"Thanks Carl. I don't know what would've happened if you weren't here," Zek grinned as he shook Carl's hand.
Both their hands were covered in blood, but neither of them noticed nor cared. The past half hour had been the most punishing moment of their lives. Never before had they ever seen so many lives lost, so much blood being spilled nor had they ever seen such brutality and unrestrained gore. Having been born in a time of peace, they had lived similarly peaceful lives, where even the news were sanitized to cover the ugliness of the world despite its constant negative contents.
With the adrenaline subsiding and their normal peaceful nature returning, the survivors finally let their emotions go. It took only one to let go of the floodgates, before the others followed suit. Within a manner of minutes, the rest of the survivors, many of them Sixth Formers who were excused from attending the morning assembly in the main hall unleashed their grief.
Never in their dreams could they ever imagined taking the front row seat of watching their friends butchered and eaten before their very eyes. For these boys and girls who would soon graduate, exchanging their peaceful school lives for an equally peaceful college life, this scene of slaughter and blood before their very eyes was too much to bear, let alone comprehend. Even Nisa shed a little tear behind her glasses from the occasion, despite her normal uncaring attitude.
Zek sat on one of the wooden chairs, sighing deeply as he looked up at the ceiling. It was originally a pure white concrete ceiling, with long LED lights throwing white light with hints of red across the dining hall, its length covered in patches of red blood probably from the dead victims of the monsters. Similarly, the ceiling was also covered in streaks of red, some of which had started to darken. Zek sighed again while looking at the ceiling, thinking of the paperwork he'd have to deal with.
"Sit down, Carl." Zek urged as he jerked his head at a nearby chair. "You must be tired from doing such crazy moves earlier."
"No thanks. I'm afraid if I sit down, I will fall asleep right away," Carl refused as he leaned against the wall instead. His breath ragged, his heart still beat hard and his muscles were starting to hurt from the earlier exertions.
"How the heck did you manage that? I could barely see them and you evaded every single blow!"
"I have no idea, I guess I just know what they were going to do," Carl answered.
Zek placed his right hand on his right thigh, his finger tapping against his knee, a gesture Nisa knew as Zek’s thinking posture. "Was that you who yelled out earlier? You knew where they would strike?"
In a normal situation, Zek would say it was nonsense. Carl just knew what they were going to do? Like he could see the future?
Impossible! Or at least that would be what he would normally think. However, so many things had happened so far that as of now he would take just any explanation under consideration.
"Yes, but yelling out took too long. You were almost hit that first time. Come to think of it, you were hit many times. How are you still intact?" Carl asked while stretching his arms.
Zek whistled to Nisa, who stood up from comforting the Sixth Form seniors.
As Nisa came closer, Zek pointed his thumb at Nisa while saying, "That's all her. She could make something like a shield around things she touched that negates all physical attacks."
"There is a limit, though. Taking damage weakens it, so it's not like it can last forever," Nisa added.
Carl whistled in amazement. "Wow, that's amazing. An ability to prevent damage, how did you do that?"
Nisa held up her left hand. On her left ring finger, there was a familiar gold ring. "You can do it too, can't you?"
Carl looked down at his own left hand, seeing an identical gold ring around the base of his left ring finger. Seeing them raising their hands and showing off their matching rings pissed Zek off a little.
As a result, Zek told the two love birds should just go get married and leave him alone. He continued complaining of unrelated things until Nisa told him to shut the hell up. Carl couldn’t care less, as he was more interested in this ring that somehow provided him the ability to fight the dogheads on equal terms.
In response to Zek’s whining, Nisa said, "You have it too, don't you?" while pointing at Zek's own finger.
"It's silver! How come you both got gold when I only got silver?"
"I don't know. Maybe it was someone else's ring? I found it in my soup this morning,” Carl tried to explain.
"Soup? I found mine in my pencilcase.” Zek raised his ring, letting it catch the bright light from the ceiling.
"In my case, I was already wearing it when when I woke up this morning. I thought it was my mom pulling a joke on me." Nisa mused.
Carl looked at both of them before he asked. "So none of us have seen these rings before?"
Zek rubbed his barely existent goatee, which by the way, was against school regulations. "I definitely haven't. Maybe these rings are the source of these... powers we managed to use."
"Could it be that each ring provide different powers?" Carl asked.
Zek huffed a little louder than intended. "Maybe... but how come only both of you got powers? How come I don't get any?"
Nisa and Carl looked at each other. Then they looked around at the aftermath of the battle. Then they looked specifically at the eight monster carcasses that Zek killed earlier.
"I'm not sure you noticed, Zek. But normal humans can't punch a hole into somebody's face," Nisa stated the obvious.
"Let alone a doghead's face. Those things are tough. Your hands must've hit as hard as hammers!" Carl added.
"Doghead?" Nisa asked.
"That's what I call them. You know, they have bear bodies under a dog head. Dogbear just doesn't sound as nice."
"So what power do I have?" Zek asked.
"I don't know, super strength... I guess?" Nisa answered.
Zek looked down at his feet, quietly contemplating Nisa’s words before he raised his head again. He looked around him as if looking for something. Then his eyes stopped at the piece of broken wood at Nisa's feet, and asked her to throw it at him. When she did, he caught it and inspected it. Then he crushed it in his bare hands.
"You're right. I think I like my power," Zek said as he made a small smile.
"Let's talk about this later. I want to know where Maya is," Carl said now that his heart no longer beat so hard as if it was trying to jump out of his chest.
Zek raised an eyebrow at Carl's words, "You call your own older sister by her name?"
"Please, just tell me where she is," Carl pleaded, unwilling to hold it off any longer.
Nisa tried to look into her memory, at the assignments given during the student council meeting earlier. "If nothing has changed, she should be checking up on the kindergarten wing."
"Which block is that?" Carl asked as he pushed himself off the wall.
"B Block. First Floor," Zek answered.
"Thanks."
More battle next chapters!
Something