After digging a bit more into the reason why they had been reduced to so little numbers Emlyn was silenced by shock.
Originally, the sorcerers had made their bodies nearly inhuman, which was why, despite all the stress and not attending the three nature's calls: hunger, sleep, and release, they were still alright.
Dina had suspected they did this just to maximize their chances of harvesting fear from them and now the suspicion was proven.
According to Marvin their numbers weren't originally like this, and no one had died in the trials; they had died as soon as they arrived here.
Everyone has been teleported away at the same time but some woke up much earlier than others. Out of 80 people, 35 died by committing suicide. They couldn't handle the trauma of their deaths and hurled themselves out the window while the remaining 15 died silently in bed without ever waking up, possibly from stress-related issues.
The sorcerer's immortality ended once they had sucked one dry and deemed that person useless. Even their zombie classmates had vanished; it seemed there was a limit to how much fear they could harvest from the humans… Or were the sorcerers just not trying hard enough?
It was horrible, but including the zombie curse and the flesh blurb curse, these were ways of causing eternal suffering and harvesting endless pain from them, so why were the sorcerers not using it?
Could it be that human fear, pain, and suffering went ‘stale’ to them after a certain time? If so, then these kids were immensely lucky; even she couldn't fathom the more horrid method the sorcerers would have cooked up to torture the students if they truly wanted them to suffer forever.
“Hey, Emlyn! You're awake!” Danielle, who had walked out of the inner section, exclaimed in excitement before reaching out to embrace Emlyn, who tried but sadly failed to avoid her hug.
Had it not been for Emlyn, their fate would have been like the 50 students who died. They couldn't be more grateful to have a teammate like him, as for how he found out, who cares? Weren't some people just smarter than the rest?
Now only if they were allowed to choose or keep teammates…
“Everyone's mental state is terrible, especially after finding out we've become dolls…” Danielle trailed off with a sigh, capturing Emlyn’s attention.
Both she and Marvin sat on Emlyn’s bed and refused to leave despite his obvious glares and disapproval so he just gave up. Either way, the bed had enough space so he could manage.
Looking around at the grim faces, everyone indeed was devastated, which was understandable; after all, apart from those who managed to crack the code with the help of Zero, others probably did not, which meant they suffered a lot in this trial.
“Dolls?” Emlyn wondered faintly, indeed, dolls were the perfect analogy for what these monsters had turned them to.
Human dolls who were just waiting to be cultivated and then destroyed.
Marvin, thinking Emlyn didn't understand, decided to elaborate, “Someone found out that they couldn't kill themselves even after trying various methods. He even jumped from the window only to be teleported back to the nurse's office.”
Marvin scrunched his face bitterly as he spoke; he had determined to take his own life if push came to shove, but lo and behold, he couldn't even do that.
“We can't kill ourselves as long as there's still a bit of mental fortitude in us, now I am hoping the voice isn't lying and there's truly a chance of survival…” Danielle said with a heavy sigh.
She couldn't help but feel that even survival was just a farce thrown by the sorcerers to give them false hope for them to struggle harder and satisfy their sadism.
Emlyn was silent; he glanced around the dim faces with barely any life to them and then at the two fellas who sat beside him with an equally gloomy look and sighed internally.
Their suspicions were right, none of them was going to survive these trials.
***
“Hello, you bald-haired freak,” a male with tousled-up pink hair and grey eyes with heavy gothic makeup sneered at Marvin, who barely glanced at him.
They had all been recuperating and waiting for the next trials to begin when suddenly, this pink-haired mongrel crawled up to them from nowhere.
Talk about pot calling the kettle black; although Marvin had his hair shaved to a low cut, it was still neat and much better than the others' messy pink hair.
Danielle glared at the bad-mouthed fool while Emlyn had a dismissive look one would give a piece of crap they saw on a roadside. The pink-haired male felt a layer of sweat slide down his back; when did Mavi get a harem?
“Hey dude, can you explain to these pretty ladies? They're gonna rip me to shred with those looks…” the pink-haired male said wearily.
“Lady? That's a guy, dumbass!” Danielle said, rolling her eyes, causing the pink-haired male to be startled.
His eyes swished to Emlyn, who was looking at him coldly with his effeminate doe eyes holding a layer of frost, seemingly freezing all who stood before him.
His gaze overlooked him like royalty watching a filthy peasant in the street act like a dimwit. Arrogant, domineering, and fucking pretty!
If it wasn't for his clothes, he would have passed off cleanly as an extremely good-looking flat-chested girl!
“Oh… Are you tr–”
“Marvis Quinn!”
“Am so sorry he's just so fucking pretty I misunderstood, sorry.”
‘In this idiot's vocabulary do effeminate looking males not exist?’
Forgetting that, who was this idiot anyway? He looked cheerful for someone who went through the horror they all did and was quite close to Marvin, so he wasn't a bully.
“Sorry for his… attitude, this guy is my idiotic best friend, Marvis Quinn.”
Feeling the probing stares of the two, Marvis smiled shyly, “Hi guys.”
***
A/N:
1 more chapter to go and an extra if possible for missing last week schedule! Please support with comments and PS and don't forget to check out my FB if interested!