Total darkness.
It’s so dark, I can’t see anything. Yuri should be right beside me, but I can’t actually see her. Heck, I could stick my hand straight out in front of me, but still wouldn’t be sure if it was there or not. Just to make sure, I felt my own face with my hand. It was there, all right. Ooh. Even in this situation, I could keenly feel how cute I was with my fingers. It was a moving new discovery. Okay, so I was being a little narcissistic. Just for a few moments.
“What are you doing?” Yuri asked sourly. “Everything is attached, right?”
I was surprised. How could she see what I was doing? She is usually so dense. It was only at times like this she’d show some kind of special insight. It’s really not a desirable quality.
In my head I was answering with all sorts of pointed and vulgar responses, while at the same time I prepared my heatgun. However, what I was really worried about was since we were in the dark, I couldn’t see my target. I propped my elbow. I guessed about where the target should be. Mugi, asleep in a comfortable bed inside, would have been able to point out the target to me. Comfortable bed.
Aah. Just the fantasy reminded me how tired I was. I was about to yawn. That could mean inevitable death. Thinking about it, we hadn’t slept for about thirty hours straight, standard time. I had taken medicine to help, but every body has its limits. How good it would feel to just lie between some warm sheets and close my eyes…
Those thoughts only brought me closer to slumber.
No. This is not good. C’mon, dummy! Don’t sleep!
I scolded myself.
But, it didn’t work.
“Snu-nu-nu-nu-nu”
I could hear Mugi’s snore rattling inside my head.
My eyes flew open.
At some point I had fallen fast asleep.
I had laid down on a sleeping pad, and my heatgun had fallen from my grasp.
I picked it up and held it again.
“Grrrrr,”
Mugi growled ferociously. He was lying over there somewhere in the darkness, and even though I couldn’t see him, I could imagine exactly what he looked like at that moment.
I could see Mugi with his back curled up. When he growls like this, it means the enemy is about to arrive. There was no doubt he wasn’t going to walk through the door and shout, “I’m home!” He was close, but whether he would attack from the ceiling or the floor or a wall, wasn’t clear. Or if he would even attack or not attack, regardless, we were in the same situation. The only being I know that can distinguish the difference is Mugi.
“Grrrrr,” Mugi’s growl deepened. Yuri and I held our breath and waited a moment.
I started getting dizzy. Ca-can’t make it. And then, another wave of drowsiness—
“GRROAR!” Mugi bellowed once.
At the same time I heard the shrill sound of sheets being torn. The claws of all four paws kicked off the mat. The sound of fangs. Not Mugi’s. The attacker’s!
The bed was obliterated. Up until now, the same bed that Mugi had been poised on. I still couldn’t see, but I could tell by the sound. It almost sounded like an explosion. My eardrums rang from the noise. The ringing in my ears made me dizzy. Pieces of the mattress landed on me. That poor bed! Destroyed in one chomp.
A pain shot through my finger. It was the ring finger of my left hand. It was giving off a phosphorescent glow.
A signal from Mugi.
I squeezed the trigger of my readied heatgun.
An orange heat beam swirled through the darkness.
I continued to shoot to the side.
Another beam rang out. This time it was from Yuri’s heatgun. In certain situations, a ray gun by itself isn’t enough, so she’d borrowed a heatgun from the mayor.
Our two beams crossed each other, became intertwined, and scorched the wall and floor.
The room lit up. Rather, the darkness was watered down a little. The features of the room floated faintly in a red light, due to the heat beams and flames. The splintered bed. The scorched wall. The invisible fangs and Mugi scuffling.
Mugi turned. His movements were fast. He was looking straight at us.
Which meant…
The fangs were coming our way!
This was no joke!
I started firing like crazy. I set the space in front of me ablaze. Ya-KUN!
I felt something slam into me.
It was the fangs biting. They were biting into the bed we were using as a shield.
Half of the bed was now ribbons. The next hit was on the other half, and that was a direct hit on where we were.
Still holding on to our shield, we were thrown to the wall. We landed where the floor met the wall.
As we turned around the remains of the bed landed on top of us. Blam.
The two of us were squashed together under the bed.
Thankfully the bed landed mattress down on top of us, rather than the other way around. It was heavy, but we weren’t hurt badly.
Getting up would be dangerous, so we remained on the ground and shot our heatguns from under the fallen bed. There was no one else in the room, so our random blasting didn’t matter, but if there were they probably would have been burnt to a crisp. It’s a little embarrassing, but from that position we looked like a two-headed snapping tortoise.
We were low to the ground, and Mugi bounded between the walls above us and landed.
There was a flash.
That’s bright!
Several of the illumination panels in the ceiling suddenly came to life.
Going from almost darkness to super-bright in an instant made my eyes and head pound. Ouch!
Mugi was the one to turn the switch on.
The fangs were gone. Maybe it had escaped through the wall we were shooting at. Since it slipped away, we no longer needed to hide ourselves.
Hoo boy, this room was a disaster area.
The walls were almost completely blackened. The ceiling was well scorched and in the worst spots was melted with gaping holes burned through. Construction was done with fireproof materials, so the fire never spread, but the actual spot where our heatgun blasts and the flames hit took quite a beating. The floor was covered with broken pieces of bed, and it looked like a tornado had blown through the room. The carpet was torn to shreds. There was no trace of any tables or chairs.
“Mgyaa…”
Mugi came over to where Yuri and I were and licked each of our faces. Knucklehead! If you have time for that, why don’t you get this damn bed off of us?! I am not going to be happy if I come out of here with a flat chest!
“I was so sure we had him,” said Yuri.
“Not much we can do about it now.”
Even from my squished position I shrugged my shoulders.
“Mgya,”
Mugi nodded his head in agreement. Like he had all the time in the world, Mugi walked over and took the edge of the bed in his mouth. He was going to pull the bed off of us, but acted like it was a real chore. Is it possible he could he move any slower? Where was that Mugi that was bouncing off the walls in the heat of battle? Sorry this isn’t as exciting.
Right then.
Out of the blue, there was a knock on the door.
Someone had arrived.
Surprised, we jumped to our feet. This movement sent the bed springing into the air. One of the bed legs caught Mugi’s chin.
“Buugya!” Mugi moaned.
The door opened.
A hotel manager entered the room. Behind him stood about five porters. They must have come to see what all the noise was.
The manager looked around the room, his mouth was open, but no words came out.
His eyes were struck wide open, and his body was shaking.
“Wha-what, what… he-he-here…”
He stuttered for about two minutes.
“Well, it pretty much speaks for itself,” I finally said, holding my hands palms facing up. “Put the damages all on the mayor’s tab, ‘kay? Whatever you do, don’t send the bill to the WWWA. Got it?”
If the chief got a bill for these damages, he would no doubt strangle us.
“The wa-wall… fl-floor…”
The manager was looking anemic.
“You’ve been a terrific help,” I said sarcastically and pushed the manager out of the room and closed the door. You were really lucky. Only one room was damaged. The rest of the hotel is still perfectly safe.