The Coward in the Corner

In the midst of the tavern's typically lively and upbeat bustle, the mood around their table was a glaring exception, a pocket of great gravity. The wavering candlelight seemed to bend around fat Bruno, who remained a monolith of gloom, his face so deeply buried in the cowl of his hood that it could find no purchase. The warmth and light in his part of the room were sucked away by his presence, which was like a personal eclipse. When Katrina spoke, the stifling silence was sliced sharply by the sharp edge of her voice.

She said, "I'll make this quick, Bruno," in a firm, uncompromising tone that left no opportunity for compromise. "My friend and I are searching for Suge."

The name was a pebble thrown into Bruno's calm lake of apathy. Even though his enormous body was motionless, there was a faint strain behind his cowl that seemed to indicate his brow was getting tighter. His speech came out as a gravelly, muffled grunt of dismissal, and he didn't even raise his head from the steam rising from his soup dish. "I'm not sure where Suge, the strongest player in the game, is if you're referring to him. I also want to finish my cup of soup in peace, if that's okay with you."

Katrina leaned forward over the table and growled, "Don't play the fool with me, Bruno." As though she could burn away the shadows with pure willpower, her concentrated gaze was fixed on the space where his face should be. "You are aware of your obligation to me. And there might be a real chance for us to leave this world."

"I don't care." Delivered with the emotional impact of a falling stone, the response was definitive.

Katrina's patience had worn thin, and a muscle in her jaw twitched. She spit out, "You're a coward," with a hint of resentment.

Bruno shifted for the first time, raising his head just enough to reveal a set of deeply tired eyes that glinted from the edge of the shadow. "I was a coward in the world outside, too," he said, his massive shoulders rippled with a ghost of a shrug. "Being one in here doesn't exactly wound my pride."

"You know, I think..." Katrina opened her mouth to say something really poisonous, but her words were violently interrupted. As if wrenched from the very gates of hell, the tavern door slammed against the internal wall as it flew open with the force of a detonation. Breathing heavily, a peasant clambered inside, his eyes wide with a glaring, uncompromising fear. His plain clothing was covered in dirt and sludge, yet before he even spoke, the audience fell silent due to the unadulterated fear on his face.

His voice cracked with fright as he screamed, "Thylacines are attacking the kingdom!"

All traces of laughter and vitality in the tavern were quickly extinguished by those four words, which had the effect of a switch. A tidal wave of chaos quickly engulfed a heartbeat of astonished silence: the slow thunder of dozens of bodies in a blind, desperate stampede for the exit, the sharp crack of splintering chairs, and a symphony of horrified screams.

Nicolas froze. Before the risk even occurred to him, his journalistic analytical mind caught on to the statement's impossibility. The name reverberated in his mind: Thylacines? Tigers from Tasmania. An extinct predator was brought back to life from the graveyard of history and grotesquely sutured into the flesh of this digital nightmare—just another hideous flaw in the system's coding.

His wrist was grabbed by Katrina's hand, which was as firm as a steel manacle. Her voice a calm, concentrated point in the whirlpool of commotion, she ordered, "We need to be gone before the kingdom's men show up," She forced a way toward the street by dragging him against the chaotic human flood.

They were attacked by a scene of utter terror as soon as they left the tavern. This was a systematic, brutal massacre, not just an attack. The marketplace, which was once a thriving hub of life and commerce, had turned into a murderous battlefield. Thylacines were slicing through the terrified NPCs like living reaping machines, their strong, striped bodies moving with a smooth and terrible ease. Nicolas felt a crippling cold; he had never seen such unadulterated, primordial violence. Despite Katrina's relentless tug, he was held firmly to the cobblestones by something. One heart-stopping scene had caught his attention: a young girl, about seven years old, crouching on the ground while a huge tiger strode toward her, its actions a silent, purposeful threat of death.

The animal's muscles coiling in anticipation of the last, deadly pounce, its muscular haunches bunched.

"Are we just going to leave?" In a hoarse whisper, Nicolas asked. At last, he wrenched his gaze away from the scene to gaze at Katrina.

In a harsh, mercilessly practical tone, she shot out, "Have you forgotten where we are?" "The outcasts are us. the ones they pursue for fun.

Nicolas gazed into her eyes for a long time, seeing the icy, indefatigable logic of survival imprinted there. A different, more pressing truth, however, was blazing within of him as his eyes returned to the frightened boy. This universe might not be real. These individuals might simply be the reverberations of long-dead souls. However, there was no denying the genuineness of the fear in that young girl's eyes and her complete helplessness.

His words, "I can't do that," seemed more like an unbreakable oath than a decision.

He yanked his wrist out of Katrina's hold and sprang forward, running into the gap between the tiger and the girl.

A blur of striped rage and outstretched claws at the youngster, the animal burst into the air. In that precise moment, Nicolas hurled himself into the animal's flight path, propelled by a power that completely circumvented thought. Using all of his last strength, he slammed his shoulder into the beast's flank. In a collapsing heap of limbs and furious wrath, the thylacine tumbled to the ground after the mid-air collision sent it spinning sideways with a guttural roar. For the time being, the girl was safe.

The immediate, significant impact of Nicolas' valiant, careless deed was to bring the marketplace to a complete stop. The yelling ceased. The running stopped. Every other thylacine in the square left its prey, as though acting on a single, hive-mind instinct. Their heads rotated one by one and dozens of bright amber predatory eyes swiveled to focus on one individual.

Nevertheless, Nicolas did not experience the bone-deep fear that ought to have gripped him as he stood there in the center of a dozen deadly predators. His veins were pulsing with something fresh and potent. The Zinox power that had saved his life, that familiar premonition, erupted in his consciousness, but this time it was different. It was more than a protective warning murmur. There was a roar.