The inside was far larger than he had anticipated as it was roughly the size of the regular high school gym.
The room was filled with easily over a hundred people, if not already at two hundred.
Looking at the state of the people within, Kale knew Axel and he had been lucky.
And while he felt empathy for the people, that wasn't his main focus at that point in time. It was to find Axel and luckily for him, he didn't have to wait long.
After spending a little over four minutes searching meticulously, he saw Axel facing one of the corners in the room.
"Hey, Ax!" Kale called out and the latter whipped his head in shock because he knew that there was only one person who'd call him by that name.
Axel took off and slammed into Kale with a bear hug.
_____
"So you mean to say that in California alone, only about sixty people made it out?!" The statistics shook Kale to his feet.
"I understand the danger, but if we could survive, then why not others?" Kale muttered aloud.
"I'll tell you why? You know that thing we clashed with? It was a baby." The words that left Axel's mouth filled Kale with infernal fear.
"According to those who are comfortable talking about their experience, the ones they faced were nearly two to three times as large as the ones we did." He continued.
"Theirs even had a tail and six arms." Axel sighed. "We were just very lucky."
Kale, on the other hand, didn't hear the last part. Not that he needed to, he already knew.
'That means… the only reason we survived wasn't skill.' His eyes shook slightly.
It wasn't even luck. It was a chance.
"H-how did we survive?" Kale called out to Axel.
"Well, to cut a long story short, when we were at the mercy of the creature, someone shot it through its head." The latter casually revealed.
"Now before you ask, I don't know who or from where." He answered Kale's next question.
Kale looked into the distance and suspicion into the matter only increased.
He looked around and confirmed that the other people were doing something that occupied their attention.
"I think that the military knows mo-" Axel shot forward and covered Kale's mouth before making a 'shush' gesture with his other hand.
"I'm feeling a bit nauseous." Axel suddenly declared and headed to the door before leaving the room.
Kale followed after his friend and ended up in the hospital bathroom.
Axel entered a stall and Kale had no choice but to follow.
"You were about to say that you think the military knows more than it's letting on, weren't you?" Axel raised an eyebrow.
"Well, yeah, but what was with the whole mouth blocking thing?" Kale crossed his arms and leaned against the wall of the stall.
"That was because I had deduced the same on the day we got the alert and I don't exactly like the conclusions I derived." Axel sighed and swiped his face with his hand.
"You make it seem like the alert was a long time ago." Kale chuckled slightly but Axel kept a blank face.
"You've been out for almost a month." Kale went silent.
His knees shook, and he almost lost his balance, but luckily, Axel was there to prevent him from falling.
After ensuring that Kale was able to stand properly, they addressed the issue at hand.
'A month?! I've been out for almost a month?!' Thoughts ran through Kale's mind.
"Kale?!" Axel's voice snapped Kale out of his thoughts.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." Kale reassured his friend.
"I believe that the government already knew that this was going to happen. That's why collection points were already established before and even why the hospital staff seem calm." Axel continued his theory.
"The reason why I stopped you from saying it there and brought you here was because I felt that they could have bugged the room to determine who was saying what." He paused.
"Because if I were the military as a body, I would eliminate any and everyone who knows too much."
After rounding off their discussion, the two left the stall and saw a man entering the bathroom.
He looked at both of them and then at the stall they came out of.
Then back at them and the stall they came from.
An incredulous look filled the man's eyes as he put two and two together.
Axel and Kale, watching this, tried to correct the man, but he wasn't having any of it.
"Not my business." He sighed before entering a different stall.
After the awkward interaction, the two returned to the room and took a corner where they had clear visibility of the entrance while not being particularly in sight to anyone who entered.
A few hours passed before food was brought in and served to the people in the room.
Halfway through their meal was when they entered.
A team of six men wearing military uniforms marched into the room in an orderly fashion.
They formed two rows consisting of three people and formed a passage for the seventh person.
A large man with a clear tan and muscles walked in slowly through the passage.
When he was all the way through, the six people saluted.
"So these are the failures unfortunate enough to survive. Such a disgusting bunch of face-filling, self-serving worthless pricks!" His baritone voice bellowed through the room.
Pin drop silence filled the space.
"A profile has been run on everyone here to determine eligibility." He paused.
"I am here to inform everyone that Martial law has been enacted, and with it, mandatory conscription. From now on, those who are seventeen and above will be taken out of this facility and trained to fight." He walked out as soon as he was done.
It seemed that it wasn't a matter of choice. Not that Axel could blame them as they were facing an invasion unlike any before.