The Day After

The next day, the Nesters called the kids for an Assembly.

Fat gave a bold smile.

"Most of you tried to escape last night."

"I know I don't need to tell you what happened to them."

The kids were a bit frightened. 'Where they all killed?'

Since a few kids were missing, that was probably the answer.

"I just hope you're ready for the consequences of your actions." Fats eyes twinkled, they landed on the kid he had speared. He was pleasantly surprised that he had made it back. He had ordered the terrors to go easy on him, but to have survived it was another thing, apart from his ghastly frightened appearance and broken mental state, he seemed just fine.

 I'll have to train them properly, how did he get away without a scratch, such a shame. It was a short but meaningful assembly.

The children were perplexed. They had noticed that a few of them went missing, but being told like this was a whole other matter

They were served with soup made of human entrails, two cooked fingers and an apple.

Barf.

Ughhh.

No one dared to voice out their disgust. Apart from the sounds of vomiting the hall remained silent. This cycle would continue until the kitchen ran out of bodies. Some kids didn't even bat an eye, and began to eat the soupy entrails.

"Mmmm."

Yum…

Their eyes glowed red with delight at the deliciousness, there powers began to grow. Abel calmly took a bite from his apple and left. He went to tend to the pigs he had seen yesterday. He had a soft spot for animals, and decided to take care of the pigs. Back home it had been his hobby. He had a hard time selling the animals he had raised. 'When I get old, I should open a store for pets, and a farm house.' But that was much into the future. Since they had thirty minutes for lunch, and he had an apple, he quickly decided to take care of their feeding.

'But would an apple feed 9 hungry piggy's?'

He didn't know what to feed them, as there was nothing he had. The apple wouldn't be enough for all 9 pigs. He even felt like feeding them human entrails would be better, but he decided against it.

"I'll just go find something in the garden."

Behind the pigsty was a garden filled with wild flowers and grass.

He scavenged around and found some hay in the garden, then he gave it to the pigs. Mother pig started to eat, but the babies weren't having it. 'Don't they eat yet, or do they need milk?' He saw them drinking milk yesterday, and decided to get the mom some water and a bit more hay. He went to the little water way in the garden and fetched a bit of water.

The mother pig drank it all fairly quickly.

She ate and drank it all up. Abel had to go get more, since she looked at him pleadingly while scratching her hoof against the ground.

"Alright, I'll make another trip." The mother pig oinked excitedly as Abel came back with more food.

Abel left before she finished, fearing he would have to bring her another helping.

The first training they were to undergo today, was how to use their will. If you were half coloured, you could use will, even if you hadn't manifested a blessing.

The training was intense as with anything else in the Nest. The Nestor instructed them on how to manifest will.

"It is easy."

"All you have to do is will something into being by believing that it would happen, and than you can pull it off. It was fairly simple. If you doubt yourself even a little, you will fail."

"The key is to have no doubt, no scepticism, and to just do it."

"Fun fact, this is a part of the training given to the Holy men and women of the temple, who work at the death lands, if you can't pray here you'll die." Muscles smiled at them with frightening teeth, like those of a beast ready to devour them. He quickly cleared his throat and continued.

His beastly teeth disappeared like it was a lie. He was clearly a master at using Will.

"What's your name?"

"Muhar."

Muhar manifested His will first, after that three others followed.

♣︎♣︎♣︎

It was already evening when they were done.

"The training will continue throughout the week, if you measly ants haven't manifested by then, it simply means you have to be grouped for a different task," needless to say, Abel failed.

He had the difficulty grasping Will and Belief. He was more of a hands on approach type of person.

Abel walked towards the pigsty, he fed the pigs once again and had a conversation about not manifesting, and his lack of will and belief. The baby pigs were finally eating. They drank their milk happily, and the mother pig was less guarded around him. She even let him touch the piglets, so he gave them all a bath.

"There you go all cleaned up."

Oink, Oink.

Grunt, Grunt, Grunt.

When he was done, he felt a lot more relieved and less tensed.

The children had candy sauce for dinner, needless to say, the human ingredients were still the same, so Abel ate the Spinach and Pepper salad for dinner. He never thought this day would come, but right now he was truly grateful that there was a vegetarian menu. He would have rather died than eat humans much less their entrails. Furthermore, he wondered if it was a matter of pride as a human or if he really hated the idea. "I'd rather not find out."

'It would cause me too many problems.'

Abel left the food hall, closely followed by company.

♣︎♣︎♣︎

Beeve came after Abel immediately, he followed him as soon as he left the food hall.

"Hey punk! Did you think you'd be able to get away from me, you thought it was over?"

Abel sneered.

Guys like him usually talked big and only knew how to manipulate others. He was nothing else.

Truly shameless.

Beeve was even more courageous because he had manifested "Will", earlier that day.

"When I'm talking to you, you listen. Look at me you bastard."

"Can't you hear? You let your Leader do all the work, but she won't be saving you now." Beeve called his friends around and beat up Abel.

"Yeah, beat him good."

They beat him up using Will, making the pummelling much more intense than it needed to be.

Abel was getting critically injured.

'Should I take his hit or should I hit back?' Abel contemplated.

If he took the hits, a routine of him getting beat up would be formed.

If he didn't, they would retaliate harder, he currently didn't have the power to overpower them, he would have to fight them and get oppressed by their clique. If he killed them, the Nesters would be after him, if he didn't they might kill him. 'Let's watch for a while.'

Abel didn't want human blood of his hands just yet.

They beat Abel up, he was in a puddle of his own blood, he wasn't breathing or resisting any more, so they left.

The Nestor walked up to him.

"Hey kid, I know your alive, wake-up."

"I wasn't playing dead." Abel got up from the puddle awkwardly.

"Yeah sure thing, trying to catch a few Z's I see, in a puddle of blood, real nice." Muscles obviously wasn't buying it.

"Tell me, why didn't you take the medicine?"