"Malik, stay with me!"

Malik wasn’t staying with me. Infact, he looked like someone who was being overly dramatic from getting hit by a sniper. Spurting out blood once every ten seconds. Gasping heavily for air like oxygen had done a bit or two trying to torture him.

He didn’t look okay.

"Hey, dude!" I slapped his face when his eyes started to close— maybe a little too hard. "I said to stay with me, goddamn it!"

I had to think. The best option— the only option— had been to think. The training timer was still counting towards elimination. Malik’s lifespan had a shorter time range. The bullet had pierced coldly through the back of his shoulder, impaling out his left chest.

It wasn’t minor. He was losing so much blood by the minute. I had to do something.

"Think, Ren. Think!" I could hear my own voice hitting panic mode. Just the same way it’d been when Rowan— "Fucking think, you asshole!"

"Leave...me, Ren." Of all words to force out of a dying breath, Malik had chosen those ones.

"Hey, you think you’re being cool right now?" I glared at him, gripping his out tightly out of reflex. "You watch too many movies."

Just before I could say another word, a loud, mechanical whistle echoed through the room. Like the sound of steam from a boiling kettle that had been connected to a speaker.

[Training Mode Deactivated]

The panel walls began to recede, the guns retracted back into the walls with their usual wirring sounds. The room concealed itself back to normal until what was left was a large, empty room with a broken sniper and RPG clattered to ground in pieces.

How—

"Well, it’s just like they say." Someone footsteps approached behind me, upheld by the voice of a confidence old man. "Curiosity has a way turning your biggest discovery to your worst nightmare."

Ymir James. The camp director. He was standing there with two guards behind him. And for some reason, seeing him up close didn’t make him look any taller. What was even more surprising was how he looked so calm while a student under his care was actually dying.

"What do you think you’re doing?" I barked at him. "Help him!"

"Why?" Ymir asked.

"Why?" I could feel my eyebrows meeting an upward frown line. Anger took me up to my feet that second, stomping towards the director and grabbing his shirt collar in the next. "You old piece of shit. Are you asking me why you should save a student you’re supposed to be responsible for?"

"You two lads bypassed four camp policies in one night." He started, showing his fingers to signify the numbers. "Lurking around after curfew. Breaking into a building. Activating the facility’s deployment. And lastly," he pointed to the broken guns on the floor. "Property damage." His eyes met mine once more. "So tell me now, how is any of this my responsibility?"

I heard Malik gag on his blood. There wasn’t time for an argument.

"You want responsibility, I’ll give you one. I can take up my things and leave this camp if that’s what you choose. I never gave a damn anyway." I looked straight into his eyes and held it for a few seconds. "But first, he has to live."

I felt the deadbeat weigh in the atmosphere when the camp director said nothing. Ten seconds passed— I could help the panicked calculation in my brain— and then he smiled. Not a wide smile. Just an evil little smug that faded as soon as made its way to his lips.

"Who said I was gonna let him die?" He brushed past me and approached Malik, squatted. "You see, this isn’t the first time we’ve had reckless students. Almost every examination year, infact. Now, it wouldn’t make sense for the camp’s reputation if we actually had past death records, right?"

Before I could say anything else, his hands began to glow a dim white light, slowly increasing contrast as he moved his palm over Malik’s wound. Flesh replaced whatever pierced hole had been made, closing in the gap completely.

A healer. And not just any healer— a cultivated one.

Healers were the most technical ability users after hybrids. Their abilities were almost never coincidental. It required focus, months of study— and according to unconfirmed rumors— spiritual energy to actually come to an awakening.

But Ymir didn’t seem like he was sweating any of that. The way he did it was effortless, like someone who’d spent almost all the years of his life cultivating his ability. Malik had been healed in an instant, breathing with the energy of someone who’d just been at an eyeball distance close to death— relieved.

"As much as it is proper to disqualify you both right here and now, it still wouldn’t seem fair for the competition." Ymir had said as he rose back up. "But I do have something...special in reserve for you."

His smug did the rest of the talking.

***

"Kitchen Duty!?"

Now that I thought about it, the whole pieced off mystery about what our punishment was supposed to be hadn’t been so pieced off at all. Smudged aprons. Dirty chef hats. Until now, how the heck had I assumed that we were going to be working in some mechanical workshop or something.

"On the good side, we could have more freebies than the rest." Malik said, patting my shoulder encouragingly. "Besides, it’s just a day, it’s not that bad."

"It’s that bad!" I looked at him. "What if I’m asked to serve breakfast, if Aria spots me, she’s going to make me a laughing stock."

"You seem to care alot about what Aria thinks." He said that part with an unconcerned smile. "You sure you don’t like her or something?"

"I don’t—" I paused, then looked at him. "Wait, is that obvious?"

The time to reply never presented itself. The backrooms door swung open and someone walked in. A woman. Slim, but chubby. Cleaner apron. Longer chef hat. She was holding a rolling pin in her right hand, and on her face, a bitter frown.

"Let me guess." Her accent was Mexican. "Two more little pests who went against camp rules." She clicked her tongue. "You must think this place is a school nursery, going in and out like toddlers with no sense of regulation, eh?"

Malik spoke first. "We apologize ma’am, but—"

"Chef Carmela." She cut him off, then folded her arms. "You use that honorifics for me, got it?" 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

"Okay... Chef Carmela." Malik pronounced the name like an unfamiliar data. "Anyway, the reason why we are here is pretty much complicated. Its—"

"Spare me the details, would ya?" She waved us off. "Anything but wasting my good morning over some heartfelt discussion." Her eyes stopped on Malik, and she nodded at him. "You, you’re in charge of the dishes in the sink."

The moment she moved her gaze to me, I began to mutter an inward prayer about whatever duty she was about to assign to me. I could dry the dishes. I could throw the dirty aprons in the laundry. Anything but actually having to serve food. Please...

"And you are on serving duty." That part came out like a curse. A spell that completely froze me up. "Now get to work Muchachos!"

The camp’s kitchen smelled like grease and mustard. Filled with the noise of something frying under deep oil. Whatever it was, it wasn’t on the menu.

Today’s menu was rather cinnamon toast with zero cinnamon. Just bread sprayed with margarine and a sprinkle of sugar. You could literally hear the dryness when it landed on each students’ plates— possibly dry enough to need three cartons of milk to get down.

I wasn’t going to test that out.

I’d taken my positions among the servers after one of them had directed me to be in charge on the margarine filling. An easy task. That was what I thought at the very least, until my very first serve.

"Hey!" The student— bowl cut hair, hungry looking but picky eyes— had raised the bread like a disappointment. "What the heck is this? There’s too much margarine on my bread!"

"And?" I lowered my eyes at him. "What am I supposed to do about it? Stuff it down my throat and make you a new one?"

"I don’t care what you do with me." He flung the bread over to me. "I’m not going to eat that shit."

I glanced at the bread, dumped on the cabinet, margarine smudged all over— then back at the dude in the next second. For all reasons, I could feel my fists clenching over the butter knife, demanding to make movements that I hadn’t fully approved of yet.

"Hey." I looked at him. "If you’re not hungry, then get a move on. There are other people on this row."

"And what are you gonna do about it, huh?" He was raising his voice now. "You dumb fuck."

My fist clenched harder.

Resist, Ren. Resist.

"Let me help you with that."

A girl walked up to me. Dirty brown hair. Irish blue eyes. The rest of her body features was hidden behind an apron that seemed longer and bigger than she was. She grabbed two bread slices from a tray, darted margarine on it the same way you’d try to paint on a canvass— with precision.

"Here you go." She handed the bread over to the boy. "Sorry for the trouble."

The bastard didn’t argue. Didn’t even glance at his cinnamon roll for a repeated check. His eyes just remained glued to her until he walked away.

"Try going easy on them next time, Ren." Her voice was smooth. Too smooth. "Most of all, go easy on the margarine too. Not everyone likes grease."

"Um..." I shook my head, trying to reach for mental purchase. "Do I know you?"