Then a person in a yellow tracksuit and a mask with the number 2 came to stand before them.
The display then rolled in again,"Obey no. 2"
The person just stood there unassuming and supposedly staring at them since the couldn't see its eyes. Everyone sat quietly afraid of the consequences of their actions until someone seemed to disagree with that.
A man ran from his seat towards this No. 2 figure, apparently intending to harm or kill him. He looked out of it, more like a thrashing animal after being cornered .
And to Henry's expectation, blood splashed and spilled on the floor and walls of the train and where the man once stood lay a dead body.
Henry felt Anna hold him tightly and he in response turned to face her, she looked horrified , trying to grit through what was happening. Then with a screech, the train began to move again and no. 2's presence simply gave everyone an unsettling feeling.
The silence was deafening if not suffocating that the only sound heard was made by the train wheels against the train tracks.
After about forty minutes of abominable silence, the train came to stop.
That action of the train gave Henry bad premonitions of the future.
"Women, move to the other side. Men to the right, then move out!" no. 2 commanded. "...slowly"he warned.
Anna seemed reluctant to let Henry leave and Henry surmised that he must have been her only assurance throughout the hellish ride. Henry followed the line of men outside who were murmuring amongst each other and once he got out he was greeted by a wide grassy land which had a thick pocket of trees at its far end.
'The grassland has trenches...'Henry thought to himself.
They weren't deep trenches, but rather subtle concavities in the land that seemed to allow some sort of soldier training.It wasn't a gentle, idyllic grassland, but a tense, strategic landscape, It was an undulating expanse where the dominant feature wasnt flatness, but a series of pronounced, sweeping curves and sudden dips.
With eyes that crinkled at the corners, a silent smile played beneath his mask. "They want you to make a break for it," he instructed.
Henry's mind had barely processed the command when the sharp crack of a gunshot split the air. He surged forward, a primal instinct overriding all else, his gaze fixed on the distant cluster of trees.
Bang! Bang!
The staccato bursts of gunfire echoed behind him, driving him onward until he dove, gasping, behind the protective cover of a raised embankment.
Henry muttered 'Fuck,' his mind reeling. The sounds of heavy gunfire intermingled with the screams erupting around him. He had strategically navigated the undulating terrain, timing his movements with the five-second intervals between volleys of shots. Currently, he found himself in a depression in the land, close to the cluster of trees every person here was aiming for, at least those alive. He suppressed a shiver, acutely aware of the dead person lying beside him.
A young man sprinted past Henry's hiding spot, moving with incredible speed, also seeking the cover of the trees. Then, bang—he was down. He appeared to be in his late 20s, and his face was etched with regret.
After a series of deadlt maneuvers and fifteen people dead , Henry reached the sparse treeline, gasping for breath and clutching his chest
Despite his efforts, he was visibly spent, his throat dry and his body slick with sweat.The incessant gunfire was a brutal education, clarifying his grim company, others moved among the field, that grave of men.Others arrived, too, and Henry, still living,felt the urge to count the number of lives lost.
"They want us to move," a man managed to say, still panting from exertion.
"Yes, no new orders means we are supposed to move on" another added looking quite rattled.
They all seemed to accept their new reality, though a dissenting voice soon surfaced, expressing concern that "this wet forest doesn't even seem to end." Maintaining course , they began the journey, trying to strike up a conversation to fill the silence. Henry remained silent, just listening.
With each step, Henry became increasingly aware of the growing number of bones scattered across their path. While he initially attributed them to natural decay in the wet forest, their escalating presence soon became alarming. This unsettling realization was clearly shared by his acquaintances, prompting an abrupt stop.They seemed to unanimously agree on a slight change of course, hoping to put the unsettling discoveries behind them. However, just a few steps later, they encountered a sight that churned their stomachs: a grotesque pile of bodies. "Skeletal" wouldn't adequately describe the scene; some corpses were still in various stages of decay, and horrifyingly, fresh bodies lay at the pile's edge, showing no signs of decomposition in the verdant forest.
"It's fresh," the man closest to the gruesome pile stated, his voice barely a whisper. "Fuck this place!" another screamed, the raw fear echoing through the trees. Some bodies bore the marks of sharp objects, others were decapitated, and the most horrifying appeared minced. "Wretched pla—" the man's choked utterance was abruptly cut short by the distinct sound of approaching footstep.An additional person had joined them.The sight of the corpses immediately sent him to his knees, vomiting profusely. Henry then surveyed their immediate environment. The forest was characterized by its thick canopy of tall trees, though some areas were less dense. A more pressing concern was the shallow water pooling over sections of the forest floor, indicating that continued movement would be arduous.
They continued for a short distance, each person wrestling with the disturbing images they'd just witnessed. It was the unmistakable sound of an engine that finally broke their collective, pensive silence. Every one of the eleven turned in unison, eyes fixed on the point from which a figure then appeared and the sheer weight of it was daunting to everyone who had been on the train.
He was dressed identically to individual No. 2, but his mask distinctly displayed 'No. 4'.
He advanced, halting a few meters before them. A palpable tension settled over the group ,their guard was undeniably up, a direct consequence of their previous encounter with his predecessor, No. 2.
"The Table requires you to traverse this forest by dawn," he stated, his voice devoid of inflection. "Anyone who remains will perish."
A collective holding of breath rippled through the onlookers, anticipating his departure. Instead, he extended a finger, pointing directly at a man Henry recognized as Mark. "The Fifth Chair has her eye on you."With that pronouncement, he turned and walked away.