A Normal Tuesday Morning?

The heat was intense. “How the hell did I get myself into this mess?” Jan thought. The alarms were blasting out of every speaker in the building, and the black, caustic cloud was creeping under the door. 

In the next room, a window shattered, and a gust of air was sucked in, fueling the flames even more. It sent a fireball out into the night sky. Jan started to cough, lungs burning, eyes watering. “Think, think, what do I do?” She spoke. She grabbed some towels, kicked over the water tower, soaked them in the water, then laid them at the foot of the door. This stopped for a while. 

Some of the ceiling collapsed, embers and plasterboard falling on her, and onto the carpet and curtains, starting their own little infernos. 

Standing, Jan picked up a chair and threw it as hard as she could at the window—her only escape from certain death. 

The window smashed. Shards of glass shot in every direction. Pinpricks of blood started to show; she wiped them away with her bandana. She felt pieces of glass stuck in her flesh. Not going to be beaten, she used another chair to clear the window frame. Looking out of the window, she remembered. “Shit.” Turning around one last time, she saw the office door starting to melt. “Well, it’s now or never,” she said to herself. 

With the window frame finally cleared of jagged glass shards, Jan eased herself onto the narrow ledge. The cold stone bit into her palms, offering only eight inches of purchase between her heels and the dizzying drop to the pavement two floors down. To her left, the massive limbs of an ancient oak clawed at the air, its leaves whispering a frantic invitation. It was her only exit. She didn't let herself look down at the street; instead, she measured the distance to a sturdy-looking bough, coiled her muscles, and launched herself into the space. Her fingers raked through clusters of leaves before locking onto a thick branch with a bone-jarring jolt. She swung violently, her shins slamming into wood, but she managed to hook her ankles around a secondary limb, anchoring herself against the momentum. 

The branch groaned under her weight, swaying in a slow, terrifying arc before finally steadying. Jan clung to the tree as if it were the only solid thing left in the universe, her heart thudding against her ribs like a trapped bird in a cage. She pressed her cheek against the lichen-crusted bark, the sharp, earthy scent of damp wood filling her senses as she waited for the world to stop spinning. Slowly, she peeled her eyes open and looked upward through the canopy. Her stomach dropped instantly. Above her, silhouetted against the window she had just vacated, a dark figure leaned out, staring directly down at her with cold, predatory intent. 

The creature howled. Jan placed her hands over her ears; it was a sound never heard before today. “Please don’t let him jump after me,” she thought, still gripping the branch and willing herself to stay still. Then the inevitable happened: the branch broke. Falling, Jan needed to move fast. 

The snap cracked like a gunshot, shattering the woods' silence. Adrenaline surged through Jan. She hit the ground hard on fallen leaf litter; she lunged forward, rolling across damp leaves and jagged stones. Behind her, the howling cut to a low, chest-rattling growl that vibrated in the air. A heavy thud followed as it dropped the two stories to the ground. 

She scrambled up, boots skidding on the wet moss. Trees blurred as she sprinted toward the river. Every snapping twig beneath her feet broadcast her position, narrowing the gap between her and the predator intent on ending her life. 

Reaching the riverbank, Jan skidded on the mud at the water’s edge as options flashed around her already-full mind. “Do I jump in the water and get washed downstream? Can it swim? Do I immerse myself under the water? How long can I hold my breath?” “Shit.” 

Taking a breath, Jan tried to process how her ordinary morning had disintegrated into total carnage. She had arrived at the office at 8:30 AM, coffee in hand, ready for a standard Tuesday. By nine, pandemonium had erupted. 

Office chairs were overturned, and people were screaming as they bolted for the stairwells and out to the car park. Through the glass partition of the lobby, she watched in disbelief as security guards emptied their magazines into a cloud of dust and debris.

Then came the roar, a sound so guttural and vibrating it felt like it was tearing the air apart. It was something straight out of a comic book. The creature stood well over seven feet tall and was as wide as a garden shed; its skin was mottled, metallic grey that seemed to swallow the fluorescent office lights. 

Jan made her way up two flights of stairs to the Finance department. The office was eerily quiet compared to the war zone below. Rows of high-end monitors sat glowing with spreadsheets; their users had fled minutes earlier. Jan scrambled to the window, hoping for a fire to escape, but this side of the building was a sheer drop of over twenty feet. 

She detected the steady thudding sounds of the creature approaching from behind. It was no longer confined to the lobby but ascending to the upper levels. Each deliberate footstep caused the floorboards and wall dividers to tremble, dislodging pens from their containers on the desks. 

A roar brought her out of her reverie. 

With one final, desperate leap, she lunged toward the narrow crevice in the rock's face. She squeezed her body into the freezing stone gap just as a massive, clawed shadow swept across the opening. Breathless and trembling, she was alive and hidden, and for the first time that day, she let out a silent, shaking breath of defiance. 

Then the thing started sniffing at the air, its claws dug into the soft ground. It growled, then came the low, grunted sound that made the air vibrate as it moved down to the water’s edge. Jan could see it through a slit in the rock; it reared its hind legs and swiped at the rock. Clumps of soft sandstone broke away, and the gap she’d squeezed through had grown bigger. 

Jan held her breath. 

Another swipe of its paw scraped the ground, claws screeching as it forced its snout closer, ramming its mouth into the narrow gap. It growled low and wet, spitting phlegm that splashed across Jan’s sleeve. The sound vibrated through the earth itself. 

Crouching down, Jan folded inward, making her body as small as possible, bones aching with the effort. She prayed—silently at first, then with desperate focus. It was something she hadn’t done since junior school. This felt like the right moment to start believing again. 

The creature shoved forward again. 

Its breath washed over Jan in hot, rotten waves, thick with the stench of decay. Each exhale felt alive, crawling across skin. Drool streamed from its jaw, stringing and snapping as it snarled, dripping onto the floor inches from Jan’s feet. 

The gap between them narrowed. Jan’s heart hammered so hard. Then a sound from outside, a thud. Then the growling stopped. 

A wet snort burst from the creature’s throat, followed by a sharp, frustrated huff. It withdrew slightly, just enough to make hope flare, then its claws bit in again. Stone chipped. Dust rained down as it shifted tactics. 

Shots fired from somewhere above the riverbank. 

Its head vanished from the gap, and moonlight spilt into the crevice. 

Jan’s pulse screamed. This was worse: the not knowing. Was it coming back? Had it been killed? 

Something heavy struck the rock above, once, twice, then came the sound of scraping. 

Another shot, and the monster stopped. Then the scraping continued. The creature was repositioning, dragging its bulk along the stone, searching for weakness in the rock.

Every scrape felt closer, more certain. It knew Jan was there, and it wanted her. 

A claw punched through a crack beside the gap, more sandstone flaking off.  

Jan recoiled, pressing back until there was nowhere left to go. 

The creature growled again, lower this time. Its eye appeared in the darkness, gleaming, unblinking, locking onto Jan; it had stopped trying to force its way in. It was figuring out how to pull Jan out. Its mouth has two layers of razor-sharp teeth just inches away from Jan’s face.  

For one awful second, there was only silence, and the certainty that whatever came next would be worse. Thinking this was it, Jan relaxed her body and thought about her mum. Then she heard more gunshots. Hope flared. She scanned the ground: a stick. “Can I reach it? Yes.” She hooked it toward her, grabbed it, and stabbed the monster in the eye. It gave out an ear-piercing cry and lurched back, out of reach. 

A gunshot split the air. Then another. Then the outside world erupted—automatic fire hammering nonstop. Sirens screamed, tearing through the chaos as voices shouted; orders barked. Blue and red strobe lights flashed wildly as more cars screeched to a halt.

The monster roared, raw and furious, drowned by the noise. People yelled, scattered, and ran. A helicopter thundered overhead, the thud, thud, thud of the rotors pounding like war drums. 

Suddenly. A violent whoosh. The ground buckled and heaved. The blast hit like a fist. A blinding flash of light, consuming everything. Then, black.  

Jan awoke in a hospital bed, an IV cannula delivering fluids into her arm and monitoring pads attached to her chest. Several machines beeped in time. “Good morning,” came a voice from nearby. Turning, Jan saw a young man dressed in green scrubs. He picked up the clipboard at the foot of her bed and began to read.