Hide Your Lungs||SMPLive AU

Chapter Nine

Travis stared at the Creed with terrified eyes. He had never seen one this close before, or seen one corrupt so quickly. It normally took a week at least, but this one happened right before his eyes, in a matter of seconds. Despite the quick corruption, the telltale signs of a Creed were there. The rolled back eyes, veins becoming more prominent and grayish in color.

He stood a few feet away, in complete shock and had about two seconds to properly think before the mop was ripped from his hand and thrown behind it, completely out of his reach. And he had about two more seconds to process what had happened before he was tackled to the ground.

He let out an oof as his back hit the hard ground and was left completely winded when the Creed landed on top of him. As he struggled to catch his breath, the Creed started to dig its fingers into the slash across his chest. The pain didn't register for a few seconds, but when it did, it came all at once and Travis couldn't stop the panicked scream that tore itself out of his throat.

His hand flew up, desperately trying to push the Creed away but it did next to nothing. Travis was in full panic mode as he threw a punch towards the Creed's face, hitting its nose. The Creed stopped tearing into his chest and grabbed his arm and bit down. Hard. Travis let out another scream as he tried to pull his arm away, but the Creed kept a firm grip. Blood started to run down his arm as teeth sunk deeper and deeper into his arm.

Tears were streaming down his face as the Creed let go of his arm, which fell to the ground. He was struggling to get air into his lungs and he could feel himself getting more and more light headed by the second. The world had was slowly fading away, and he was struggling to keep his eyes open.

The Creed started to dig into his chest again, causing Travis to let out another choked sob. With blurry vision he searched the area for something, anything that could help him. His vision was shaking and starting to go dark, but they did find something that could help him.

The knife.

The knife had been dropped a few feet away, but Travis knew that if he wanted to actually survive this, he had to grab it. His injured arm reached out, causing more of his blood to flow and land on the floor. His fingers barely brushed the handle as he tried to get it closer, but it wasn't happening. The cut in his chest was growing larger and larger each second. Travis' mind flashed to the body they had found, and slowly, the giant whole in its chest began to make sense.

His chest was now bleeding very heavily, and everything hurt and it was just getting worse. In a last ditch effort, he stretched his arm as far as he could and finally, he was able to get a hold of the knife. His vision was going black, and he could feel himself start to slip away as he stabbed the knife into the Creed's chest.

The Creed let out an inhumane screech as it recoiled and fell back. Travis knew he should get up, that he needed to get to his feet and get as far away as he could. But he couldn't. Everything just hurt and all his energy was now gone. His chest hurt and he couldn't breath. How long had he not been able to breath?

He swallowed hard before he glanced down at his chest and gagged. His chest was very exposed, and blood was streaming down and onto the floor below him. The closer he looked, he realized with growing dread that either he could see his bone, or his eyes were playing tricks on him. Which wouldn't surprise him. Considering his vision was shaking and fuzzy, his head was pounding, his entire body was in pain and he just wanted it to end.

He looked up at the Creed, who had stumbled back, almost unsure of what to do with the knife sticking out of his chest. It looked down and slowly pulled the knife out, which clattered to the ground. This time too far for Travis to get. It twitched before it looked back down and Travis. It let out a low growl before launching itself towards him, and he couldn't help but think: