The Smiling Sword Chapter 7: Chapter 7: Mirrored Ambush

Read chapter 7 of The Smiling Sword by IchorX on NovelPedia.

Mirrored Ambush As soon I step across the stream I feel that familiar pang of pain in my head. "Welcome to the Null Zone." "Your second objective of the Facility is simple. Survive." "Leaving the Null Zone is prohibited until the conditions are fulfilled." "482 survivors remain." It goes silent, and Mist collapses next to me. The mental strain of having a voice in your head is still far too much to handle for most people… including me, I'm holding back vomit right now. Sector 1? Requirements? A few minutes later, we huddle under a particularly large stalagmite - like twenty feet tall and thick as a tree. "We should read between the lines," Elemental says. "The information provided is far too vague." "It's obvious," Artee agrees. "Specific requirements, then a count on the survivors remaining. For the first objective, over four hundred people who failed got killed." "We weren't given a time limit for this one either," Mist continues. I swallow. "So you're saying this is like a twisted elimination game." Artee nods. "That's our conclusion." "The questions is, how many people need to die until we can leave…?" Kino shivers. "In a hell like this," Elemental says, "Where they intend to crush all of our hopes and everything beneficial is too good to be true, we always assume the worst case scenario." "So… one person?" Kino says nervously. Naturally, an unsettling silence descends over us for the fiftieth time. Everyone's thinking the same thing. If one person can really survive out of these 482… it means that at some point, even if our group makes it through, we'll have to kill each other. "O Anastasia," Kino trembles, looking around at our sullen faces, lit up spookily in the blue light. I want to say something to comfort him but I can't find it. Elemental and Artee both look grave, and I can't find anything in their eyes. "Can we not be so depressing?" Ronin says, batting Kino on the back of the head. "I know we need to be rational with all the worst case scenario, and everybody dying stuff, but do we really wanna keep obsessing over it? We can play it smart, but let's at least not be depressing." "Ni Ni's right," Neo agrees, "I know this place is a hell meant to make us feel like shit. But we have to be at least a little bit optimistic, right? We have to at least some sort of gold at the end of the rainbow, no matter how much of a shitfest the rainbow is." "Ni Ni?" Ronin protests, offended (it'll stick). "Right," Mist agrees. "Despair's exactly what they made this place for. It's the rot and mould they want to grow in us. The moment you stop believing you'll make it out, then you're already one of the dead, like the hundred people that died yesterday and the four hundred that died before that." She wipes blood from her lip and addresses Elemental and Artee directly. "So don’t make us die before we're killed." "You're right," Artee agrees, cracking a smile. "I was wrong. We all still have something left to live for, right? So let's all live together." It feels like a good time to do a group handshake or something over a campfire, but no one moves. We just let it set in, and make up our minds. Because down here, in the quiet shadows, it's hope that screams the loudest, and always will be. It screams out to me in the dark. If we can still hear it then we're not lost yet. But of course, it's always easier to say such things. As we continue making our way through the cavern, we have discovered a few things. First, it's far, far bigger than we imagined, like a small city - at least a couple tens of square miles, estimated from climbing up stalagmites. Second, it's not just a hole of rock. There are branches, caves, tunnels, fungal forests, cliffs, drops, pitfalls, valleys and more. It's like its own ecosystem - definitely not devoid of life, filled with pale cave bugs skittering across the floor and lizards and snakes. We have two goals currently - secure food and shelter, then make a map of this subterranean megacity.