that happens, try to run away by doing everything you can. One of us surviving is better than all of us dying."

After talking through everything they needed to, Xu Chang opened the door. The hallway was the same as always, eerie and silent. They went out and started descending the floors again. This time, however, darkness didn't seem to be on any of these floors. They reached the 7th floor with no other problems.

"Hey, Xu Chang?" Song Lei said.

"Yes?"

"Is it normal for the 7th-floor lights to be off? I thought that they were always on," he asked with a frown on his face.

"Umm... Yeah. Now that you've said it. It definitely seems weird," she said.

They entered the floor and looked around.

"Hey...-" Song Lei was about to say as Xu Chang silenced him.

"Shh..."

The darkness was near the end of the 7th floor. This was supposed to be the safe floor but whatever this being was had managed to enter it. Damien seemed to be trembling because of what he was seeing.

In the dark hallway, this being seemed to be fighting something. Suddenly, the darkness was cut in half by a visible, white shockwave.

The darkness quickly dissipated after being cut in two and didn't leave anything behind. This revealed the person who had just cut the darkness in two.

"You guys are the first to come here. Good job," Old Wolf said. The shockwave he had just created made his gray hair flutter. There was a white, glowing ring around his pupils.

"We're here old man~!" Xu Chang said. She ran up to Old Wolf. Old Wolf sighed and didn't even look at her properly. Instead, he turned his head towards Damien.

"Are you okay?" He asked. Damien nodded. "That's great," Old Wolf continued. He turned towards Song Lei and said, "And you?"

"I'm fine too... What's happening?" Song Lei asked. Old Wolf gestured them to follow him to the meeting room. After they sat around the table, Old Wolf started talking.

"The situation doesn't look good," Old Wolf said. "Normally, almost all of the members would've gathered here by now. There must still be more of these beings right?" Old Wolf asked.

"Yes. We saw at least three of them on the 11th floor around two hours ago," Xu Chang explained with her arms crossed.

"Just as I guessed," Old Wolf said. "Some members must've been blocked from coming to this floor. Some might've even died," he continued while sighing. "Our manpower is constantly plummeting. If this keeps on going like this, we might have to abandon some floors."

"What are these beings?" Song Lei changed the topic suddenly. "And why can they enter this floor? Isn't it supposed to be safe?"

"I, too, am not really sure about what these things are as I don't have a special eye ability. But I know that they are not ghosts. These talismans only work on ghosts. That's the reason why they can enter this floor," Old Wolf explained.

"And? What are we supposed to do?" Damien asked while wringing his hands.

"That's a very good question," Old Wolf said. "We have to stay here until the 24 Call Gong hours finish. This means that we'll have to stay here for more than ten hours. In that time, whoever manages to come here comes. We'll then start clearing floors one by one. Rescuing the ones who can't leave their floor for one or another reason."

Just as Old Wolf finished his words, Someone slammed the door of the meeting room open.

"I... Huff... Am... Alive," he said while throwing himself in.

"Lu Peng?" Song Lei asked to confirm. If not for his red hair, he couldn't identify him because of all the ashes and bruises on his face.

"What!? Bastard... Are you sad because I'm not dead?" Lu Peng said while wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his hoodie.

"I never said that..." Song Lei raised one of his eyebrows and said. Lu Peng picked himself up and sat on one of the chairs without batting another eye on Song Lei.

"What are we doing geezer?" He asked.

"We will be waiting for now...."