Author's Note: Hey everyone! I greatly appreciate the comments on the polls as well as responding to it at all. You're all great people and I've written this chapter to, hopefully, put everyone at peace about the whole military support thing while carrying on with the story. The next chapter will be out in another 2 to 3 days. Once again, thank you all so much for reading and please enjoy!

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We stopped some distance away from the river to not only rest, but also to give the animals some space. We’d been resting on the grass for a couple minutes since we stopped and I aimlessly pulled on the rubbery substance only to let it go and hear it slap back onto the ground to alleviate my boredom. Naturally, my mind started to wander.

‘So much has changed since I woke up three hours ago.’ When I really thought about it, I realized that a lot had changed period. Especially since I’d spent most of the last month in a coma. I was snapped out of my thoughts when Izzy asked us all a question.

“I’ve been thinking…and I haven’t come up with an answer yet, but…why were we marked?”

Her question really got us all to think.

‘What could’ve singled us out from everyone else?’ I silently thought to myself.

“You’d think it’s something we all have in common, right? I don’t think they would have randomly picked us…right?” Milik hesitantly voiced his opinion.

The question went unanswered for a couple minutes until we all heard someone’s stomach growl and turned towards the source. It was Pixie. She had a deep red blush on her face while her hands pressed down on her stomach in an attempt to quiet down the noise.

It didn’t help.

Pixie sat there for at least five seconds with the same look on her face before her stomach finally settled down and for a moment there was only silence. The silence was broken by Kualin’s laugh and everyone else joined in except for Pixie who, understandably, must have been too embarrassed to laugh.

“Hungry?” Kualin asked her with a wide grin on his face. Pixie didn’t say anything as her blush turned a deeper shade of red.

“Ah…” I rummaged through my pack and pulled out a granola bar. “Here, Pixie.” I tossed it to her with a smile on my face.

“Thank you.” She quietly said as she took a small bite out of the granola bar.

“As fun as it is just sitting here, we should really get moving.” Kyra spoke in a cold voice.

We all turned to look at her in astonishment for the tone she’d used. I looked over at Kualin and Milik with a meaningful glance.

‘I thought she was gonna be a cool person.’ I silently tried to communicate with my eyes. They both just shrugged helplessly.

Akito sighed loudly. “I agree. We should head on down one end of the river…cover some ground before the sun goes down. It’s already hard enough to see with that purple glow its giving off.”

“Before that…” We all turned to Jessica who’d spoken. “Don’t you think we should take inventory or something? I mean, we just heard Pixie’s stomach.” Pixie started to blush again on the side, but Jessica kept on. “How long until all of us get hungry? We should figure out how much food we have as well as anything else useful.”

Pixie gestured towards her pack. “Well, I just grabbed the standard pack that they were handing out…”

“Standard pack?” I confusedly asked.

Kualin was the one to respond. “It was when you were sleeping. Akito, Milik, and I just assumed that the pack you had…” He pointed to my pack. “…was just different because you were one of the first people to get to the tower.”

“Wait, then how many of you have the standard pack? What’s in it?” I quickly asked. On the inside, I was cursing Bryce for letting everyone think I wanted to sleep in.

I internally cried, ‘That bastard made me miss out on free gear!’

“I’ve got one,” Kyra announced.

“Me too,” Milik followed.

“So do I,” Kualin finished.

“Well, what’s in the standard packs?” I asked once more.

Kualin and Milik looked hesitant before Kualin spoke. “Er, Milik and I haven’t looked through them yet. We came to get you, remember?”

I looked over at Pixie. “Alright then, Pixie, what’s in the pack they gave you?”

“Well, there should be…I think they said three or four days’ worth of MRE’s and water…hmmmm an army swiss knife, a blanket, and the rest is just stuff I brought for myself like clothes and stuff…Oh! They also said something about a…tactical knife?” She finished and searched through her pack before pulling out a knife with a wooden-colored handle and black blade.

When I heard her say MRE’s, I forlornly looked at my pack which only had granola bars for food.

‘Bryce, if I ever see you again…we will have words.’ I cursed him in my head and looked over at Izzy.

“So, why can’t you use that knife for a weapon?” I pointedly asked her.

“What? That tiny thing!? Humph!” I couldn’t help but sigh at how ironic it was that Izzy had said this as she was the smallest person in the group.

I looked at her, Akito, and Jessica and asked, “So what all did you guys bring?”

Jessica was the first to answer. “Well, I grabbed everything in the standard pack…if we’re talking about anything extra, then I brought my first aid-kit, but that’s about it. Nothing happened at my nursing school in Mississippi, so I didn’t really know what to bring…”

Izzy picked up right after her. “I also just mixed my personal stuff with the standard pack and I didn’t bring anything dangerous. Well, I say didn’t, but what I really mean is that even after the aliens attacked, my parents hardly wanted me in possession of anything more lethal than pepper spray, so I couldn’t bring a real weapon.” A small fire of defiance could be seen in her eyes as she looked at the knife Pixie held in her hand.

Akito pretty much wrapped up the conversation by bringing out a pair of heavy duty black knuckles. “I did the same as Izzy and Jessica, but I also brought these from back home.”

After Izzy saw his black knuckles, she had a look on her face that made me want to be somewhere else. “Why didn’t you tell anyone else you had those when we were talking about weapons earlier?” She admonished him.

All Akito did was laugh at her words and I feared for his health. I know Izzy was only about five foot tall, but she suddenly seemed a lot scarier than Akito’s muscles. He must have seen the look in her eyes because his laughter quickly died and a sheen of sweat could be seen on his forehead.

“What I…I mean…” I was surprised because Akito always spoke in a strong, clear voice, but now he was stuttering like a child in front of this small doll-faced girl. “The knuckles are too big for anyone else.” He finally managed to say as he stretched out his hand. Just like the rest of him, it was massive and looked like strength incarnate.

Instantly a blush spread out across Izzy’s face. “Oh…” She was clearly embarrassed about her outburst, but nobody pressed the matter. Everyone was silent for another minute until Kyra stood up with her pack.

“Let’s go. I don’t fancy staying outside tonight.” She said. I grumbled as I got up and grabbed my pack and machete.

I looked over at all the animals. They seemed to be finished drinking their share of water and seemed like they were about to take off down one side of the river.

“So should we follow the animals again or go the other way?” Milik asked the group.

It was a good question. Wherever the animals go could mean that that’s the direction they live in and so there’s less likely to be civilization that way. But, then again, whatever civilizations are on this floor could hunt those animals for food if they lived nearby. Too many factors. Too many ifs.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Let’s just go this way! The road less traveled ya know?” Kualin spoke in a hyped up voice and walked in the opposite direction of the animals. Everyone just shrugged and followed Kualin’s lead.

I quickly caught up to his springy gait and muttered low enough for only the two of us to hear. “You know that the road less traveled is probably used less for a reason, right?” A look of surprise crossed his eyes before he just smiled big.

“Well let’s find out why that is. It’ll be fun.” He responded in an equally low mutter.

I shrugged and looked back at those strange animals that were making their way down the opposite end of the river and then at the sky.

‘That’s a fucking miracle.’ I hadn’t really thought about it earlier, but I’d just remembered that the sun was freaking purple. I remembered back in the day I had learned about both red dwarf and blue giant stars and how they’d affect Earth if our sun was suddenly replaced by either of them. The red dwarf would result in Earth being frozen over while the blue giant would burn it to a crisp.

‘If I remember correctly, the color of the flame signifies the temperature…so this purple sun appears to be losing heat…but I thought blue giant stars turns white before they transition into a red dwarf?’ I shook my head and looked ahead of me only to find that I’d fallen to the back of the group while I was in the middle of my thoughts.

‘I just can’t make sense of this place. First those strange animals and now that abnormally colored sun? Ridiculous.’

I turned my attention back to my group and saw that Izzy was walking closely next to Akito as they talked about something. I looked at their size difference and a hint of a smile appeared on my face as I pictured them as a couple in my head.

‘Oh, that’s gonna be hilarious when it happens.’

I walked a bit quicker to catch up to the group and found myself next to Jessica. I turned to look at her and smiled. “So what’s your story, stranger?” I asked.

She laughed and said, “Not all that interesting. I’ve lived in Mississippi my whole life and I was finishing my nursing program at a community college. The sad thing is that I only can miss a few days of class before they kick me out of the program…” I noticed the hint of bitterness in her voice when she said that.

“Wait, you mean they won’t even consider you excused for this? The fate of the planet?”

She shook her head and I looked on in astonishment.

“Wow, that’s unnaturally strict.” She nodded and didn’t reply. “So you said earlier that nothing happened down in Mississippi when the aliens set those monsters loose on us?” I asked trying to change the topic.

“Nothing at all. When I heard the news from my parents, I was really shocked. It was just another normal day when I woke up except for the ridiculous number of texts and missed calls from my parents, but everything was fine for me.” She explained to me. I grunted in frustration and she looked at me questioningly.

“Well…” I began. “I just had this thought that maybe all of the marked were somehow involved that day. I had thought that it could’ve been the blood of the monsters that made us this way, but seeing as how you weren’t mixed up in any of it…it seems like I was wrong.” I flatly finished.

She looked at me sadly and said, “Well that wouldn’t have really been possible since all the monsters only attacked heavily populated cities in the U.S. like New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston…you didn’t know that?”

“No, but that explains how my family made it through safely.” She looked at me confusedly.

“Oh, I’m from Kansas. Well, not me, but my parents live there now with my younger siblings. I go to college in Chicago,” I explained.

She cringed once she heard where I went to school. “Chicago was one of the places that got hit the worst. How’d you make it?” She curiously asked me.

I thought back to that night and my face contorted into a pained expression.

“Oh, I’m sorry! You really don’t have to tell me…I asked without thinking.” She hurriedly spoke.

“No, it’s fine…” Sarah’s smiling face flashed through my mind only to be quickly followed by her lifeless body in the grasp of the dead hybrid.

I snapped myself out of it and said, “I just…I was lucky. I made a lot of wrong choices that night and a lot of people didn’t make it. I only survived because the monsters disappeared all of a sudden…it was a close call,” I finished.

Jessica didn’t look like she had anything to say to my words and so I took the opportunity to look around. To my left was the river, lazily flowing in the direction opposite of which we were walking. On the other side of the river were huge trees which marked the outer edge of the forest, but I couldn’t see anything past the dense foliage of plants, shrubbery, and large trees. On my right, I saw small hills and a number of sparse trees. This scenery stretched out and disappeared into the edge of the horizon.

I looked ahead and saw Kualin and Milik as they pulled on their dreads to compare theirs’ with Pixie’s. They looked like they were having a good time of it, but Kyra was peering over the river into the foliage of the forest with a look of confusion.

Akito must have noticed her face like I did and asked, “What is it Kyra?” He looked across the river like her and, in less than a second, everyone had their eyes set across the river into the forest.

“I just thought I saw something…” She trailed off as her eyes darted around to find whatever she’d seen. “I guess it was nothing.”

We walked along the river, but now we’d all occasionally look at the forest, but none of us saw anything. After two hours of idle walk and talk, the sun was disappearing into the horizon and a white moon could be seen in the sky.

‘Well at least that hasn’t changed.’ I happily thought before Kyra shouted out to everyone.

“I saw it again! There’s something in there!”

Everyone crowded around her position to search for whatever she’d seen in the forest.

“What did it look like?” I asked as my eyes scanned the green foliage and spaces between trees.

“All I could see were yellow eyes before it disappeared…” She said in a frightened voice.

“Kualin…” I turned to look at him, but he already had his gun out.

“Yeah?” He replied without taking his eyes off the forest.

“Never mind.” I grasped my machete tighter and moved in front of the group to shield them from whatever watched us from the forest. We stood there for a couple seconds, until a savage growl pervaded the air. My body reflexively tensed up and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

“Slowly back away from the river.” I said as quietly as possible and began to walk backwards. Everyone did just that and Kualin’s gun was trained on the area of forest where the growl had come from.

We’d made it about fifteen feet back before the growl rang out once again only to be accompanied by a couple more growls. The sound resonated within the air and a tingle ran up my spine.

‘This is not good.’ I thought before three shapes hurled themselves out from the cluster of trees in front of us to clear the entire twenty yards of river right onto the edge of land.

The intruders had white fur that looked tough and matted. All over their fur were patches of mud and grass. They looked like wild rabbits with whiskers on their face and large, floppy ears drooped down the sides of their heads. Their glowing yellow eyes gave off a hungry and desperate look.

I wouldn’t have been too afraid if these rabbits were the size of…well, rabbits. But I currently was very afraid because these monstrosities were all at least Izzy’s height, lean muscled and looked like they hadn’t gotten a good meal in days.

We all stood there for a second, surprised by what we saw, but Kualin gave a loud yell and began to shoot.