*Modern day
Location: Zion
The nurses paraded back and forth, calling the doctors as the patients in the particular room at the medical center in Zion started convulsing.
The four children admitted had been relatively unmoving and unresponsive to various tests they had run. The heart monitor alarmingly signaled their heartbeats dropping for each of them.
Doctors tended to each child and tried to assess the situation.
For the last couple of hours, children of the same age and even adults suffering the same condition as the four had been admitted to various medical centers. There was no explanation if this was a new kind of disease that broke out unknowingly.
Relatives of the victims were beginning to worry.
Mysie Xavier paced outside the particular room, glancing at what was happening inside. She was close to losing her head without knowing what was happening with Beatrix.
This whole situation being a political scheme, had crossed her mind. However, when she caught sight of Governor Valentine earlier, the thought vanished from her head instantly.
Even the governor's daughter was inflicted with this strange condition.
Mysie Xavier turned her attention to her daughter, her body showing signs of seizure.
"What is going on?"
–
"Z!" Zera muttered a curse, kicking off a zombie that snapped its teeth at her. Behind her, Beatrix was firing unstoppably. A horde of zombies were running after them.
"Let's hold them off until the others find the building!"
It was only after they were out of choices that they found they could actually leap off the buildings and land on their feet without cracking their bones. The gravity pulled them down to a medium speed; hence, they could control their fall.
After creating a solid strategy, the five players set off to do each assignment. Beatrix and Zera were to create the distraction and lure the zombies away from their three comrades while they searched for the lone building that could hold most of the zombies before they could set off the grenade.
"Switch places!" Beatrix suggested. Zera did, circling to the side to cover Beatrix's ground as they continued to run, fighting off the zombies along the way to make the noise needed.
"Once we get out of this game, I will write a blog regarding this entire experience! Damn these zombies!" Beatrix cursed, shouting her battle cry before firing at the zombies she could hit.
"Make sure to tag me when you do!" Zera replied, getting annoyed that the re-animated dead were hardly depleting in number no matter what they did.
"Z! Look out!" Beatrix warned, pushing Zera out of the way before a super zombie could overtake her.
That caused the two of them to stumble and lose the direction they were going. Zera had dropped her gun. It got whisked away from her hands.
"Sorry!" Beatrix apologized, firing at any zombies who would come close while Zera picked herself up. She eyed the gun that lay several inches away from where she was now standing.
"I'll use my daggers, Bee. You take care of the long-range shots."
"Copy!" Beatrix replied, feeling guilty for needing to push Zera out of the way. But if she didn't, Zera might have been bitten.
Gripping the only weapon she had, Zera turned aggressive. She lashed out at the zombies, showing no mercy.
If she didn't know how to be mad before, she does now, and it was making her chest burn, fueling her attacks towards the zombies that seemed to multiply with every kill.
"Do you think the other team made it to the next stage?" Beatrix asked out of the blue. Zera grunted with effort as she plunged her sharp blade onto a zombie's expired eyeballs, kicking it away to pull her weapons back.
"Probably, if not, we would be the ones who had ascended," Zera replied, then muttered a curse.
In all honesty, she couldn't even spare them a thought as of the moment. She and her friends were in the middle of something. When their paths would cross in a later stage, again, maybe they could learn what happened to the other five.
"Right," Beatrix muttered.
"Have you wondered why we seemed to have been chosen?" Zera tossed towards Beatrix after realizing that talking kept them both focused and distracted.
"Political power move? You know that stupid bullcrap which jealous people pull against our parents?" Beatrix didn't sound pleased having to say that out loud.
Ever since they had pointed out that the four of them had been spiraled into the game without any knowledge of what it was about, nor did they know anything regarding the reward, Beatrix already speculated that this could have something to do with either her, Zera or Astherielle.
But she had wanted to keep speculating until she was sure it was the case. However, since Zera had already laid it out, there was no point in keeping it to herself.
"I hate how that same theory is running in my mind. But that's not even all. What happens then if we don't make it out of this game? If we are being held hostage here, what's even going on with our parents?" Zera paused to secure her kill, throwing the zombie with one flying kick, breaking its neck.
"I might not like having to follow after my father's footsteps, but I'm worried about him and my siblings," Zera admitted.
As they got thrown further into the game, the more she was thinking about what her father was doing right now or if he was even safe.
Were her siblings safe too?
"Me too, but we can't afford to worry about the real world for now. If we don't see this game to the end, our worries would all be for nothing. We'd be stuck in here for good."
"When I become the next governor, will I have your support?" Zera turned to Beatrix. The latter gave Zera a smirk.
"I thought you didn't want to be Hearth's governor?"
Zera rolled her eyes.
"If, EE. If I become the next governor, will I have your support?"
"Do you even have to ask, Z? Absolutely! You better brace yourself to be dragged by me to some random crazy girl's night out, though! I won't let you become the boring and lifeless governor!"