The Announcement

Jason went outside with his friends, and they buried the corpse together. I stood under the shower as blood that stained my hands and body fell to the floor. 

'I spilled his blood to set a precedent. I should not have to again.'

After washing up, I put on a new change of clothes and headed out towards the living area with the four double seated couches and kitchen table in the corner.

Zane was sitting on a couch, waiting for me. Susan and Tim had probably gone to their bedroom, one of five. "Travis was that necessary. It seems like life isn't important to you. First, my Lauren and now this Ethan. You killed them both. Do their deaths weigh heavily on you? Also, I thought that you said we would rule together. This is my bunker, Afterall."

I glanced down at the bandage on his arm and then back to his eyes. "You are not fit to lead right now. You must become stronger. You must consume a stone, but you must become cold like me. You cannot let emotion, and the anger that will be drawn from that, cloud your judgment.

I will make sure they let you take one of their stones. After that, we should head out and hunt Zombies for more stones so that we can become more powerful. Soon enough, a bunker will not be enough to protect us. We gotta get enough Mana to protect ourselves."

He sighed and then nodded. "I understand, let's go."

There was a knock on the door up above. KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

Instantly, I wondered.

'It's either Jason's group who don't know or code, or it is Tessa who I told to knock three times.'

I hurried up the steps to the vault's door. I typed the code in and then the door swung open. Standing there was a beautiful woman with red hair, blue eyes, and a full figure. She looked a little muscular even. She nodded to me. "I am Tessa. Thanks for inviting me here, I almost did not make it."

'I sense Mana from her, and it is strong.'

I smiled. "Glad to have you here, my name is Travis. How many points do you have in Mana?"

Her eyes widened. "Oh, you knew? You must be strong. I have 20 points in it, but I am still level 1. How about you?"

"I am level 2 and I have 56 Mana. You have to use a traditional weapon to kill them. Apparently, guns don't count."

She nodded. "I figured out the same thing from the strange system."

I nodded and then looked past her. I saw Jason and his friends approaching and I saw that Tessa had come in a little Toyota Sienna minivan. It was very beat up. "There's some of the other people we took in today."

She turned around and looked at them. 

As Jason and his group neared even closer, I introduced Tessa to them and then we all headed back down into the bunker. Once down in the living area, I introduced Tessa to Zane. As soon as Zane saw her, his eyes lit up. 

Hello, It's very nice to meet you, I'm Zane! As Travis may have told you, I'm his older brother."

She chuckled and nodded. "I'm Tessa, let's get along."

We all sat back down and looked at the small green glowing stones in the worn cloth sack. There were nine of them left. "Zane is going to take one and you four can have the other eight. After that, we are going to go out and hunt more Zombies and we are all going to grow stronger."

Jason nodded. "Okay."

I passed the bag to Zane and he touched a stone. The stone dissipated in a flash and Zane became unconscious. I passed the bag around to the other four and they each touched a stone as well and became limp.

'Now it is time to wait and if necessary, to kill.'

Five minutes passed and Zane woke up first. He did not have glowing eyes and I sensed a slight magic power from him. He stared at the blank space in front of him. "What is this green screen?" 

"That's your system status screen or something like that."

"You have one too?"

"Yeah, I told you about it."

He shrugged. "I must have forgotten that."

The others began to wake up as well and they were also surprised. Jason woke up last. But as Jason woke up, a system notice popped up in front of me.

___________________________

Global Announcement → There are now 5,000 Awakeners in the whole world. Stage one will now commence. 

Stage One → The Strongest Group becomes Stronger: Stay within the top ten rank in magic power in the entire world. Reward: Choose an Epic equipment of your choice from the store + Early store access (If applicable). You have 48 hours starting now. 

Top Ten Leaderboard → 

1. Damian Gray: 2,219

2. Luvi Chapa: 1,208

3. Savi Luis: 893

4. Chim Chu: 538

5. Jungbin Chang: 337

6. Sev Ali: 219

7. Allison Vain: 112

8. Travis Scott: 56

9. Blain Smith: 51

10. Brice Vidi: 38

Note: You are within the top ten. You must stay there until time is up.

___________________________

The others apparently saw it as well because they were staring off into space. I laughed. "Well, why don't we go and hunt some Zombies. We know now that some higher being did this shit. Let's go take first place."

Zane turned to me. "You were right. We really do need to do what is necessary at the moment. All of my anger, it is gone. I just feel cold."

"Good brother, let's go kill some Zombies."

Zane and I walked into the armory, and we all retrieved combat knives. We also brought along our assault rifles in case we were being overrun. We walked back out of the armory and then headed out of the bunker. We split the people up into two cars. My truck and Tessa's minivan.