I pulled Markus to the ground and restrained him, holding his hands behind his back while I used my foot to hold him to the ground. His struggles were quite efficient and I fell to the ground, hitting my head on the living room chair, rendering me unconscious in just a few seconds.
When I came to, Markus was sitting on the couch next to me, to which I attempted a punch at his face. He caught my fist and yelled at me to calm down. He showed me the mark and I could see he had a scar through it.
"I left them long ago. Way before your parents were killed. I couldn't take it anymore. I ran away from the church in Kikoa City years ago, never looking back even once. Please, you need to believe I am on your side. I cannot tell you much right now, but my parents, the rich ones... took me in. My real parents are long gone, they were insane followers of the group of Acolytes... and even now I cannot remember the name of that Church or the group's true name." Markus said, ending his paragraph.
I sat in silence, feeling so confused and angry. "Where is Kikoa City?" I asked, feeling my anger grow stronger, a flickering flame in cold winter snows, hoping to survive and not suffocate.
"If you go outside of this town through the west exit, you'll just need to walk straight and you'd reach that place within an hour or two," Markus explained, showing me his watch, which he had brought up a map. The city has a lot of people, which attracts many Pathogens to the walls of the damn place. Unlike us, they get actual concrete walls" He said, clenching his fist.
I knew leaving without permission would result in a harsh punishment at the hands of President Imode, and so I opted for another option, to which Markus seemingly read my mind.
"You'd need to sign up for the Pathogen Hunter job. They have a training program in the city and would escort us there." He said, pointing to the job listed on the page we received that day from the teachers.
"I already chose a job though... we can't change them, can we?" I asked, looking over the jobs. Kayla's name was written as a cook for the town, she seemed to want to do volunteer work for a scholarship or something. "That's fine, we can always change if we go quick. Email the principal and we can figure something out."
Listening to him, I emailed Principal Mars, requesting to be switched to Pathogen Hunter, to which he emailed quite quickly his response.
"That'd be great! We actually have a loss of students picking that job this year, so it seems like you will be able to change jobs here. I already received the same request from Markus. Thank you for being brave and serving the world." The email entailed. A form was attached and I had to fill it out. Upon doing so, we waited for it to send.
I continued to pester him about the Acolytes.
"Why and how did you get alive?" I asked, still suspicious of him. "I had heard of them planning an attack on a Pathogen and they were planning to kill his human wife. They were unaware of any child until later on. I ran the day before the attack and they didn't have time to search for me. I was already outside of the wall and running toward this town, in the distance it was so small." He said.
They didn't know about me? I was outside so often... had they not seen me? Or were they just observing my father from a distance? Was Markus planning to kill me for the Acolytes? Maybe even capture me?
I turned to him and asked him what the plan entailed.
"Mainly just killing the father, but if his wife was spotted, we were to kill her as well. They called her a traitor and a monster. I ran from this horrible idea. I wish I could have stopped it. I actually killed one of the Acolytes as I was escaping. He found me and attempted to attract the other Acolytes... so I bashed his head in." Markus said, shaking as he said it. "It was horrible. I hope I never have to do something so cruel ever again."
I was stuck in my spot. I knew I had to just go for a small walk, to get away from Markus and chat with Kayla.
I met up with her on accident at a park, where I usually go to clear my head. When I am stressed.
The grass was over-grown, the slide and swings rusted over and being touched gently by flowers. Nature had kissed the playground and made it's home. The gate around it had fallen long ago and was mainly in the ground. There was a new park, and this one was forgotten. In the tall grass, you could occasionally run into a small frog or toad. Maybe even run into a bunny or rabbit on rare occasions.
Kayla peered over and smiled, waving to me gently. I smiled in return and made my way over to her. I withheld the info of Markus from her, not wanting her to try to get involved. I wanted her to be safe, just as I always tried to do.
"I saw you picked to be a cook for the town," I said sadly. Her smile faded and she admitted cooking was a hobby of hers.
"You switched to the Pathogen Hunter job... didn't you?" she asked, keeping her eyes on the long grass, gently blowing in the summer wind. Her hair trailed with the wind and covered her face from my view.
"Yeah. I'll be in the city for some time. The school there will teach me about combat and dealing with Pathogens. This could last up to a year of me away from the town. We'll be seniors when I return, almost graduated actually, then again, that depends on the schedule." I said, holding the back of my neck nervously.
Her reaction was as I expected it to be. She freaked out on me.
"Why though?! You could die and I would never forgive myself! I don't understand why you always try to join them! I was glad you were just too afraid to before! At least then you didn't leave my side!" and with that, she ran away. I was stuck in place, her words had slapped me in the face and stabbed my heart. I felt guilty, but it was too late to change my job now. This was probably the only job you cannot call quits on.
I prepared myself at my house the next day, packing my computer, phone, chargers, and my watch. I even brought some books along in case I actually wanted to read. I collected the contents of my fridge and left home to go to the market. I bought a cooler and some ice to keep my food and drinks cold.
I got on a train, which began its way above the ground out of the town. It rode about the height of a house above the ground. Below I could see many Pathogens staring up, some in their human forms and some in their true forms.
The train rode on electrically charged rails, so it wouldn't or couldn't just stop randomly, no matter what. It was magnetically locked onto the track, so it couldn't fall off either, which definitely reassured me.
I wanted to ignore Markus, but he was the only one on the train I knew. It was mainly tourists and rich people, maybe some military or government members scattered around. I even saw a journalist aiming his camera around, putting it against the window and snapping pictures of the Pathogens below.
"How long do you think the ride is?" Markus asked as he stared into the landscape outside of his window.
I replied quickly with the truth. "No clue. Just sleep if you are that bother-" before I could finish my sentence, the train was slightly shaken and the lights flickered off. It was almost dark outside, but everyone was looking outside to see what was going on, and it turned out to be a group of Intelligent Pathogens enacting an ambush. They were climbing up large trees and jumping onto the train. One jumped and rolled through the window that the journalist was looking through.
Glass shard flew around like a wild storm. The shards cut the journalist and he ducked but was too late as the Pathogen was on top of him, ready to bite a chunk out of his neck. Markus rushed over and kicked the Pathogen off of the man and began stabbing it with a small pocket blade.
I ran over as well to help him hold it down. I turned and yelled to the Military Men to borrow us their Electric Batons, but they were frozen in fear, so I just grabbed one from one of their belts. I held the Electric Baton against the face of the Pathogen and he began heating up, his face eventually exploding and splattering blood everywhere. We wiped the blood off of our faces and continued into the next section of the train, blocked off by two doors, which just so happened to have been unlocked.
In the next section, there were no Pathogens, but we could see movement in the furthest section, the train conductor was being attacked. We rushed in, but we were too late. The conductor was dead and torn to shreds. Markus and I both shouldered the Pathogen through the front window, which was already broken. The Pathogen flew over the front of the train and went underneath it, being electrocuted to death, while also being run over by the train, getting stuck between two strong magnetic pulls.
Markus and I stood in place, breathing heavily and wiping the sweat beads off of our foreheads. We took a moment to breathe and Markus bent down to pray for the dead conductor while I messed with the front radio in an attempt to contact the city we would soon reach.
Someone finally picked up, asking what the problem was.
"Pathogens have ambushed the train heading to Kioka City! I believe we have taken them out, but the conductor is dead! How do we stop the train when it arrives?!" I asked in a frantic panic.
"Don't worry about that. It stops by itself, please take care of the passengers, make sure nobody got infected or is hurt, then return and tell me the number of people injured."
I ran from the radio and checked every section of the train, inspecting the adults and children. Nobody had any obvious wounds, so I looked for anyone who was injured. I could see that the Journalist was bleeding severely from his shoulder, but he was the only one.
I returned to the radio and reported that there was only one person injured and that he should be fine as well approach the city, but we would need people there to help him when we arrived.
The man over the radio agreed and it went to static. I put the radio back and looked behind me to see the Journalist standing, he takes a picture while smiling brightly.
"Nothing this exciting has happened to me for a long time! I'll finally be respected in that damned office!" He screamed before collapsing on his chair and sighing, mainly going unconscious.
I used whatever knowledge I had to bandage his wound. After I did that, I could feel and see the train slowing down. I looked outside and could see that we had finally arrived in the city.
***
Upon Markus and my exit, we were bombarded with questions and praise for just taking out two Pathogens on a train.
That ended up as the headline on the newspaper the next day, with the picture of me turned around on the front page. I sighed, I didn't want this... I wanted to lay low and not be noticed, but anywhere I went, I had people chatting with me about it. I even spotted the church and felt anger rise once again. Only calming down when we arrived at the training camp.
A Trainer, who looked very experienced with Pathogens, began speaking to everyone about my accomplishments on the train, which made me nervous.
I could spot two people in the small crowd that I could recognize. Jax and Kai.
Markus pointed Jax to and told me that Jax wouldn't make any dumb mistakes here, as it would be put on his record, so I didn't have to worry about him.
***
The teacher mainly talked about his experiences before asking us to head to the hotel nearby, and that the hotel rooms would be shared with three people per room, and were free for the time we are here for the job. I was okay with three people, but only if it were Kai, Markus, and I, which ended up being the case.
We settled in our room and I decided now was the time to pay the church a little visit.
To show them one of the Pathogens they forgot to kill, and the consequences it would now have on their lives.