The pairs of soulless eyes stared down at the group. Their teeth clacked together loudly.
'This isn't good.' Thought Athan, who was aware of his own physical capabilities.
Athan glances over at the Brute, who is helping keep him on his feet. Worry began to appear on Athan's face as he slowly began to wonder what would happen to himself and the others who didn't possess any newfound strength.
The Brute, noticing Athan's worry, just smiles.
Wondering what to do, the Brute looks over at Xavier. A big smile lights up on his face, and there are flames in his eyes. Xavier lights up a small fire in his hand and slowly turns to look at the random person he grouped up with next to him.
With an evil smile on his face, he puts his fiery hand on top of the person's face. The person's face breaks out into flames, covering his face entirely. The person lets out screams of pain and agony. In a panic, the person uses his hands to try to put out the flames, but in the end, all that does is allow the flames to slowly spread across his body.
Everyone is distraught as they look at Xavier, except Atlas, who seemed to expect something like this to happen.
Xavier acknowledges everyone's gaze with a big grin. "Oops."
Athan looks at Xavier with a slightly open mouth. 'What's wrong with this guy! Why would he want to kill one of his own?'
Xavier slowly walks away from the burning person.
"I know this might look bad, but trust me, I have a plan."
'What's your plan? To kill innocent people?' Athan's face starts to tighten up in anger.
The group just stands there and watches the person slowly burn to death. But that's when Athan finally understood what Xavier was doing. He is trying to use that person as a distraction. However, it didn't seem to really be working.
'Do man-eaters have intelligence? Why won't they eat what's been given to them?' As cruel as that sounds, the person was already dying. So it didn't matter what Athan thought. He was already aware that it was completely cruel of Xavier to do what he did.
After some time, the man-eaters just stare at the burning person. One of them decides to finally jump down on the person and pierce its teeth into their flesh. The person screams loudly, but nothing happens. In time, the other man-eaters jump down and slowly start eating at the burning person.
The Brute takes advantage of the chance to get away from this swarm of man-eaters. The Brute turns himself around with Athan on his shoulder and runs as fast as he can. The others follow his lead.
***
Narrowly escaping the swarm of man-eaters, the Brute looks over at Xavier, who still holds an evil smile on his face.
"That was just exhilarating!" Xavier throws his hands into the air, and he starts to dance around the cavern, like he's proud of what he did.
Athan shares similar looks with the other group members: looks of fear, worry, and sadness.
"Was that your goal! Was your goal to sacrifice someone?" The Brute yells out in anger.
Xavier turns his body towards everyone. His face was emotionless. "What did you guys want me to do? Just let us continue to sit there and ponder what we will do! While the monsters from above are ready to eat us at any given moment! No, I wasn't going to let that happen! So I gave a life to save the rest, and I did it with a smile on my face."
Just sitting there speechless, no one in the group tries to argue against him. Fear has sunk in: Fear of the man-eaters, the unknown caverns, and the fear of dying. They sat there hopelessly, knowing that Xavier could've been right. They also knew that Xavier was the most fearful among them.
'Damit! If I were stronger! No, if we were stronger! We wouldn't have had to watch Xavier sacrifice anyone!' Athan bites his lips in anger. Just the thought of having to kill someone angered him.
With silence came worry, and with worry came dread. The Brute realizes that everyone is tense, and, as he has done, he takes matters into his own hands.
The Brute looks at Xavier and sighs.
"How many people do you think are still roaming the caverns?"
It was a question that was sitting freely in everyone's minds. Are there more people out there who are capable of surviving the dangers of the caverns?
Another question sat freely in Athan's mind, though. Were there more people who gained this newfound strength? And could he become like them? Would he also awaken this newfound strength?
Xavier puts his hand to his chin. "Yes, there are more people out there, but whether or not they can survive? I don't know."
The Brute has a questionable face. "Did you…"
Before the Brute can finish his sentence, Xavier cuts him off.
"Yes, we ran across some people. Initially, it was just me and Atlas exploring the caverns. As we continued, though, we would run into people now and then. But to be honest, the people we ran into were mostly dead people."
Athan's face turns pale. Xavier didn't have to go into an explanation of what happened to them. Athan already knew.
Xavier pauses shortly, then continues:
"All the people we came across were killed. I don't know if they killed each other or not, but if I had to assume, the man-eaters killed them."
The group falls quiet again. After some thought, Amelia finally speaks about the situation.
"What about you, Atlas? You have just been sitting there quietly all this time. What's your role in all of this?"
Atlas backs away, as if he were shying away from the question. But with all eyes on him, he knew he wasn't able to dodge the question further.
"Let's just say…I'm an observer."
Amelia looks at Atlas dissatisfied, but understands that it will be a struggle to get any more information out of him.
Xavier claps his hands together and puts on an excited face once more.
"I think it's about time we explore the caverns some more."
The group hesitantly stands up. Their bodies are weak from all the running and fighting they have had to do up till this point. Something still sits deep inside them, though—the will to live.
As the group prepares to continue exploring the caverns, Athan fixates on Xavier with a cold gaze.
'If there is one thing I can promise…it's that you will burn by the same flames that you created and killed with.'
Athan sighs, awakening himself from his cold thoughts.
The Brute walks over to Athan and offers him a helping hand. Athan, as he has been doing, accepts. Although this time it was different. When Athan put his foot on the ground and applied pressure, it felt better…better than it had when he first got the wound.
Athan looks at his leg. The wound still looked the same as when he first got it. So why has the pain lessened? Without the answer to his question, Athan decides to keep the realization to himself.
Now walking through the caverns, Athan tightens his grip on the Brute's shoulder and points to Xavier. Understanding what Athan is trying to say, the Brute walks up front with Athan to where Xavier is.
Athan taps Xavier on the shoulder, grabbing his attention.
"Are you aware of what you have done?" Athan's voice is calm and soft.
Xavier looks at him with gleaming eyes.
"No, I don't fully understand what I'm doing. Understand, though, does anyone truly know what they are doing? Especially us, you have to remember that our eyes only opened today."
Xavier pauses and smiles at Athan.
"Our thoughts and actions. That all started today. We can't even remember where we were from. The voice granted us only our name and age—that's all."
Athan looks at him with a sour look. The speech almost worked, but Athan refuses to justify an innocent death.
'Does this guy have a fucking split personality?'
The words Xavier just said made him sound like some sort of philosopher.
"What the hell?" Xavier suddenly stops.
Athan, curious about why Xavier stopped, looks ahead.
In front of Athan and the whole group was the platform that they all came up on. Other people not in Athan's group also surrounded the platform. And just above the platform was a pointy arch with a large hole to the outside.
The Brute smiles. "So there are more people who have managed to live this long."
Athan sighs. 'Is it finally time for the encounter with the king? Is that the way out?' Thoughts similar to Athan's ran through everyone's minds.
Everyone just stands there staring at each other. Finally, someone makes the first move, and of course, it's the same person who did it last time. Xavier leaps back onto the platform with ease, just as he did the first time.
And just like last time, everyone follows his lead. Only Athan is hesitant about following Xavier's lead, but if everyone else were doing it, then it must mean something, right?
Athan watches as everyone jumps, just leaving him and the Brute to be the last ones. The Brute offers help, but this time, though Athan declines.
Athan decided that if he couldn't make this jump, then he would accept his death.
Letting go of the Brute's shoulder, Athan puts full weight on his wounded leg. And he carefully walks backward. With as much power as he can manage, Athan darts for the jump.
The pain in his leg was agonizing, but it was better than before. So he pushed through it and just jumped. And to his surprise, he made it.
Everyone looks at him with a surprised look on their faces.
But their cut short, because after the Brute jumps, a whole bunch of purple soulless eyes stare at everyone from the darkness of the caverns from every direction.
"Ah, shit. It looks like we're trapped." Xavier says, smiling.
Everyone, frozen in fear, hears the sound of small rocks falling from above. That's when they look up and see a giant monster lurking outside the arch.