"Use us," Mills stated, her voice steady as a surgeon's hand. "Our experience. Our lives."

  Her words hung in the air, grotesque and impossible. The lecture hall, once a place of learning and intellectual debate, now a chamber of blood and impossible choices. The floor was slick with crimson, the walls spattered with what had once been people. The creature had torn through our makeshift army like tissue paper, and the survivors who remained were just waiting their turn.

  "What? No!" Aurora protested, revulsion spreading across her blood-streaked face. "We can't—"

  "We're dead anyway!" the Archivist cut in, his voice cracking with desperate logic. Blood trickled from a gash on his forehead, running in rivulets down his glasses. "Look around you! This thing is going to kill us all. But if you two reach level 10, maybe you can beat it."

  The remaining survivors—seven of them including Mills and the Archivist—exchanged looks heavy with understanding. The unspoken communication of people who knew they were already dead and were only deciding how to make their deaths matter. I saw resignation in their eyes, a horrible acceptance that turned my stomach.

  "The System seems to register humans as valid experience sources," Mills continued, her analytical detachment chilling. She gestured to her own interface, visible only to her but referenced with clinical precision. "I saw it earlier, when that boy from Engineering died. His attacker—one of the turned—gained experience. Their level indicator changed. It stands to reason the same mechanics apply to us."

  My stomach turned at the suggestion, bile rising hot and bitter in my throat. "You're asking us to execute you." The words tasted like ash in my mouth.

  "I'm asking you to give our deaths meaning," Mills corrected, her gaze unflinching. Dried blood had crusted along her jawline, flaking away as she spoke. "We're not making it out of this room alive. That's reality. But maybe you two can."

  Behind her, a young woman—an elementary education major whose name I couldn't recall—began to sob quietly, shoulders shaking with silent grief. Another survivor, a broad-shouldered guy from the rugby team, placed his hand on her shoulder, his own eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

  The creature had paused its advance, watching this exchange with those insectile silver eyes, head tilted at an unnatural angle. It seemed curious, almost fascinated by our ethical struggle. It was in no hurry—confident in its superiority, toying with its prey like a cat batting a mouse before the killing bite.

  "It's studying us," the Physics professor whispered, his arm hanging uselessly at his side, shoulder dislocated from the earlier impact. "Learning."

  The Archivist nodded, stepping forward. Blood had soaked through his cardigan, but his voice remained steady, the academic in him clinging to data even now. "I've registered the pattern. Each level requires approximately 1000 experience. A level 3 survivor is worth about 300 experience." He gestured to the bodies already scattered across the floor. "I've been tracking the experience notifications. When the creature killed Jennifer, the Scout, I caught a glimpse of its interface. She was worth exactly 312 points to it." He swallowed hard. "Do the math."

  Aurora shook her head, horrified. Her sword flickered uncertainly in her grip, reflecting her internal conflict. "There has to be another way."

  "There isn't," said the Physics professor, his voice resigned. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth, staining his salt-and-pepper beard. "And we're running out of time."

  As if to emphasize his point, the creature took another step forward, the density field around it warping under its relentless pressure. The air condensed and rippled like heat distortion, my power straining against its advance. Cracks spread through the floor beneath its feet, concrete groaning in protest.

  "We could try to run," whispered the education major, hope flickering briefly in her tear-stained face.

  "It would catch us," Mills replied gently. "One by one. And it would be slower. More painful."

  Mills looked directly at me, her expression unnervingly calm. Blood had dried in her hair, matting it to her scalp in dark patches. "You need to reach level 10. Both of you. It's our only chance." Her gaze flicked to the others. "Perhaps humanity's only chance."

  "Even if we agree," I said, voice tight, my throat constricting around the monstrous proposal, "how would we even—"

  "Quick and clean," Mills interrupted, clinical to the end. "Your gravity ability. Target our brainstems. Instant, painless. None of this..." she gestured to the mangled bodies, the splatter patterns of those who had died fighting, "...messy business."

  I felt sick, physically ill at the suggestion. Sweat beaded on my forehead despite the chill in the air, my hands trembling with more than just exhaustion. I glanced at the creature, its crystalline growths pulsing with patient malevolence.

  But it took another step forward, and reality crashed down on me with brutal clarity. They were right. We couldn't beat this thing at our current level. And they were already dead—the creature was just taking its time, savoring the hunt. Perhaps even savoring our moral quandary.

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  "Nate," Aurora whispered, limping to my side. Blood streaked her face, her arm hung at an unnatural angle, but her eyes were clear, determined. "They're right. We can't win like this."

  The rugby player cleared his throat. "I've never met either of you before today," he said, voice rough with emotion, "but I've seen what you can do. If there's a chance—any chance—you can stop these things..." He trailed off, then straightened his shoulders. "I've got a little sister in Queens. Make sure this counts."

  One by one, the survivors—all seven remaining—lined up along the wall, their faces a mixture of fear, resignation, and grim determination. The youngest, a freshman with freckles across her nose and braces that caught the light when she trembled, was crying silently, but stood with the others nonetheless. She couldn't have been more than eighteen.

  "Do it," Mills commanded, stepping to the front of the line. "Before that thing decides playtime is over."

  I looked at Aurora. The horror in her eyes mirrored my own, but beneath it burned something else—resolve. She nodded once, her face ashen but determined.

  "I'm sorry," I whispered, raising my quill. The crystalline implement felt impossibly heavy in my hand, weighted with the knowledge of what I was about to do.

  The first application of targeted gravity was the hardest—pinpointing the brainstem of Mills herself, who had stepped forward as volunteer. I forced myself to look into her eyes as I traced the equation, modifying the gravitational constant in a sphere no larger than a marble. Mills held my gaze, unflinching, until the last moment. The sickening crack as the localized gravity crushed her neural connection was mercifully quick. She collapsed without a sound, dignity preserved even in death.

  Experience gained: 350

  The notification pulsed blue in my vision, obscenely cheerful. My stomach heaved, but there was no time. The creature took another step forward, its movements quickening with interest as it sensed what was happening.

  The physicist was next. He nodded once, closing his eyes. "For science," he murmured, a ghost of a smile touching his lips before my ability severed his consciousness from his body. His form crumpled, boneless, to the floor.

  Experience gained: 325

  The freshman with braces. Her body shook with terror, tears streaming freely down her face, but she straightened her spine with surprising courage. "I'm s-scared," she whispered.

  "I know," I said, my own voice breaking. "Close your eyes. Think of something beautiful."

  She did, a small smile forming as she conjured some private memory—a sunset, perhaps, or a loved one's face. I made it quick.

  Experience gained: 287

  A girl whose name I never learned, whose dreams and hopes and fears would remain forever unknown to me. She died without a word, but her eyes accused me even as the light faded from them.

  Experience gained: 302

  Four more survivors, each death adding to our experience bars, each life extinguished by my hand. The rugby player. The education major. A thin man who might have been a janitor, based on his uniform. A woman with half-moon reading glasses who whispered a prayer as she died.

  My vision blurred with tears, but I forced myself to see each face, to commit them to memory. This was not something I could allow myself to forget, not a sin that deserved absolution.

  Experience gained: 2450

  Level up! You are now level 8

  Level up! You are now level 9

  Aurora's interface showed similar progress: Level up! You are now level 9

  We were both one level short. The Archivist was the last one standing, his glasses glinting in the harsh fluorescent light. Blood had soaked through his sweater from a wound in his side, but his hands were remarkably steady as he adjusted his bow tie.

  "It wasn't enough," I said, despair washing over me, the magnitude of what we'd done threatening to crush me beneath its weight. "We're still one level away."

  The Archivist smiled thinly. "I saved myself for last for a reason. I'm level 5. Worth more experience." He straightened his glasses with surprisingly steady hands. "I suspected this would be the case. Efficient allocation of resources." A scholar to the end.

  Behind him, the creature had grown still, watching our grim harvest with what almost seemed like fascination. Its crystalline growths pulsed in rhythm, like a heartbeat counting down our final moments.

  "Does it hurt?" the Archivist asked suddenly, a flicker of fear finally breaking through his academic detachment.

  I shook my head. "No. It's instant."

  He nodded, seemingly reassured. "My wife. If you make it out... her name is Eleanor Fleming. Tell her I wasn't afraid." He straightened his glasses with surprisingly steady hands. "Make it count."

  I raised my quill one final time, tears streaming freely down my face, cutting clean tracks through the blood and grime. The Archivist closed his eyes.

  "Thank you," he whispered.

  Another sickening crack, so final, so irreversible. The last of our allies crumpled to the floor, his glasses skittering across the blood-slick tile with a sound that seemed to echo forever.

  Experience gained: 550

  Level up! You are now level 10

  New skill unlocked: Astral Rewrite: Reality Fracture

  Stat points available: 15

  Aurora's interface flashed simultaneously:

  Level up! You are now level 10

  New skill unlocked: Lunar Ascension

  Stat points available: 10

  I felt hollow inside as I watched the notifications pop up, purchased with the lives of innocent people—my hands now stained with the blood of those who had trusted me to make their deaths meaningful. Seven faces I would never forget, seven souls whose final moments had been surrendered to us in a desperate gambit.

  But there was no time for grief or guilt, no space for the moral reckoning that would surely come later. The creature, apparently bored with watching our moral dilemma play out, surged forward with renewed purpose, crystal formations extending into jagged spears.

  "Allocate your points," Aurora commanded, her voice hard with determination, forged in the crucible of necessity. "Five seconds."

  I distributed my points in a blur: 5 to Cosmic Insight, 5 to Intelligence, 3 to Constitution, 2 to Agility. Each point a testament to the price we'd paid, each statistical increase bought with a human life.

  Aurora did the same, focusing primarily on Strength and Agility with a smaller boost to Constitution. Her face was set in stone, eyes burning with the fierce determination of someone who had crossed a line and could never go back—who could only go forward and make it worthwhile.

  Then Aurora extended her hand.

  Her body began to glow with silver light—not the sickly glow of the zombies, but something purer, more focused, like moonlight distilled to its essence. The air around her rippled with power as silver energy coursed across her skin in intricate patterns, forming glyphs and runes that spoke of ancient power. Where her sword had once been, a new weapon formed—still a blade, but now wreathed in a brilliant lunar aura that extended several inches beyond the physical metal, trailing stardust as it moved.

  "Astral Rewrite: Reality Fracture," I whispered, activating my own new skill, feeling the power surge through me like electricity through a conductor.