"Let's run between those buildings!" Mason yelled.

  He didn't wait for an answer. He bolted toward a narrow gap between two closely packed brick houses. The others followed him blindly, desperate for any cover.

  Behind them, the giant centipede turned its massive body. It surged toward the gap, its heavy armored plates smashing violently into the brickwork. It tried to force its way through the narrow alley, shattering the corners of the houses.

  But it was simply too wide. It ground to a halt, completely wedged between the rigid concrete structures.

  The centipede let out a deafening, furious screech. It thrashed its hundreds of legs in pure anger, then finally backed out of the alley and disappeared from view.

  Dante let out a heavy, shuddering breath, leaning against the cold wall. "Looks like we're safe for a second."

  A loud, structural crash echoed directly above them.

  The centipede appeared on the roof. It was trying to squeeze its massive, segmented body down into the narrow path from above, continuously smashing its heavy armor against the tops of the walls. Bricks, mortar, and dust rained down on them.

  Silas glared at Dante. "You just had to jinx it."

  "Let's move deeper in," Ronan urged, already walking backward.

  They moved further down the tight path. Above them, the centipede was using its powerful, scythe-like legs to steadily crumble the brick walls, carving a path down to reach them.

  Silas suddenly stopped and turned around.

  Ronan groaned. "Don't tell me you are doing something reckless alone again."

  "Who said I was going to do it alone?" Silas replied, his eyes scanning the alley.

  Dante slowly turned his head and glared at Ronan. His annoyed face clearly said, You just had to say it.

  "I need to check something," Silas stated.

  Mason immediately shook his head. "If it's related to that thing? Nope. You don't. You clearly don't. We just run. We try to lose it. Nothing else." He pointed up at the crumbling roof. "There is no way we are trying to trap it or something. It is on a completely different level compared to that mantis. And we all know exactly how your last plan ended."

  Silas ignored him entirely. "Just find me a large piece of broken glass."

  Dante looked to his side and saw they were standing near a shattered ground-floor window. He grabbed a heavy rock from the dirt, smashed out the remaining pane, and picked up a long, jagged shard of glass.

  He handed it over. "Here. Do whatever you want, but do it fast."

  Silas took it, testing the weight in his hand. "Good thing my right arm is completely fine. I can aim."

  He stood perfectly still, waiting a few tense seconds for the centipede to break through the roof directly over them. The monster was now only seven or eight meters away, violently tearing down the brickwork.

  "Get out of here!" Mason yelled at Silas. "This really isn't the time to be standing there!"

  Silas pulled his right arm back. He threw the heavy glass shard straight up, aiming for the centipede's softer underbelly. The glass flew true and pierced deep into the pale, fleshy underside of the monster.

  Silas nodded in satisfaction. "Alright. I was right."

  The centipede shrieked in pain. Enraged by the sting, it began tearing the walls down at a much faster, frantic pace.

  Now genuinely realizing the danger, Silas turned and sprinted. Dante and Ronan ran right behind him. Mason was already standing further down the path, waiting for them.

  "Did you find out what you wanted?!" Dante yelled as they ran.

  Silas smirked and nodded, gripping his heavily bandaged left shoulder to keep it steady as he jogged. "My aim is a bit off right now. But just as I thought, its lower body is much softer. The top is pure armor, but the bottom is totally vulnerable."

  "That's good and all," Ronan panted, "but what can we even do to that monstrous thing?"

  "That, I don't know," Silas admitted. "But at least we know its weak side."

  Dante suddenly spoke up. "Do you think an explosion could take that thing down?"

  Silas looked over at him, intrigued. "What kind of explosion?"

  "What if a gas cylinder exploded?" Dante asked.

  Silas analyzed the idea instantly. "If a cylinder exploded over its hard shell, it wouldn't do any damage. That thing is destroying solid brick walls with its armor without getting a single scratch. But..." Silas's eyes widened slightly. "If the explosion happened underneath it... that changes things. Even if it doesn't kill it, it will completely shred that soft underbelly. But why bring that up?"

  "Because I saw a few heavy gas cylinders in the kitchen of that house when we were looking for first aid supplies," Dante revealed.

  "But how are we supposed to use them?" Ronan asked, looking confused.

  Mason stepped up, catching on to the tactical plan. "If you really saw that many... two of us have to go back and open the valves so the gas leaks out completely. The other two will distract this thing and lure it away."

  Mason looked back toward the roaring monster tearing the alley apart. "Then, when the signal is given, the distraction team leads it back into the house. We outmaneuver it, trap it, and make sure its soft underbelly is positioned right over the leaking cylinders. As soon as the bait team jumps clear, we light the whole room on fire."

  Mason paused, looking at the others grimly. "But this plan has a very high chance of failure."

  "Not zero, though," Silas muttered.

  "I don't want to hear that from you," Mason snapped at Silas. "That injury has already taken a huge toll on your body. You don't know when you might just collapse from blood loss."

  "I feel fine," Silas lied smoothly. "Besides, I'm the only one here capable of outmaneuvering that thing in a tight space."

  "I'll do it," Mason volunteered firmly.

  Silas stared at him. "Are you serious?"

  "Yes, I am," Mason replied. "And we don't have much time. Soon it will completely destroy this entire block we are using to hide, and then we will all be dead. So decide who is going back to set the trap up."

  "I have to go set the trap," Dante said. "I'm the one who saw the cylinders and knows exactly where they are. Anyone else will waste time searching."

  "Then take Silas with you," Mason ordered, taking charge. "He can help you find the best placement for the blast. Ronan and I will distract the centipede."

  They all nodded in agreement. There was no time to argue. They split up immediately.

  Dante and Silas ducked into a side alley, moving quickly and quietly. Mason and Ronan stepped out into the open, shouting loudly to draw the centipede's attention, successfully leading it further away.

  Silas and Dante circled back through the ruined streets. The destruction the centipede had already caused made the path incredibly difficult to navigate. Deep rubble and thick, mutated roots blocked the way.

  "Let's stick to the wider paths and move fast," Silas whispered.

  "What if we run into other monsters?" Dante asked nervously.

  "Then we run at full speed. We don't have time to creep quietly through this mess," Silas replied.

  Dante reluctantly agreed. They stepped out into the open and sprinted back toward the house where Silas had been treated. They spotted the broken walls after a few tense minutes of running.

  As soon as they arrived, Silas cupped his hands around his mouth.

  "Mason! Ronan!" Silas roared at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing through the silent, misty colony.

  Dante grabbed his arm. "Why did you do that?! We haven't even set the trap up yet!"

  "It will take them time to lead the monster all the way back here," Silas explained quickly. "They need to start moving right now."

  Dante was annoyed, but he stayed quiet. He led Silas through the broken wall and into the ruined kitchen.

  Dante immediately went to work on the heavy gas cylinders. He used a kitchen knife to pry at the valves, making sure the highly flammable gas began hissing rapidly into the enclosed room.

  Meanwhile, Silas grabbed one of the heavy metal cylinders with his good arm. Grunting with effort, he dragged it away from the wall and positioned it right in the middle of the room. He grabbed a heavy wooden dining table that had fallen over and placed it directly over the leaking cylinder.

  "Bring the last one over here!" Silas called out to Dante.

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  Dante lugged the heavy metal tank over. Silas positioned it near the entrance, calculating the blast radius perfectly.

  Suddenly, the ground began to vibrate. They could hear the terrifying, grinding noise of the centipede rapidly approaching outside.

  "Place that last one near the broken wall!" Silas ordered. "Make sure it's hidden under some rubble. Even if that thing enters through the wall, we need the cylinder to stay in place."

  Silas moved quickly while Dante placed the final tank. Silas grabbed a handful of long, sharp screwdrivers he had spotted on a nearby tool shelf.

  "Get out and hide!" Silas told Dante.

  "What are you going to do?" Dante asked, backing toward the rear door.

  "Just go! I'm finishing the trap!" Silas yelled.

  Dante ran out the back door into the yard.

  Silas dropped to his knees. Using his good arm, he violently jammed the screwdrivers up through the thin wood of the overturned dining table. He stabbed them through the bottom until the sharp metal tips poked out of the top, effectively turning the table into a makeshift, spiked barricade.

  He opened the valves on the remaining cylinders. The heavy smell of gas was overpowering.

  "Silas, get the fuck out!" Mason screamed from the alleyway.

  Mason dove headfirst through the broken wall into the kitchen. The massive, horrifying head of the centipede smashed through the brickwork right behind him, its jaws snapping empty air.

  "Go out past the table!" Silas yelled over the chaos. He turned and bolted out the back door.

  Mason heard him. He sprinted forward, stepped onto a sturdy wooden chair, and used it to launch himself upward. He grabbed onto a sturdy ceiling fan, pulling his legs up just as the centipede snapped its jaws exactly where his waist had been.

  The monster missed him, its heavy momentum carrying it deeper into the kitchen.

  Mason dropped off the fan, landing directly behind the beast. The centipede felt him land. It shrieked, its long body coiling tightly as it tried to turn around in the cramped room to grab him.

  Mason backed up, moving past the overturned dining table just as Silas had instructed. He saw the sharp screwdrivers sticking up through the wood. The centipede finally managed to turn. It towered over Mason, its mandibles dripping with venom, ready to strike.

  Mason just gave a wild, adrenaline-fueled smirk. "You guys are absolute maniacs."

  Mason grabbed the edge of the spiked table. With every ounce of strength he had left, he flipped it directly into the path of the lashing centipede.

  Because Mason was exhausted, the heavy table didn't go far. It only flipped about half a meter forward. But Mason's goal wasn't to hurt the monster with the table—it was to stop its momentum.

  Mason immediately turned and dove out of the broken window.

  Inside, the furious centipede lunged forward with blinding speed, attempting to catch Mason before he escaped. Instead, its soft, vulnerable underbelly slammed violently down onto the overturned table.

  The sharp screwdrivers pierced deep into its soft flesh. The heavy table halted the monster's charge completely, keeping it pinned helplessly directly over the hissing gas cylinders.

  The centipede shrieked in absolute agony, thrashing wildly.

  "THROW IT!" Silas roared from the yard.

  Dante hesitated for a fraction of a second, his eyes wide. "Mason isn't clear yet!"

  "NOW!" Silas screamed.

  Mason’s body tumbled out of the window, hitting the dirt. Dante flicked the lighter, lit a piece of alcohol-soaked cloth, and threw the flame directly through the broken window.

  Mason fell flat against the ground. Silas grabbed his collar and violently yanked him downward behind cover. The centipede’s horrifying face burst out of the window, reaching for them just as the burning cloth landed inside.

  All three things happened at the exact same fraction of a second.

  As the centipede opened its jaws to bite Silas and Mason, the entire building exploded.

  Silas held Mason down firmly, shielding him behind the thick, woody roots. The deafening blast shook the earth, sending a shockwave tearing through the alley.

  The cylinder placed directly under the centipede detonated, instantly igniting the others. The sheer upward force of the blast, combined with the explosive pressure from the tank near the wall, acted like a massive shotgun blast directed entirely into the monster's soft underbelly.

  The explosion was so incredibly powerful it blew the centipede's massive head clean off its body.

  Thick, viscous blood splattered violently everywhere, raining down on them like a gruesome monsoon.

  The booming echo of the explosion slowly faded, leaving only the sound of crackling flames. Silas let go of Mason and rolled onto his back in the dirt, utterly exhausted.

  Mason pushed himself up slowly. He looked at the burning, destroyed building. Then he looked down at Silas.

  A quiet chuckle escaped Mason's lips. Then another. Within seconds, both of them were laughing hysterically on the ground, completely overwhelmed by adrenaline and disbelief.

  Dante and Ronan walked over from their hiding spot. They looked down at Silas and Mason, wrinkling their noses.

  "Guys," Dante said, looking deeply disgusted. "This thing absolutely stinks."

  All four of them were completely drenched in the centipede's blood. It was a thick, viscous, silvery-grey liquid that smelled like rotting garbage and sulfur.

  Silas grinned, looking up at them. "Then try tasting it."

  Mason wiped the grey slime off his visor. "Honestly, if I stay friends with you, I'm going to lose my mind. Look at the absolute crap I just did."

  "What do you mean, crap?" Silas laughed, holding his injured shoulder. "You just went head-to-head with a giant monster and blew it to pieces. Do you know how cool that is?"

  "What good is it?" Mason sighed, collapsing next to him. "It's not like it's going to score me any points with girls. Nobody is even going to believe me if I tell them this happened."

  "This is unspoken aura," Silas joked.

  "Hey, I was the one who actually got the idea for the gas," Dante pointed out, crossing his arms proudly.

  "And that thing was literally inches from catching us," Ronan added, shaking his head. "I literally threw a kitchen chair right into its mouth earlier. If I hadn't done that, Mason and I would have been eaten while trying to distract it."

  They all lay down in the dirt together, staring up at the terrifying, reddish-orange sky.

  "We need some rest," Dante groaned.

  "If this stinky smell lets us," Ronan complained, wiping the silver slime off his leather jacket.

  Mason pushed himself back up to his feet. "Nope. We shouldn't rest. Not here, at least. Who knows what else might be drawn to that explosion."

  They all groaned but forced themselves to stand.

  "Let's go find the bikes," Ronan suggested. "They aren't far. I don't even remember which direction we originally came from, but going back to the bikes will give us an idea."

  Dante agreed, and the four of them began limping through the misty, overgrown streets.

  It didn't take them long to find the motorcycles, still parked where they had abandoned them in front of the massive root blockade.

  Ronan looked back toward the direction of the long alleyway they had originally driven down. He stopped, narrowing his eyes.

  "Dante," Ronan called out nervously. "Is it just me, or is there something really weird over there?"

  "Something weird?" Dante asked. He walked over and followed Ronan's gaze. His face instantly dropped in terror. "Ronan, I swear, I do not have the energy to run from another monster right now." Dante paused, squinting through the mist. "Wait. Mason, Silas, come look at this."

  The other two jogged over. They all stood silently, staring at the exact same spot.

  The air itself in the middle of the road was moving.

  It looked exactly like the heavy heat distortion you see rising off an asphalt road on a boiling summer day, or the blurry, rippling mirage directly above an open fire. But there was no heat here, and no fire. It was a perfect, free-floating circle of warped, refracted space, roughly a meter and a half wide.

  "I've seen air shimmer like this near a massive bonfire," Silas muttered, "but what the hell is this?"

  Mason picked up a small rock from the asphalt. He tossed it directly into the center of the rippling distortion.

  The rock vanished instantly. It didn't bounce, and it didn't hit the ground. It simply ceased to exist in their world. But for a split second, as the rock passed through, the distortion cleared. Through the ripple, all four of them clearly saw the bustling street of their normal city, complete with four or five regular people walking by.

  "That's the way out," Ronan breathed, his eyes wide. "We were totally blind not to find it at first."

  "What the hell is this place?" Dante whispered, looking around at the alien roots and the red sky.

  "We will have time to ask those questions later," Silas said firmly.

  "Let's get out of here," Dante agreed. "I don't want to get chased by mutated insect monsters for the rest of my life."

  They rushed over to the motorcycles and grabbed the handlebars, pushing the heavy bikes until they stood directly in front of the rippling portal. They looked at each other, covered in blood, sweat, and silver slime.

  "Alright," Mason said, taking a deep breath. "Let's do this."

  They closed their eyes and pushed the bikes forward, stepping directly into the distortion.

  Instantly, the heavy, humid silence of the mutated dimension was gone. Their ears were flooded with the loud, chaotic bustling of people, the blaring horns of traffic, and the familiar roar of the city.

  They all opened their eyes. They were standing right back in the middle of their familiar residential colony road. The sky above them was a normal, clear blue, fading into the hues of late afternoon.

  Mason quickly pulled his phone out of his pocket. The screen lit up, showing full signal bars again.

  It was already evening.

  But the overwhelming relief was short-lived. A group of pedestrians walking by had stopped dead in their tracks. They were staring at the four boys with absolute, undisguised disgust.

  Silas, Dante, Mason, and Ronan noticed the horrified stares and looked at each other. They suddenly remembered what they were covered in. Between the drying silver-grey centipede blood, the green acidic slime from the frog, and the dark red blood from Silas's shoulder, they looked like the survivors of a slasher film. And the smell was atrocious.

  Deeply embarrassed, they didn't say a word. They quickly kick-started their bikes and drove away, stinking up the entire city on their ride back.

  As soon as they finally arrived at Silas's house and parked safely in the garage, the adrenaline began to rapidly leave their systems.

  Mason and Ronan looked at Silas. The makeshift bandage of torn cloth and the massive alien leaf was soaked entirely through with dark blood.

  "Why did we come here?" Mason asked, slapping his forehead. "How could we be so stupid? We completely forgot!"

  "We need to take you to the hospital right now," Ronan said, moving to help Silas off the bike.

  Silas waved them off, leaning heavily against the garage wall. "If you think any doctor is going to listen to us or treat me while we look and stink like this, you are highly mistaken. They'll call the cops or throw us in a psych ward."

  Silas gestured weakly to his own ruined clothes. "We need to get rid of this shit first. It's already drying up on our skin."

  Dante pinched his nose. "Honestly? I think that would be for the best."

  "Dante, Ronan. Go clean yourselves up first," Mason said, pointing down the hall. He rubbed his tired eyes, looking incredibly annoyed. "I'll take a look at Silas's shoulder and treat it properly. It would be great if you two could actually help, but you're both pretty much useless when it comes to first aid."

  Dante let out a dry, exhausted laugh. "Well, fair enough." He patted Ronan's uninjured shoulder. "The only one here who actually knows what to do is the one currently bleeding out. And the two of us know absolutely nothing. You guys go ahead. I'll make us something to eat after we scrub this slime off."

  Dante and Ronan walked away down the hall, leaving them alone.

  Silas was sitting heavily on the floor. He was leaning his head back against the cold wall, his eyes closed in sheer exhaustion.

  Mason walked over and crouched beside him. "Let's just get the worst of it cleaned up. Then we figure out how to get you to a hospital without looking like murderers."

  Silas gritted his teeth and slowly peeled off his heavy motorcycle jacket. He pulled his ruined t-shirt over his head next. Both garments were completely soaked through with dark, sticky blood.

  The makeshift bandage wrapped around his shoulder was a solid, horrifying crimson. It radiated a thick, foul smell—a mix of copper, burnt flesh, and the strange, acidic sap of the mutated leaf.

  Mason fought back a wave of disgust. He reached out to carefully untie the bloody strips of cloth. "This might hurt," Mason warned quietly. "Be ready."

  Silas took a deep, shaky breath and braced himself. He squeezed his eyes shut, preparing for the blinding agony of the fabric ripping away from his raw, burned flesh.

  Mason slowly pulled the makeshift bandage away.

  "Okay, that's good," Mason muttered in relief. "It didn't stick to the skin at all. I'll wipe the excess blood off first so we can see what we're dealing with."

  "Alright," Silas grunted.

  He kept his eyes tightly shut. His muscles were completely rigid. He was ready to experience a sharp flare of pain at any second as Mason began wiping the area with an antiseptic-soaked cloth.

  "Honestly, Mason," Silas joked weakly, trying to distract himself from the dread. "You should have become a doctor."

  Mason scoffed. "The fuck do you mean? This is just simple first aid." Mason continued carefully wiping away the dried blood. "I learned this stuff for track days, for when we take the cars out for circuit racing. You never know when you or one of your friends is going to crash into a wall at high speeds. Better safe than sorry."

  But as Mason wiped the last of the blood away from the center of the wound, he suddenly went completely quiet.

  The heavy silence stretched on for several tense seconds. Silas opened his eyes, noticing the sudden, eerie shift in the room's atmosphere.

  "What happened?" Silas asked, his heart rate instantly picking up. "Is it really that bad?"

  Mason didn't answer him. Instead, he heard the bathroom door open down the hall.

  "Dante!" Mason yelled, his voice cracking with pure panic. "Get in here! Immediately!"