Markus was staying quite the distance from the fire, not wanting to get too close for some reason. I assumed he just wanted to keep safe, and so I just decided to enter my tent to sleep. Everyone else went to sleep as well, and Byul had no choice but to sleep in my tent.
We awoke to an awful scream. I mainly remember running past a huge tree and seeing a huge Pathogen, fat and leaking many kinds of oils. I almost threw up but knew we had to do something. Pika was first to run over to the thing, using her sword to create cuts on its body, to which fat just oozed out and stunk up the air, it was so hot that the grass partially lit ablaze and then was soon extinguished on its own.
Markus engaged in the fight as well, painstakingly climbing up the thing, slipping and almost falling when he reached the neck. He began stabbing into the neck of the thing with a small blade.
I ran up quickly, trying to stab it with my pocket knife, but it seemed to be doing nothing. If we ran away, it would just heal and make it's way to our camp, crushing it as well as killing us. I didn't need that to be my bleak future.
Pika was abruptly and suddenly grabbed by the thing, with Markus being grabbed off of the thing's neck. It was mad and its deformed face showed it. He began to squeeze Pika and Markus, I began hearing a small cracking sound coming from Pika and I acted without thinking.
Byul reached out to stop me, but it was too late. I lifted my hand and my finger bones flew out, hitting the thing and dealing no damage to it. The rest of my hand began appearing and sharp bones began flying out of my hand, which was healing quite quickly. The sharp pieces stabbed into the thing's hands and I ran up to it, climbing up its oily body and grabbing onto a sharp shard of my bone, pulling on it and sliding down. As I slid, the bone cut more and more of the Mutated Pathogen, cutting off its huge fingers. I did the same to save Markus and Jian was watching me in fear.
She had seen me do what I did... one more person to try to convince now. Pika noticed as well as she sat against a tree, her ribs were clearly broken and I knew what we had to do. I rummaged through my bag and looked for my gas, which I used to light the fire. I threw the gas all over the thing, pulling out my lighter and feeling sad for my poor lighter as I threw the lighter at the creature, lighting the gas on fire.
The Pathogen's fat had also caught fire and it was burning quite quickly. Such a downfall for the thing.
Pika looked up at me fearfully, and I felt devastated. "Pika... Jian. I'm not a Pathogen. My father was, but my mother was not. I'm more human than Pathogen I promise. I've had no urge to kill anyone and no urge for blood. I told Byul and Markus about my... abilities... a while back. Please... keep it a secret. I want to protect everyone I care about..." I said, feeling tears well up in my eyes.
"Yeah... it would suck to have to report you," Pika said, looking into the forest, her face was red from embarrassment or something. I thanked her and then everyone, including me, looked to Jian.
"It doesn't matter to me... I just wanna play with my band for you guys." Jian said, laughing. The situation brightened and I thanked both of them. Although they still partially avoided me a small bit, as if I hadn't just saved their lives.
***
After sleeping a long night away, we awoke to sirens. That was our signal to head back to the gates. When we did, we met with Sargent Miko. He was looking a bit different now. He had dark stubble on his chin, it had only been four days since we'd left.
"Congrats to those of you who have survived. We had cameras around the forest observing you all."
My heart dropped... had they seen it? Did I get caught on camera?!
"Sadly though, we weren't able to watch whoever killed The Big One. I was looking forward to watching that. Most people from other years just avoided it until it was time to leave." He cleared his throat and began yelling to all of the sections, which were altogether in one huge crowd now. Some people were covered in blood and were crying, it seemed to me that they had watched a friend die out there.
"Thirty-eight of you died out there, and the rest of you survived. Be grateful you weren't one of the Thirty-eight." Miko said, flipping open a book and crossing off those who had perished a painful death out there... Thirty-eight people.
One boy began yelling about his best friend begin sliced apart in front of him in there and how he wouldn't allow for the Pathogen Hunters to get away with what they caused. The boy was removed from the crowd and taken into a building, where he'd remain for the rest of the meeting.
"That was a small survival test which consisted of four days. The next mission will begin next week on Monday. You will be training in here, learning how to fight Pathogens with your bare hands." He stopped and grinned. "Especially if one of your friends just became one."
The crowd gasped.