May Peace Grace Us

Chapter 67: Virtual Meeting

Aila spent her time mulling over things after she granted what Felix asked of her. She was reflecting on a lot of things and thinking about how bad the real dynamics of their relationships were. Thinking about how she has somehow made her hyenas a group of savage pups who seek her approval and affections.

Aila knows that most of them heavily rely on each other to get comfort in their f****d-up lives. Born privileged, yet trapped and controlled all their lives. If they are not strong enough to bear all the pressure, it is no surprise that their psychological states would have been worse if they did not have each other. They are each other’s strengths and weaknesses, but she did not know when they began to pin all their mental states on her.

She should have known this when Bella had been reborn. The way she tightly had her under her monitoring, her controlling behaviors, and sometimes manipulative ways to make sure she was somehow under her constant protection. Bella’s experience of losing her shows the effect she had on them. The tendency is way too excessive if this trait did not already exist before. Losing an anchor in life is only a trigger to make someone worse and more paranoid and crazy they had hid themselves in.

Aila admits, way before everything else, she was a great pretender as well as an actor. Hiding everything she did not want others to know, as well as making sure that no one knew how crazy she was. She was dumb enough to not notice how her friends are similar to her in this matter. Like how she anchored herself to them after everything they went through, others have also done the same to her.

Only that their reliance on her started way earlier.

“Was there a psychology specialist on the old servants?” Aila was left thinking if such a person existed in their population. There is a wealth of diverse people in the small number of them, but because they have yet to fully use their potential in the fields they are specializing in. She would have to call Cindy to send her a list of it to furthermore plan where to distribute their personnel.

Mainly, Aila is worried about the mental states of her people. During the past few days she has been cooperating with all sorts of people. She noticed that there was a trend of them relying heavily on her. It was almost fanatical and religious that it gave her a heavy sense of pressure. They need a person to let them stand on their own feet and not lean on her in these chaotic times.

But all this must be done at a time that will let them get well.

Now in the makeshift war room they had, Aila went to a conference with the hyenas and her parents to communicate with the bases outside their own. As planned, only Stephen will be on the screen. But they are definitely at the conference, at the side, unseen and nonparticipating. Though Aila’s biggest task at the moment was to hold back Bella in case she flares out when Alfred shows up on the screen.

“Hold her down.” Aila whispered with gritted teeth as Bella reacted violently. “I had warned you all.”

Eugene regretted not listening as he made that gag on Bella’s mouth. They did not know the deal with Bella’s animosity towards Alfred, but from the looks of it was something so deep that Bella cannot stop herself from doing impulsive things.

“Bella! Stop remembering none of us is allowed to show up on screen.” Harry reasoned at the wild Bella on the side. “The more you make a ruckus, the more our base will stand out in the conference! Do you want our families to find out about us?”

“Mmff!” Bella’s eyes were terribly red as she muffled her words. Seeing her in a still unstable state, they had no choice but to remove her to the room. Cindy promised to let her know the contents of the conference afterwards so as to not be left out. This temporarily calmed Bella as she was removed from the room.

Afterwards, the room was silent and only the people on the screen were making sounds. The content of the conversations was quite genetic in Aila’s opinion, it was even hypocritical in her ears. Obviously, none of them are in an intimate relationship, but they are quite good at playing close.

Perhaps only Stephen and Alfred were the only ones indifferent to the acts of other base leaders.

In Aila’s book, the meeting was not shown, nor was it involved. This was because, at the beginning of the story, her protagonist was not a base leader nor did he hold a particularly big role in the earlier bases. At most, he was someone who had some role in big teams and was more inclined to get out and strengthen his power. So this was never in the story, but was an after-thought to Aila after she made Alfred a base leader.

Only that by the time Alfred became a leader, the government was long gone and most original leaders were overthrown, dead or the initial bases that composed this particular conference were long gone. In addition to that, most people in Alfred’s time were more or less not so good and were full of greed and selfishness, so communication like this was not possible at all without either dangering themselves or being the predator screening their prey. So most bases tend not to do this unless necessary.

The whole conference had still not started its main meeting and everyone was only chatting with each other as they were waiting for the main organizers of this conference. In the meantime, they observed the people on screen and noted some familiar faces among them. Marking them mentally and planning for no contact until they cannot affect them in any way.

In just a while, the representative of the country, at least the still functional government, finally showed up and started the main agenda.

The content was easy to understand as the country wants to survive this tragedy as much as possible. They announce that the military is still around and their main operational range is still in the capital. Describing that although there were many people and zombies in there, they had already controlled the situation and had already sent out their forces to those who had asked for their help prior to the meeting. Along the way, they also announced some relevant information that they had gathered from outside the country and the current state of the world.

“...currently the whole world is suffering as we are. Other than zombies, it seems that there are also threats from mutated animals that are apparently more of a problem to some other countries than zombies to us.” Says the secretary Diane, who was the representative for the capital base as well as the government itself. “Do any of the bases out there face the same threats?”

A few bases express their situation and convey that their situation was indeed not optimistic. Some nearer to bodies of water say that although most places are covered in ice, there are some animals that still come out and cause them some big problems, such as birds and small animals going to their base for warmth or food. Most of the time, these things are not a problem every day, but some of these animals are hostile to humans and have already claimed lives in their ranks.

Joining the bandwagon, Stephen also reported the same as the other bases. Though he empathizes more with the damage than the loss of lives as they did not have this problem at all. Perhaps, due to the miserable narration of those before him, most people don't realize this deliberate choice of words at all. After all, who wants to talk about deaths when you all need to move forward to survive the present.

“...the situation was more tragic than expected.” Diane said gravely as she took note of what was said by the base leaders. “The government was planning to send reinforcements to various cities and bases to rescue survivors earlier to avoid such events. But the sudden winter made all of this impossible due to how bizarre the weather was and the manpower needed for this operation. Though most military bases have already reported their establishment of safe havens for those bases near them. Any bases who think they cannot survive the winter due to animals, resource depletion and other uncontrollable factors are free to come over or a team will come to them. Those who experience animal threats for those who need military help.”

Some smaller bases express their need for help and activity calls for the military to help them out. Stephen, who was the one on the screen at their side, frowned a little as he glanced at the children beside him who also wore an unpleasant expression. No doubt, like him, they did not find the idea of someone coming over and messing up their hard work.

Harry mouthed and gestured to Stephen to just keep quiet and not say much in regards to this. If called to attention, just play it safe, saying they are fine as they are for now and that their geography is troublesome to visit, especially due to the snow all over. It might not ward them off for long, but this will be enough to amass enough strength for others to know that they are strong enough and isolated enough to not be bothered for a while.

Understanding the boy’s gestures, Stephen only returned his eyes to the screen as if there was no exchange of silent messages.