PoV Marcus
I woke up at dawn because Manni had been sleeping using my arm as a pillow, and now the pain had become unbearable.
'Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Man, this hurts like hell.' I complained as I grabbed a pillow, lifted his head a little, and replaced my arm with the pillow.
The rest of my arm was feeling numb except for the part where Manni rested his head. Soon after I tried to move my arm around, a tingling sensation spread out. I knew that process all too well, so I found a place to sit and waited for the tingling sensation to turn into pain.
'And now—wait a minute, yesterday I was too occupied helping Manni to tell the others about... Seeing them drag themselves out of their own room might be entertaining... I should warn them real quick so at least the blame doesn't fall on me.'
'Ah, dammit, I was so focused on helping Manni get over his feelings that I forgot to warn the others that today they were going to be forced outside. Should I make a run for it?' I thought the idea of watching those other kids get dragged outside their room against their will in order to touch some grass was both funny and tragic.
'No, if they discover I didn't warn them about this, I'll be punished as well. But those are a lot of floors to climb. Fuck it; the more I think about it, the less I want to do it.'
I got up and went to the bathroom to wash my face. As I looked up at the mirror, for some reason, I couldn't see my face. My hair was also barely visible. I could see that they were black, but they were so blurred that I couldn't make anything out of them.
'That's weird; is something wrong with this mirror? Yesterday it wasn't—no, yesterday I didn't check out the mirror.'
I then stormed out of the bathroom and woke up Manni.
"Manni! Why is your mirror so weird?" I asked while helping him sit.
"Mirror? Are you talking about Jeda?" He said this in a confused tone while rubbing his eyes.
"Who's Jeda?"
"The maid?" He answered while trying to go back to sleep.
"Manni?" I kept shaking him while turning his head around left and right, sometimes squeezing his nose, trying my best to wake him up.
"Who's Jeda again?" He asked.
"Ah, it was just a dream." He later added while turning around to keep sleeping.
"Anyway about your mirror, Manni."
He covered his ears and simply rolled away.
"Manni, you have to get-"
"No! I've already eaten breakfast and done my homework; I want to sleep now," he shouted. He then curled up into a fetal position in the corner of the bed, covering his entire body with the sheets.
Instead of going back to sleep, I decided to go down to the ground floor, to a storage room that was now full of fridges, and take a Cola for myself.
"Puhaaa! This is what I needed; sweets are just the best when it comes to waking up. Let's see... Is there a good snack around?"
Unfortunately, there were mostly desserts and no traces of anything salty.
'Figured as much... wait, that means those actually ate their food for once? What a shame; yesterday's dinner was exquisite, and I was really looking forward to eating their leftovers. Should I sneak into the kitchen? I really want something to go along with my soda... But I don't want to be scolded again... I guess this much should be fine.'
I took off my sandals and sneakily made my way into another room full of boxes. I took a bag of chips and went to eat it outside. So that the noise wouldn't wake up the others.
I sat down in front of the main door, eating and drinking while watching the luminous city.
The football camp in front of the main building was turned off. It was the first time I could take a good look outside, and I realized we were living in the most intact part of the city.
I could still see some buildings that were destroyed. Our complex had many sports camps around it; in front there was a hospital, and all around us there were empty, luxurious complexes.
They were black and had many lights attached to the walls near the windows. They also had some kind of small garden in front of the entrance.
"Maybe I should've gone to the rooftop to get a better view." I said this before taking another sip of my small bottle.
'Well… It's too late now; maybe if I get another bottle, I could...'
There was no one outside. The only noise I could hear was the sound of animals, more specifically birds.
It was strangely warm outside.
'Where are we? This is supposed to be winter!'
It was a weird thought that popped into my head.
As I raised my gaze, I saw the weird survival show everyone was talking about online. It showed the hero sparring with his right-hand man, Forren.
The hero didn't seem good at first, but he quickly adapted to his opponent's tactics, and after a short while, he managed to block or parry most of his strikes. He never once dodged or used his ability to avoid being hit.
The two of them were sparring rather violently, without hesitating even a single second. The large man was a lot faster than I had expected. The man tried multiple times to land knockout blows to Diego's head but would always narrowly miss.
After a dozen or so punches, the large man attempted mixing a kick in between punches. Diego, on the other hand, avoided getting hit thanks to his ability to turn himself intangible and tried to tackle Forren, which failed.
Forren quickly locked his arms around Diego, and before he could escape thanks to his ability, he tossed him to his right side, making him roll on the ground. He probably thought that Diego would try to get back up quickly, so he made a couple of steps forward and then preemptively kicked him.
Diego, on the other hand, rolled aside and got up next to him. He immediately lowered his head, avoiding a backhanded punch from Forren, then landed a punch on Forren's right cheek, leaving a slight bruise.
'Wow, those two can barely land a punch at each other; I didn't know they could fight so well.' I was surprised; the fight was insanely gripping. One moment Diego managed to land a bunch of powerful blows on Forren's body, leaving him unable to respond, then out of nowhere he would suddenly recover his senses and unleash a powerful punch. When Forren was about to land a blow to Diego's head and end the match, Diego managed to use his ability in time, leaving every spectator in disbelief.
That sparring match was able to display just how monstrous those two individuals were; even while receiving constant blows directly to the liver and brain, Forren's regeneration allowed him to keep fighting.
The large man tried landing a spinning kick but got kicked on the back by Diego and fell to the ground. He quickly rolled on the ground, sweeping Diego's legs off the ground as he was getting closer to try and stomp on the back of Forren's head.
The large man then tried to burst Diego's ears by clapping his hands against the sides of Diego's head, but his head was already intangible, so all he was able to do was clap his hands loudly as Diego rolled off of his body and quickly got back up.
Neither one seemed to be able to finish the match, but the longer the match lasted, the clearer it became who would've come out on top. After every passing minute, it was obvious that Diego was slowing down, getting hit more times than he could hit his opponent.
I was also on the edge of my seat, waiting for one of them to finally break and fall; the first one to make a mistake was Forren, who suddenly tripped on the terrain and fell to the ground.
Diego tried to capitalize on it by stomping on the back of Forren's head, and he retaliated by throwing a rock at Diego. Diego was hit on the temple and also fell to the ground. The two kept trying to overcome one another, trying to wrestle to gain the upper hand. At one point, the two stopped and distanced themselves from one another.
After that, the hero signaled a timeout, and both of them stopped their sparring.
'Does that guy not feel any pain? He barely reacted after getting hit countless times, and he barely shows any signs of fatigue... So the myths about him being able to go toe to toe against Barix without body enhancements must be true.''
I thought while finishing my drink.
"Time to wake the others up." I said to myself as I put the plastic bottle away.
I then headed to the second floor. Nana's floor.
I don't know much about her. I haven't even met her. All I know is that she's a year younger than me and that she's fat. I live on the first floor, so sometimes when she runs around, I can feel her heavy footsteps.
It was a pain in the ass searching for the right door, but in the end, I found her room at the end of the corridor, the furthest room possible from the elevator.
She was snoring while hugging a body pillow of some actor.
She had curly, long red hair, a large nose, and was extremely overweight. Her room was also a mess, but for an entirely different reason than Manni's.
First off, there were way too many figurines spread all around the room of fictional characters, pillows everywhere, and even comics on the ground. The walls were filled with posters of almost-naked models, and there were lots of snack wrappers all over the bed.
As soon as I tried to wake her up, she farted and then curled up into a ball. I immediately opened the windows and covered my nose to not smell it.
I tried to shake her up, but that didn't work at all, so I tried to pull away the sheets, but that also didn't work.
'Let's see if you can remain still after a cold bucket of water.'
That was the first thing that came to mind, so I took the first bottle I could get my hands on, filled it with water, and poured it all over her face.
She got up immediately, coughing and cursing.
'That's right! Even whales can drown!'
"Oi! Are you-" I tried to ask if she was okay but couldn't finish the sentence because she punched me in the face.
"Argh! FUCK! What was that-" I complained as I got up.
"Who do you think you are?" She cut me off while grabbing a nearby lamp.
"You didn't get up any other way." I said this after taking a couple of steps away from her.
"Then give up! Why are you in my room in the first place?" She asked, her eyes filled with anger seething at me as she raised her right fist, ready to strike me down while I was still on the ground.
"Today-"
"I don't care, that was a rhetorical question; now get out!" She shouted as she began throwing normal pillows at me.
"Today the soldiers want to meet us all, that's all." I said soldiers because I didn't want to repeat the drama with her that I had to deal with Manni, so I made it sound like I wasn't close to them. At the same time, I needed a threatening-sounding title enough to command some level of authority.
"And why are you telling me this now?" She was still pissed, but now she had calmed down enough to put down the lamp.
"After telling Manni, I forgot to tell you."
"Who's Manni?" She asked.
'So she really didn't leave this floor once this entire time.'
"Another orphan like us." I answered.
"Ok, so when are we supposed to meet them?" She said while rubbing her eyes and tidying up her bed.
"I would say three to four hours at best. They might talk about something important there-"
"I get it; I'll be there in three hours. Now leave!" She then started pushing me away from her room.
As soon as she was out, she slammed the door in my face.
'Now, the only one left is John; I wonder how he will react to this news.'
I don't know much about him either. I saw him once, but that was it. He is really skinny, has black hair, and doesn't sleep much since he has some really bad bags under his eyes.
He lives on the fourth floor, and that's why I saw him. Most of the soldiers live on the fourth floor.
The first and third floors are mostly used to store food and other things that belong to the soldiers.
When I got closer to his room, I heard the sound of the television turned on, so I knocked before entering. He was sleeping facing the screen.
I noticed on the side of his bed a jar filled with many insects. The rest of the rooms seemed normal except for that detail. He had many wallpapers hanging around of many mainstream video game characters, mostly women showing off their bodies.
On the ground, there were tons of energy drink cans and many sheets.
I tried to shake him a bit, but he didn't seem to notice that. I then tried to block his nose, but he started breathing with his mouth. I tried to rub his eyes, but he simply rolled his face down to the other side of the bed.
'Here's yet another heavy sleeper. How should I deal with this one? A bottle of water would feel a bit uninspired, plus I don't want to get punched a second time. AH! I got the perfect idea.'
It wasn't some grand plan; I just took a bunch of his dirty shirts and headed towards his bathroom, tossed all the dirty clothes into his sink, and submerged them in cold water. While the clothes were soaking, I took a quick glance at his mirror, and I noticed it had the same problem as Manni's.
After a couple of minutes, I returned to John's bedroom and proceeded to cover his eyes with the drenched clothes, making sure his nose wasn't covered, then tied the rest around his waist.
"What is going-" He was a bit hazy and slow to wake up.
"Sorry, now I'm really not in the mood to go into the many details. In three hours, I want you down on the ground floor. That's it."
"Why me?" he asked.
"Don't worry, everyone will be there."
"Ok I'll-" He tried to get up, but as soon as he got up, his legs gave up, and he fell face first into the ground.
"I'm fine. I'm probably fine." He mumbled to himself while remaining on the ground.
Daniel came rushing down to our door. He probably heard him slamming against the ground and got worried. He took him in his arms and carried him to the ground floor, where he started healing him with his weird powers.
"Should I call in the others?" For some weird reason, he was really fluent today; his accent was all over the place, but he wasn't fumbling with his words.
"No, early, ehm... sleep! They rest!" I responded while quickly looking around. It was hard communicating with them, so I tried to speak as clearly as possible.
"Daniel, what about the others?" I asked him; it was rare to see him not accompanied by either the tall black man or Kane.
"They mission... out. Be back in half an hour."
After that, Daniel went to help John get up, who, for some weird reason, had fallen unconscious on the ground. To heal him, Daniel started emitting a weird green slime out of his hands and carefully covering his whole body. He then carried his body downstairs. After a couple of minutes, the slime started to solidify in a weird way; it had a soft texture that reminded me of cotton candy.
He then went upstairs to search for something while I remained with Jonathan.
"Are you still there?" the kid asked me.
"Yes, I am. How does that feel?" I asked while poking the cocoon.
"It's weird. I was scared shitless when I saw the soldier picking me up, and when he covered me with this thing, I thought I was about to die."
"They're not bad people, t-" I tried to say something, but he immediately cut me off.
"They killed thousands and thousands of people, you know-"
"We were the ones that started the conflict. They wanted to approach this in a more peaceful way, yet as soon as their army came down, the first thing we did was attack them." I then tried to explain the things I saw happening before the day of their invasion.
"Yeah, of course, if you want to peacefully approach a civilization, you introduce them to your army first." Commented John.
"You really are-"
"What they did is inexcusable. With that much power in their hands, they could have solved this without shedding so much blood." He had a way with words; he was moving up a lot inside the cocoon.
"Sure, whatever." I shut down the conversation since I was on the losing end of the conversation.
At that point, Daniel returned with a weird box that had a microphone on top of it and started talking.
"We finally finished setting up the translator, so communication will no longer be an issue between us." The voice the box produced was that of the most generic audio bot I've ever heard.
"Sooo... Why did you call us all today?" Asked John.
The box translated Jonathan's words back to Daniel.
"We needed to talk about your future. For obvious reasons, you can't keep living the way you did in the last couple of weeks. We also need to figure something out regarding your education." Daniel answered. He was walking in circles around us, tapping the magical box whenever he walked past it.
"Not only that, but we also have to figure out what you want to do for a living; the possibilities are endless in the fifteen—you get the gist of it." He seemed excited while speaking.
"Marcus, stay here with John until he's ready to get out of the cocoon. I'll prepare breakfast." He said this as he cracked every bone in his spine while leaning backwards for a moment.
"Oh, and before I forget about it, next time you want to get a snack, ask for permission first, Marcus." He added this before leaving.
'Phew! It seems I'm not in trouble for now. I guess so long as I ask forgiveness of Daniel, I won't be punished. This is nice.'
"Since you're preparing breakfast, I can wake the others, right?" I shouted at him.
"NO!" he shouted back.
"Man, you really are thick-headed." Commented Jonathan.
His cocoon started to dry, and the exterior layer started to crumble.
"Now I understand why-" John was interrupted by Areus, who landed in the garden like a meteor.
He was holding someone down, but I couldn't see properly due to the amount of dust in the air.
He shouted something in his native language, and Daniel came rushing down to help him.
"Check the food!" He told me this before going into one of the storage rooms.
He grabbed a weird fruit and left again.
As soon as the dust cleared up, I saw a weird humanoid creature being held down by Areus. It had long white hair and long arms. Many fingers were popping out of his left arm, while the right one was completely dark, had a rotting mouth, and didn't have a nose.
As soon as the creature ate the fruit, it became a normal girl.
'What is going on?'
"What happened?" asked the curious John.
"I don't fucking know, a weird thing dropped from the sky, and the soldiers managed to purify it!" I said.
"What?"
"Don't ask me; I don't know what that was." I was panicking; the beast's arms kept splitting into more arms as it tried to fight back against the soldier, and he was promptly cutting them off, one by one at a speed so high his arms were barely visible.
Areus then started arguing with Daniel and was stopped by Kane, who gracefully fell from the skies.
"Go call the others." Areus spoke through the translator.
"They are still sleeping." Objected Daniel.
It was nice to understand them once in a while.
"Even farmers are awake by now. Marcus go!" Before Daniel could object, I managed to get to the elevator and go to the second floor.
"NINA'S BREAKFAST IS READY ON THE GROUND FLOOR!" I shouted as soon as the elevator door opened before heading towards the last floor.
Manni wouldn't wake up, so I had to carry him to the elevator and drag him to the table.
I smelled the smell of burned meat. The table had bread, cheese, poached eggs, milk, and some juice.
'Where's the meat?'
"If you're wondering where the meat is, you let it burn." John said it in a not-so-amiable tone.
He had already come out of his cocoon and was sitting near Nina. His skin was more toned, and he didn't have bags anymore. His hair was also shining.
"I didn-"
"Shut up. I'm having a headache; I don't want to hear your annoying voice now." He said.
After putting Manni in his seat, I was served just a poached egg and a cup of milk.
"Just this much?" I complained
"You already drank a Coke and ate some chips. I think this is more than enough to complete your breakfast." Daniel spoke through his translating device.
"Wait? He ate some chips, and we got served this?" Complained Nina
Daniel then put the remains of the bag on a plate and served me that as well. I noticed that Daniel and Areus were not eating with us but were eating in the kitchen.
"Can I have one?" Asked Nina.
"Yeah, sure, no problem." I answered, but soon came to regret it.
There was half a kilogram of chips, and she easily took half of it for herself. I gave Manni a bunch, leaving just a handful for me.
"You really are a whale." I mumbled while finishing my breakfast.
"What did you say?" She said it in an angry tone while pointing the fork at me.
"You said you'd take just one, then you took half of my chips." I replied.
"Oh, don't be a fucking-"
"No! No! No! Don't even think-" Before she could put up a solid defense, I immediately tried to attack her where it could sting her the most: her weight. But before I could say anything, she had already kicked my seat away.
"Grow the fuck up!" She said.
"How about you stop being such a fatass!" I finally managed to drop the bomb.
At that point, she got up and was ready to throw the chair at me.
"Why don't you just repeat what you just said?" She threatened me.
"How about you stop-"
She threw the seat at me. Luckily, Kane appeared to stop it, smiling as always.
"Brothers shouldn't fight." He said.
"Huh? This cretin-"
Kane shut her up by putting his finger on her lips.
"No fight! ok?"
"She started it." I complained-
"You started it; you complained-" She tried to defend herself, but our words fell into deaf ears as Daniel wasn't listening to us at that point; he was just trying to shut us up.
"Then don't eat half of my fucking-"
He chopped us both in the head with his hands. It didn't hurt, even though the hit made a loud noise.
"No fight."
"Tch!" She was still pissed.
Manni offered me the chips I gave him, and I refused.
As soon as the others entered the room, I saw Jonathan paralyzed, probably in fear, while the whale started swallowing her food, barely chewing it.
'What is wrong with those two? Even Manni, who's scared of them, is eating normally.'
After breakfast, Areus, Kane, and Hollis accompanied us outside, while the rest remained in the building.
"The others will join us as soon as they finish their breakfast." Areus spoke through the translator.
"It's the perfect time to start introducing ourselves. We'll start with Kane." He continued.
Kane stepped forward and started posing like a bodybuilder; he was probably the more muscular of the group while also not having anywhere near the level of muscle a bodybuilder usually has.
"The name's Kane. I come from the fifth dimension. My favorite hobby is developing new magical techniques, and from today onwards, I will be one of your caretakers."
He then bowed.
"It's a pleasure to meet you." He continued.
Then Areus took the translator.
"My name is Areus. As you can see, I'm not a human. I come from the sixth dimension, and I like to write love stories. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask me anything."
Then it was Hollis' turn.
"Hello! Uhm... My name is Hollis... I love painting, and... I think that's it."
Hollis was one of the few black-skinned guys in the group. He has long, straight hair, a large nose, and fat lips. I haven't seen him around much, so I don't know what his character is like.
Before they could hand the translator to us, the rest of the group arrived.