AcademyX- School For Gifted Children

Decisions and Choices

"Joel, are you ready?" Damon asks.

"Yeah, I guess." I reply as I wipe my eyes and slowly wake up.

Damon helps pull me off my small bed of leaves on the forest floor. I glance around. Everyone sits quietly, looking for something, anything. For a second, it's almost peaceful. So quiet and relaxing, but that can't last, it never does.

The relaxation is destroyed as a large tree comes falling down towards us. Too exhausted to do much, everyone jumps back just a little bit. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough. Jackson lies on the ground, the tree on top of his leg. He sits up and sees his leg crushed by the ginormous tree. He starts to scream. In the distance you can still hear chaos, so his scream probably isn't too much of a problem.

I rip off a piece of my shirt and give it to him to bite on. It's all I really have right now.

"Clara, you need to amputate it." Damon says.

"What?! Are you crazy? I can't." She replies.

"Clara, I know this is hard. I know it is, but you need to do this. It'll save his life. Just go across the leg as far up the leg as you can." Damon tells her.

Clara kneels down by Jackson.

"Are you ready for this?" Clara asks Jackson.

Jackson nods his head and holds Clara's and Kaitlyn's hands. Clara begins to burn across the leg. Jackson bites down hard on the torn off piece of my shirt, but can't hold it in and drops it and screams. Finally, Clara finishes. Damon pulls the part of the leg away and tosses it into the trees.

Now, his leg stump is gushing blood. Almost immediately, I rip off another piece of my shirt, bigger this time. By the end of today, I'll be shirtless. The shirt is held on the wound. The blood is still leaking out. By now, Kylee has already started healing. After roughly 10 minutes, the bleeding has stopped and the skin has come back over the wound.

Everybody lays back, once again, exhausted, but we know we can't let it bring us down.

Eventually, we all get up. We head off to find Kal again. Damon and I are helping Jackson along. Soon after starting, we give up. Kal is long gone. The most we can do now is go back and help with the fight going on outside the facility.

When we get back to the fight, it's almost over. It's horrible. So much blood, the bodies, the chaos. I never would've come here if only I'd known what this place would turn me into.

The earth beneath our feet begins to rumble. Cracks break through the solid ground. A bright flash, followed by a large explosion throws me backwards. The carnage disappears as I fall in unconsciousness, once again.

*3 hours later*

I jump awake, not able to get up, however. I look around me quickly. Damon and Kylee sit tied up in the room with me. Heavy steps get closer to the door then stop, indicating that they are probably right outside. The door opens and a large man steps in.

"Hello, children." The man says, stepping closer to me.

Kylee wakes up and looks at me with fear in her eyes. Damon, who was already awake, looks at me as well, then back to the man.

"I see. So, you 3 are connected, huh? Let me guess, you two boys are bestfriends, and the girl, she's the girl friend. Of who I wonder. Maybe the one she looked at when she came back to us. You're name is Joel, right? Well Joel, I hope you're a good decision maker, because I'm sure you've never had to make a decision like this one." The man says as he finally reaches for me and stands right in front of me.

The man turns back to Kylee and Damon. He turns his hands to the two of them and they're slowly lifted into the air. The ground under them disappears and pool of lava appears under them.

"You see, I have the power of bringing on horrible things. It's quite an odd power, but boy do I love it. Now choose." He demands.

"Wait, what?! No! I'm not doing it!" I tell him as the rage builds up inside me.

"Alright. I guess they both die." He says as he lifts his hands.

I let out a powerful wave that throws everyone back. He falls to the ground, and so do Kylee and Damon, but at least they're not floating over lava anymore.

I run at the man as he stands up. He lifts his hand and a rock appears in front of me. I trip over the rock and land on my face. By now, Damon and Kylee have gotten up and are fighting the man too. A fireball strikes his chest, sending him flying back onto the floor. Kylee hits him with a few orbs for extra measure, then I throw him against the wall. We turn to the door. Damon let's a few rocks fly and Kylee throws a few orbs and the door comes right down. We run out into the hall.

We hurry down the halls bringing, down doors. Some rooms are empty, others contain a few bodies. Finally, we break down the door holding in Kaitlyn, Clara, and Jackson.

I throw the woman in the middle of the room to the wall on the other side as Kylee goes to untie our friends. Damon begins to throw jagged rocks at her and I go and untie Jackson. After we get them up, we look over to Damon, who has killed the woman. Her body is lifeless, yet covered in some kind of blue slime. Damon comes with us as we leave and continue searching rooms.

After an hour of running, we find ourselves and the 36 students we found in the rooms standing at large white doors. We open the doors and run out into the jungle, taking out a few straggling enemies as we go. The large group comes to a clearing. Everyone sits and the young girl that had been placing seals on the camp before starts at it again.

My group sits together. Realizing that the other students are relying on us, we begin to discuss what to do next.

"I think we should go back to the facility and look for other survivors." says Kaitlyn.

"I agree." says Kylee.

"I think that maybe we should go back to the camp from before and look for anyone who went back or stayed." Damon suggests.

"What if we send multiple groups?" I ask.

"What?" Damon asks me.

"Well I mean, there's 42 of us here. Who says we all need to stay together?" I say.

"You're right, but I'd prefer to stay together. Strength in numbers, ya know?" Jackson says.

"No, guys. I like Joel's idea. I think we should have a group head back to the old camp, a group go to the facility, and another group here. The group that goes to the camp should stay there along with anyone they find. The group that goes to the facility should come back here to this spot when you're done there. Once those people have returned, we all head back to the camp to meet up with the other group and possibly some survivors. From there, I guess we just figure something out then. Let's do this!" Damon tells us.
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I finally got the chapter up! So so so sorry for the long wait. My phone got kinda messed up, but it's okay, it's up now. Everyone please enjoy and leave positive feedback even if you wanna cuss me out for taking so long. Byee!