Leo approached Patrick, waving for his attention.

  “Yo, nice job.”

  Patrick shrugged as he waved the others away. “I did my best, but I couldn’t get everybody. The majority of the people will fight on their own terms, occasionally listening to my directions. But for the most part, it’s just the few of us here.”

  Upon closer inspection, the group that had been around him was barely a handful of people with five guys, including Joshua and Oliver, and three girls. Leo recognized a pair of them being from the Medbay as they just returned from their fight.

  Meanwhile everyone else had dispersed, some hid in their rooms while others kept eyeing his room’s door. Their expressions were dark and tense, some even murderous, all directed at his sleeping roommate.

  ‘Looks like Patrick told them.’

  He internally sighed. But it couldn’t be helped, if he hadn’t told them, there would’ve probably been even fewer people following him than now. Plus, there wasn’t really any point in hiding it now. So he wasn’t too mad about the matter, if anything, it was necessary to share that information. Although now people would probably be distrustful of him now since he hadn’t been the one to inform them.

  Leo patted Patrick’s shoulders. “It’s alright, this is more than we expected. We can’t win them all, after all.”

  Patrick sighed. “It wasn’t easy to even bring any of them over. A lot of them wanted to just give up without fighting. Just half of them being out and about is already a miracle.” He glanced behind him where the others lingered by the tables, chatting quietly amongst each other. “And from what I see, I count around seven or eight of them are Smogborn with most of them having an offensive Refraction. The remaining ten-ish people are regulars arming themselves with makeshift weapons. Luckily only one of the Smogborn are still hiding in their rooms, but there should be around another eight or nine people hiding inside. Surely this will be enough to give Anthony a good ass whooping.”

  Leo chuckled as he nodded in agreement. “You didn’t tell them the plan, right?”

  He shook his head. “Of course not.”

  “Good.”

  They couldn’t afford their actions being leaked. After all, they didn’t know if anybody else was possessed by that thing. But even then, he probably already knew of the plan anyway. In all honesty, this was just a way of putting his mind at ease, hoping he’d have done something to hinder the overwhelming being at least a little bit.

  “C’mon, let’s discuss a bit more about this with Connie.”

  Patrick stared at him confused. He pointed to the dark room as he spoke. “Um, isn’t she in the room there?”

  Leo said nothing as he led Patrick to where her shimmering clone was sitting, resting her head on her arm as she lazily leaned over the table. Her body, however, seemed to be phasing in and out like a flickering light. In some areas, she was transparent.

  Upon seeing the pair, she motioned them to come over quickly. It seemed her clone didn’t have much time left to exist, which probably meant Anthony was stirring.

  Luckily Patrick caught on as he quickened his pace.

  The two sat down, their attention completely on Connie.

  “Status?”

  Her voice had turned muffled and static as if her mouth was full of food. Looking at her, Leo could tell she was struggling to keep the clone active as the body struggled to maintain its shape. Some areas in her arms would droop, quickly reforming itself on the original spot.

  Patrick spoke up. “I’ve got ten people, including me, that are willing to follow the plan, luckily Alyssa and her sisters agreed to follow along with our request. Another eight Smogborn will do their own thing to fight along with ten regular people. The other ten people are hiding in their rooms watching.”

  She nodded as she heard this, quickly turning to Leo. “Enemy…waking…Be ready…”

  With that said, her form slowly dissipated, but not before leaving some final words.

  “Good luck.”

  The clone was gone. Connie was now completely focused on the room, huddled in a corner as she ensured the room was as dark as possible, taking out the lights in the room as well as covering the peep hole with a blanket.

  She sighed quietly. ‘How did I get here…?’

  She never wanted this. She didn’t want to be here right now, especially since she just got away from these things. She knew it was a coincidence but she couldn’t help but think they were following her every step of the way. She’d much rather just laze around and sleep, finally relaxing after the long journey.

  Looking back, it all started when she was paired with that giant idiot. His boisterous personality became the bane of her existence throughout this week. Unable to sleep, she’d sneak off to some corner of the wall and sleep in the shadows. But that still caused her mental fatigue to stay in that pool of darkness.

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  In addition to that, he adopted Leo to the little group, making him even more energetic than he was before. Though, at least Leo didn’t bother her too much. If anything, she enjoyed his presence as he wasn’t overbearing like Patrick was nor did he annoy her as much.

  But one question stumped her throughout her stay in this dark room.

  Why was she doing this?

  She could easily get out of this place, all she had to do was jump into the shadows and get out through the windows at night. She had contemplated doing so many times already, but refrained because it was troublesome. Of all times, this was the time to get out of here.

  Yet, she stayed.

  She didn’t particularly feel close to the two, let alone the people in this dormitory. Her goal was to just get through this and become a citizen, living a life of safety and relaxation.

  This was just stupidly risking her life!

  Every time she doubted herself, however. Images of the laughing faces of people that looked similar to her would flash before her, making her stay, unmoved.

  She lowered her head and sighed. Tiredly muttering to herself, “Ah…Alright…I’ve stayed this long, might as well see things through.”

  Plus, no matter how much she complained, no matter what her wants were, she still had a job to do. A smile filled with malice crept up her face as she was reminded about her task. “Right, I’ve got to do this, for gramps.”

  Patrick walked to his small group, having dispersed from Leo as he wanted to return to watch over his room.

  Joshua approached with Oliver in tow and asked, “So? What’d you guys talk about?”

  Of all the people, Patrick was glad that both Joshua and Oliver had listened and followed him.

  Behind Joshua, a lean blond guy approached. “You know he won’t answer that.”

  “Eli…”

  The other two that had come with them were Jack and Eli, twins that had been with the two for a while outside the wall. Eli had long, dirty blonde hair with dark green eyes that always appeared relaxed that matched his calm personality. Meanwhile Jack had short, dirty blonde hair with bright green eyes that made it seem as though his stares pierced into your very being. He was the more energetic of the two as he would pry into things a lot. Of course, he was friendly with them as well, but he always felt uneasy with Jack just because of those eyes.

  Those damn eyes…

  Patrick lightly chuckled. “He’s right, my lips are sealed. Just rest for now, but get ready. Things are about to pop off soon.”

  Hearing that, everyone tensed as they prepared amongst themselves.

  Walking to a table, Patrick glanced at the couple that joined him. He remembered their names were Tyler and Kate. It was a miracle the two had made it this far since the two were normal humans. But if anything, they were quite resourceful. Passing the third trial basically proved that idea.

  Internally, he prayed that the two would make it out of this.

  Feeling his gaze, the two turned and gave him a smile as they waved to him.

  Continuing on, he finally squatted down next to a skinny, brunette haired woman.

  He carefully asked, “How are you doing, Alyssa?”

  She scoffed. “Terrible. This shitty situation has got everybody shivering, me included. And we’ve come down to leaving our lives in your hands. Yours!”

  He chuckled. “Am I really that unreliable?”

  “Unreliable? No. Naive? Quite so.”

  He shook his head in disbelief.

  Suddenly, he posed a question he had since they assembled. “Say, why did you decide to follow me anyway? You were so against me the entire way through. Of everybody, I expected you to stay far and clear from me.”

  She gave him a short glance before answering. “Well, you were the only one doing anything. Look at everyone else, just sitting there waiting. At least here you’re preparing us.” She paused for a moment before quietly saying, “I’m sorry about what I said before in the hall, calling you names and stuff. I was just scared out of my mind, so please disregard those insults I said to you back then.”

  Patrick slowly nodded, accepting her response for what it was. He gave her a reassuring smile. “Apology accepted.”

  Alyssa asked, “By the way, how long had our windows had glass over them?”

  “Glass?”

  Looking at the barred windows, Patrick saw a small glint reflect from one of the lights. There were, indeed, glass windows layered around the bars. But Patrick knew those weren’t like that before.

  No, it wasn’t glass…More like crystals?

  He carefully got up and whispered to Alyssa. “I think those bad things are happening now, go to your friends and get ready.”

  Without a word, she dashed to the others and informed them of the looming danger.

  But that warning was meaningless as a sense of unease began to spill out from the room, permeating throughout the dormitory.

  Those that hid in their rooms shivered

  Those that stood outside tensed.

  Leo carefully got up, aware of what was about to occur.

  A ringing sound resonated across the tension-filled room as all remained silent.

  All remained still, their eyes locked onto the closed, dark room.

  Finally, the silence was broken from the faint sound of shattering glass coming from the room as heavy steps approached the closed door.