Bruce trembled slightly as he looked at his phone, he currently wore black army combat pants with a black singlet to match.
Currently, he was sweating badly, but all that didn't matter, his trembling fingers typed a message on his phone, "Call me in three minutes."
"290, 290" a female voice called out from the side, it was 296 his training partner for today, but Bruce didn't reply.
"BRUCE!" A voice suddenly yelled shocking Bruce out of his stupor.
"What?" Bruce yelled in annoyance but he froze when he saw the person he had answered so disrespectfully.
Trying to fix his mistake he coughed as he stood up, "Captain, weird seeing you here," he said to the man standing in front of him.
The man in front of him was the captain of the recruits he had a look that was quite different.
It wasn't his boots or his clothes but his skin color, to put it bluntly, he was black.
Black people were rare in the seventh shelter, but they were common in the fifth and ninth shelters.
The ten people who managed to pass the selections would be trained by him before becoming official numbers.
"Candidate 290," the voice said calmly, making Bruce shudder.
With great difficulty, he answered, "Yes Captain."
"Give me your phone" the captain commanded calmly.
Bruce didn't argue as he had learned the hard way that resistance didn't solve anything, handing over his phone Bruce resumed his situps.
"Hahaha," 296 giggled under her breath, she was also performing situps, with light breaths she asked, "Hey Bruce, I've never seen you so shaken before, who was that?"
"It was nothing," Bruce said with a smile, and proceeded to continue his situps, but he kept looking at the captain who walked around scrutinizing the other trainees.
"You know, I can give you my phone if you want," 296 said prompting Bruce to look toward her.
"Really? I'd appreciate that," Bruce said, to which 296 smiled in response.
The training lasted the entire morning and by the time they finished, the clock had struck twelve, as expected the captain didn't give Bruce his phone back.
"You all should rest and go to the field for lessons by two," the Captain said before adding.
"From now on you are no longer given the privilege of leaving the enclave, word just came in that your journey will begin soon, after your lessons training continues by 4 PM sharp, do you understand?"
"YES CAPTAIN!"
The trainees all answered immediately, but they shuddered at the thought of the approaching journey.
As soon as the captain left Bruce immediately went over to 296, "can I please have your phone now?" he asked politely.
"Sure no problem," 296 said as she handed it to him.
But before he could touch it she redrew her hand, "Ah not yet," she said before darting in, "First you have to promise to put the phone on speaker."
Frowning a bit Bruce muttered, "I knew you couldn't just perform a good deed."
"Good deed? Says the one who punched me in the face during the selection," 296 grumbled.
Laughing a bit Bruce replied, "Can't you just forget about it, I thought you were going to dodge."
With a pissed expression on her face, the girl scoffed, "290 do you accept?" 296 asked again sounding much more annoyed than before.
Thinking about it for a while Bruce had no choice but to give in, "fine," he said while snatching the phone, his playful demeanor turning into one of nervousness.
"Ring, ring," the line connected as the phone rang.
Suddenly a voice sounded out from the device, "Bruce is this you?" The female voice asked.
Hearing a woman's voice 296 raised her brows, "it's me," Bruce replied as he went on to say, "Amanda, what you sent to me I-Is it true?" He asked.
Hearing Bruce's question Amanda replied, "It's true Bruce, Aiden is back, he's alive and he's not dead, even his arm is fine."
Bruce's heart pounded in his chest as the shock of her words coursed through him.
He had mourned Aiden's loss, grieving for a friendship cut short, his mind raced with conflicting emotions, disbelief, hope, and a nagging sensation that this revelation might be false.
"How do you know this?" Bruce asked, the phone was silent for a while but Amanda went on to explain everything from how she had met Aiden again to the woman he was with.
She even told him about the stories he told her concerning his disappearance and finally rounded up with how Aiden had disappeared by morning.
The story wasn't long but it had Bruce startled, elated, and worried at the same time.
"He lied," a voice suddenly sounded out from his side, it was 296.
"What do you mean?" Bruce asked, "An organization like that doesn't operate in the seventh shelter," she said, before adding.
"And even if it did there is no way a normal person could escape, there are only two possible outcomes, he's working for the said organization which is highly unlikely and second is that he lied about the whole thing."
"Just think about it, this Aiden who was a normal person before this whole thing has the skill necessary to escape an organization that is competent enough to hide from the Silence this puts the organization on the same level as the Silence." 296 argued.
Bruce seemed like he wanted to say something but she cut him short, "And don't feed me with all that he's a Contractor bullshit, we're both contractors If the Silence decided to capture you would you be able to escape?" She asked.
Pausing a bit she taunted, "Looks like you have an interesting life outside the Silence."
Hearing all this Bruce didn't reply he didn't know what to say, instead, he was lost in deep thought.
**************
"Bang!"
A muffled bang sounded out and a male figure could be seen shuffling through the trees.
Behind him a crack-filled dent could be seen on one of the trees, leaving one in shock.
This figure had a slender but muscular physique and was moving at top human speed.
"Whoosh," the sound of something tearing through the air sounded out again, it was heading for the male figure and fast.
But something happened, the figure suddenly changed direction at a speed that wasn't humanly possible, Aiden had managed to evade.
"You just burnt soul energy you have 23% percent of your total soul energy left," Landon reminded.
Gritting his teeth Aiden looked back but he didn't see the figure attacking him, "shit," Aiden cursed while thinking, "Why is this stealth skill so overpowered?"
"Hahaha you've improved Aiden," Landon laughed, but Aiden just grunted dodging another attack that came for him.
"Bang!"
The rock hit a tree leaving another cracked dent in it.
The force of that attack would make one shudder; both Aiden and Whisper had stayed in the woods for a month, during this month it had been all about training, and since both didn't need food to survive it made things easier.
Their schedule was quite repetitive, and gruesome, in the morning after waking up from sleep Aiden would perform his repetitive ritual of a hundred pushups, situps, and squats
Next were sparring sessions, they shared their afternoon into two parts, one was for sparring and the other was for running for his life like he was doing now, most of the time they spent their evenings hunting for animals, but Whisper mostly did all the work.
This was because she needed her prey to feel fear before killing them, this was the most gruesome part of the day, after feeding she would kill the animal and hand the soul over to Aiden.
Most of the time they only needed to kill a single animal to stay full, and since the soul of animals didn't increase their strength too much they stayed away from hunting them in mass.
"Whoosh!"
"Whoosh!"
Aiden dodged another two rocks burning soul energy in exchange for a sudden speed boost.
Aiden had gained a lot from this trip, the first noticeable gain was his ability to burn his body's reserve of soul energy for an increase in speed and strength.
Aiden had discovered this trick in one of his sparring sessions with Whisper, and since then he had been using it in all of his fights.
Of course, as he used this new ability his body's reserve of soul energy decreased rapidly and the only way to fill it back was either to rest or to consume a few souls.
This ability wasn't perfect as it came with its own set of disadvantages; first, burning soul energy was straining his muscles, and would cause damage most of the time, but that wasn't a problem as his body healed rapidly at the expense of more soul energy.
The second was the soul energy itself, if he ran out of it he would be unable to heal rendering his semi-immortality useless.
And not only that, if he ran out of soul energy his body would enter a weakened state, in this state his overall strength would decrease by over 80%.
Suddenly, "You've run out of soul energy," Landon notified him, and at the same moment, "Whoosh" Aiden's perception picked up the sound of an object moving towards him at terrifying speeds.
"Pam!" the object slammed into his shoulder creating a ghastly wound, Aiden on the other hand felt as though he had been struck by lightning.
"Gruu," he grunted resisting the urge to curse as the pain overwhelmed him.
"Whisper didn't hold back at all," Aiden thought as he stopped, he knelt on the floor holding onto the spot below his lower arm, his arm was bleeding and he was losing a lot of blood.
On top of that, he felt weak and really hungry, an incurable lust for the souls of the living overwhelmed him causing his vision to blur.
"Control yourself Aiden," Landon reminded grimly.
There was also another hidden side effect of burning soul energy, he becomes starved, and a promiscuous madness threatens to overcome him.
The urge was always there but it intensified a hundred times over when he was starved.
Landon had warned him of this and that he should never let that madness take over and Aiden with his strong will had managed to comply.
He didn't know what would happen if he lost control but he didn't want to find out.
Suddenly a figure appeared by his side, it was Whisper, her face was expressionless as she watched Aiden tremble.
Aiden's expression was quite scary now, he knelt in the dirt shuddering slightly, his expression a mixture of pain, longing, and hunger.
From the memories of the last seed of fear, she knew to keep her distance.
Aiden remained like this for a few hours before the feeling gradually reduced, at the same time Landon's voice sounded out, "One percent of total soul energy recovered, congratulations Aiden your resistance has increased yet again."
By now Aiden's face was really pale due to the loss of blood but Aiden didn't seem as worried as he should be, he didn't even try to close the wound on his shoulder anymore as he endured the pain.
"My lord, are you all right?" Whisper asked as she walked closer to him, if she was worried she didn't show it as her face remained expressionless.
"I'm fine," Aiden calmly replied.
"Maybe I should have held back a bit," Whisper suddenly muttered, her voice causing Aiden to feel dissatisfied.
"YOU THINK?" He yelled causing Whisper to giggle a bit.
"This is our last day in the woods, do you plan to consume those souls now or later?" Whisper asked.
Thinking about it for a while Aiden sighed, "I'll consume them now," he finally said.
At the start of his training Landon had given him two instructions, the first was that he wasn't allowed to see his or Whisper's abilities till the end of the training.
The second was that he should restrain himself from eating the souls he obtained from Amanda's school till the end of the training.
Of course, this was only a request and Aiden was free to do whatever he wanted but after hearing Landon's reasons he complied.
The first reason was a matter of addiction, according to Landon Aiden would find human and demonic souls more tasteful than animal souls, and without building enough resistance and willpower he would instantly fall into the madness he avoided just now.
The second reason was that eating those souls would increase his strength quickly which was detrimental to his training.
As for the reason he wasn't allowed to view his abilities Landon said that it would be bad for his training as viewing his improvements may incite a sense of false achievement.
Sitting on the floor Aiden closed his eyes as he willed his soul's storage, immediately he could see a small dark space in his mind almost like a figment of his imagination.
The dark space had three souls in it, the first two were milky white as they illuminated the surrounding space a bit, but the last one was different, it was so black it seemed to want to blend into the surrounding darkness.
"I'm consuming the human souls first," Aiden thought.
"Good idea," Landon responded, immediately Aiden willed it and a white orb appeared on his palm.
Whisper who could see souls watched as Aiden's canines grew longer, she still had a habit of watching Aiden eat souls, and for some reason, she seemed to enjoy it.
Letting out a breath Aiden bit into the soul, and immediately two refreshing streams of energy flowed down his throat.
A sensation of pure calming pleasure spread rapidly as the pure soul energy coursed through his body; Aiden briefly saw cloud nine.
The sensation was so pleasant that Aiden couldn't help but utter a feminine moan, his pupils dilated as his back arched slightly.
Suddenly Landon said, "A soul of the Taurus star has been consumed, strength +5"
Catching his breath Aiden felt confused, "Taurus star?" he asked Landon.
"Don't ask me what the Taurus star is," Landon said before darting in, "the information just appeared in my head and I said it."
"How is that even possible?" Aiden asked feeling that Landon was keeping something from him, but Landon didn't reply, instead, he scoffed sounding upset all of a sudden.
Aiden chose to keep quiet and decided to focus on the task at hand, a second soul appeared on his hand.
Without blinking Aiden consumed the soul, the pleasant feeling repeated itself, and Landon said something again.
"A soul of the Virgo star has been consumed, +4 perception," this time Aiden was more composed as he had experienced this feeling before, strangely the world felt clearer to him.
Suddenly Aiden felt something, and his demeanor changed completely, he stood up slowly and gave Whisper who had been watching him closely a meaningful look.
Aiden suddenly nodded in a certain direction and Whisper moved, "whoosh," she shuffled through the trees completely disappearing from view, but for some reason, Aiden could faintly sense her general location, it was because of the sudden increase in his perception.
Aiden also moved, his wounds had long since healed as he had consumed enough souls to refill his reserves.
Moving wasn't a problem anymore, burning a bit of his soul energy Aiden increased his speed, "bang," he left a large hole in the dirt as he moved; his power-filled steps imprinting deep footprints on the soil.
In a few seconds, Aiden had reached Whisper, she was currently having a standoff with a man in black camping gear.
He also had standard chest armor on his chest giving away his identity as a Contractor.
With Aiden's arrival, Whisper stepped backward walking past Aiden while keeping her eyes on the man.
But the man was also watching her, he watched her figure pass a tree that obscured his gaze from her and she disappeared, she didn't come out the other side as the man expected.
"Who are you?" Aiden asked, but the man didn't answer, instead, he turned to run.
"Whoosh!"
A stone flew through the air landing in front of the man, the stone left a deep dent in the soil a testament to its strength.
"That woman," the man thought as he stopped running immediately, "how did she reach there?" He thought as he turned back.
In front of him was a good-looking man, but strangely the man hadn't attacked him just yet.
"I'm not going to repeat myself, who are you?" Aiden asked the same question again.
The man felt helpless, that scary woman was out there so he didn't run, the reason why he didn't just attack them was mostly because of that woman.
Previously he was hiding on top of a tall tree but something strange happened.
A figure appeared behind him and before he could even react she stepped on him sending him to the ground, he couldn't even sense it.
That event made him question, if that girl was so strong how was the man in front of him?