The final checkpoint wasn’t abandoned, per se, but the guards there were all dead. The airfield was empty when I reached it, as were the docks. In the distance I could just make out a boat speeding away. There was no one else around and nothing else I could really do here so I turned and headed back the way I’d come. It didn’t take me long to catch up with Hector who was struggling to carry Cassie as well as drag along the two we’d caught earlier. I took the two unconscious men from Hector and let him focus on carrying Cassie.

“Thanks,” he murmured, wiping a bit of blood from his eye.

“How long do you think these two will be out for?” I asked, nodding to the men I was carefully lifting up so as not to accidentally kill them. I had no love for these men but we needed information from them so for now, at least, I didn’t want to hurt them.

“I take it you didn’t find anything?” Hector asked.

“No,” I shook my head. “Just a boat a long ways off and moving fast.”

We took a gentler route to get back down to the others, not wanting to aggravate Cassie’s injuries. Thankfully, she wasn’t bleeding that badly and it seemed her injuries were just superficial, if quite painful. We made it back to Cain Hall to discover everyone removing the dead and placing them in a neighboring building.

“What’s going on?” Hector asked the first guard we came across.

“Cain Hall is the most defensible position we have,” he replied, “so we’re clearing it out to make it livable for the rest of us while we await rescue.” He looked over and noticed our two captives who were just starting to come around. “Any more of them out there?”

“I don’t think so,” I replied. “I saw their boat leaving when I got to the docks.”

“Alright,” he nodded. “Why don’t you two go help the others. We’re going room by room, floor by floor and clearing out the dead. It’s unlikely that you’ll find any survivors but if you do let me know.”

“What are you doing while we do the heavy lifting?” Hector asked, still holding Cassie.

“We’re trying to call for help,” the guard replied with a slight bite to his voice. “But Emil’s group stole or destroyed our equipment.”

“Is there someplace I can put Cassie, at least?” Hector asked.

“Take her to the cafeteria,” the guard said, softening his tone, “I’ll see about finding some proper first aid supplies.”

Hector nodded and headed off.

“Do we really have to stay in Cain Hall?” I asked, not wanting to have to move all the dead bodies.

“It’s the most defensible position we have,” he said. “If they come back with reinforcements, there’s only a few places here where I’d want to be. Cain Hall is the tallest building so we can see if anyone tries to sneak up on us, and the ground floor can be locked up, windows and doors, to make a forced entry more difficult. It also has the food pantry and well water so if it comes to a siege we have the best chances of survival here.”

I couldn’t argue with that so I just nodded and left it at that.

“What do you want me to do with these two?” I asked, gesturing towards the sniper and the driver.

“I’ll take them. We have a few holding cells in the basement of Cain Hall as well that will do nicely for them until we can get to interrogating them.”

“You want me to carry them for you?” I asked.

“No, I got it,” he smiled and raised a hand.

The two men lifted into the air and the guard levitated them away, walking a few feet behind them. I’d forgotten that the guards were supers too.

With nothing else to do, I joined the others in searching and clearing out Cain Hall. It was terrible work, to say the least. I didn’t know any of them, being so new to the island, but every once in a while I spotted a familiar face, someone I shared a class with or had seen before while walking through campus. The Pinegree building was a short distance away from Cain Hall and it was there that we were depositing the dead. It had a large theater and a few gymnasiums that served as a perfect place to lay everyone out in their own spot. Slowly but surely we moved up floor by floor in Cain Hall and filled the various spaces in Pinegree.

I was just starting on the third floor of Cain Hall when I found a locked door. I didn’t realize it was locked until I ripped the doorknob off, expecting it to turn as easily as all the others. From the other side of the door I heard a faint whimper.

“Hello?” I called through the door. “Is someone in there? Are you okay?”

Silence.

“I’m opening the door,” I said, and gripped the door through the hole where the doorknob used to be.

I ripped out the mechanism and then pulled the door open. The other side of the door was covered in a thick layer of mucous and inside was a young girl, about ten years old by the looks of her. She was crying silently, clearly in shock, and covered in more of that mucous. I reached down for her and she shied back.

“Don’t touch me!” she cried. “I’m poisonous.”

I looked down at the hand I’d used to open the door and saw it already had a fair amount of the mucous on it.

“I think I’m immune,” I said, showing her my hand.

“I’m not supposed to ooze like this,” she whispered. “I’m supposed to hold it in.”

“You’re not in any trouble,” I told her. “There was an attack but it’s over now and we’re just cleaning up. Do you want to come with me?”

I didn’t think it would be a good idea to let her see all the dead bodies, but the lower floors were cleared now and staying in this closet wouldn’t work out well for her.

The girl didn’t answer.

“I’m Misha,” I told her, sitting down in the hall so I wasn’t looming over her. “What’s your name?”

“Fatima,” she replied.

“Your power is making this ooze?” I asked.

She nodded.

“And it’s poisonous?”

She nodded again.

She was covered in the stuff as was the closet floor, door, and the lower portions of the walls.

“It sprays out of me when I’m nervous.”

“It was pretty scary when there was all that gas, huh?” I asked.

“I hid in here so I could breathe and sealed the door.”

“That was smart of you.”

I checked my hand to see if I was having any sort of reaction yet but it seemed normal still.

“Would you like to get cleaned off?” I asked. “We can find you a shower and fresh set of clothes.”

Finally, she nodded and stood up. I followed suit, letting her hold my hand, and we began to make our way downstairs. I made sure to only take her by places that had already been cleared out. She left a trail of slimy footsteps and a I made a mental note to back later with a mop to clean that up. I also warned everyone we came across not to touch it.

Cain Hall didn’t have any dorms, but it did have a few emergency showers in the bathrooms. While Fatima cleaned up, I went in search of some fresh clothes for her.

“Hey,” I said to the guard when I spotted him in my search for clothes. “I found a little girl on the third floor alive. She makes a poisonous goo. I have her showering right now and I need clean clothes for her.”

“You found a survivor?” he asked, surprised.

“Yeah, any idea where I can find her some clothes?”

He led me to a storage closet where the jumpsuits were stored, asking for details all the while. I filled him in with what I’d seen but really didn’t have much more than that for him. I hadn’t exactly interrogated the little girl, especially considering how afraid she’d been.

“Once she’s cleaned up, bring her to me. We need to see if she heard Emil or any of the others say anything about who they were working for.”

“Alright,” I replied. “She’s pretty shook up, though, and really young.”

“I understand,” he said, “but we need all the information we can get. I’ll be in the cafeteria.”

With that he turned and walked away.