Taking the first step inside, I felt full of anger. The people around me didn't look familiar, but one man did. It was an older man. He was standing on an elevated stage, worshipping a god and praying with the rest of the church. I already knew it was the man who led the attack. Markus handed me a mask he seemed to have just stolen from the church.
He didn't look a day older than he did all those years ago. Even seeing his face I knew what I wanted to do. A part of me wanted to jump right up and kill that man where he stood, but another part wanted to confront him and talk it over somehow. Markus was by my side and pulled me back when I stepped out of the shadow.
He pointed and told me to just wait.
I looked to where he was pointing and could see a huge timer on a statue, slowly counting to zero. I assumed that it will be when the worship will end. I just so happened to have been right.
The timer ran out and Markus and I hid behind a pew. The people left in a neat fashion, slowly and carefully in line. None had seen us, and if they had, they didn't care. Markus and I now made our way toward the front of the church. I saw the elevated stage and climbed up.
The man was facing away, and I was slowly reaching toward him. Upon touching his shoulder he turned around quickly, looking me in the eyes and asking me what I was doing on the stage.
"Do you remember what you did all those years ago?!" I yelled furiously and disgusted by his actions. Markus held the man still and told me to show him. I knew what he meant and so I showed him.
I held my hand in the air and let my fingerbones shoot into the floor in front of him. The next words came so naturally, it scared me afterward.
"You killed my mother and father years ago. My father was a Pathogen and my mother was a normal human being." The man knew who I was now. He finally understood.
"You're th-that monster's son! That whore's son!" I punched him across his face and kicked him in the stomach. He threw up and begged for me to stop. I asked him the question on my mind.
"Did you stop when you killed my mother and father? Did my mother not plea for her life?" I asked, tilting my head and aiming my fingers toward him. I felt fully ready to kill him...yet I couldn't. My hand dropped and I motioned for Markus to come with me. We ran outside and ran away.
We ran all the way back to the hotel, sneaking into our hotel room, and creeping into our bed. Kai was still awake and was playing on his phone.
"Yo." He said before stuffing a Pocky into his mouth and chewing quite loudly. Markus begged Kai not to tell anyone we had left the room, but Kai had no care at all about us leaving and told us he wouldn't care just as long as we bought him more Pocky boxes in the morning. We obviously agreed and wrote it down.
***
The next morning was difficult, after dreaming about not being able to kill that man over and over again. Even in my dreams, I couldn't do it. Kai desperately awaited his Pocky boxes. To which Markus went to a nearby store by himself to get them.
Kai practically jumped up and down waiting for his Pocky boxes. When Markus returned he handed the boxes over to Kai and Kai just snuck back into his bed.
"Hey. You realize we have training today, right?" Markus said, to which Kai groaned in distress.
"Fine fine... I'll go... let me get ready..." Kai miserably said, being mopy and walking toward the bathroom.
Markus and I just left to get ready. We trained a bit in the training room, full of assorted weights and dummies to punch and kick. Markus was obviously doing much more damage to the poor dummies than I was, and he even was faster than me. I knew I had to do something to do better.
So I used the track. I ran laps, checking my speed, it seemed that I was getting a slight bit faster, but only when I was using my legs with my Pathogenic Abilities activated. I hadn't even tried to activate them, as I didn't know I had them, but when I did, it felt as though the pressure and pain in my legs were gone randomly.
I decided it was time to rest my legs and my abilities, and I headed to the main camp, where The Trainer from the day before, finally introduced himself.
"I am Miko, but you will call me Instructor Miko! Nothing more! Nothing else! Have you all heard me?!" Everyone was on edge now and stood up straight. "Yes sir!" Everyone yelled in unison, Kai was a slight bit late to respond, but Instructor Miko hadn't really cared. The only ones in our group were Markus, Jax, Kai, a girl named Pika. Pika was short and had short orange hair, she wore ribbons in her hair. Her small stature was not very intimidating, and she was very sweet, but she was not to be played with. Jax had been kidding around with her and even trying to flirt with her.
***
She wasn't having anything to do with love and flipped Jax onto his back with no effort at all. She then wiped her hands off and left. Her strength and speed were intense and insane, she was currently in First Place, with Markus in second, Kai was in third, Jax was in fourth... and I was in fifth. I felt terrible. How did everyone surpass me so much and so fast as well? Was I slacking? I needed to improve.
Instructor Miko assigned missions for us outside of the gate, which had Kai groaning at having to work. Pika was just jumping up and down. Miko interrupted our mixed emotions with a scary announcement.
"You will be in groups of two, which I will pick and make. Of course, looking around there are only five of you, right? Wrong. One student has been avoiding her job here and could be severely punished if she doesn't join in on this. Someone go and wake up Jian." Instructor Miko said in his loud voice, screaming intensely, at us.
Everyone yelled, "Yes, sir!" as we ran to the hotel to find Jian. I had never met her before, but we found her eventually. To which she followed very slowly with us.
Instructor Miko yelled at her, but she didn't seem phased at all. He assigned us into groups.
Group A consisted of Markus and Jax.
Group B consisted of Kai and Jian.
Group C consisted of Pika and me.
"Cal. I'm not being in a group with Jax," Markus told me before turning and yelling to the Instructor.
"I would like to go by myself!" He yelled, looking at the Sargent in the eyes. "You die, then you're gone. Got that?" Instructor Miko asked, seemingly letting him doing it by himself. Kai also requested to be alone, and so Jax also did. Jian was put onto Pika and I's team. The groups now consisted of:
A: Jax.
B: Markus.
C: Kai.
D: Jian, Pika, and I.
This was okay with me, but I just wished that Markus was able to be on my team. What were the teams for exactly? Instructor Miko would address that next. "Your group will be tasked with killing and burning the most Pathogens in the woods, as well as making a fire, and hunting for food and water. If you die, then you die. There will be no miracle of us saving you. You must be ready to take this test! There will be other people from other groups, people who were with us before that are now with other Sargents, they will also be around, do not expect or give help to anyone! Survive until exactly a week from now and we will find you. Try your hardest not to die!"
That was the last we would see of Instructor Miko for some time as we were escorted to the gates. We had to walk all the way to our spots, which Pika, Jian, and I had done. Jian was quiet but Pika was chatting up a storm. She was explaining her favorite foods and weapons and pets and books and movies. I wanted to stay on her good side so I talked with her. Jian eventually joined in and we were happy.
***
We made it to our spot and found some Pathogens. Pika took out most of them, and I took out the rest, while Jian just stood still watching us. After killing the ones around us, we did as we were told and cut them open, taking a small rock that resided where their heart would be, putting it in our bucket, and sealing it. We used it to count how many we had killed, we actually had around 15 already. Things were looking like a win for us.
Night approached and during the night, we were all chatting around the fire we had made, describing our backstories, with me leaving out the Pathogen father thing of course, and much more. Jian loved reading and listening to music, she actually had her own band which she was the guitarist in. She promised to play for us if she survived. That kept hopes high.
Pika told us she came from poor parents, who could no longer support her addiction to food and anything fun related, so she joined the Pathogen Hunters in search of money to help her parents and (of course) get free meals for being in this job.
I kept my watch hidden as I knew they would definitely want to see it.
Sticks were cracking in the woods and Pika gasped while holding her mouth. She looked around until another stick cracked. We all looked in the direction, our faces having different expressions. I was scared, Pika was worried, and Jian had her normal expression still on her face.
Someone emerged from the treeline, looking at us, gently smiling.