SURVIVAL 6: LEVEL 1 STAGE 2 - CLONE

First immediately ran outside of the music room and I followed him. We saw Ninezen with Seventh.

"The sneaky hologram is in the living!" Ninezen reported.

All of us were assembled in the living area, yet Author hasn’t shown up.

“Greetings, battle 22, we meet again.” My attention was caught by the hologram with a big white letter A appearing in the middle of the living area. “How’s life?”

"Why are you here?" serious question from Fifth.

“To get you to the next level, stage 2 starts…now!”

A what?!

We were placed to create a big circle, and Author was in the middle. The floor we were stepping on glowed neon red. The letter A in the middle of the hologram disappeared, and it turned into a big arrow hologram. We looked like a giant round clock, but with 22 people surrounding each other forming a circle and with one long, big white arrow at the center.

“And now, I will spin the arrow. The arrow will choose the most fortunate one.”

The arrow spins. I struggled, but surprisingly, I could not move my body. I tried to speak, and so did the others, but no voice came out. Gradually, the arrow slows down. The arrow stopped and it landed on...

“Fortwen is the one!” Author announced.

In an instant, the neon red light and the arrow in the middle has also disappeared. Author’s hologram is back.

"W-What are you going to do to me?" she stuttered.

Fortwen's feet seemed to be glued together, so no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get away from her current position.

Fortwen became… two… five… nine… t-twelve? She turned twelve!

"Fortwen became twelve because of the clones. After a minute of the process, the mind of the genuine Fortwen will become obsolete and turn into a brain of a monster.” Author explained.

Her eyes are closed and her 11 clones did the same.

“Search the original Fortwen among the twelve. Remove the necklace attached to her neck. If you catch and seized the wrong necklace which is from the clone of Fortwen, another clone will be added. To reduce the number of clones, kill them or you will be killed.”

The necklace hanging on their necks is a silver necklace with a maroon diamond-shaped, 4 inches length pendant.

"What if the real Fortwen is the one we killed?" Third asked with a stoic voice. We can now speak but still can't move freely.

"Then... there's nothing can be done about it.”

“What do you mean nothing? Is she going to live or die?” Sixzen asked.

“You’ll only know the answer if you try.”

We can’t let this happen again.

"Once you get the necklace on the real Fortwen, the game will be cleared. The only chance for you is fight if you want to live."

"How can we fight when we don't have weapons?"

"We can't do this!”

It is now a ruckus.

Author ignored us and counted. "20 ... 17 ... 14 ..."

"Everyone, we have to fight." Firstwen’s encouraging words.

"But how? We're all going to die!" Twelf panicked.

"9, 8, 7”

Come to think of it, we can't do anything, but...

“Go in pairs, then scatter after the count. Run and hide as far as you can. Get something in the kitchen to protect you.” I heard Third suggested.

“I don’t buy this!” Sixth reacted.

"3, 2”

We are human, and they are just clones!

"One!" Author ended the countdown.

Author’s hologram went missing. The process has been completed. We are now free to move. The monsters changed position very quickly. The 11 clones were exact copies of the original Fortwen. The only difference is that their eyes turned red, rendering them emotionless, or rather, the eyes of a monster with bloodlust.

“W-We can’t open the kitchen cabinets and drawers. We can’t get the knives!” Sixth exclaimed.

"Some of you shall go into pairs and run! The others will try to fight," Firstwen commanded us.

Some girls ran away in pairs, and some of the boys tried to keep their composure.

"Second!" Aeith shouted.

"S-Stay away from them, please," Fourth begged.

“C’mon, Fourth. Let’s go while we still have time!” Fifth insisted on his sister, and they fled.

I heard a girl crying in the corner, it was Forzen. She was sitting near the kitchen alone.

“Aeith, take away Forzen here and hide!”

Aeith ran towards us. She held Forzen’s hand, and she stood. Aeith glared at me. “Hey, Second. Don’t you dare try anything that would kill ya!”

“Go on. Keep yourselves safe.”

“Tell that to yourself, too!” Then they ran upstairs.

The monsters started attacking and chasing some of us.

"Hya!" I defended myself against the two clones approaching me with the weapon I was holding that wasn’t present before.

I predicted that Author would give us a bit of an advantage to make it fair, but I don’t know how. Author was just calm earlier, averting our questions and worries about how to fight and survive this stage. How did I find out? It was Neinuko in the first stage. There was a strategy to beat the monster, so I thought that most likely, this one also has.

My weapon has a length of about 20 inches. It is double-edged with silver metal and a sharp tip. I looked at the others. Either we get a short sword or a long, slender spear.

Some of the boys focused more on attacking, while some of the girls volunteered to fight to oversee the defense. There are only five monsters left.

"Stop!" Third, one of our leaders stopped them from killing the remaining five. "We don't know yet which of them is real!" ,

I noticed the remaining five clones seemed to be twice as strong as the others who had already died, making us quicker and stronger than the previous seven.

"Let's hide first then let's find out which of them is real," Firstwen commanded us.

"We must proceed first to the 5th floor. The other girls are also there." Firstwen added.

"Let's go," First grabbed my right hand.

All of us were here on the 5th floor. This is a fully enclosed and dark area.

"Proceed with the plan." Our leader, Third, stated. We formed a large circle while standing. "The main problem we have is who among them is Fortwen.”

"I have an idea," First interjected. "If that's what we're going to do, then we have a chance," he ended.

"Okay, let's do that," the two leaders agreed. Everyon agreed in unison.

"They’re here!" Twelf shouted.

The ceiling of this floor and the roof of the castle open spontaneously. This floor suddenly became a rooftop. I heard the growl of the monsters straining to open the door and the noise of steel.

"Attack!" the leaders commanded.

The ten boys rushed to the remaining five monsters. I saw that First had thrown the steel palette knife on the wall on his left, and we immediately saw the movement of the monsters’ eyes.

"At the left corner! She's Fortwen!" Firstwen shouted pertaining to the real Fortwen that we’ve been looking for.

There is something wrong with the monsters. If I noticed it correctly, these monsters were avoiding us. First's idea was that he would throw a steel palette knife he obtained from the art room so that it would create noise. Those eyes were distracted by the noise that the palette knife made and looked to its right side where First threw the stone, then she was the real Fortwen.

Recalling the battle that we had earlier, taking down the seven clones, it certainly lacks five senses compared to a human being. One clone lacks at least two of its senses. The second strategy suggested by First, is that we will cause slight damage to the clones, which means stabbing lightly to see their blood. We observed that the clones' blood was paler in color compared to humans.

As we know who the real one is, the three boys charged. The seven boys were able to inflict great damage on the four clones. The three clones have also been defeated.

"Argh!" we heard a girl groan and were shocked to see that T-Twelf had been strangled and lifted upwards by a monster that we missed. Its short nails suddenly grew by about 4-5 inches. It pierced its sharp and long nails into Twelf's neck.

First attacked and stabbed the last clone before it might attack others. It died and turned into ashes. Fortwen slowly returned to her consciousness as a human. Her red eyes became normal, and her face became calm. It's good to see that she’s finally back.

We held onto Twelf’s body, and there were no vital signs that we hoped for. Fifth was about to grab the necklace from Fortwen to finally finish the major mission of the game, when we were astounded at what happened next.

“Ahhh!” Twentieth shrieked at what we saw.

Upon Twelf's death, Fortwen grabbed the pendant of the necklace from her neck, and she stabbed her neck repeatedly. And because it has a diamond-shaped 4-inch glass pendant with a pointed tip, it severed her neck badly. Blood is flowing, her eyes turning back into red. She stopped stabbing herself until the pendant was completely shattered into tiny glass shards. She fell to the ground and lost consciousness.

Why did the clone suddenly attack Twelf even though she was doing nothing to them? What’s even more unpredictable is why Fortwen committed suicide.

"Game over," a voice whispered. It was Author.

It released an image of our pictures. And the picture of Twelf and Fortwen has a big red X mark and a 'game over' stamp below their faces.

"Again, two of your friends died. Stage 2 has been carried out. The corpse of the two will be dispatched." The bodies of the Twelf and Fortwen disappeared.

"Why did you kill them?" Aeizen asked with a stern look.

"Because... in this game, the weaklings are eliminated."

"What did you do to the two?" I asked Author firmly.

"First of all, the reason why Fortwen was chosen to be the bait is because she is the weakest of you all. That arrow detects your intense heartbeat and how you feel. The more you fear, the more you attract what you fear.”

This is totally absurd!

“That explains why some of you were given a short sword, not a spear. The more courage you have, the more powerful a weapon you will have.”

I look at the nine of us who are holding short swords.

“As for Twelf, she is second to the weakest. To prevent her from running away, she was killed by the last clone finishing its business. And you were right that the five clones are far better than the first seven you killed. They gain powers when their targets are shrouded in fear. The main target of this game is the feeble. Fortwen was manipulated to kill herself instead.”

What…

“The fear intensity differs. Assumingly, any one of you surpassed the fear intensity of Twelf and Fortwen, but the thing is, you resisted and fought back. Slight courage can outgrow extreme fear.”

So, this is what it’s all about, huh?

"In short, this is a test of your dauntlessness, and the preys are the weaklings."

"Is it because of their fear that you're killing them?" Firstwen asked while keeping his composure.

"If your fear outgrows you already in the first level of Tri-Games, then isn't it better that you'll be eradicated so that your friends won't sacrifice themselves just to save the frail?" Author paused for a bit. "The vigor wins, the feeble loses.”

Author disappeared, and the roof is slowly closing automatically. We were left standing, trying to absorb what had just happened.