When I finally start running through this portal. I again feel like my entire body is getting torn apart yet again. But in a race against time, I will gladly suck up the pain to get back home. And not stuck inside there, because that would've been the worst thing that actually could've happened to me right now. But the sight I saw when I got through it was devastating. Not because everyone on the other side was dead. But because I saw a lot of people in suits. And those people are with the association. Which means something bad happened, otherwise they wouldn't be here.
As I take a few seconds to catch my breath I try to speak. Yet nothing could come out. It wasn't like before however. I couldn't speak because I was out of breath not because I was as scared as I could be this time. But at least the only thing I had to worry about was the fact that I had trouble breathing right now. And not that I was trapped inside a portal which would've been a death sentence for me. But as I started to get some more air back into my lungs I finally manage the mumble out. "What happened?" It was just mumbling though so I am not sure whether or not anyone could actually hear me. But from what I could see, everybody seemed quite busy doing something.
I see a whole lot of people walking around here yet I don't have enough energy to actually call out to them to show them that I got through. As I look back again to see how much time I made it through the portal I finally noticed that it was already gone. I made it through with just seconds to spare. As I look through the crowd I notice Lake and Kiara standing around too. They both look pretty confused with what is going on here too. They are probably waiting for one of the workers of the association to take their statements to see what happened with us.
As I don't really know what to do and don't really see one of the suits notice me I see Lake coming up to me. I never thought I was going to be relieved to see him. He quickly whispers something to me. "Do not say anything about the temple we found. I haven't mentioned it and Kiara hasn't mentioned it. The association has worse things to worry about than a weird temple that was inside a now-closed portal."
I get why they would want to hide it. But I am not even sure what has happened here. I do see some sheets laying on the ground. But those couldn't be what I think there were, could they? "What happened, why are there so many people from the association here?" I ask Lake as I see Kiara walk over to us too. I don't know what happened but I have a feeling that either Lake or Kiara does know what happened here.
"Azure, you are okay? We thought you didn't make it for a couple of minutes." Kiara says to me as she runs up to both, Lake and I. She gives me a quick hug and just for a second I am not sure to what but her expression seemed to have changed. But that could've been the lighting. I however still don't know what happened to the other group. I see Drake standing up and running around, but I am sure I miss some people I was sure were with Drake.
"The other group had casualties. Four people were killed by something. I haven't been able to find out what it is though." Lake says as he sighs. But the fact that people died inside there. I highly doubt it was because the zombies overwhelmed them. They were probably with at least 12 people when it got dark outside. Which is quite a lot of people to be inside a dark cave.
"How could four people die? Like how? What happened?" I ask out loud as I stare kind of into nothingness. I try not to look too much at the bodies, I don't know why but looking at them just gives me a strange feeling. Probably because everyone who is laying there dead is way stronger than me. No matter what category, I am sure they were stronger in all of them.
"I am not sure. All I heard is that there was a monster in there. One they don't even know what it exactly was." Lake replies as he looks directly at the bodies. I don't know how he does it since for me it is hard to look at. But as I look at it real quick I see some workers of the association check the dead people's pockets. I am not sure why they are doing it. But I think my confusion was clear on my face. Since Lake starts to explain what they are doing. "They are checking their delving passes. You know the ones you get when you start delving and you need to get renewed yearly." I nod as I have a feeling where this is going. "Well on those passes they can see who they need to contact. Like contact next of kin, it happens in higher-ranked portals. But this is the first time I have seen it happen in a D+ ranked portal."
"Well, I heard some of them talk about the fact that they thought that we were dead too. But obviously, they were wrong about that too. But what worries me more is the fact they might have wrongly contacted family when it wasn't needed." Kiara asks as we are all just observing those suits. Well, I try not to look too much at them, since I find it disrespectful I think to gawk at those bodies. But what she says troubles me too. If they were really thinking that we were dead, could they have contacted our families while it wasn't needed?
"I am not sure if they would do that till the portal has closed. But considering how not used they are with dead bodies in a D+ ranked portal, we don't know what they could do. But I am sure that they could probably request that data pretty easily" Lake responds as even he starts to look a bit worried about the fact that his family could've been contacted. Which is of course very worrying for me too, since if they are not organised enough I fear that might've happened.
"They wouldn't be that organised would they?" I ask Lake who I am sure already experienced some death while delving. This however is the first time I have seen people dead after a D+ rank dungeon. The last time this happened was ten years ago. But I honestly don't remember a lot about that. As I see one of the guys in suits approaching us.
"Okay, first of all, my name is Elliot Witman. And I have something pretty awkward to explain to the three of you. But because the survivors didn't know where the three of you were. One of my supervisors took that as you three died or probably wouldn't be able to actually get back." This worker of the association says. He looks really professional with his black hair streaked back. But he looked completely awkward while saying what he was saying. This is completely understandable in this situation since he has to clean up his supervisor's messes. But it took a bit as he paused to what he was about to say. But I already realised what his supervisor had assumed. He had assumed the three of us were dead. I at least hope the supervisor was wise enough to wait till the portal closed to say we were dead to our families. "Well, my supervisor made the executive decision to tell your families that there was a large chance you all had died." My eyes widen as he says this. I know he didn't say to tell my family that himself. But his supervisor should be fired for making people think their family members died in a raid.
"Oh wow, you all did the one thing I thought you wouldn't do. So our families think we are dead right now? Didn't anyone realise that you should wait for the portal to close. Before contacting people's families. At least of those who are not present here yet." Lake shouts at the poor guy. I want to scream too but honestly, this is not the correct person to scream at. The person I should probably scream at is his supervisor. Because that is probably the idiot who wrongly contacted Eleanor's and Liam's school.
"I am very apologetic about my supervisor's mistake. He is currently trying to tell everyone that the three of you are okay and alive. By his reactions, it seems like it is difficult for him to explain it to everyone." Elliot explains as he looks behind him briefly to look at a smaller guy rushing on the phone to explain everything to the correct people. "But did anything odd happen that you three have noticed."
"Well, like I told someone else before. We only encountered a forest with nothing more than flowers. I am not sure what they are used for but he knows." Lake explains as he points to me for the part about the flowers. I sincerely hope I don't have to explain it right now. Because I would rather start going to my siblings' school.
As Kiara starts to chime in. "It was my very first portal delve. I don't know if anything I saw inside would be considered weird. But I also stayed with the weaker group above ground. And there everything was normal like I told that guy." As she starts to point to one of the many random suits.
"Well above ground the only thing I saw that was odd was the fact there was a cave and a forest. But I stayed up with the collecting group as usual so I don't even know what happened." I comment as I quickly grab the flower bag to show proof that I am more of a collector than a fighter.
"Elliot, you should not be the one conducting interviews with the survivors like this. You are not qualified enough for this." The person who Elliot seemed to be looking at when he mentioned his supervisor interrupts our conversation. I already can't stand this dude just from the moment he walked in front of us. He already seems pretty rude because of the fact he didn't excuse himself for interrupting. Or rather observe his junior to see if he knows how to do his job. He also misinformed my siblings' school about the fact I was dead even though I was alive. This dude pisses me off simply because he is incompetent at his job.
"I wasn't really conducting an interview, sir. I was informing them of what has happened before they got out of the portal. Which are things they need to be prepared for." Elliot responds as his supervisor pulls him down and whispers something to him. If the supervisor wanted to say something quietly to Elliot than Elliot needed to bend down. The dude is just a tad bit too tall. He is even taller than Lake. And Lake isn't that short either. However, after the supervisor finished what he needed to tell Elliot you could see a scowl forming on his face.
"Well, nothing happened to the three of you. There was a simple misunderstanding which has been cleared up now. And considering none of you have been in contact with whatever was behind this portal. There seems to be nothing to worry about. You all can leave now." The supervisor says in a dismissive tone. If I wasn't that tired I would've guessed that he had looked at me dismissively too. Which is not surprising if this was a normal day. However, he misinformed our families about the fact that we were dead while we clearly are alive and kicking.
"Is that it? Is that all you are going to say?" I ask him. I intended to ask this in a normal tone of voice. But it seemed that the anger boiling up inside of me came out the second I opened my mouth. I wouldn't have noticed that I had gotten this angry if people didn't start staring at me. I usually would hate this, no I still hate this. But at the same time, I don't care that people are hearing me being angry at this absolute idiot. "You didn't do your job well enough. And now you are seemingly chucking it away like you made some dumb mistake that anyone could've made. If these types of mistakes happened every time a higher-ranked portal had casualties you wouldn't have made this mistake. But because you didn't do your job properly you have done quite a lot of damage. First of all, you traumatised two teenagers that their older brother was dead. Who probably got pulled out of class to get told this! And who knows have to be pulled out of class yet again to be told that oh no we made a mistake. Do you know the damage you did? Because you did this to not just two people. You did this to at least 6 people, probably even more." I couldn't hold back the anger I was feeling at this point. Like this man has traumatised my siblings. Like they aren't scared about my well-being on a daily basis already. Now they have to worry about getting a real call like this too. This will have opened the wound of our parents dying, I am sure of it.
"Azure, calm down dude. I get that you are angry, and so am I. But it's not worth your energy. So stay calm." Lake says in an attempt to calm me down. I however was already calming down quite a bit after having been able to shout. But he seems like he is having even more trouble containing his anger than I was. I try my best not to think about it so I don't get angry like that again. I then see a familiar face walking up towards our group. Probably because I couldn't contain myself and started shouting.
"I am sorry for Azure's outburst. But he does have every right to be angry. You did cause a lot of people a lot of unnecessary trauma. Trauma which there was enough of already today. Four people already died today, you didn't have to make it seven. Four families are already way too many to inform." Drake says as he comes up and walks behind us, he calmly lays his hand on my shoulder. I assume he is doing this to calm me down more.
The supervisor seemed kind of scared of Drake for some reason. But I have a feeling the supervisor tends to be scared of those who are slightly higher ranked. But looks down on those only Ranked F or E. However before he can say something the junior of the two stops him and says. "It is completely normal to be mad in a situation like this. We will make sure something like this will not happen again. The three of you are free to go. Sir Drake, we do still have some questions for you however. So if you could follow me to a more quiet area."
Drake follows the supervisor as Lake, Kiara and I are still standing there. I honestly want to leave already, which we can I just don't like leaving first. But it does seem like one of us can't seem to like standing around here either. As Kiara says. "I am going to go home now. Uhh, I really want to see mom and dad right now so they at least know that I am alright." And after that, she is gone. She is going home, which I will be doing soon too. After I get my siblings from school. But I can't help but think about what could've killed four people. I would rather try and find out what happened first before I get going. If I get any questions from my siblings I will at least be able to answer those questions better. And avoid Eleanor's human lie-detector skills.
As I see the supervisor walk away with Elliot right behind him. But Drake doesn't seem to be going just yet so I might just be able to ask what happened and I take that chance. "What happened down there? Like that couldn't have been the zombies, right?" I ask as soon as I see that the suits aren't swarming so closely around us anymore.
"Well at first everything was alright. Zombies are easy monsters to fight against so they weren't any trouble at the end of the day. However, there was something much more dangerous than zombies could ever be inside those caves." Drake starts to tell but as he comes at this part his face seems to go pale. If I am right about what it could be. Then I get that reaction, I think if I had to tell it I would be more than just pale. "A real monster appeared, something that was stronger than us and knew it. It said something about wanting to give us a warning. And I think that killing four people was the warning."
"Wait a second. Did you just say that a monster talked in human speech? Like a monster actually talked like us? Because as far as I know, we don't understand monster speech?" Lake responds in shock trying his best not the shout that out to the entire place. But he is right, some monster speaking in the human tongue is worrying. It would indicate a way stronger type of monster. Which shouldn't have appeared inside a D+ ranked dungeon.
"It was speaking our tongue. Yet I don't remember it talking before it killed four people. It might have needed our blood to understand and speak our language. Because I was sure it was sucking the blood out of Alex's ripped-off arm." Drake fell kind of quiet after that early not wanting to talk about it more. But he will have to repeat this story probably a dozen times. But I am sure of it now. The thing that killed four people in the portal was the same monster I saw in that temple.
"At least the portal closed with no one left inside it. Which means that we probably won't have to worry about it again." I respond as I grab my bag as I am preparing to go to the school. "I am however not staying here any longer than I have to. I am going to see if my siblings are alright."
I can still hear Lake saying something as I head to the metro station. But I am not really in the mood to think about it too much. I need to be able to show my siblings I am actually fine. Since they have gotten two calls about me today. One saying that I died during a portal and another saying that I was actually alright. But I doubt that they put the blame on themselves. They probably put the blame on me while I actually did everything to survive there. But there is also something else I want to check out. But I have to be inside to be in hopefully empty metro station, at least it is supposed to be at this hour
As I get to the metro station I found it like I thought I would find it. It was completely empty. It was good that this portal was in a pretty quiet area already, but on top of that, there are no schools here either. Which makes it easy to avoid any noisy people. I can finally check that weird second screen that had popped up this morning. If it wasn't a fluke of course. "Open stats" I mumble out in the hope that I would open up. I was still thinking it was a fluke, yet it wasn't. As I see my stat screen pop up. But the most interesting thing of all was the message in front of it.
You are able to get the ability "Copycat"
Do you accept: Yes/No
End Figuring it out - Part 1
Completed.
You got a character card
Name: Elliot Witman
Ability: Telekinesis
Class: Psychic
Date of birth: 10/02/1998
Age: 25 years old
Nationality: American
Hair style: If styled it is slicked back and straight black hair. Not styles his hair is shot and wavy
Eye colour: grey eyes
Likes: Order, Cats, Planning
Dislikes: Things not done correctly, Troublemakers, Bad leadership