[Content warning: Mentions of death, blood, trauma, and disgusting elements]
Danielle and the male lay awake silently beside her, shivering in terror. Emlyn gulped uneasily as he tried his best to calm down the raging fear in his mind. Luckily for them, for some reason, the monster was no longer facing them but opposite with its back filled with wriggling limbs before them. It was quite disturbing but much better than the maggot-covered, huge-sized face that had been facing them.
Somehow, they had survived, and this was a huge clue as it meant that the main purpose of this trail wasn’t to escape from monsters but something else!
“Zero, I remember being so close to that monster, what happened when I passed out?” Dina asked seriously.
“It stretched out its rotting mouth towards you… but it fazed through,” Zero replied, truthfully, shocking Dina.
It fazed through?! How was that possible…?! Unless… This was all a hallucinatory illusion!
‘It’s all fake. The sorcerers are manipulating our minds with magic to see, hear, and feel these things to induce and harvest our fears!’ Dina thought in awe, how evil!
This meant no matter how many times you ‘die’ you’ll resurrect all over again… because you never died in the first place. It was all a manipulation of a person’s mental reality!
“I guess that the aim is to break participants by constant pain and death until they lose all will to survive. By then, all fear and terror would have been completely harvested from them,” Zero suggested, sending chills down Dina’s spine.
Of course, she had guessed that as well. Although there was no conclusive evidence, everything pointed to that conclusion and it was terrifying to think about. That meant the only way to survive this trial was by dying continually until it was over and managing not to lose your mind while at it.
“There’s still something I want to try though. Since these monsters are sensitive to sound, doesn’t that mean that if we stay as still as possible, we can survive until the trials end?” Dina wondered to Zero.
“But would the sorceress allow it?”
Dina grimaced. He was right, they wouldn’t… but it wouldn’t hurt to try!
“Can I purchase a pocket-sized jotter and pen please?” Dina asked Zero and immediately after deducting the required points, her request was fulfilled.
Taking out the jotter from his pocket, Emlyn scribbled down something on the notes quickly before signaling to the duo beside him to read it.
“This… isn’t this too much?” Danielle whispered very softly to prevent any mishaps while the glasses dude silently crawled closer to them.
“We have no choice; you can pull out now if you want,” Emlyn replied coldly, causing Danielle’s brows to deepen with worry. Was this their only choice?
After telling them what he thought was the aim of the main trials, he wrote out two plans. Plan A was to be as silent as possible to prevent the monster from approaching them and Plan B was on the possibility that Plan A failed. Plan B was to kill themselves instead of being consumed by the monster, it was quick and much painless.
Of course, they didn’t believe Emlyn’s theory, but the fact remained that when it came to picking a painful, long death versus a quick and painless death, they’d always pick the latter.
“I can’t do it… I… I’m too scared…” Danielle stuttered with a pale face after being handed the small but sharp knife by Emlyn. They were too ‘busy’ to bother with how, when, or where he got it from.
“It’s alright, I’ll do it for you,” Emlyn said with a straight face garnering him a bizarre look from both Danielle and the glasses dude. After all, which high-schooler would talk about casually killing a person? Talk more of an innocent classmate…
On noticing the suspecting looks, Dina felt alarm bells ring in her mind. This could be counted as OOC!
“…if there’s no other way then I’ll bear this duty as the owner of the idea…”
Danielle and Glasses dude: That’s not helping you mate.
“Ding! OOC meter 10%! Please be more careful T!”
Dina: …. Fuck!
Huffing internally in anger, Emlyn decided to stop talking. Whether or not they wanted it, that was their business, not his! Looking at the annoyed male who refused to elaborate any further the duo was helpless. They had no other choice but to wait; if push comes to shove, then they’d simply have him go first.
They stayed huddled together in the same spot, daring not to make any sound that might attract the monster; even their breathing was suppressed. Just when they were sure plan A was a success after nothing happened for a long time a loud ‘bang!’ was heard at the door!
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
It was loud and ferocious and more than enough to capture the monster’s attention! The monster screeched fiercely as it struggled to swerve its huge body about; it was moving slowly but surely, and they needed no one to tell them what would happen if it succeeded!
“So are you guys going to do it or should I?!” Emlyn roared at the panicked fellows bringing them back to reality. Danielle was still reluctant, but the glasses dude was more than ready, and after activating the veggie-killing skill, Emlyn targeted his carotid artery perfectly, severing it and causing the male to stumble to the floor in a pool of his blood, terrifying Danielle.
He watched the boy coolly flick the blood in his knife away without a change in expression like he hadn’t just killed a person. A dull fear resonated in her mind as she watched the male cautiously, this boy was dangerous.
“Will you? Or should I?” Emlyn asked impatiently, the monster was almost done turning!
“I-I-I….”
“Suit yourself then.”
Without bothering with the female again, he slit his neck and tumbled next to the already dead male beside him.
Danielle paled as she watched the boy peacefully close his eyes as he waited for his death. Feeling the overwhelming presence hovering behind her she didn’t need to turn to know that it was already too late. She closed her eyes as tears ran down her eyes, sniffing and shivering in fear as she waited for her painful demise.
She felt something slimy curl around her as the monster lifted her with its tongue and right into its gigantic mouth.
***
“AHH-MMM-!” Danielle woke up with a scream, which was swiftly muffled by Emlyn, who had anticipated it.
After confirming she was no longer screaming, he let her go, causing her to collapse to the ground, coughing and retching as she wept miserably. Her first death was terrible. Inside the stomach of the monster, maggots encapsulated and consumed her alive, and she was alive till the last moment.
She remembered the feeling of being covered in maggots; they entered her eyes, mouth, ears… everywhere and were feasting on her as she was helplessly besieged by the pain. Somehow, she was still alive even until every part of her body, including her internal organs, was consumed before she died.
Thus, until her death, she felt everything, and it was horrific.
Emlyn and the glasses dude watched in pity as Danielle wretched and wept miserably, scraping her skin while shaking in terror at the trauma of her death. She could still feel the maggots everywhere, she could feel them crawling on her skin, her insides, everywhere! It was horrible! Disgusting! Gross! Disgusting! Disgusting!
“I feel terrible, maybe I should have done it with or without her permission…” Dina thought to Zero guiltily.
“You shouldn’t. If you had killed her without her consent, the possibility of her turning against you as soon as she woke up is 90%, and she would not be able to understand what you saved her from,” Zero responded coldly, causing Dina to sigh.
Zero was right, she had actually considered forcefully killing Danielle to prevent this kind of thing from happening, but the amount of cautiousness and distrust within her eyes then was more than enough to stop her in her tracks.
Killing her without consent would label the murderer tag on Emlyn, and she’d rather have Danielle face the consequences of her own choice than face unfair stigma from helping her.
Watching the poor girl whimpering in fear and terror Dina couldn’t hold back anymore.
Kneeling before Danielle, Emlyn swopped the weeping girl into his hands, wrapping her in a tight embrace as he gently rubbed her back in circular motions in a bid to calm her down. Because Danielle was a little taller than him, even while kneeling she stuffed her face into his shoulder as she cried miserably.
She wound her arms tightly about Emlyn’s waist as she cried out to her heart’s content. The gentle rubbing of her back was soothing, it brought her back to reality and grounded her in it. Greedily taking in the male’s scent, she felt a calmness sweep over her, and soon her cries trickled down to sniffs.
“E—” the glasses dude wanted to say but was cut off by Emlyn making a shushing motion with his hands, leaving him helpless. In truth he was surprised. The vibe Emlyn gave off was of a cold and ruthless person, so watching him suddenly consoling the weeping girl astonished him.
Looking at the calm gentleness in the boy’s eyes he finally understood. Although he was calm, he was far from ruthless, he might just be the kindest one among them.
Indeed, it wasn’t smart to judge a book by its cover.
***
After that, it seemed the sorceress decided to leave them be after finding out they had cracked the code to this trial and after silently waiting for a long time, nothing came banging at the door again. The monster, without stimulation, remained at its position till the end of the trails.
“….hey! Wake up!” a loud voice awakened Emlyn from their deep sleep, causing him to sit up on the bed with a startle.
Looking at the grim faces surrounding him, his confusion eventually cleared up; immediately, the trials ended. They had been thrown into a deep slumber and then teleported to a resting place, which was the nurse’s office.
“Hey,” the glasses dude greeted him, “I didn’t get the chance to introduce myself, the name’s Marvin, Marvin Brook.”
“Yes, mine is Emlyn…” Emlyn responded absent-mindedly while observing his surroundings. They were in the nurse’s office and because of how big Kryptonium was, the nurse’s office was also huge and had two sections.
Although the possibility of thirty beds being filled up all at once was impossible, another section was added making it sixty beds in total. Before the disaster, the Kryptonium students had always joked that the nurse’s office was meant more for slacking than healing because why else would there be sixty beds in a school clinic?
He was now in the first section lying on the bed with a few others, some of whom were awake and the rest asleep. The problem was, they were too few… they couldn’t have possibly been wiped out to this extent right?
“If you’re looking for Danielle, she’s alright; she’s helping the others…” Marvin trailed off to an awkward pause.
Faced with Emlyn’s inquisitive eyes he continued difficultly, “Calm down the others.”
He finally understood; it seemed like apart from Danielle, others had the sorcerers wreck their mental states. It made Emlyn wonder pitifully, with them in that state could they survive the next trail? It was obvious these trials were based on mind-fuckery to the highest degree, so now that their minds were already frail, how would they handle the next devastation?
“How many are we now?” Emlyn asked curiously.
Marvin was silent for a while before responding, “We’re down to… thirty people.”
“……..”
HOLY FUCK.
***
A/N:
Two chapters to go!