Teen Zone

Chapter 3: When Lightning Strikes

It had been around half an hour since me and everyone else learned of the terrifying situation we were in. Everyone's sharp headaches had struck them and faded away. Once all ten of us were in the clear, we headed out to the dining hall where it was more spacious. While Sang, Isolde, Erwin, Ross, and Sabina were all seated around the room, me and everyone else remained standing. I was pacing frantically all over the room, trying my hardest to calm myself down. However, nothing would remove the intense fear for everybody's lives that now coursed through every inch of my veins.

"No, no, no, no, no, oh god no!" I said to myself as I rounded the corner nearest to where I entered the kitchen what seemed like a millennia earlier for what I assumed was the fortieth time. "This cannot be happening right now! I have to be dreaming right now! Whoa, Naomi, calm down. You'll be fine. Nobody's going to die. But am I sure about that? Am I going to be alright? Am I going to die inside of here? Oh, I don't feel good about this at all. At all."

In case you hadn't figured it out by that little moment, I enter different personas when I talk to myself. I don't have multiple personalities, that's just how my brain naturally functions. Before I could continue rambling on in an endless cycle of panicking, calming myself down, and then working myself up again, Ross's voice jolted me back to reality.

"Who on Earth are you talking to, Naomi?" Ross said as I passed where he was seated. The sudden sound of his voice caused me to jump ten feet. I let out a small frightened yelp out of instinct, then calmed myself down enough to talk to him.

"Nobody! I was just talking to myself. I have a bad habit of doing that," I said instinctively. I talked to myself a lot, so I had to use that response very often.

"Well, okay then. Just as long as you're not talking to a ghost or something."

"Why would I be talking to a ghost?" I said as I took a seat beside Ross.

"I was just wondering. I just thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, but there was nothing there when I looked back."

"Well, we all see or hear things that aren't there once in a while."

"You might have a point. However, I just have this feeling that I'm not alone right now."

Before I had a chance to respond, Arata called everyone to come to the table where he was seated, which was right next to the one me and Ross were seated at. I wasn't thinking much about Ross' feelings of fear at that moment, but it wasn't leaving my head. We were all terrified out of our minds. I mean, everyone's lives were on the line, and there was a good chance that not all of us would make it out of here. It was a very tense and scary time. However, after hearing Ross's side of the story. I couldn't help but feel like we weren't alone after all. What if something or somebody was, in fact, watching us? The note did say that someone was watching every move we were making. I began to wonder if this wasn't just through what I assumed were security cameras. What exactly was the person behind all this actually planning?

After me, Ross, and everyone else were seated at the table, Arata began to speak again.

"Okay, everybody," Arata said to us all in a serious tone. "I know we're all terrified right now, but it's time for us to get serious."

"H-how can we stay calm and serious right now?" Sabina asked in a scared tone, tears still streaming down our face from her eyes. "We all have a chance of dying in here!"

"I never said we had to be calm right now. We just need to focus in for the time being. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Sabina just quietly nodded in approval, curling up into a ball on the chair where she was seated, the only sounds she made being her quiet sobs of terror. Arata then turned his attention back to the rest of us.