When the Darkness first overtook the company, Team 4 reacted in mixed fashion. The mercenary Coalition was made up entirely of professionals from medium – high to high tiered Mercenary organizations. Not everyone in Team 4 resorted to immediately panicking. Nevertheless, despite not panicking, they slowly felt fear overtaking them.

Fear: fear of the pain being registered by their brain. Such a thing was definitely not easy to overcome in a split-second tragedy. Especially so, when the soldier has no control over their body’s pain receptors and instead, has to tough out the wound.

Fear of falling for an enemy’s trap; one that even their touted scouts nor the trap drones managed to detect. A trap capable of rendering each of them blinder than a mole. A trap capable of stealing away their sense of reality with mysterious sensations being placed upon their limbs - and a trap capable of stealing away not only their eyesight or common sense, but their ability to communicate with outside forces via psychic or technological means. A temporary radio tower and wireless radio devices were all connected and installed on campus. There shouldn’t be any reason for the malfunction, considering it was perfectly tested after installation by a group of Dark mercenary experts that have done the exact same procedure during other wide – scale missions so many times before. It was definitely repeated so many times by the cold-blooded tech experts that every detail related to its construction has been committed to their memory.

And last of all, fear of the unknown. Fear of what lay hidden behind the shroud of pitch black. Of what exactly was the cause behind the screams and odd sensations that drive neighboring team members into the distressful state of anguish they each find themselves in.

Fear...it’s something that starts off as a mere spark at times, but effortlessly grows with ravenous hunger before evolving into a deep-seated paranoia.

And an absence of light provides one of the greatest cesspools to intensify any hastily evolving buds of fear.

Some try to run, while others attempt to swing all around them, leading to semblances of friendly fire. Forlorn sentiments of pride still burned deep within the souls of the more elite professionals, even as they tried fruitlessly to warn one another over the elusive enemy that has been attacking their team nonstop since the wailing wind first arrived. As if the darkness wasn’t scary enough, the young girl’s psychotic and blood-curdling scream only ENHANCED the pain each soldier felt, and easily magnified all of their respective fears. Demented pleas and cries for help drove the final stake into the weaker – willed mercenary coalition members, as it overlapped with the first sound, and produced a resonating, shrill screech.

As the strings of their sanity each began to snap, Dawan recovered his strength enough to act sensibly and clear out the darkness. Which led to even greater terror after the discovery of nearly five thousand missing right arms.

Coalition member # 2: “...What..? Heheh, wha- what is all this…?”

Coalition member # 1: “AAAAAAAAAHH!!! My – My arm!!! WHO DID THIS!?!?”

Coalition member # 3: “Aaargh! Fuck, fuck, FUCK! Where the fuck is it?! Who did this to me?!”

Coalition member # 4: “I knew it… this isn’t real – it CAN’T be real!! My arm’s still here, I… I just can’t see it! And I just can– can’t feel it either! Because if not…”

Coalition member # 5: “Are… are we all gonna die?”

Coalition member # 6: “Where… WHERE IS IT?? JUST WHERE ARE YOU?!”

Coalition member # 7: “Someone is watching us, they HAVE to be…! If not, they wouldn’t be capable of this!”

Coalition member # 8: “Fuck! I’m not staying here! I’m not about to let them take my other good arm…!”

Coalition member # 9: “I don’t see anybody though…I can’t tell if they’re already gone or they’re just that good at hiding themselves…”

Dawan: “Everybody stop your fucking whining and stay the God damned still! Hetera! Isn’t your Mercenary group SKILLED at magical warfare that doesn’t follow the normal standards?? Then EXPLAIN! What the fuck is all this?? Our situation is anything EXCEPT normal! START fucking examining!!

...SCOUTS!!

*Looks around* WHAT THE FUCK are you people doing?! You were supposed to be on guard to prevent this very situation!! Calabria! CALABRIA!! I left you in charge here! Why haven’t your scouts notified me about this sudden surprise assault?!”

Yet, his voice became drowned out by the wailing coalition members. They wanted to make easy money, which was the main purpose for them tagging along. Yet, how could they accomplish that at all as a corpse? Trading your life for a sum of cash was never a viable enough reason to risk your life – at least, that was the case for a good majority of these men and women. for the few that desperately needed this mission’s payment, they were willing to tough it out and call for help. One particular girl at the very least, became troubled immediately upon realization of their Team’s failing communication.

Coalition member # 10: “How… wh- why can’t we ask for help?! Why… why aren’t our calls going through?!?! Didn’t ... didn’t Dawan completely erase the darkness…? Then why can’t I call for a healer?! Why… Why can’t I call for help…?”

As she found out the hard way how Team 4 had been cut off from nearly all forms of outside communication, some of the other members waiting at the rear turned and fled.

Coalition member # 11: “Ah! H-Hey! Deserters! Those 4 are running aw-

…

more?! Hey… all of you STOP!”

From 4 to ten. From ten to 20. Then following this, 20 turned into 31. 31 deserters fled in various directions. Ergio was about to take the initiative and capture those cowardly scum, but Waldon stopped him.

Ergio: “Waldon...you better have a good explanation for stopping me. Because otherwise…”

Waldon: “Yeah, I do. They can’t escape from this place without going through the 6 companies ofthat make up the Mercenary Coalition sent to invade this school. With enough personnel to put up a good fight against this whole entire high school campus, what makes you think that we’ll be in any dilemma by them escaping? Furthermore, by the time we’re done with this mission, either they’d have already been captured, or the other mercenaries can receive our reports and examine all of our personal data to smoke out the cowards. No matter how I see it, there’s no hope for them. What IS important to us however, is that right there. *Points to a man feeling around his neck and chest*”

Coalition member # 12: “Wait. Wait, wait – WAIT! Where … WHERE IS IT?! WHERE IS-!!”

Coalition member # 13: “Gaah! Don’t suddenly start SCREAMING! That fucking scared me and made me think we were being attacked again!

…

By the way, what are you looking for-?”

Coalition member # 12: “The – The patch! IT’S G-GONE! They’re BOTH gone!”

Coalition member # 13: “What?!”

Coalition member # 14: “Wha- *Feels his own neck* N-no...he-he’s right...but h-ho-”

Coalition member # 15: “HOW?! Those little shits were surgically implanted! They ain’t just some- some damn berries plum ripe for the pickin’…! They were supposed to go off every time somebody came near them!

...wer- weren’t they?”

Coalition member # 16: “*Feels neck, then pockets* Where is it, where is it, where is it?!! Where did it go?? Where the fuck did they go!?”

Coalition member # 17: “Maybe, the … the enemy took them…?”

Coalition member # 18: “But in order to TAKE them one needs to TOUCH them! How are they supposed to TAKE or TOUCH them?!”

Coalition member # 19: “Maybe we were just ripped off?? Maybe they were counterfeits and we all fell for it? It was a group not affiliated with any of our Coalition’s members… right?”

Coalition member # 20: “Or… Or maybe, they already activated…? like, as in…

You know…

Somehow, in that darkness...we all died, twice?”

Teleport patches usually represented a life lost. In gaming terms, it would be a ‘continue’ being spent to remain alive. To lose every single one of their patches at once was the equivalent of losing 5000- no. TEN thousand patches, since every member of Team 4 had 2.

*VWISH!*

Without warning, the deserters reappeared. In the exact spots they all stood at before running away.

Vice: “Teleportation?? Could we be caught in some kind of high-leveled teleportation trap?!”

Dawan: “...More importantly, why is Calabria ignoring me? CALABRIA!! YOU BETTER FUCKING ANSWER RIGHT NOW!

…

Actually; *Looks around* where are all of the scouts we brought? Did she take them to investigate the source of this strange trickery? Dammit, I TOLD that woman to notify me before making any rash moves!”

And when he least expected to- right as he was beginning to curse their impatient decisions – his men stumbled across Calabria… along with the missing scouts.

Quin: “Da-Dawan!! Dawan I found-”

Denzel: “Oh shit! They don’t got no- none of them have any heads!”

...What Denzel and Quin both stumbled across, were the decapitated corpses of 39 Scouts – this number included Calabria herself.

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