Chapter 37: Lights Off
"That... doesn’t look normal, right...?"
Andrea whispered as she looked in the corner where the unchosens were gathered.
Due to the hectic day, most of the people were asleep except for Jenny, Max, Aadav, Andrea and Fredrinn.
However, on the side of the unchosens, several were now standing in a circular formation.
Fredrinn noticed Beanpole and Chubby in front, all of them huddled together as they talked in a low volume that only sounded as murmurs to his sensitive ears.
Jenny looked over once Andrea pointed it out, her lips parted as if she couldn’t understand what was going on.
What was the point of standing in the middle of the night?
And all of them were normal humans. Didn’t they feel tired and sleepy?
"What are they even doing?" Jenny turned to look at Fredrinn, "Wanna go there and check? I will call for Max and Aadav too."
"Yeah." Fredrinn nodded. His instincts were telling him that the bastards were planning something bad.
And he trusted his instincts.
Jenny quickly chugged down the bottle of beer in her hands before shooting up the floor, moving towards Max and Aadav.
Her speed was fast and she crossed the distance in no time, while Fredrinn and Andrea also got to their feet.
"You should wait here for now." Fredrinn said to Andrea.
She nodded in understanding.
Soon, Jenny arrived back beside Fredrinn, now accompanied by Max and Aadav.
"What’s going on?" Max asked in his signature, deep tone.
Aadav, a brown skinned young man with curly hair and a thin body, turned to look at the unchosens.
"They seem to be planning something. Let’s go check it out."
"Should we wake Jacob too?" Jenny asked curiously while the 4 began to walk towards the circular formation.
"Nah, he’s just a level 5 weakling. He being there won’t be that much of help." Max waved his hand dismissively.
"But he is the group’s original leader and maybe he could help deal with them better?" Jenny reasoned.
"I don’t think we need a diplomatic approach to deal with a bunch of rejects. We only need to check the situation, otherwise we don’t really care about what happens to them." Max was feeling confident, a little bit of booze affecting his judgement as he yawned and gripped his Uzi in his hand.
He was the strongest in his eyes, and he had no need to feel worried about what these normal humans could do.
Currently, the group of unchosens were divided into three groups. One group went to the side and began to move the shelves that were placed to box them inside a corner.
The other group was smaller and draped in black clothes, though under the bright white LED lights, they were easily noticeable.
While the third group had already noticed the awakeners approaching.
It consisted of Chubby and Beanpole, rallying some other unchosens as they walked closer to the awakeners.
Fredrinn glanced at the floor, noticing how none of the unchosens were actually asleep and all of them were divided into groups.
"What are you all doing?" Max asked unceremoniously as he saw Chubby and Beanpole coming to greet them.
"My friends were unable to sleep on the tiles, so they simply wanted to collect a few more cardboards, sir." Chubby said pitifully, his guts that he had shown against Fredrinn were nowhere to be found.
Which was for the best, as Max wouldn’t have hesitated to use his Uzi under the drunken haze if he felt some disrespect from the Chubby.
"You could’ve asked." Jenny intervened, her eyes focused on Chubby as she squinted.
"Uhm..." Beanpole said softly, "We didn’t want to disturb you esteemed awakeners over such small issues. I am not lying when I say that we really feel scared of you all and these guns that you carry. We thought it would be better to do it ourselves than risk getting beaten."
Aadav blinked, "None of us would’ve beaten you for requesting some cardboards, you know? Just ask nicely." he said calmly.
Fredrinn, who was silent for a while couldn’t help but feel that something was off about the whole interaction.
He had spoken to Chubby and Beanpole before and this... way of speaking didn’t suit them at all.
How could they not hold any malice for tossing them off like garbage and looting most of the good food in the storage?
Even if they were feeling scared, the... subservient tone didn’t make sense at all!
Was this the fear of the guns?
But just then, Fredrinn noticed Chubby looking at Beanpole, or rather... behind Beanpole.
And then, his eyes fell over the black clothed smaller group that had separated from the main group.
There were only 2-3 men in the group, and they were standing in the far corner of the storage room that had some metallic machines connected to the wall.
"Jenny, what is tha..." Fredrinn didn’t have most of his memories. He couldn’t recognize the machine that the group was standing near, so he intended to ask Jenny about it.
But before he could do it, the men moved.
He saw a dude grab the handle of the machine before yanking it down with a loud sound.
And instantly... all the lights within the storeroom flickered off.
The room was thrusted into darkness, and the awakeners weren’t prepared for it at all!
Fredrinn knew that something was off, but even he hadn’t prepared himself for the absolute darkness.
Out of reflex, he managed to grab a fist that was trying to attack his face, while he pulled onto Jenny that was standing right beside him at the time.
*Crack*
He gripped the fist so hard that the bone cracking sounds were echoing in the hall, accompanied by a masculine scream, and then...
*Bang* *Bang* *Bang*
Bullets were fired in quick succession.
Fredrinn released the fist that he had caught, before kicking the attacker right into the chest as he moved backwards while holding Jenny’s hand.
Another crunch of bones rang out with his kick, but by now, everyone had already woken up from their sleep because of the gunshots.
And just then... lights flickered back on.