Chapter 10

The first children to be taken up were from group A one at a time they were placed on the round stone and the hooded figures would start chanting in that strange language, the circle would either light up or not, those that lit were taken to one side of the room and those who did not were taken to the opposite side of the room all of those in group A lit up but one. The child with the third eye made the light glow so much that it lit up the whole room blinding 96 for a couple of seconds. Those in group B lit the circle half the time, there were thirty children total in group B, when they finally made it to group C none of the children before him lit the stone.

When it came to be his turn as the person was about to set the basket down one of the handles came undone due to the constant strain it had gone threw under 96s experiments with the flagstone, 96 tumbled onto the stone accidentally stabbing his hand with the needle causing some blood to get onto the stone. The person holding the now broken basket quickly picked him up and put him back into the basket, the hooded figures muttered amongst each other but after a minute motioned for the person in white to set the basket down on the stone, without clearing away the insignificant amount of blood.

As they began there chant 96 felt like his body was being ripped apart, he could feel the stone vibrating but no one seemed to have noticed it, he knew that something was wrong, he started to crawl out of the basket when the stone exploded.

96 opened his eyes to see that he was still on the place were the stone had been, he had lost one of his arms and both of his legs in the blast, he wondered what had been different about when he had gone threw the ritual, when he remembered the blood that had landed on the stone, he figured that was what had caused the explosion but it didn'treally explain why. He looked around to see that the entire room had been destroyed, and the body's of all of the people and children were scattered around most of them were burnt to a crisp, 96 wondered why it was that even though he was right next to the stone he had survived mostly intact, the blast had sealed the wounds so he wasn't in much danger of bleeding out, he remembered suddenly the voice and he looked over to were he had been hiding but only saw a scorched patch on the ground, 96 sat dumbfounded for a few moments, then he let out a mournful cry. Once he had finished his mourning he desided that the best course of action would be to risk it and just try again, so he pulled the needle out and tried to stab it into his heart but he couldn't get enough strength in his remaining arm so he held it against the floor and plunged his head into it letting the force of the fall do the work for him.

96 had expected to wake up again in the place were he would be injected, but instead he found himself in that same dream, it played out in the same way but he noticed that the black figure seemed to look even more imposing, he remembered that it took a while for the other figure to appear so he had a sudden idea so that he would not waste any time, he realized that he had become too lax since he had not died in the past couple of days. Now he had an idea form in his head, he wondered if he could partially change his shape, he focused on his left hand imagining scales coming out of his skin, and slowly scales emerged from his skin covering the back of his hand. The scales themselves were extremely tough which made it alittle difficult to move but he could learn to get used to that eventually, he then focused on retracting the scales until he was able to pull them out and in within a matter of seconds, soon after the loud noise woke him from his dream.

96 made sure to hide the scales form the man with glasses, he would not let him know that he was able to control the mutation at will, after confirming that the voice was still with him he made sure that everything played out as it had before up until the point were the man with glasses began talking, at that point the voice came up to him "what in the world happened back there, the stone exploded as soon as those idiots began the awakening ritual" So that was what that had been, he still wondered what that ment "from what I can tell they are testing to see who has the highest natural talent before they use awakening crystals of various puritys ranging from A to F depending on the strength of the light, the crystals cause a forced mutation, but you have to use that stone before using the crystals" the voice picked up a small clear stone and showed it to 96 "this is one of the A grade stones" 96 looked at the voice blankly, when did it get that? the voice smiled "I have my ways, dont think you're the only resourceful one here" its face suddenly got serious "I died instantly upon the impact of the blast, but what about you?" 96 smiled reassuringly at the voice, it wasn't anything new, he had died soon after the blast himself. The voice sighed in relief, 96 could tell that he had been quite bothered by that, but at least now he knew that the voice would come back as long as he died close to the same time, he wanted to discuss the differences in when he woke up alive, but the man with glasses had finished the ritual and the voice went back into hiding.

Once his turn came about again he again fell on the stone but this time he had covered the tip of the needle so it did not stab him. Once again they began the ritual, this time he was extremely calm and did not feel the pain that he did before, he instead focused on concealing his scales which were trying to break the surface of his skin. The light did not shine and he was taken over to the left side of the room waiting for what would come next.