Fear quickly washed over everyone who read the rules of survival. There was no way things would end well.
"Survive?! Survive?! How can we survive with a limited amount of resources?!" Cursed a random man. The crowd backed him up with a mound of complaints.
"The screen will now show the names of each village and the 100 persons that should be heading towards their assigned village immediately." Announced the unknown figure. "Please be reminded, surviving is winning, so may the best man win! That will be all."
The hologram then vanished without a trace. Everyone immediately started panicking.
Zuko however remained calm and looked as if he wasn't afraid.
"What if I don't get put in the same village with my children?! Who will take care of them?!" A mother of 4 pleaded.
"I'm not leaving my kids behind!" Another man shouted.
Zuko pondered. Many hadn't realized it yet but Zuko had thought to himself, wouldn't it be best to start daily quests to be able to surpass the first wave instead of panicking?
Instead, not many accepted the sad reality and were still panicking knowing no matter what they did, there's still no way to escape the dome.
"Zuko..? Are you listening..? We need to figure out what village we were assigned to." Said his father, snapping Zuko from his thoughts. "Son, you can't be zoning out, the time has changed when we were free people, now we need to gain more information if we hope to survive the dome. Stay close to me!"
After Zuko's father found out they were both assigned to the same village, they sighed with relief. At least now his father could protect him.
After a few minutes passed, his father decided they should head back to the tent to get some rest for the next day.
Before Zuko's father entered his tent, he realized that a lot of people were confused.
"Everyone! We should have a meeting tomorrow to set some things straight but for now, get some rest."
"Who put him in charge." A man mumbled.
"That would be a great idea." A group agreed
They went back inside the tent and got some rest.
The next day, Zuko's father got up, brushed his teeth with a piece of coal, and rinsed his mouth with some water. He then tapped Zuko lightly for him to wake up.
"We have a big meeting today, get up and come participate."
He stepped outside and to his surprise, everyone was already gathered and waiting for the meeting to start.
"Shall we begi--"
"Good morning everyone!" Suddenly interrupted the hologram. "Just so you know, I'll be assigning daily quests to test your strength and survivability."
"What quests are you talking about?" Asked a random villager.
"These quests entail the villagers to come together and figure out how to get your own drinking water, animals to feast, and proper shelter to help protect you all from trials to come!" Announced the hologram. "Tip of the day; be warned, everything you see is not what it seems!"
"There it goes again without any explanation as to why we have to do these dumb quests." A man argued.
Shortly after the hologram disappeared, Zuko's father decided it was time to start the meeting.
It had now been a full day since the dome was put in place.
The information they were given by the hologram wasn't enough for the people to know exactly how to survive. Therefore, a meeting was needed to help get the quests done.
After their discussion, a system was put in place that was agreed upon amongst the villagers. The system was dependent on what daily quest each person had. If five persons had a quest to gather wood they would all go together as one, if 10 persons had a quest to gather buckets of water, they would all go together, and so on.
"Do we all understand how the system works?!" Zuko's father shouted.
"Yes, chief Bian!"
Zuko's father was both thrilled and nervous at the same time. He was happy that everyone saw him as the one best suited to lead them.
"There should be a river just south of the village but hopefully, it's not outside the dome. You can go there to get water. As for the group gathering the wood, do not gather it from nearby trees. We need those trees for oxygen and shelter." Said chief Bian.
Each group slowly paced themselves towards their goal through the forest to reserve their energy.
After all that had happened, Zuko slept through it all.
"Dad... What just happened?"
"I can't believe you missed everything Zuko." He chuckled.
His dad then informed him of everything that had happened on the way to the river.
A few hours passed and the villagers finally found a small river. It wasn't the cleanest but it looked like drinkable water in the thirsty villager's eyes.
"Finally, I shall drink until the last drop!" A random villager shouted.
Gulp Gulp Gulp
Due to how aggressively the man drank, the others began to believe he was going to drink the entire river. However, this was when something strange happened.
The man began coughing violently as if his lungs were about to burst. He then sprang himself up and ran to the side of chief Bian. However, it seemed that he was unable to speak. Something was very wrong.
"What's wrong?!" Asked chief Bian in worry.
This was when the man fell to his knees, clutching his throat in agony. Soon after, he vomited a pool of blood before falling over on his face. To everyone's horrific surprise, the man had died.