Having said his piece, Joshua waved him good-bye, walking back and rejoining Oliver and his gang, leaving Patrick to think about the situation.

  Patrick knew had to act fast, because the remaining survivors were starting to leave, not just that, but he heard talks of them attacking Anthony now while he was asleep.

  He absolutely could not let that happen. They needed to stall for as much time as possible. The longer Anthony was asleep, the more time they had to plan properly. Waking him up now was basically asking for a death sentence.

  Shaking his head, he couldn’t help but let out a long breath as he got up.

  ‘Well, like Joshua said. Better give it my all. But…’

  All around, people spoke to one another. No, more like yelling at each other as they tried figuring out the best course of action. But the fear gripping their hearts controlled their thoughts as it all winded down to how doomed they were, preventing them from forming a solid plan.

  ‘This is gonna hurt…’

  He quickly turned as he threw a punch at the wall, hardening his body before impact as he allowed the momentum to slam into the wall. Upon contact, a loud crack sounded in the hall, silencing the room as all eyes returned to Patrick.

  Releasing his Refraction, he turned back to the crowd, his bloodied fist shaking from the impact. It was a miracle nothing was broken from the hit, but the pain was numbed by his focus on the group before him.

  “Guys, please. Just listen for a moment. I know a moment may be a lot of time now but this moment is all we’re going to have.”

  Turning back around, he walked right up to the group. His height allowed him to get a good look at everyone, along with Oliver’s head sticking out to the side.

  “I was told of this plan by Leo. Of course, I didn’t make this plan. How could I? I’m an idiot like you said.”

  He pointed at the closed dormitory entrance. “But look at that. Past that door, Leo is standing watch, letting us have this small moment of peace, this moment of respite. We can’t waste this chance bickering amongst ourselves, let alone argue with a possible demon!”

  At those words, some distanced themselves from one another, reminded of the possibility.

  “But you don’t see him panicking like us. With my teammate, Connie, they’re watching that horrid thing for us. In fact, they’ve been doing that for days now!”

  “Days!?”

  Everybody was flabbergasted at the thought of them having spent days living with a demon, the very enemy of humanity, in the same living space as it.

  Alyssa spoke up. “So you’ve been holding this back for days!? You couldn’t have told us before?”

  Patrick finally broke out into a desperate cry. “You think they hadn’t thought of that?!”

  The sudden change in tone froze everybody, including Alyssa. They hadn’t ever heard him yelling in such a way before.

  “Look at us!” He waved his arms, motioning at the group. “We’re panicking the moment we heard of its existence. If they had told us beforehand, how long do you think we’d last before that thing kills us all? How long would it have taken the military to act before we were nothing but pools of flesh?”

  Alyssa opened her mouth, but was left speechless, as was everyone else.

  “I know you all want to live, we all do! Look around, we’ve done everything we can to get to this point! We survived those damned trials sent at us. You’ve survived beyond the walls for this very opportunity, this possibility of a better future. We can’t just let it go to waste because fear finally took over, after all those years of waiting for you!”

  Somebody asked, “So what? You won’t even tell us the plan! How can we follow such an idea?”

  Patrick’s voice took over the room as his voice boomed. “And you think any other plan will work?!”

  In the crowd, one of them cried out, “Patrick! This isn’t one of your games! We don’t even have the foundation for a game plan, let alone know the rules! How the hell are we going to survive this if we can’t even fight?”

  Patrick pointed at the crowd. “Look around you. These trials have been bringing us together. We’ve got teams, we’ve got teamwork. Now we’ve got those all in one team, all up against one or two guys! If anything, they should be the ones complaining right now!”

  Many murmured quietly, some disgruntled while others appeared to agree with his words.

  To the side, after discussing with his friends, Joshua asked, “So why should we follow this stupid ‘plan’ of yours, exactly?”

  Patrick chuckled for a moment before answering with a weak voice. “You guys are all so set that you’re all going to die…”

  He raised his head as he faced Alyssa, extending his arm to her as if going for a handshake. “If you’re so set on dying. At least die trying my idiotic game, one last time.”

  As Patrick tried gathering the people together, Leo’s eyes never left his doors, the room pitch black with Connie lurking in the shadows. At some point, the exit to the dormitory had been sealed off, leaving only the doors leading to the hallway where everyone else had congregated. At this point, all that could be heard was Leo’s tapping finger on the table.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  ‘C’mon Patrick…’

  Dragging out of his thoughts was a clone of Connie that manifested itself across Leo, but sitting to the side so he could still see the room.

  “You can sleep, y’know. I’ll just wake you when it’s time.”

  Now that he thought of it, he hadn’t slept at all the past two days, or at least, not the amount he needed to sleep. His eyes looked dreary and his eyelids grew heavy. He needed to sleep.

  Despite the glaring fact, he lazily shook his head.

  Connie sighed. “Fine. Don’t sleep. But you’re not gonna just sit here and do nothing. I say you figure out that Refraction you’ve got. If you can get that thing to work, then I’d say our odds of surviving will increase.”

  Of course! He had completely forgotten the need to get his Refraction working. His training with Patrick had been his only attempt at it, to no success. But maybe Connie knew something about it.

  “Um, Connie. If you could give me some advice. How did you get your Refraction to work?”

  She thought for a moment. “It was almost like imagining it? I’m not too sure I remember very well.” She suddenly turned to look at him. “Say, what even is your Refraction anyway? Maybe I’ll get an idea if you tell me.”

  “My Refraction had something to do with shockwaves? But I’m not too sure what those are…If I’m being honest…”

  She looked at him blankly before facepalming. “Alright…Well, shockwaves are basically just really strong vibrations. That’s the simplest way I can say it really, so just imagine your fists vibrating. Maybe that’ll help?”

  “Really? Imagine it?”

  She shrugged. “From what I’ve learned, imagination is key to a Smogborn’s Refraction. If you can’t imagine it, how can you even start trying it?”

  “Mm. Fair.”

  “C’mon, get up. Just use me as a punching bag.”

  “Uh…”

  “I’m a clone…What are you going to do, punch the stone wall?”

  Unable to dispute the facts, he got up and stretched before taking a stance.

  ‘Vibrations, huh?’

  He shook his fist quickly as if trying to shake something off.

  He grew frustrated. How the hell had he done it back then? It had seemed so natural back then, if only it would stay like that…

  Shaking the thoughts away, he focused on trying to get his Refraction to function properly, throwing a few punches at the clone every now and then to no avail. After a while, he sat down to rest, contemplating how to approach this.

  What did he have to do? What had he done back then?

  Thinking back to the fight, he couldn’t really focus on how his body was as he was focused on surviving Thane. But now that he thought about it, his arms had been in pain after causing those shockwaves in the arena. It wasn’t a normal pain either, but one that crept to the very bones as if rattling them, threatening to break the supports holding him together.

  ‘What if…’

  He got up and prepared a punch. But this time, instead of focusing on shaking his hands, he tensed his muscles to the very limit. Upon doing so, he pulled his arm in. With a deep breath, he focused on the tension, imagining every fiber of his being shook. Outside, his arm didn’t move, but on the inside, he felt a strange surge of power slowly climb into his arms.

  But he was worried. His gut told him too much of it would cause more damage than good.

  So without warning, he shot out his fist as if released by a spring underneath. Upon hitting the clone, unlike the usual reactions, her eyes widened. After a slight delay, she was launched away from him as if thrown by a catapult.

  Instead of dropping to the floor, however, she simply dived into the shadows, rematerializing in front of him with a thumbs up.

  “There we go!”

  A smile broke through his tired face. “Yeah…So? How was the fly?”

  She scoffed as she rolled her eyes. “Surprising, but not very strong. And judging by how long it took to charge up, I’d say unreliable at the moment.”

  Unreliable was an understatement. He looked to his shaking arm as it trembled with pain as his muscles twitched and his bones ached. That singular punch had caused so much damage to himself, while doing absolutely nothing to Connie.

  Fighting through the pain, he clenched the trembling arm, trying to stop the uncontrollable movement.

  He waved his unused arm in dismissal. “Oh c’mon, this is great progress. Look at me, it took me like two days to figure it out!”

  She looked at him blankly, her eyes filled with bewilderment. “Um, you know most know how to use their powers right after unchaining right?”

  He looked back at her blankly. “What.”

  A small smile formed as she struggled to contain a laugh. “You know, I was more worried that you couldn’t use your Refraction because something was wrong with you. But wow, you really are special.”

  “I…”

  He lowered his head in defeat.

  ‘My achievements…’

  She patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry, at least you’ll be able to do something more now. But c’mon, let’s keep prac-”

  The sound of a door slamming echoed across the empty dormitory. Turning, they saw the group finally return, with Patrick at the lead.

  For the first time, a genuine feeling of relief washed over Leo as his eyes laid upon them. Despite the constant demonic threat, he felt relieved that Patrick had actually convinced them.

  But that feeling was mixed with a deep foreboding, realizing that many of these people he was looking at may not be seen again.

  He wasn’t the smartest. He wasn’t the strongest. And he certainly wasn’t the bravest. Whatever ideas they come up with now will be a massive gamble, but it was a gamble everyone was betting on now.

  Whatever the future holds now, Leo knew just one thing.

  Their fates were up to chance now.