"Ha-ha!" Jensen laughed with both hands on his belly. "I'm sorry, sir, but you should see the looks on your faces."
The two men pushed each other away and arranged themselves appropriately. "That's going on your record, Jensen," Hogan said with a red face and uneasy eyes.
"You think this is a joke? Arthur's missing," Harrison spoke with a pouted face, nose flaring, and pointing his finger right in between Jensen's face.
"If not for Hogan's presence, I wouldn't mind exchanging a couple of blows," Jensen thought to himself. He gently pushed Harrison's hand away from his face. He knew there were more important matters at hand. "I've found a trail of blood," Jensen said, pointing up the stairs. "I think someone cut Arthur. He must have run up there afterward."
"Someone or something," Harrison said, with eyebrows that shook with every word he spoke. His eyes were shifting side to side like he was being watched.
"Don't be silly, it's just a thief with a knife," Jensen said, rolling his eyes and dismissing whatever thoughts Harrison had implied.
He began walking upstairs slowly. The thief might be waiting to jump us, he thought to himself. "Arthur, are you…?"
"Don't come upstairs," a wounded Arthur interrupted. Crawled up between two bookshelves, his voice was barely audible. They could tell he was in great pain from how it shook.
"You're up there, Arthur? Why didn't you say a word the whole time?" Hogan shouted.
"It's up here. I had to keep quiet," Arthur explained to them.
"What is?" Hogan asked, biting his fingers nervously. The silence of Arthur's voice only increased his unease.
He wanted to call Jensen back but didn't have the courage to go up himself, so he kept quiet.
"I'm coming up for you," Jensen said, stomping his feet in one spot to give the illusion of climbing up.
"It's coming!" Arthur screamed, louder than ever. His voice was clear and sharp, cutting through the silence of the halls.
Jensen armed himself with his baton, prepared for whoever or whatever he was about to face. A second passed, and nothing appeared. The grip on his baton tightened, and sweat ran down his temple. He began to feel a sliver of nervousness, which grew into anger.
He lifted his foot off the ground, which seemed to weigh more at that moment. The second it touched the stair above him, the culprit unveiled itself. The lamp Jensen held seemed useless, as if a cloud of darkness was absorbing the light. Identifying who or what it was seemed impossible.
Jensen swung his baton as fast as he could, but the culprit's reflexes were too sharp. It dodged the attack faster than Jensen could blink.
"Where did it go?" Jensen thought. A large hand rose from beneath him, disarming him of his weapon and making a deep cut in his arm. He fell down the stairs to the men beneath him.
"I got you, lad," Hogan said, catching Jensen before he took more damage.
"Why won't my legs move?" Harrison said to himself. He tried to do something, anything, but his body was as firm as a statue.
"It's coming!" Jensen shouted, warning the two.
Harrison averted his gaze towards the stairs. The creature zoomed towards him like a steam engine, breaking the floor beneath it with each step. Letting out a loud scream high enough to break the windows, Harrison's body felt light again, but the only action he could conjure up was to flee the scene.
Hogan used his body as a shield, covering an immobile Jensen. "This is the least I can do as a leader who could not perform," he thought, feeling a rush of wind like a hurricane over his back.
"Leave me and go after the bastard!" Jensen said, using his uninjured arm to push Hogan away.
"Right, of course," Hogan replied, pulling his baton out and running towards it.
"My head feels like it's been filled with helium," Jensen thought. He tried to get up and help Hogan, but the room began to spin like a merry-go-round. He soon found himself on the ground again. The whole room became blurry, and he could barely distinguish anything. "It can't be this tiny cut causing this," he said to himself.
His eyelids were as heavy as a sack of sand. "No, I can't go down so easily," he thought. But at last, his body gave in, and the final image he saw was the culprit throwing his sergeant, Hogan, across the room and fleeing. Then everything turned black.