I felt a slight nudge at my side through my light sleep and couldn’t help but wake up. I noticed even with my heavy eyelids, that the person beside me was Sasha. When I looked at where she previously had passed out I saw that the girls had all passed out, but even while sleeping they couldn’t hide their fear from today. I wasn’t sure but at seeing them sleeping restlessly I could only imagine the terrible nightmares they were having.
But I couldn’t care to babysit them, and turned my attention back to Sasha. As she was also tired and wasn’t quite fully awake she didn’t notice my looking around and only crouched down beside me using my shoulder as a neck pillow she fully closed her eyes and went to sleep. Not a care in the world her face was only slightly smiling as if she achieved some victory over something. As that was the only conclusion I could come to because normally I’d throw her off calling her heavy. I mean after all being a pillow was tough work and my shoulder gets sore. Though she would complain it wasn’t something I would willingly allow usually. But this time I saw that she was thoroughly exhausted and I was too exhausted to care and after seeing that Tyler, was diligently keeping lookout with his girlfriend Rebecca I closed my eyes to fall back asleep. Of course I didn’t even bother to look at Leo at my side as from the snoring alone I could tell he was knocked out for a good while.
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“Ryker! Get up!!”
“Huh!?”
I was shook awake while I could slightly hear the screaming of a guy's voice in my ear. As I just woke up I wanted nothing more than to punch the person bothering me because I couldn’t help but want another at least another 5 hours of sleep. However, after my brain woke up a bit more I heard the urgency behind the call and immediately jumped up.
“What’s wrong Tyler?!”
I stared at Tyler in front of me who was drenched in sweat and wore a complicated in fact maybe terrified expression. Even if I asked I knew that it was obviously bad, and in this world what could be more worst than encountering more monsters? Thus even though I asked I assumed the answer was just that.
“The zombies are back!”
“Are they the owners of this land?”
I couldn’t help blurt out my thoughts. Truly most predators would own a piece of land that they could happily hunt all they wanted. If it wasn’t a new monster then the possibility of them owning this land was quite high. Worry filled my face as I remembered the Alpha male leading them. Even with our small numbers noticing that the our powers were stronger than I originally thought we could fight the 300 remaining small zombies. However that one monster alone would be able to wipe out our entire small party. It was something that even I under these circumstances couldn’t figure out a way to save ourselves.
Although I stood there thinking, the moment everyone heard Tyler’s shouts they started to wake up, that is minus Leo who was still snoring. However Sasha was woken up even before that as when I jumped up her head leaning on my shoulder was forcibly removed. Thus she was able to hear the last few words and on top of Tyler’s face, she wiped off the tired look on her face.
“Any ideas Sasha?”
I looked towards her and asked with a serious expression. Seeing how serious I was she knew that I couldn’t figure any way out of this. Although we both didn’t know the abilities of that monster it was clear it was enough to overtake the situation in a matter of seconds. With the pitiful numbers which was less than 30 out of the original 100 plus, it would be impossible to fight against that monster. More so was that I could tell that Sasha still hadn’t recovered her [Aether Particles] fully. Although I had fully recovered and I had no idea how much time passed through our sleep, it was clear that recovered a lot quicker than the rest of the students.
To explain this I could only imagine it was because I used my ability once which drained me completely but would recover faster. That would at the very least make up for some of the cons of such a destructive bomb. Strong, but draining but recovers quickly, it wasn’t perfect but what ability was? From the looks of it every ability has its drawbacks however as it wasn’t the time to be worrying about it I never thought past my own ability. During this time Sasha was in deep thought towards a solution. But in the end she shook her head as well.
“I can’t, if it’s the same monster we can only keep running.”
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“Unfortunately, running won’t be an option again. If it wasn’t for the fact that we had everyone working together we wouldn’t have been able to rely on Leo to charge his way through the entire army of monsters.”
“Then we fight to our last breath?”
At this moment Leo stood up and unhappily spoke with a deep serious tone in his voice. He clearly already was determined to die at this spot in necessary. I sighed and shook my head. I didn’t want it to come down to this but we didn’t have much choice at this point, and I only looked at Tyler. I had one plan that might have worked however, a plan such as this was at the expense of another.
“Tyler.”
“Yeah?”
“Want to die for your girlfriend?”
At this point Tyler, looked towards Rebecca who was trying to calm the now crying girls who had just woken up. It was no doubt that they realized after Tyler was shouting the situation that was about to happen. He gave a complicated look at her, but as he get staring at her, a smile crept up on his face and looked towards me full of courage.
“Whatever it takes!”
“Good, as expected of a rebel!”
“How does that even work!”
“Haha, if this works I just might help you win over Rebecca there Tyler!.”
Sasha made a light tease and Tyler’s cheeks turned crimson. He was unable to respond to her words and I couldn’t help but smile nodding to Leo who was also smiling. We both knew of her teases and seeing someone else on the receiving end for once made us a little happy inside. But it was a serious time and though lightening up the mood was great it didn’t change what was about to happen thus I turned serious and spoke out to Tyler.
“Right now, the only thing I can imagine that has the highest success would be to use my [Void Ball]. Although if it was just myself I could imagine that the alpha male would immediately dodge seeing the strength behind it. That’s why I need you Tyler to hide from its view and sneak up on it. If you can stall it for even a second, I’ll rush over and the both of us can say goodbye to that monster.”
“Isn’t that suicide?!”
“Ryker! Why not let me?”
“Sasha, it is obviously suicide, but that this time when we can revive, I don’t fear the idea of dying as long as I can see hope in the end. Leo, if the both of us died you’re going to leave Sasha alone to clean up more than 200 of those things? As of right now you need to stay and protect all of their lives!”
I agreed with Sasha’s point, and she gave a look of wanting to argue however my stern attitude already showed I was determined to carry this out. Whether I died or not I could just revive, well hopefully the masked man wasn't lying and I could in fact revive. Although I would only get one chance and I may need it in the future it wouldn’t matter if we all died anyways. On the other hand Leo wanted to participate but how could I let the only person who could protect these people die with me? I couldn’t count on the few jocks that followed as at the first sign of danger they would run away to save themselves. Finally, Tyler had already known that I planned on using his ability if not why would I bother calling him out? Of course the other reason was that I trusted him but I chose the best person for the job it was a simple as that.
“Do you trust me Tyler?”
“Well, even if I didn’t Ryker, cause you’re a prick, I would still do it for Rebecca.”
“Haha well then let’s go down together, after this if we truly do live, you’ll be a true friend of mine!”
“Oh thanks, how I always wanted a heartwarming friendship after dying.”
“Are you guys idiots?”
“Aren’t we men?”
“True.”
Sasha looked on at our conversation and couldn’t help call us out. I only responded with the obvious, aren’t all men idiots in the face of death? We could forsake everything for the sake of protecting those we care about. And if we survive a new beautiful friendship could be born from such hardships. The moment to fight back had arrived as we heard the roar of the Alpha male.