Autophagy

An expression of pride appeared on Aston's face that Song Lei had never seen before.

"I am the smartest trainee," Aston said. He seemed to be very confident in his intelligence, which Song Lei couldn't refute.

As Aston finished writing in the notebook, they were done with tonight. They laid down on the bed to wait until it was 4 a.m. They were worried that Clark would attack them as soon as he came back, however, he didn't do so. He just came in, looked at Rufus for a second, and went back to sleep.

...

The morning came and everyone woke up as usual. There was nothing weird about Rufus and Clark as if the things that happened last night didn't happen at all.

'They must've lost their memories...' Song Lei thought. 'They probably switch their consciousness with their other part.'

During their first free time, Song Lei and Aston separated from Clark and Rufus to search for new team members. Aston took a little amount of time to finish up his list of the uninfected trainees. Looking at the list, bot Song Lei and Aston frowned.

There were ten names in the list with a few being uncertain. They had five people that they knew were uninfected or unaffected by the infection.

Having 40 minutes left, they picked their first target.

Marcus...

Marcus was a newly recruited trainee just like Song Lei. He had been staying here for fifteen days and still hadn't been affected by the worms. Assuming this meant that he had a high resistance level against them, Song Lei and Aston started searching for him.

Marcus wasn't a very sociable person. He only had a few friends, so it was a bit hard for them. Fortunately, they managed to locate Marcus sitting on a bench and silently watching the sun and the few flowers that were being illuminated by it.

He had a slightly darker complexion compared to the other trainees. He had black hair with olive-like eyes. He was relatively tall and had a muscular body. If they had to rank him, he would fall on the side of physically stronger trainees.

Marcus seemed to be in a daze. From time to time, he would show an anxious expression. Then he would sigh in relief. Then blank out again...

This constant roller coaster of emotions seemed to be weighing down on him as there were bags under his eyes.

Song Lei and Aston looked at each other. Nodding without saying any words, they went to Marcus' side. They stood next to him, waiting for him to react, however, Marcus was still staring at a distance.

'I can't blame him...' Song Lei thought. The festival was truly gruesome. He was used to seeing gruesome things and expected to meet with such scenery while coming here. The same thing couldn't be told for the other trainees. Albeit his body size, Marcus was still fourteen. No matter what he experienced, it wouldn't be possible for him to keep his cool in the current situation he was in.

"Hey Marcus," Aston said. Marcus shrieked and jumped in his place when Aston's voice resounded behind him. For a few seconds, he hyperventilated as his face flushed. Seeing Aston and Song Lei, however, it didn't take long for him to calm down.

"A- Are you okay?" Asked Song Lei, surprised by Marcus' extreme reaction. 

"Yeah! Yeah, I'm okay..." Marcus muttered. He did his best to make it look like he was okay, however, his act was pretty obvious. As if he was intentionally making it that way.

"Do you want to talk?" Song Lei asked. "About your problems I mean."

Hearing his words, Marcus sighed deeply.

"Who are you guys? Why are you so concerned?" Marcus asked.

"I'm Lewis, and this is Aston," answered Song Lei. "We'll tell our reason for talking to you when you tell us about your problem."

"Uhmm..."

Marcus didn't know how to answer as his gaze jumped back and forth between Song Lei and Aston.

Noticing his jumpy behavior, Song Lei stepped back and handed the conversation to Aston. Seeing Aston come forward, Marcus' anxiety lessened visibly. An awkward smile appeared on Song Lei's face. However, he didn't say anything about Marcus' visible discontent towards him.

Without speaking, Aston and Marcus looked at each other in the eyes for half a minute. They looked like they were talking telepathically, however, Song Lei knew that that wasn't the case. They were just two people with social anxiety trying to communicate.

"I can't sleep lately," Marcus said. "And I see very realistic nightmares every night."

"Really? Can you tell us those dreams?" Aston asked. Marcus gulped loudly and closed his eyes. Thinking about the last few nights, a deep frown appeared on Marcus' face. "It's okay if you don't want to talk about it," Song Lei said. This was just a little psychological trick that was said to make the opposite side feel more comfortable. And fortunately, it worked as Song Lei intended. The frown on Marcus' face lessened.

"No..." said Marcus. "I can talk about it."

Hearing him, Song Lei and Aston cheered in their mind.

"Every night, I suddenly wake up to weird noises at around 00:30," he said. "When I wake up, I realize that all my dorm mates are gone. I walk towards the window and look out of it. Wh- What I see is... They're..." Marcus struggled to speak. "They're doing..."

"Enough," Aston said. He knew the rest of the story.

"I- I'm sorry. It was just so realistic that... I don't know. I even thought of staying up late for this night and wait to see if everything was real... Am I going crazy?" Asked Marcus. His eyes were full of doubt and sadness. Because of his introverted personality, he wasn't used to sharing his problems with other people.

"You're not crazy," Aston said firmly. Hearing his confident tone, Marcus raised his head and looked at him confusedly. "Because everything you saw is real."

"Wh- What?" Marcus asked. He couldn't process what Aston had said. "How can that be real?"

"It is real. Because we saw it too," Song Lei dove into the conversation. "Your nightmare is real. And we have to end it somehow."

Marcus sighed with a tinge of relief in his voice. For some reason, he felt that him not being crazy was better than everything that he saw being real.

"So you're saying that everyone goes crazy at night? Just like I saw?" Marcus asked for a proper explanation. After all, it wasn't enough to just tell him that everything was real. They needed to give an explanation to him.

"Yes," Aston said. Gathering his thoughts, he continued by saying, "Let us explain..."

After that, he went on to explain the information they had gathered and what they had understood about the situation so far.

"Hmm..."

Marcus held his chin between his hands. He was in deep thought about the things Aston had said. After all, it wasn't easy to process such an info dump quickly.

"So everything was real..." Marcus muttered. "What are we going to do about it then?"

"Yeah. I was about to ask that too actually," Song Lei said. "Now that we are gathering allies, what are we going to do other than finding out the culprit?"

"I have a plan, however, it must be finalized," Aston said thoughtfully. "In our next free time, I will be in the lab experimenting on some things. Don't contact each other during that time. Lewis, you should hang out with Clark and Rufus for some time."

Song Lei nodded. It would be good to spend some time with them. Otherwise, they would get suspicious that something was wrong.

After getting done with their discussion, they went to their three-hour-long CQC class. It went by without anything out of the ordinary happening. Song Lei hoped that he would be able to keep training here for a long time despite the problems with the night festival. As long as he got enough training here, he felt like he would be able to become much stronger in the New World.

With the CQC class ending, Aston went to the laboratory as he had told them. Marcus went to sit on his favorite bench while Song Lei decided to hang out with Clark and Aston.

"You guys have been hanging out with Aston quite a lot during these days," Clark said with a creepy smile on his face. This smile of his seemed to be not because of the devouring worms, rather, it was his natural smile. Although it could be interpreted as being gentle, when you looked at it from a different angle, it could also be incredibly creepy.

"Aston works on lots of interesting things. I like learning things from him a lot," Song Lei lied. He was impressed by his lying capabilities. He wasn't nervous even a little bit while doing so.

"You must be very smart to be able to hang out that long with Aston! He talks a lot about things that I don't understand," Rufus chimed in.

"Well, I'm able to understand it rather quickly," Song Lei said. "I can't get nowhere near Aston though."

"That's natural. He is a genius after all," Clark said. "Enough about that, why don't we go to the ring again? There should be some interesting fights today...."