[You have met an unknown creature]

  [Name: Genesis]

  ‘We have met the king already! And it goes by Genesis?’ Athan stands there looking up at the gigantic monster.

  Genesis lurks around the hole at the top. Genesis has long, sharp claws and white fur with gray mixed in. Fangs peek out of its lips. Their eyes are a light blue color.

  Genesis mesmerizes everyone on the platform. Their jaws slightly dropped, and their hands were by their side. But the thing that mesmerized them wasn’t the overall build of Genesis…it was the back of Genesis. Protruding from the back of Genesis were trees.

  But Athan realized something that might be even more unsettling. It looked like Genesis had mini-monsters roaming inside its body.

  Looking around, Athan tries to find a way to escape. But to his demise, there was nothing, as a horde of maybe hundreds, no thousands of man-eaters surrounded them.

  ‘What are we going to do? I mean, surely we are going to die, right? I don’t think anyone here can take on Genesis, even with our newfound strength.’ Athan continues to ponder what will happen. But slowly, someone begins to laugh—manically.

  Athan looks around to see who the laughing person may be. ‘Ah, of course it just has to be Xavier.’

  Xavier stands there, his hands in the air, a big, wide grin on his face as he continues to laugh himself to insanity.

  “OH! This is going to be interesting! Let’s see who is truly capable of surviving!” Following his laughs, Xavier shares a glare at Genesis. The wide grin remains on his face.

  After some time, people look uneasy and worried about what will happen. Genesis suddenly speaks.

  “All of you. All of you will die here.” Genesis says with an ominous, but echoing voice.

  Before anyone else can get a word in, Genesis starts to talk again. “Have you guys come to understand the purpose of the trial?”

  Athan himself has been wondering what the purpose of the trial has been. He has had many ideas as to what it may be. Some of the ideas he landed on were: A trial to decide strength, a trial to determine determination, or a trial where only someone with the strongest heart will win.

  Ultimately, Athan was unable to reach a conclusion.

  “If not, let me explain why you are here now. You all have chosen for this trial to decide whether or not you are worthy of living in the new world.” Genesis pokes their head through the hole.

  ‘Worthy of living in the new world? What does that mean?’ Athan looks at the Brute, who looks just as confused as Athan.

  The Brute suddenly speaks up towards Genesis. “What do you mean we were chosen for this trial to decide whether or not we get to live in the new world?”

  Genesis stares intently at the Brute.

  “It’s simple. The new world simply requires the strong. If you aren’t strong or you can’t hold your own out there…all of you will be killed horribly.”

  Genesis pauses for a moment, then speaks again.

  “Which is precisely why you guys can only remember your names and ages. This way, if any of you survive, you will be given the chance to rebuild yourselves. You will build new lives and memories.”

  ‘Is Genesis fucking insane? Genesis wants us to rebuild new lives, but only if we survive. They have to be crazy.’

  The ominous, echoing voice becomes increasingly unsettling.

  “You guys haven’t even realized it yet. This shows that your survival instincts are weak.”

  ‘Haven’t realized what? What could Genesis be talking about?’ Athan looks around.

  “Oh fuck!” Xavier screams. “It looks like the man-eaters have been closing in on us slowly.” A wide grin appears on his face once more.

  The soulless purple eyes ominously get closer to the group of people on the platform. The loud clanking gets louder with every second. Their mini legs are getting faster, even as the man-eaters move at a snail's pace. And within a minute, they completely left the darkness and surrounded the platform, ensuring no one could escape.

  Genesis, at the top of the arch, lies down and prepares to watch the events unfold.

  The Brute grabs Athan and Amelia and brings them in close. “We’ll stay close together. Forget about Xavier and Atlas for now. We need to worry about ourselves.”

  Amelia glares at the Brute, trying to signal something. Brute notices, and he simply nods his head to the side, saying no.

  Athan notices this again, but this time he decides to call her out for it.

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  “Why the hell do you keep sharing looks with him? Are you, like, in love with him?”

  Amelia looks at Athan with a disgusted face, and she turns her head upward towards the Brute. “Why won’t you follow through with our plan?”

  The Brute doesn’t say anything for a moment, but after some thought, he says three words.

  “It’s not right.”

  Towering above the platform, Genesis slowly opened their mouth. “I think I have you people confused. I am not the king.”

  Everyone looks up at Genesis in disbelief. The fear of the unknown suddenly hit them. What was true and what wasn’t.

  “What do you mean that you’re not the king!” The Brute shouts from below.

  Athan looks over at the Brute. ‘Exactly! What the hell does this mean? If Genesis isn’t the king, then who is? Isn’t the whole goal of the trial to kill the king?’ Athan takes a breath. ‘That means one thing…the king is still somewhere in these caverns.’

  The man-eaters still stand there; the sight of humans and smell of blood has their mouths drooling. Athan looks over at them and begins to wonder how they will be this hoard of man-eaters. The newfound strength that most people are starting to get might be enough to kill them. But even if they manage to kill this hoard of man-eaters, they will still have to face the king inevitably.

  Athan looks around at the people, hoping someone will answer the question that has been lingering on his mind. But no one seems to want to ask Genesis anything. That’s when Atlas raises his hand.

  With his calm voice, he asks, “If you're not the king, then who is?”

  There it was, the question that was lingering on Athan’s mind.

  Genesis looks down at Atlas menacingly and begins to speak. “That’s your job. You guys have to be the ones to find out who the king is. And with time, you will.”

  Athan questions what Genesis means by that, but before he ponders too much on what they said, Athan has another question linger on his mind. Athan opens his mouth to speak for the first time—his first question to Genesis.

  “Genesis, what are you?”

  Genesis sits there for a while, leaving the humans below him to question. When the time finally comes, Genesis answers:

  “I am the creator of this trial.”

  Athan gulps silently. ‘The creator? Just how powerful could Genesis be?’ Athan walks up to the Brute. “What should we do?”

  The Brute looks over at Amelia before answering. Amelia, wondering why the Brute is looking at her, just glares at him.

  Coughing the Brute finally answers. “I don’t know what to do, but if I had to guess, we would have to kill all these man-eaters.”

  Athan sighs. ‘Thanks for possibly stating the obvious.’

  A few minutes pass, and everyone on the platform stays with their primary group they have chosen at the beginning of the trial. Athan walks around to see if any other groups stand out. Only two groups caught his eye. One was a group of four, and the other was a group of eight, maybe ten.

  The first group that caught Athan’s eye had two girls and two boys. If Athan had to pick out a leader from that group, it would be the person with spikey blonde hair. He was wearing ragged clothes like everyone else. And he had a weird aura to him. The second group that stood out to Athan mainly had girls. Although the group was primarily girls, someone still stood out to him. It was a boy with black spiked hair that went down his neck. He was wearing ragged black clothes and black boots.

  After some time observing groups, Athan heads back to his own group. On his way back, he passed Xavaiers' group, which now had only three members. When passing, Athan noticed Xavier no longer had a smile on his face; this time, he had a serious face.

  In the silent caverns where only man-eaters can be heard with their clanking teeth, Xavier decides to question Genesis once more.

  “Just what are we doing exactly! Do you want us to kill the man-eaters or what!”

  No one has actually made a move, really, since they got on the platform. They knew they were safe as long as they didn’t leave the platform and attacked the man-eaters.

  After sitting for some time, Genesis decides to walk around the hole at the top once more.

  “I don’t get you people. Why not kill the man-eaters? Why let fear hold you back? To answer your question, though…I don’t care whether you kill them or not. I was simply just sitting here seeing what you guys would do. But now that some time has passed, and if you guys think you're ready, I'll let you explore a little more of the world. Some of you, that is.”

  This didn’t sit right with Athan. Why would only some people be able to explore this world that Genesis has been talking up?

  Genesis continues. “For you guys to advance, one of you must stay behind, and take on the hoard of man-eaters before you.”

  Deciding who to stay and essentially die was cruel. Instead, Athan just kept his mouth shut. While Athan kept his mouth shut, the others panicked when deciding who should stay behind.

  Xavier eventually shouts up to Genesis.

  “This guy!” Xavier points to Atlas with a smile on his face. “This is the person who should stay behind.”

  Everyone is left speechless, but they are also glad that they aren’t the ones who would have to stay behind and fight all of the man-eaters.

  Atlas keeps a calm look on his face and slowly glares at Genesis. “Yeah, I’ll do it.” His fists were clenched, and his eyes were sharp.

  Athan walks up to Xavier to question why he chose Atlas. “Why him?”

  Xavier grins. “I chose him because, believe it or not, he is secretly a monster.”

  Athan looks at Xavier with a funny look, then at Atlas. Atlas has a dark aura to him, something that makes Athan question everything he has been able to learn about Atlas this far.

  A white powder slowly begins to fall from the hole, catching everyone’s attention. That’s when Genesis decides to talk again.

  “Atlas was your name? If you are chosen, you will stay behind while the others advance. Is that fine with you?”

  Atlas nods his head.

  Genesis walks around the hole, and afterward, they just leave, disappearing into nothingness.

  Suddenly, the platform begins to rise slowly. Athan looks over the ledge at Atlas, who has decided to stay behind. The man-eaters have all retreated into the darkness. As the platform slowly rises, Athan examines the strange white flakes falling from the sky.

  ‘What is this stuff?’

  Finally, after floating in the air for some time, the platform reaches the top of the hole and locks itself into place.

  At the top of the hole, Athan takes in the new smells and the new air. Shortly after, he opens his eyes and sees massive peaks surrounding them, with significant gaps between them. At the top of each peak was that white powder. And the people on the platform were illuminated by a bright, warm light.

  Carefully taking in everything, Athan was interrupted by the same echoing voice that he had heard from the beginning of the trial.

  [Phase two of the trial has now started]