SILENCE | ATEEZ

5 | Beginning Of An End

"That will determine your fate. Raise your score to the passing score, and you shall proceed to the next quarter. If you take too much time, you're out. Your time starts now."

Upon the declaration, all of the newbies break into full speed running to reach their own sectors. Each of them with desperation and eagerness to survive, it's very clear that they don't care about others. There are newbies pushing each other off, putting lots of them under disadvantage even when they are in the same group.

The lounge quickly becomes more hectic and full of chaos as they start to pick up the weapons. There's a group of people who already get a grip on a gun, reloading it before aiming towards the target. Loud noises from the gun start ringing in their ears when they walk around the sector. On their left, there's people who are handling the combat knives, their slick and intricate movements follows through as they make the knives seem like a play toy.

Elenna's eyes wander around the sectors, her anxiety spiking up. She takes a glance towards Mingi who walks way in front of her by Yeosang side while fiddling with the hem of her shirt. Arin on her side, doesn't utter out a word as they walk through all the sectors. Amidst the chaos and screams coming from other newbies, Elenna somehow feels only a depth of uncomfortable silence enveloping her.

"Aren't we going to train?" she asks hastily towards Arin, already looking very desperate. She couldn't contain the pressure around her anymore, it's hard walking around pretending she knows something about VESTRA when she is clearly equally clueless.

"Yes," Arin briefly replies, before letting out a sigh, "but we can't.. for now."

Elenna shoots her a confused look as Yeosang turns towards them.

"We still don't have enough members. They won't let us train until we have exact ten members in the group," Yeosang add, "this is the disadvantage I was talking about."

"Then why aren't they recruiting people? We can't just sit here and do nothing?" Mingi intercepts their conversation, clearly feeling just as anxious as his sister. The others are already moving forward, and the scoreboards are already changing scores for some of them. Wooyoung on the other hand throws the mentor a sceptical look, his eyebrows raised.

"He's right. It's not fair, we can't even use any weapons or train our skills now. How much longer will we have to wait until the new recruit comes?" Wooyoung's voice rises up to another pitch as he tries to overcome the loud noises around them. His hand goes to his hair, pushing it backwards as his bangs cover his already sweaty forehead.

"I don't know."

"You don't know?" Jongho says, a hint of sarcasm laced his words.

"I'm not the one who's running VESTRA if that helps," Yeosang snaps, clearly aware of the newbies' distrust towards him.

"Well yeah at least you should know something, you're the mentor here," Wooyoung refutes back, his eyes glaring sharply towards the blonde. Yeosang doesn't fight back, but instead he takes a step closer towards him. He stares down at him for a few minutes without saying anything, until Wooyoung feels uneasy to his stomach, and he finally backs off.

"I'm a mentor, not a president."

As his words leave his lips, a sudden burst of scream claiming all of their ears. Yeosang's eyes widens as his body reacts before his mind registers the situation as he leaps from his position and lunges forward while holding out both of his arms. Elenna's body lands in his arms just a few milliseconds before they both fall onto the cold surface of the floor, his body crashing the ground first, protecting her in his arms.

"The fuck was that?" Yeosang's voice pierces through the ears of his surroundings as he quickly stands up from the floor when Mingi rushes towards Elenna. Yeosang didn't waste another second before he found his way to the person on the other side of the sector, who's holding a combat knife between his fingers as he laughs.