[Day 25 {week 3}] - Voltday - January 25, 0000 A.A

There was a dreadful atmosphere that encompassed the whole Velysium Hall. The events of the past few days had thoroughly broken everyone down, even the teachers were having a horrible time trying to keep things together,

For the most part, things were not ok. Far from it. Some people had just given up and stopped doing any chores or even coming to Coach McConnel’s training session, which had halted. They lay about doing nothing but staring up at the ceiling all day or slept to escape the horrors of reality. The more active ones, which were few in numbers, did their best to push the events away by keeping up with their chores, playing games, drawing, training, practicing their weapons, essentially anything that would distract them from the failure of beat the Hive queen 2 days ago, Even then depression was at an all-time high with everyone, with many randomly falling to tears.

Most of them couldn’t fathom the horrors that the 7½ and 8-foot beetles posed to their survival. From the description of them and their abilities from the 2 members that managed to get back to them, it was going to be impossible to stop with the weapons they had on hand. And if even a gun couldn’t hurt them by much, there was nothing they could do to fend those creatures off.

Speaking of the 2 members, they managed to warn them about the incoming horde, One of them had died due to severe blood loss, and the other was not too far from insanity. The Nurse had tried what she could to save the one, but resources were drastically low and her wounds were just too ridiculous for her to survive even if she could bandage it. As for the nearly insane one, they had kept him in a room where the counselor was doing his best to calm him down, but the recent event hadn’t done much good to his conscience either.

If it hadn’t already been clear before, the beetles had taken over the school. After the attack on their queen, they had covered the school from top to bottom, killing everything, not a beetle. When they were warned of the incoming beetle hoard, they had gotten as prepared as they possibly could and killed all the minor beetles and Megas that made their way there, so much so that the pile of dead beetle corpses created an effective barrier against the rest of hoard. For 2 days straight screeching could be heard every waking moment as the beetles rampaged around the school. Even the second floors barricades were blocked off by beetle corpses no one dared to move while the beetles were still in a frenzied state.

All in all, it would take a lot of time for people to recover from this,

~~~~~~~~(16:27 PM)~~~~~~~~

“I got it, guys!” Said Neo standing from his seat within the manufacturing room as all eyes turned on him. To distract themselves Niko, Neo, Velma, Von, and a bunch more people had decided to try and improve their weapons and armor. Using the excess beetle corpses they took parts of many of the Megas to make things out of them. And for the last 2 days, they had been they had made armor from the smaller pieces of Chitin and shields from the larger ones. The Mega’s teeth were used to make spears, with a few of them, as well as the Minor’s teeth, being used to make more arrows from the Archers, while the Mega’s feeler blade was used to make knives. Though the quality of these things was poor, they had lots of time and beetle corpses to improve upon them.

That said, a lot of other people had joined them on this crafting spree and thus they were trying to come up with something else that would be helpful for the situation. That was when Neo had his idea.

“Crossbows! We make crossbows!” He said excitedly, happy with himself for coming up with such an idea,” they’re a lot easier to use than a bow and would be much better to use instead of going up close and personal to those horrid beetles.”

“Oh, that could work,” replied Von,“my dad and I have some experience in making all sorts of weapons, armors, and even crossbows thanks to gramps...hope he’s okay…:” Replied Von as his mind wonder how his grandfather was doing through this whole thing. Then realizing it was not the time to bring up such a subject he quickly stated,” I’m sure he’s fine, my gramps would probably be scaring the creatures out there away with that shotgun of his.” he said with a mild uncertain chuckle which was joined in subtly with everyone else.

“Ok, So what do we need to do for these crossbows?” Asked Velma as Von pulled out a sheet of paper and began drawing a design with her help and the parts they would need to make for a simple wooden crossbow strong enough to at least do some damage to the beetles.

“Uh, Niko, Get a pine board around 38 inches long, 2 inches wide, and 2 inches tall from the whoo rack please.” Asked Von as they finished up the design.

“Alright,” replied Niko. Soon he returned with a piece of wood, much longer than specified. Thus he had to use a saw to cut off any excess bits after measuring the correct length,

While he did that, the group collect multiple other materials, wooden slabs, drills, chisels, saws, rasp, Glue, a 36-inch long piece of PVC, Nylon strings, and some duck tape.

Once Niko returned with the needed wood, Von carved a 4 - inch long by 1-inch wide section in the center approximately where the trigger shall be. The Trigger area had to be rectangular and as straight as possible. Von first used a drill to take out most of the wood without messing up his markings. Then he used the chisel to take out the pieces too close to his measurements to use a drill for. Finally, he sanded it down with a rasp to smooth out the sides.

“Good.” Said Von inspecting his work.” This turned out a lot better than expected. Velma, could you hand me the sandpaper please?” Using a circular rasp, he made a grove in the upper sections of the trigger area, separating about a 4th of it from the rest. Using the sandpaper he made the grove 1/8th of the total height of the wood.

The next step was fairly easy, Using a drill, Von created a much deeper grove at the cent of the wood for the crossbow bolt before sanding it down to make it a bit smoother.

Meanwhile, Neo and a few other students constructed the bow with the remaining materials. They took the PVC and made small cuts on each end where they used some nails and wire ties to secure newly made wooden pulleys onto the PVC. Then the Nylon strings were tied to the screws and looped around the pulleys

After a section for the bow was carved onto the wooden handle, they screwed it one before using some duck tape to better secure it.

The next step was something they struggled on the most. Several mistakes were made in the process of making an appropriate trigger for the Crossbow. Von had made in a contest to see who could make the best on, His son, of course, was excluded from trying. Many were too big for the trigger area while others were much too small. However, there were a few that fit fairly well.

Anyway after some final touches, like shoulder padding, they prepared an area to test it.

Having been called from his practice within the archery club room, Arran held the crossbow at his side while they set up a carapace from both the normal beetles and the Megas.

“Hey Arran, Ever use a crossbow before?” Asked Neo from where he stood within the rest of the small crowd that had formed. Arran looked over the crossbow in his hands and shook his head,” No. But it shouldn’t be too different from a bow right? Maybe even easier.” Replied Arran with a smile, though it was obvious he was still trying to forget the events of days prior.

“Okay!.” Said Von after mounting 2 different chitin plates from the backside of the normal beetles and the Megas. After moving away he gave the thumbs up for Arran to start shooting to test out the effectiveness of the crossbow,

Arran wasn’t sure which stance he should use to should a crossbow, but he shifted around a bit until he found a comfortable position to shoot in. Then he took aim at the Normal Beetle Chitin plate and shot the bolt at it. The Wooden Crossbow bolt easily punched through the chitin and stayed lodged in about halfway, giving a sense of satisfaction to the builders. Arran shot it a few more times at different angles to see how well it does.

“Hey!” Said Arran lowering the crossbow,” It actually works.”

“What? Did you think it would bounce off the chitin or something?” Asked Von

“No, no, I had full faith in it.” Said Arran sarcastically as he looked down at the rushed crossbow design.

“Haha, very funny, but what do you think we can add to make it better?” Asked Von.

“Well, I’m not a crossbow expert, but I think the string needs to be tighter, it’s a bit too loose, which causes the bolt to louse a lot fo p----” Before he could continue voicing out his opinions of the crossbow on the people listening in, a shrill scream erupted from one of the side classrooms within the hall.

In an instant, many people dropped what they were doing and rushed over quickly with whatever weapon they could put their hands on. Even some of the ones who weren’t too keen on doing anything still went to have a look. Arran handed the Crossbow to Von and grabbed his bow before rushing over. Niko was already way ahead of the group with his katana at the ready as a mass of people coalesced around a single door.

When they arrived they saw a girl, Heather, sitting outside of the room next to the walls in tears.. Her breathing was ragged as emotions overwhelmed her all at once. The principal was next to her trying her best to calm her down but it wasn’t working as she only cried harder.

Looking through the door, it was quite obvious why she was crying. In the room, there was a tray of food splattered on the floor, food Heather had been delivering to Hyram, the only surviving kid from Coach Haron’s failure. Hyram in question played on the floor, unmoving, in a pool of blood, a box cutter stabbed into his throat by his own hand.

The group had seen a lot more deaths than they should have seen if fate had decided to go to another direction, some more gruesome like seifs, and others devastating, like the 400 classmates and faculty that were killed after the attack in the queen’s nest. None however was as had involved people taking their own life.

The atmosphere that had gotten slightly better since that first day after the attack on the Queen’s nest had dropped again even further than before. Even more, people were crying uncontrollably as the teachers and other faculty tried to contain the situation, but it wasn’t like they faired any better, well apart from Coach McConnel who was as stoic as ever, the rest were in just as bad a situation as the students.

Many cried themselves to sleep. Others just kept crying the rest of the day. Few also contemplated if Hyram had made the right choice with Suicide.

~~~~~~~~(29:09 PM)~~~~~~~~

No one knew how they should take care of Hyram’s body, where they should cremate him or bury him, they weren’t sure which religion he abided by, not that it mattered much as they could do neither. Thus he was left in a trash bag or two within the room he had died in and it was blocked off from ever entering.

Though most nights were quiet, none were as dreadfully silent as this one. Though people still stood to watch near the corpse-packed halls, others had long since gone off to sleep to escape reality once more.

Zane remained within the Martial arts hall practicing his katas, weapons, or just working out. It was how he coped with the stress and dealt with his problems. Yet it wasn’t working. Not since the death of Seif and the others.

Zane sat there meditating to calm down, much like his father had taught him, yet the thought of his father and how he was doing put him back on edge. It took time for him to empty his mind to relax and forget all his troubles. He had been doing this a lot lately, mostly to feel a cool feeling flow past him. He breathed in and out each time absorbing the air into his lungs deeply before exhaling just as heavily. Still, it was useless as vivid memories of death and anger kept surging forth. Zane knew he would need to hit something to calm down.

Once he was done meditating, he drank some water and decided to go punch something. The Martial arts hall had a padded wall specially made for this, which Zane used to his heart’s content. He punched and punched as memories of the beginning of this apocalypse flowed over him once more. With each death and bad moments further increasing the speed and impact of his punches. His surviving club members just focusing on their own thing. The Archery kids in the room over are oblivious to all of this.

Eventually, he got to Hyram’s death once more and stopped, breathing hard and sweating heavily from other training he had done prior. Still, his anger wasn’t satiated and he began once more increasing the pace and impact of each hit.

In a fit of rage, he failed to notice the silver-Grey energy gathering upon his fist from his body, each of his punches getting stronger and stronger as the wall behind the padding cracked, alerting the Archery kids who began to back away, while the Martial arts kids watched in fascination at the energy and the cracking wall. Then with a very bright fist, Zane punched the wall and watched in pure shock as the concrete blasted away from him and onto the opposite wall of the archery room.