Athena ignored her and focused on the guy.
"Because you're pretty," he said bluntly. He didn't seem bothered by what he did, only trying to avoid Athena's gaze.
Athena was furious as was evident in her cheeks as they turned red instantly.
The memory of those who had just faded played in her mind.
"Hey! What is it with you?! Do you realise you could have caused her her death?"
"Is that my thank you for saving us both?" He scratched the mess of blond on his head. No one cared about their looks, at this point.
"You fool! You could have committed murder!" Athena shouted in his face with so much energy. She was furious and embarrassed.
The girl who had wanted to attack him earlier had backed off and watched what was happening in bewilderment.
"And what's wrong with being a murderer?"
They whirled around to the feminine voice that'd echoed across the room as it lit up in a corner, introducing a pair of high heels.
The sound of her heels filled the room which had gone completely silent. Everyone's attention was on the approaching lady.
The stomping of boots could also be heard and was soon linked to some people coming from the open door behind the lady. They shone heavy light around so that it was hard to identify these new company.
The lady's face soon became clear, the more she advanced. She looked a woman in her forties. Her black hair was tighed back in a ponytail.
She was dressed in a business outfit of a fitted jacket and a matching skirt that feel just above her knees, hugging her hips perfectly.
She wore heavy makeup, and especially obvious was her red lipstick.
Two men flanker her sides. They were wearing the same jackets with the picture of a woman's head and snakes for hair.
Their jackets were long-sleeved, however. Some tattoo could be seen on the exposed parts of their necks.
They were all muscularly built and had an unfriendly faces which contrasted from the woman. She had a smile on, but that too was not genuine.
She placed her hand on her hips and observed everyone, revealing the same picture of the woman with snakes for hair on her inner white shirt.
"Could anyone please tell me what's wrong with that?" She asked again with a big grin on her face as she looked from person to person. "'Cause that seems serious."
Everyone just kept on gaping at her.
Athena stepped forward. "What do you mean that seems serious?!"
"Why are you killing us one by one? Is this some kind of a simulation?" A woman yelled from the crowd, in support, as the rest of the crowd inched behind Athena.
"Stop," ordered the woman.
"And why should we listen to you?" a man shouted from within he crowd. "Come on, let's burst out of here. Let's do it now that they have no weapons!"
"I wouldn't do that if I were you. We don't need weapons to deal with you as you yourselves have figured. We rule out the disobedient." The woman spoke very calmly. "Don't take another step closer."
She pointed behind her with her thumb, "That side is for the uneliminated beginners, while yours is the Gordon Eradicators."
Everyone hesitated.
"Hey, what do you want from us, and what's all this bullshit you're saying?" The guy with Athena spoke up, braking the eerie silence. "At least tell us something to calm us down, we are not brainless human beings, you know!"
"Yeah tell us something, where are we?" someone added from the crowd.
"Why is that woman's head on all your shirts and jackets?" Athena asked. "And why is her head full of snakes."
The woman began laughing.
"That's the first right question. For where you are, forget it, because we are never going to tell you that." The woman said with a glint in her eyes.
"This question has saved you temporarily."
"How reassuring," Athena said sarcastically. "Now, what's up with that symbol?"
"I will gladly answer that question since that's what we are all about." She walked over to Athena and stopped when they were only five feet part. "First of all I'm called SET."
"All the names you remember to be yours will be discarded and new ones will be given you. This is to keep everyone's identity private." She walked to and fro, leisurely. "Now that that has been said, let's provide an answer to the question I asked when I arrived here."
"What was that?" Athena blurted.
"You should know better since it was based on a statement made by you." SET responded. They duo faced each other eye to eye without a sliver of pleasure. Although the smile on SET's face never disappeared, it was clearly not genuine .
Athena for a while about what she was saying but it did not take her too long to figure it out.
"What's wrong with murder, huh?" The lady who had been daggersdrawn with the boy with Athena shouted. "If you're going to die then die, don't drag someone else into your place. That's still murder." She continued looking straight at the guy but he only shook his head and avoided eye contact.
"The lady is right. You tried to kill her to save yourself and your friend," a chubby guy said. He was quite fair and had dark hair.
"Oh, shut up! No one asked for your opinion, fatso," retorted the blond guy.
"So you've even got the nerve to show an attitude, huh?" The lady stepped towards the blond guy again. She was furious. Her hair was short with parted bangs. She wasn't very tall and looked to be in her late twenties.
"Oh, come on, not this again. You didn't die, now did you?" The blond guy groaned and began walking off but the woman held him, grabbed his blond hair and pulled it.
He groaned in pain.
"Let go of my hair, freak!" He held the hand in which she used to pull his hair and tried to remove her hand while using his other hand to hold down his hair so it doesn't hurt him that much.
"Why? You can hurt someone but others can't give you a piece of your cake? You animal! You are no different from these people here." She ranted on and cursed at him. "I wish I could just end you right now."
"Right... and become just like me. Is that what you want?" he teased.
It pissed her off and she pulled his hair much harder until he was writhing in pain.
"You bastard!" she shouted.
"Crazy woman, do you want me bold?" He took the opening in her concentration and yanked off her hand from his hair.
He turned to her and met with her murderous glare. She wished, at this particular moment, that looks could kill... he wouldn't disappear like the rest, he would explode into bits and parts of flesh and lots of blood.
He couldn't care less with her thoughts, of course, and pushed her to the ground, forcefully. She staggered backwards to her butt and winced in pain.
"Hey!" chorused Athena and some men.
"What do you think you're doing?" A dark muscular man with a funny-looking moustache shouted. "I've been watching all these dramatisation. You're crazy, you know?!"
"Go to hell!" The blond guy cursed.
"What did you say?" The black man clenched his hand in a fist, rushing over to him and grabbing his shirt, pulling him up to his face.
He was a head and shoulder taller than the blond guy and was way muscular too.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Athena quickly intervened. "He's sorry... no I'm sorry, on his behalf." Athena put her hands together to plead with the black man.
"Are you looking to be beaten up?" Athena turned to blond guy. "You barely escaped death but you definitely won't escape a beating if you continue flying your mouth like that!"
Then, she remembered that the uniformed people were still standing there doing nothing.
"Hey you, SET? Are you going to watch this happening?" Athena glared at SET, but she simply shrugged and continued watching without a word.
"Unbelievable!" Athena exclaimed, walking over to SET. "So what is your business here, anyway? We're attacking each other here."
"And you are attacking me," SET added with a sly smirk.
Athena's brows knotted.
"Hey, dickheads!" came a tiny voice from the back of the crowd.
Everyone turned, trying to trace the owner of the voice and, soon, a path cleared to reveal a young, black girl that should have been in her teens appeared, seated on the floor, cross-legged.
"Did you just call us 'dickheads', brat?" A lady close by smacked her on the head but the girl only glared in response.
"Hey let me go already!" The blond guy struggled to free himself from the black man's grip on his shirt, to no avail.
The black man dropped him to his feet but didn't let go of his shirt.
"Ugh, you savage people! I thought we were are civilized. What is wrong with you people? You've all forgotten what's more important!" The black girl continued in impatience.
"Instead of fighting ourselves to death, why not worry about what happens to us next in this miserable place? I'm bored with watching you all quarrel about menial things, but you all won't stop yapping. Seriously! SET and Snow White there were talking about something, can't we just get this going and find out what on earth we are doing here and why? Fuck! What's the Eradicators gang?"
Athena's expression exposed her surprise of how outspoken the girl was. They had completely diverted off their original purpose.
Everyone nodded in agreement.
"She's right." The woman who had smacked the girl could not help but admit. "But her tongue needs to mind its language."
"And her body too. Look who's calling someone else 'Snow White'", remarked a guy with a smirk which quickly vanished the moment he realised everyone eyes had fallen on him.
The black man let go of the blond guy's shirt, finally. Now, everyone was focused on SET.
"Glad to have your attention again." SET smirked slyly. "Your humanity seems to still be in track, and that's what we were checking. It seems just a handful of your brains still work and reason, however.
"My question still requires an answer. First, however, let's get names for you so could easily be referred to without revealing your precious identities."
"One question, please." Athena raised her hand and stepped forward. "Why is emphasis drawn on keeping our identities privy from one another?"
"Well," SET said calmly, "all questions will be answered after names are given and introductions are made, so please be patient."
"And if we're sick and tired of being patient?" the woman with short hair and parted bangs asked.
"You don't have a choice." SET raised her hand in a signal and one of the emotionless men flanking her sides walked away. He covered a close distance to the wall then clicked on something.
The room began rearranging and the shelves with guns, and table with swords, were replaced with entirely different things.
A table filled with clean clothes appeared in the middle of the room and a giant screen appeared as well.
Athena looked up and to her relief, the flashing lights were gone.
She hoped this was not perhaps another life-threatening test. She really did not want to go through another one.
She probed her mind and could tell that there were certain things which weren't right at all, most of them being universal.
To kill wasn't right, that was the answer to Set's question. Athena was sure of it.
She was going to answer SET's question with all confidence and demand her memory to be restored, if possible. It was killing to think about her many of her loved ones that must have been left to panic about her due to her disappearance. She needed to find a way out of here, and quickly.
"Pay attention now, everyone," SET continued. "Get in a single queue before that screen."
Everyone hesitantly obeyed and got in a not-so-orderly queue.
There was pushing and complaining all over the large hall-like room.
Athena was not yet in the queue, however, still riding in her train of thoughts.
At the moment, she was trying to picture her reflection. It was crazy not knowing how one personally looked.
The blond guy had said she was pretty but she couldn't be sure of that - she didn't feel pretty.
Besides, that was be a lame excuse for wanting to put one's life on the
line to save someone, right? Common sense was not failing her.
"Hey." Someone tapped her shoulders and she snapped out of her thoughts. She saw it was the blond guy peering at her with confusion in his face.
She looked around and noticed the queue.
"Huh... what's going on?"
"What do you mean? What are you always thinking about?" He shook his head in disbelief.
She began to walk to the back of the queue. She figured she had to be there.
The blond boy pulled her to him. "Hey, you can stay behind me, 'cause I'm after you." He said.
"Seriously!" she exclaimed amidst the incessant noise from the crowd. She had gotten his wordplay. "Look, you are no longer looking nice in my eyes."
"It's a shame your saviour does not seem appealing," he replied with a shrug.
Athena rolled her eyes then consented to stand behind him.
The tattooed guys from before came over from wherever they'd been and took the clothes on the large table. It turns out to be blindfolds. They handed one to every person.
"Blindfold yourselves," SET instructed. Most people grudgingly obeyed, while most just snickered in jest before doing as were told.
Once they were done, SET addresses them again, "The screen before you has a keyboard. You all are to step forward and click on three letters. After which you are to open your eyes to see the names you have chosen for yourselves."
One by one everyone, they advanced forward.
They each clicked on three letters and opened their eyes to see the names they got.
Many got stupid names and went on to shout out their names in disbelief.
Soon, it was Athena's turn.
She walked forward and stopped once she was instructed to do so then she clicked on a letter on her left then decided to click one at the bottom and, finally, one more on her left.
She raised her blindfold to see the name she had typed hoping it was not as ridiculous as 'jva' or 'qdr'.
On the screen, written boldly in three letters, was the name she had picked for herself.
EVE.