Adam's heart thundered in his ears as he poured on speed. Hands clawed at him from three sides as he ran. He swung his bat in a wide arc, crushing a set of grasping fingers. Turning left, he nearly lost his footing as the mob surged behind him.

  A pair of snakelike cables burst through the cubicle wall, spraying him with splinters of particle board and jagged metal shrapnel. The cables whipped forward, blocking the aisle ahead. He spotted a break in the cubicles, but he was moving too fast to turn. Desperately, Adam flung out his hand and pulled with his will. The metal wall to his right buckled and collapsed toward him, angling his path just enough to veer into the side corridor.

  He risked a glance back and saw that dozens more were rising from their desks. When he looked forward again, a figure loomed in his path, wires fanning out from their eye sockets like metallic antennae.

  Adam shoved power down his arm and into the bat, feeling it grow heavier by the second. He planted his feet, using his momentum and an overhand throw to chuck the weapon. It sailed end over end until it took the creature in the chest like an anvil, sinking into its core with a series of rapid pops. Sparks erupted from the bat in a shriek of energy, throwing his would-be attacker through the walls of the cubicles behind it.

  More hands grabbed his jacket from behind. He threw himself forward, struggling to get away. His zipper exploded as he thrashed and the jacket tore open. He flung his arms back, letting them slip free as he bolted forward.

  He called the bat back and suddenly gagged. The copper stench hit him first, then a hot trickle poured from his nose. The blood ran fast and thick, running down the back of his throat as he struggled to breathe. His vision wavered, the edges growing fuzzy, but he didn't care. He couldn’t care.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Keep running.

  A wall loomed ahead. To his right, just past the corner, was his only chance at salvation. A doorway. He veered toward it as the horde closed in, a sea of writhing cables leading the charge.

  Something hit him. One second he was sprinting, then he was airborne. His shoulder slammed into a desk, blinding pain shooting down his arm. The wall caught his back a second later, more bolts of agony firing down his legs. Finally, he crumpled to the floor in a tangle of numb limbs.

  Get up, get up, get up the voice in his head screamed, barely louder than the pain. Adam clawed at the floor and the world lurched around him as he forced his body to move. First to his hands and knees, then in a crouching shuffle, and finally to a loping run. His left arm swung uselessly at his side, and behind him came the dragging, slithering pulse of pursuit.

  The shaft beckoned ahead, a square of open shadow in a wall washed in blue. He ran for everything he was worth, one step after another. His pulse had stopped being a pounding in his ears and now hummed in his chest with its frenetic pace.

  Three steps from the doorway, he jammed his hand into his pocket and seized the Seeker Stone. The alien's words rippled through his mind: "We don't lie."

  The tug pointed straight down.

  Adam turned mid-stride, feet tangling beneath him as he dove for the doorway. The horde was already upon him, just an arm's length away. Cables reached out and snapped around his ankles. He knew if he fell, they'd just drag him back.

  He called on his power again.

  A nova of agony bloomed behind his eyes just as his will slammed the elevator doors shut. Flesh and cables sheared with a shriek of rending metal, cutting him free and sealing the way behind.

  Adam tumbled down the shaft, vanishing into the dark.