It was way past midnight, the full moon keeping them company. There were no clouds and that was a good thing. It let the silver light of the moon illuminate the land, making all unsavory surprises visible from miles away. That thought process led Sean to think about why the Vampires weren’t hurt by the moonlight, which was just the light of the sun being reflected off of the moon.

Maybe it took away whatever hurt them or made it less effective. The amount of ultraviolet lights being reduced because it was coming to Earth after being reflected off of something, he supposed. Then again, he didn’t know the inner workings of the world. He just understood that some stuff happened and then lived with the knowledge of that.

The moon illuminated the small room in the basement, but to say that it was solely being lit by it would be wrong. It just looked like it was being illuminated by it, a blue ball of light floating up near the ceiling being the actual source.

It made everything look a tad bit more mystical.

Four white tables were joined together, making one long and wide table. Sprawled across the table was a map of the city, found in one of the teachers’ rooms in some drawing board. One of the people that had been in the Haven was a teacher, and she knew where the Geography teacher kept her maps.

Kids loved them, he said, and he allegedly also used it as a history teacher.

Rexford was meticulously drawing X shapes of varying size on the table, estimating the location of the various settlements across the city —it was made easy by the descriptions of the areas they were situated in. The larger ones ended up getting a large one while the smaller ones got a smaller one.

It added up to fifty-four.

“That’s a lot,” said Rex after he finally finished marking them up on the outdated map. It was back from when the city wasn’t a capital of a country when it was being occupied by the Allied forces shortly after WWII, but it still served its purpose of giving a vague idea of where everything was.

Under the X marks were numbers, most of them being in the high hundreds and thousands.

In total, there were over eighty thousand people in the various settlements, with the vast majority probably at home or at one of their relatives’ houses, living together.

Five hundred thousand people…

That was a big number. Too big, in fact, that Sean had trouble wrapping his head around it. How had they not starved to death? Then again, Sean supposed that people could use their rations from their homes for at least a week and then another week or two from the shops and malls.

Give or take, they could last another month with all imports frozen and most foods spoiled. It was late spring, so some of the vegetables may be ready for harvesting, but still not enough to feed so many.

Sean himself was running solely on sugar and fat, only eating snacks lately. Maybe that was why he wasn’t experiencing much hunger, or maybe everyone ate less. That’d solve the problem of a lack of food.

Within the room was the history teacher that found the map, a man in his late thirties, with square glasses and a large frame. He’d definitely gone to the military or had started going to the gym a few years ago and stuck with it. Shaggy outgrown hair that’d make anyone think about how long their own hair was if some neat-looking man like him had that stuck out of his scalp, serving as a reminder of how long it had been since anyone had gotten a haircut.

Then there was Marie with her glasses, lounging around at one corner on a chair, nonchalantly flipping the thick Encyclopedia with excessive speed while conserving candles thanks to Sean’s light. She had Research, but had refused to upgrade it to a Mindscape —too lonely, she’d told him.

There was the woman that looked like an old professor that could be described as a Karen in terms of appearance as well, staring at the map like a hawk. The Warrior from before was also there, now wearing a white tank top that he was clearly wearing beneath his shirt before.

And then there was Uncle Jeremy, sipping on his last bottle of beer in one corner of the room opposite to Marie. It had a fruit flavor if anyone wanted to question whether it was his last batch. Not something a so-called manly man would drink.

In total, there were six people in the room.

“It’s a big city,” said Vincent, the history teacher, with a big smile on his face. He started beaming the moment they came back, probably happy that it’s not some post-apocalyptic world and actually just some world where giant bugs and monsters happened to exist in. Not much of a change, but still something.

“And with this, everyone knows what’s coming. That’s better than monsters just prowling out of nowhere and attacking everyone, for sure,” said Rexford. He looked at Sean and asked a question he didn’t want to answer, “Where’s Chris?”

“He said he was tired after driving,” said Sean. It was an excuse they’d brainstormed before he left, but Sean wasn’t the best liar. As if he bought it, Rex looked back to the others. He was probably tired as well.

Sean’s mother was out on a watch with Jason. He preferred brooding all alone lately, not even bothering to talk to them after that outburst. At least he was with mom now, and that meant he was less prone on doing dumb things like… trying to turn into a monster.

The light sputtered out as the little Mana put into the Mana Ball ended up serving its purpose. Sean shot yet another one into the air and had it hover, renewing the light source.

Then they turned to the real topic of the day: how they’d survive the next night. Uncle Jeremy assured them that they wouldn’t be making a move in the morning.

“So we have over sixty combatants in here and it’s supposedly protected from the Vampires. However, the other monsters can just walk in like it’s nothing, right?” asked Rexford and turned to Uncle Jeremy, who was there for the sole purpose of telling them more about monsters.

“Yes, and that’s more than half of them. It’s good enough,” said Uncle Jeremy. He put the bottle down on a nearby smaller table, clearly meant for two or four, and he let out a breath, “But for the love of god, is this what you wanna spend the night doing? Planning about how you can wage war against monsters? They’re called that for a reason. Every single one of them can murder at least five of you, and they can do that easily with no training. What you’re looking at tomorrow is their equivalent of special ops. Their trained ones could kill even me if I ain’t lucky, and let me tell you, even those guys shit their pants when they hear about them. And you know what’s funny? More than a thousand of them are coming tomorrow.”

“Them?” asked Rexford.

“The so-called Bloody Royal Guard, and no, I didn’t add that bloody there because I’m British,” said Uncle Jeremy, each word adding onto the volume of his voice, the urgency increasing as well. He gulped once, took a breath, and continued, “I can take care of one if I’m ready and I get them from behind. Now, get this. I’ve walked out of way more fights than you guys got any business being in, and most of them with those fuckers. They didn’t walk out alive, but I did. And I’m shitting my pants thinking about a literal army of them. Now, look at you. You think some sloppy citizens can take ‘em? With the System or not.”

An uncomfortable silence rested upon the room after his outburst.

Then Rex started, “How strong are they, compared to the mindless ones?”

“They’re the lowest of the low, kid. They don’t even register as real monsters in our trade,” said Uncle Jeremy, “They’re toddlers. Normal Knights are like fully grown adults that work out. Their royal guard? They are the guys from the military with all their big guns.”

That didn’t sound good.

Max almost died when fighting against less than twenty, but they were talking about thousands of them.

Maybe, just maybe, getting to the other side was the better idea. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Just maybe, he could run for the bridge and get turned along with Chris. It was way past midnight, but still…

“It’s fine, though,” said Vincent, drawing Uncle Jeremy’s gaze. It rested upon him, as if he was a kid talking about an elaborate ploy which included assassinating the president, “There’s at least three hundred thousand of us here. Even if we’re unlucky, we might manage to whittle them down and we’ll gradually get rid of them. It’s still better than some dystopia ruled by monsters.”

Uncle Jeremy snorted.

“Are you in or not?” asked Rex, speaking through his teeth, almost growling at Uncle Jeremy. He’d been calm but even that calmness had a limit, it seemed.

“Alright, you lot do you, kids. I’ll just poke holes in your plans and sit here all night. I ain’t got nothing better to do either way,” he said with an extravagant shrug before returning to his seat in the corner of the room.

As unhelpful as always.

Then again, Sean didn’t even understand why they were here. The last of the people came only an hour ago and they were just managing to get an idea of how many people were still there and could potentially fight, to which they got little to no answers.

“What if we declare the city ours? Like the Mad Duchess,” asked Vincent, suddenly.

The Mad Duchess…

When the area came under her rule, it prospered for a period of time but it didn’t last forever. Slowly, she became corrupt and started to put her own gain before that of the people —like all the other aristocrats, before she was killed in the 16th century by the people during a revolt.

Uncle Jeremy stared at him with that look again and slowly shook his head, “No way that’ll work.”

“Didn’t Aunt Charlie claim the school just like that?” asked Sean, remembering the time that she chased away Evans.

“In the unlikely scenario that it does indeed work, then we can effectively imprison them down in their city, provided no one invites them in,” said Uncle Jeremy nonchalantly. At the looks of the people that didn’t know of the Undercity, which was half of the people in the room, he relented and explained, “They have a city down below, right underneath this one. They can’t come up here if we claim the city as ours. It’ll turn the disaster somewhere else.”

Vincent’s smile froze for a second. He’d been optimistic before, but now, it seemed like he was crestfallen —as if he finally realized just how close they were.

The warrior, Rowan, finally spoke. He was quiet but he wanted to be in on whatever. He was looking for his wife, just like Oliver, and didn’t want to take an inactive stance like most others. He’d searched through the other settlements to the south of the city, where Sean’s home was, and came home empty-handed.

That was the reason they’d been so late and he’d just finished briefing Rex on the settlements.

“There’s a catch. It shouldn’t be that easy,” he said.

“Damn well there’s a catch. You have to have those filths acknowledge that something belongs to you. This place… that was easy, with Charlie pitted against a coward. Now, when it’s a whole army that’ll spread around the city like a wildfire, it’ll be a bit different,” said Uncle Jeremy, once again puzzling the ones that didn’t know what he was talking about. It was apparent that he’d given up. He scowled, looked out at the moon and his eyes narrowed. And he spoke, “Unless…”

“Unless what?” asked Rex quickly, and Sean, too, wanted to ask that.

“Unless we challenge them tonight and they don’t appear. Then we’ll legally be the owners of the city,” said Uncle Jeremy as a small smirk formed on his face. One side of his lips curved up to form an expression that not many people would want to be on the receiving end of, full of ridicule.

As if thinking about it, everyone quieted down.

Then came a knock on the door and Chris’s head poked in. Sean looked at him, his brows slightly furrowed —wasn’t he supposed to have defected?

“Sean,” said Chris after they locked eyes. There was a sort of hurriedness on his face.

Sean stood there for a second, thinking about what that implied. He nodded at Rex and lunged out of the room and closed the door behind him.

Chris grabbed Sean’s wrist and quite literally dragged him to the other end of the dark corridor with no source of light.

“What?” asked Sean after they were finally far enough away.

“The guy you told me about. He’s gone,” said Chris after he was finally there.

“As in he left you there?” asked Sean.

What did that mean? Was he supposed to only pick up Sean?

“No. As in he wasn’t there when I got there,” started Chris and when Sean opened his mouth, he continued, “There were signs of a fight there. There was lots of blood and, and-”

“It’s fine,” said Sean.

He couldn’t say that he wasn’t glad. If Chris had went to the other side, Sean didn’t know what he’d do. It felt like there was no one that he knew in here. His mother was different than his expectations and everyone was. Rex and Max and Jacob hadn’t met Sean for a long time as well, so there was nothing to put it into perspective.

“It’s… fine,” said Sean and pulled Chris closer and straight into a hug.

“You alright?” he asked as if he didn’t know what leaving would mean.

“Yeah. Better than ever,” answered Sean.