Endurance // M. Taylor

xi. animus

"LET ME IN! LET ME IN!" We all hear Emily scream bloody murder. I don't think I've ever seen Em so scared in my entire life. I knew something had to have scared the total shit out of her for her to totally freak out like that.

"Let her in! Quick!" Chris says, running to open the door for her. She quickly runs inside, but falls on the floor like she's trying to crawl away from something. She's breathing really loudly and is clearly quite terrified.

"Shut the door, OH MY GOD! SHUT THAT GODDAMN DOOR!" Emily screams, scrambling away from the door entirely. She stands up and runs into the living room. We're all confused, concerned, and extremely worried. Not just about Em, but particularly why Emily is so scared.

"Something's out there..." Emily says, as Ashley and Sam help her sit down on the couch. Emily looked like she had walked through the pits of hell. She was very dirty, covered in some kind of black substance and she was shivering.

"Are you okay?" Chris asks her, attempting to take control of the situation and calm Emily down. Keeping us all calm and collected was going to help us all stay alive. If we started to lose our shit, we'd get killed by whatever the hell is out there.

"I'm fine. I don't feel anything. I just need to calm down. That thing was moving so damn fast!" Emily explains, and I know what she's talking about. The thing that knocked the tower into the mines. She must have been chased back to the lodge.

"What was?" Chris asks, trying to figure out what she was talking about. They probably thought it was one of Josh's pranks, but it wasn't. It was real.

"I just had to get away." Emily says, trying to cool down but also get warm from it being literally below zero outside. I sat in between Ashley and Sam, when I heard Mike enter the room.

"Away from what?" Sam asks her. I already knew the answer to that question. I didn't know what the creature really was, but I knew enough. It was lethal.

"Listen, you can relax. Josh was just messing with us, okay?" Sam tries to keep Emily's emotions at bay, but fails. She thinks it's Josh? Josh can't run that fast, that's for damn sure.

"No, you're not listening to her. What we saw out there, was inhuman..." I say, trying to explain what Emily couldn't spit out herself. They looked at me funny, like I was lying. Emily knew that I was telling the truth.

"So, what happened to Matt? Is he okay?" Chris asks us, but we just glance at each other sadly. Matt didn't make it long enough to see anything other than the deer.

"No, he didn't make it." Emily says, looking up at Chris. And I can see the pain on everyone's face in the room. They're all distraught about the entire thing.

Everyone keeps asking the same, stupid question and I totally zone out. They just didn't understand, and they wouldn't be able to understand until they saw that thing for themselves.

And with that, there was a loud, abrupt knock on the lodge door. Making me jump out of my skin. Who the hell would knock on the door at this hour?

"Who the fuck can that be?" Mike whispers amongst us all. It's like he could read my mind in that moment. There was no telling who it could be...or what it could be.

"Jess?" Chris suggests as a valid answer to us all, but Mike quickly turns it down. So Jessica was dead, too? Goddamn.

"Sorry, man. But who is it?" Chris asks, Mike starts to walk towards the door and gets out a gun for protection. We didn't know who or what was lurking just outside that lodge door.

It looked like Chris and Mike were arguing for a second, but then Mike took the gun and Chris went for the doorknob. Within seconds, a tall man came inside and walked towards the fireplace.