> F L O O D <

> RUN

Your armlight turns on, and you jog down the hall. With what you can see with your feeble light, it's just a dusty hall. No papers tacked to walls, no boxes or crates or bits of baggage, no paraphernalia that would imply anyone was here. Rooms 201 to 205 are on your left, and 206 to 210 are on your right.

> FIND SAFETY

Working on it. You certainly feel better not being near any windows.

> FIND THINGS

You were in an even-numbered room... and the odd number rooms are on the other side of the hallway. The shooter shouldn't be able to see in those rooms. You decide to head up to room 209 and jiggle the handle. It creaks and rust comes off the joint but otherwise you can open the door.

Inside, the room is roughly the same shape as the one you woke up in. A window is on the far side, shades down. An indent along the right side is where the kitchenette is - err, should be. Faded square patches on the wall and carpet are where the counters, oven, and fridge should be. Electrical wiring pokes out of the wall, torn and jagged. In fact, there's faded patches everywhere, as though all the furniture in the room was suddenly taken out without a trace. Well, there is a trace. The patches, for one, and also the dust that is clinging to every bit of carpet sans the furniture-less spots.

There is also dark bloodstains on the wall. And the ceiling. It's a wide splatter that seems to have dried up long ago.

Old blood, freshly-taken furniture. This is getting weird.

You try all the other odd-numbered rooms. Same thing in each. Blood. Dust. Nothing else.

You try your hand at one of the even numbered rooms. 210. You crack open the door ever so slightly...

It's difficult to see in, but it looks exactly like all the other rooms. Still very dark but --

KRAKOOM

Lightning flashes, and in one of the buildings across the street, you see the bright flash glinting off of something. Something small and shiny. A dark silhouette is behind it. In the next instant, a flash appears, and another bullet slams into the door, tearing a hole straight through and sending splinters everywhere.

You've already slammed the door and taken many steps back.

Fire escape! Escape from who's firing on ye!

The rooms start with 2. It can be assumed that the building has at least two floors.
>Find stairs. Does it go up and down or down only?

> FIND STAIRS

The stairs are at the end of the hall. Er.... were at the end of the hall. Light comes in from above, as well as rain, water, and more wind. A massive hole goes through every floor, all the way to the roof. You shine your light down the hole. At the bottom, barely lit by the combined efforts of the roof hole and the arm light, is a missile. It is bent, but otherwise relatively intact. A small red light flickers on the side. You can only presume that the missile crashed down every floor the building and landed on the first floor.

You can see signs next to where the stairs should be -- 000, 100, 200 (the floor you are on), 300, 400... after this, you can't quite see the signs above your floor, but you guess it's about another dozen floors.

> FIND FIRE ESCAPE

You head to the window and struggle to open it. After some protest, the window creaks open. Tall buildings face you, dark and featureless because of the weather conditions. You lean over and peer down. The road is about three stories below, although there's water rushing everywhere. The few cars here and there are almost completely submersed, with only their tops showing. Junk and litter wash downstream.

You can see, on the wall of your building, brackets where the fire escape SHOULD have been. But it's not there, other than some bits of jagged metal where it was torn off.

It seems your choices for getting down from this floor are either out the window into the rushing water, or down the hole near the missile. Fun.

SpoilerShow

> Running sarcasm module...
> Done!

Oh shush.

>Hang down from the window and then drop down, the water and your metal legs will cushion the hit.

Let's hope your metal bits are waterproof!

> DROP DOWN OUT THE WINDOW

You figure you can get the slip on that sniper by exiting here. Gripping the edge tightly, you mantle out the window and dangle off the windowsill. Despite the wind and rain, you feel fairly confident that you can climb down and set yourself atop one of the cars. You almost slip at one point, but you do end up on the roof of a rusted blue car.

It's very dark, kinda cold, and very damp. You can barely see anything but you doubt that sniper can find you down here.

>Use back alleys and cover to circle behind the sniper's position. The hunter has become the hunted!

>Loot car

> LOOT CAR

The torrent of water rushing through the streets has engulfed the car, leaving only the roof safe. If you break into the car, it'd flood... unless you went through the roof rather than the doors or windows. Hopefully your metal legs can beat through rusted car roof.

You get a good grip on the wall of the building so you don't slip, and begin stamping your feet down. The roof creaks and buckles, and eventually you smash a hole into the roof. The inside of the car is still intact, and luckily the water hasn't gotten in yet. You can't exactly squeeze your whole body into the new sunroof, but you can get your upper body through.

There's nothing under or on the seats, except for a bit of dried blood. The glove box has... a knife! You turn it over in your hands and examine it: a textured grip, a ring on the guard (you're not sure for what), and a long blade. The back edge of the blade is somewhat serrated.

You search around in any of the other compartments you can reach, but can't find anything. Just blood. Sure is a lot of dried blood around here.

> FLANK SNIPER

Maybe now you can get the drop on the shooter. There are enough cars clogging the road that you can hop from roof to roof, heading in the direction of the sniper's building. You make sure you don't come into view of the sniper's window. Despite the dark and the rain, you remember which direction the building was in.

As you traverse the road, various pieces of debris are carried downstream. Most of it is trash, but you see small shiny objects floating among the garbage. You get a good grip on the roof of the car, reach out, and grab one. Holding it close to your light, you can see it's an empty bullet shell. You drop the empty shell into the water and continue your journey.

The sniper's building is about the same height as the one you were just in, same material as well. The fire escape is intact on this building, at least. The ladder goes to the second floor but the third floor ladder is missing too many rungs to be climbed effectively. The fire escape window is cracked open slightly, and you open it to enter. After clambering through, you close the window behind you. It's still very dark.

You shine your flashlight across the area. Through the dim green and the dust dancing through the light, you see what looks like a trashed apartment complex. There's bullet holes on the walls, blood stains on the wood floor, and there's trash strewn everywhere. You're in a hall, or what's left of it. With your flashlight you can see four apartments on this floor, all battered and with holes blasted through the walls. There's a slight smell of mildew rising from the first floor.

Other than the pervasive smell of mildew and the signs of battle, you can't see anything that might kill you yet. Each of the rooms is full of more blood, bullet casings, smashed walls, and tons of trash. There's a blood mark that looks like a congealed pool and a smear on a wall, as though someone had fell against it and bled to death.

But so far, you can't find a single body.

Lightning flashes. At the end of the hall, you can see a sign above a stairwell marked "Floor 2".

>Ok lets try and SNEAK our way up there. No good trying to get the drop if you're just going to get caught cause you made too much noise

> SNEAK UPSTAIRS

Your feet make faint clacking noises on the floor as you head for the stairs. With one hand you reach down and smother the light from your flashlight -- just enough peeking out to see the ground so you don't trip, but you also don't want to alert anyone of your presence.

The second floor opens up before you. A hall, several doors. All but one of the doors have been boarded up. One is open, the door smashed into splinters. Lightning flashes, and light pours out from the door. The silhouette of a strange figure is shadowed against the wall and floor during the brief explosion of light, then returns to the darkness lit only by the faint light from your arm.

There is a faint rasping noise coming from that open room. It sounds ... alive.

Rain continues to fall, muffled by the walls and windows.

> Peek, but careful to not be detected.

> PEEK

Your breathing is shallow as you approach the open door. The rasping noise becomes easier to hear as you walk closer. The floor rumbles with the thunder and lightning outside. Once again, the silhouette is visible.

Slowly, carefully, you peek into the room.

The room is stripped of all furniture, and dark stains in the floor are all that is left of where they were. Fresh blood coats the walls and floor.

And there it is: the thing making the rasping noise. A humanoid shape. Its legs and arms are metal, and look exactly like yours. The metallic torso looks like a cage, where living innards reside -- lungs, a heart, and various pieces of viscera. Various tubes and wires connect to the flesh, holding it within the cage. A slick, oily ichor drips slowly from the flesh, forming a pool around its feet. The lungs slowly inhale and exhale, making the rasping noise you heard earlier.

And then, the head. It's the head of a man, with the flesh stripped away. All you can see is the back of the head, where glowing wires are plugged into their head. They snake down to their false spine, presumably connected to the wires in the chest.

In its hand is a large rifle. Several spent bullet casings lie at their feet, resting in the pool of ichor.