Hope Within

After several minutes of crying her eyes out, Mary had decided to change her current dirty casual clothes and clean herself up a bit in the restroom...or what was left of it. When she cross her way to the girls restroom, there was a giant hole where the toilets used to be.

The only saving grace was the one intact sink that still had running water, so Mary used that to wipe the muck and what seems to be dried blood all over her body.

'Was this Jacob's blood?'

The thought crossed her mind, but Mary quickly shook it away to avoid prying the blocked memory open. She didn't want to waste Dean's and Bob's effort of restoring her mental state, but more importantly she didn't want to waste Jacob's sacrifice...his last act of love for her.

Mary was alive but alone now. 

Nevertheless, she continues to do the simple mundane stuff such as washing herself to keep her mind busy. Mary cried her eyes out, but she was only human...an enhanced human....but regardless she was like any person who recently loss a loved one. Mary needed more time to overcome her grief, time that she figured she didn't have, judging by the state of the ground floor and what seems to be dismembered corpses piled up in a corner.

'Were those responsible for Jacob's death?'

Again her mind wandered off, but she quickly threw that thought away and went back into the janitor's room. She changed her clothes and chosen to wore leather boots since she figured they'd be more appropriate in the current situation. Her outfit was rather normal consisting of jeans and t-shirt so that Mary could use her powers easily. Though the normal outfit didn't diminish her natural beauty as she was an Esper.

Now.

Mary had nothing to do.

She could wait for Dean and Bob to check in on her, but Mary desperately needed something to distract herself from poking her sealed memories.

She was afraid.

Afraid of losing herself to grief and insanity.

So Mary did the one thing she was good at, she went over to the small secret room attached to the janitor's room. She ignored the stuffy sweaty smell and started to tinker with whatever gadgets she could find and even use her powers, cables made of pure electricity, to power up certain items for testing.

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Knock knock

After several minutes of tinkering, Mary heard a knock behind her and turned to see Bob standing there.

"Ahem, we gathering in the office space for a briefing."

It was straight to the point, but Mary didn't mind and simply nodded in reply. She then got up and headed towards Bob.

"How are you feeling young Miss?"

"Why are you acting formal with me?"

"Your family sponsored the company that my daughter is currently working in, so I felt the need to be polite hehe", Bob chuckled embarrassingly while rubbing the back of his bald head. 

"..."

"So how are you feeling? Need more time to rest or...", Bob looked at his workbench with various tools and gadgets occupying the space.

"I'm holding up...I think", Mary's voice was slightly lowered but Bob just nodded in return then they continued towards what's left of the Student Housing Office.

In there, Dean was standing in front of an office desk with Kat shrunken and sitting on his right shoulder, Freddie and Mercury were each sitting down on a chair. Though everyone turned to look at the newcomers with Freddie and Mercury acting surprised at Mary's appearance. Both of the young men knew her and her brother, but as they were about to get up...

"Sit"

A commanding but emotionless voice resounded out, the two felt obliged to follow his order. They had a slightly confused look as they never had Dean as their group leader and were surprised that Dean would be leading while Bob wasn't.

Mary, on the other hand, heard rumors and knew from Jacob that Dean was a capable leader. It was surprising given his quiet nature, but whenever Dean was leading, his group would usually be in 2nd place right behind Mark's group. 

After everyone was seated, Dean spoke up once again.

"I will be leading this group, is there any objections?"

There was a brief silence, both Freddie and Mercury were pondering if they should object but in the end decided to stay quiet since they've seen the class results and know Dean was a capable leader...on paper at least.

"Now first order of business is debriefing on our encounter so that Mary here will be up to speed."

So, Dean and the others recounted their experience for Mary to get a better understanding of the current situation. Dean also labelled the monsters with short but easy to understand monikers such as husks, fiends, etc. He even explained that rescue wasn't coming anytime soon because time was being distorted around them, but refuses to elaborate on why because Kat explain it was just a working theory. Though Mary suspect that both knew what's causing it, but the refusal was for their own wellbeing.

After the debriefing was over...

"So we're trapped in our own school..."

"Bro...we hid because we thought help would come soon"

Freddie and Mercury were panicking a little while everyone else remain silent.

Mary felt nothing for their predicament.

No it wasn't just nothing, but...

'Is this what rock bottom feels like?'

Mary was close to her twin brother, though now that he was gone, the grief she was feeling morphed into a bottomless pit of...nothing. An empty feeling of nothing as if nothing mattered anymore.

'No...I...need to remain strong....f-for Jacob'

Her thoughts turned dark, but Mary was struggling to hold herself together...to return alive to her parents and siblings...to live a life without her brother in this world.

Thankfully...

"We can survive this ordeal."

The emotionless voice sounded out again causing everyone to look at Dean as he pushed his glasses up.

"B-but br-Dean, we couldn't beat Ha-eun and there might be more like her. She's too strong for us", Mercury voiced out.

Dean looked at him for a moment as if analyzing him and pull something from underneath the desk. 

"Not if we all work together."

The object Dean pulled out and threw to the ground for everyone to see was an arm. The arm had some metallic along with red veins attached to its skin revealing it to be....

"Is this Ha-eun's arm?"

Freddie asked out loud with surprise written all over his face.

Dean nodded and explained, "I found it near the hole leading outside."

Everyone had a shocked look on their faces, even Mary as from what she heard, Ha-eun was a speeding unstoppable human-sized bullet granted they almost had her. But almost wasn't enough to boost morale.

Now Ha-eun was missing an arm.

Seeing the severed arm, Mary felt something new inside of her amidst the sea of emptiness.

"If we work together then its possible for everyone to make it out alive....and see their family."

Mary clenched her fists as she held onto that feeling because it was....

'Hope....yes hope. I'll figure out what to do with my life after seeing my family and breaking the news. So I'll help out when I can and follow Dean to wherever he leads us.'

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"So, is everyone up for a hunt?"