Assault Game!

The Sanctuary.

——— ALEXIA———

From the start of our daring race— no, even before, everything about this felt like a dream to me.

Too freaking terrifying, just strange... Too strange.

It felt like I was drugged and was soaring on cloud nine. Everything seemed to be happening from a third man's point of view, and I seriously thought I could laugh at my derision.

It wasn't that way now. I got on my knees and puke out whatever I had in my stomach, whatever fluid that was. I looked pathetic, but still, most of us in the Sanctuary were the same, even more so.

A man hugged his legs and cried after coming from that terrifying experience. Some were like me, puking their guts out,

Others slumped to the floor visibly shaken. Ones who weren't gusty enough had long fainted after their adrenaline-filled body calmed down.

“T-this is a mistake. I didn't do anything! I never did anything!

What of the millions of evil happening outside? What of the drug lords and snaky politicians, a-and the f*****g occult groups t-that grinds live babies for money rich concoctions?

Didn't you see them? Let me off!... Please”

A feeble-looking man got on his knees and begged the ‘altar’ pathetically. But I didn't know what came over me, I somehow thought this could be a facade he put off...

Being feeble was a mask, if not he wouldn't be among the first group of people to reach the Sanctuary. Those kinds had sharp minds... They were smart in times of danger.

Or simply put, they knew how to delude danger. Because they had these sorts of experiences before.

I had gotten lucky I freaked out just as Dorian— a smiling masked man— finished his speech. Thus I had been at the very front. The first to scream and skip through the opening gate actually.

Yet I found it strange he reached here before me... Did he just know how to run fast? Or was there something else?

I shake my head to throw out that absurd thought.

More people still showed up, albeit fewer than at the start. And even their intervals were wider.

The Sanctuary, like a pun, stood the same as a somewhat mid-aged western church.

It was a one-storied house that expanded a little more than a flat, it was shaped like the Barndominium

[ image illustration; Search Cupola Barn on Google for explicit description ]

To put it plainly, it was a church, which did not— and in no small terms— worship the real God.

The church was made to include a pulpit and an altar, but instead of a mounted image, a mural depicting ancient battles like that of the Titanomachy was pinned on the wall.

Not to brag, but I somewhat studied deeply into Greek mythology back at high school, and even took a couple of novels that I could remember,

But I don't ever recall a woman with strange dreamy eyes, or a man riding on a dragon being part of that war.

Even their opponent wasn't a bad-ass super dorky dad, but instead... It was the void, the strange unwinding, and elusive Cosmos.

I tore my eyes away after what might be the last person, well, alive, came and joined us at the lobby, or narthex in this case.

“That should be all of us, right?” A woman lightly asked. Amongst us were people who, after a while, took this sudden bomb pretty well. She, a woman of about 25, leaned in the middle with her elbows on her knees in a mafia posture.

Clearly, her eyes showed bossy and scary when she looked around. A trouser was ripped on the knees and was further stuck into high safety boots.

She tied her hair to a ponytail with rings of gold-plated laces. Honestly, I guess she was some sort of big shot.

“Wait, there's still someone else.” An apathetic bulky man spoke while staring outside, he was way back even though he entered a while ago. He chose to stay at the entrance and watch the exhausted, squeezing people frantically run in... Or die trying. Like it increases his ego or something.

‘Lots of weird people. I should keep my distance.'

The first woman perked up her head as curiosity got her, but it was just that— curiosity— she wasn't going to risk getting close to the entrance like that guy did, less someone with a grudge against her or something decides to push her out.

“Then he should give up his measly life quickly let's get on with it" She mutters, and the rest of us thought that way. If we look at this from any angle, the ones who ran off first had the most advantage as they already had more than dozens of meters of a headstart against the Man-eating monsters. The ones who came later though, were unfortunate since the monsters were closer and some had already blocked their route from the front.

“Is he dead yet? What now—" A shadow stopped our mumblings. It was a boy, at most 19, with a callow but cute countenance. His eyes though were dark and unemotional and the black hair with a steak of platinum he was blessed with, gave him a look of some sort of hidden rich talent.

“...."

He first coldly went to the bulky man and whispered something before walking with strides to one of the benches lined in front of us. Like me, his eyes stared at the Mural... Unlike me, they never left.

‘Alexia, take your eyes off him. He's just a fly that would probably disappear before long'

That's what I tell myself whenever I feel emotions stirring up in my chest towards a person... Be it love, hate, envy, malice, peace, ...

For the unperturbed boy, I feel a strange kind of curiosity building up. It's not strange since he is amongst the people who took things pretty well in this short while. None of them are ordinary.

—— He is Young!, wonder what his story is ————