Road to Entitlement: Three

"That's absurd." That's the first thing I heard him say, holding the piece of paper between his thumb and index finger. He leans down on the table to get a good look at the paper. Now I am starting to question whether or not what I wrote had substance in it, the one thing that could make all of this believable.

"Really, Ernilla, this is absurd." Alistair says again, as if the first time, didn't catch the drift. I look at Alessia for support, she may be hating on me, but she will benefit most, the least she can do is support what I had in mind.

"Ernilla, I would want to try anything, but this is risky." Alessia says, attempt to pull his arm for added emphasis, but since she is still tied up, she fails to do so.

Alistair bit his lip, I don't know why but him thinking wanted me to rethink, if this could be of any help at all. "Ernilla, I know you wanted to help. But really, this is of no use. In fact, we know no one who would voluntarily leave the Centrus." He says. I saw Alessia look down the floor, tighly grasping both of her fingers with each other.

I wanted to shout I wanted to. I wanted to shout, Let me do it. But there is a lump in my throat, forcing me not to say something, even if I form the words in my lips, I never seem to take words out.

I take the piece of paper in Alistair's hand, ran fast out of Alessia's room into mine. I open my door and lie on top of my bed, crunching the paper in my hand. There is some sort of intuition in my head, telling me not to, that at some point, I will have to put this into use. However, I don't know.

I decide to put the paper in my pocket. I quietly stare at my ceiling, the only thing the Centrus didn't copy perfectly is my ceiling. I have 28 glow in the dark stars, this have 26. I put myself into side lying position and stare at the door, glance at the clock above it and saw the time. It is already past 9, exactly 15 minutes before 10. I am curious, is Camila going to cone here again since I am her only student? She did came when I miss one class.

I pick myself up again, dials Dion's number, after 4 rings, he answers.

"I didn't have anyone who agreed with this, but I needed a concrete plan If I wanted them to believe me." I immediately say, even before him saying the first syllable of Hello.

"Okay, I am studying this for weeks now. You wanna know why?" He says, I am grasping for my notebook inside my bag.

"I wanted to see you." He continues. I held my notebook in pause. I am forming my lips for words, in which I tried to think of for a while.

"I am flattered." I say, as soon as I grab on my notebook, open it and pick up a pen.

"That's it? I expected more since I am going to such measures for this to work." He says, I reply with a laugh. Classic Dion, Always craving for my attention.

"I am thankful for your presence." I say.

"Okay, not what I had in mind but that will do. Write everything that I will say, and we will put them in chronological order later." He says, I click on my pen and starting jolting letters down.

"As I told you before, the northern gate is open, that will leave us with an easy access to the southern gate. It will be easy since all of their eyes are fixated at the northern gate. We can have the southern gate easily hack." He says. I write the words Northern, Southern and gate. But I encircled the southern and put the word hack beside it. I wanted to ask how Dion managed to know hacking. But with all the information being thrown at me, I think I didn't want to know.

"Is it really possible? Us getting out of here? Even for just a while?" I say, my words had hit me. Even if we did get out, how are we supposed to get back? I wait for his reply before asking another question.

"Yes. It is, I am confident because I have found proof of other contenders doing so." He says, with a voice full of reassurance. But I didn't feel any.

"How are we going to comeback? Isn't it dangerous?" I ask, writing the word proof on my paper with a question mark at the end.

"That is the point why we needed anyone to leave the chosen...Once we are able to hack the southern gate, it will become a regular thing. You can go back..." He says with a pause. I can not seem to grasp his plan, but I still wanted to continue.

"You mean what?" I say in confusion.

"Hacking is a one time thing. All I needed was someone who will forfeit the game. I needed someone to lessen the security. Forfeiture is the only way." He says. I heard something drop behind him.

"I need to go, I will call later." He says before hanging up.

I lie awake in my bed. I have so many questions. I don't know what to do. I needed guidance. I am a fan of risks, but only if it involves me. Not this. Not with anyone else relying on it.

Suddenly, thoughts are now entering my mind, Should I forfeit the game? I mean, I wanted this. I wanted to not be a contender more than anyone else, but when asked, Why did I even entered in the first place? If I ask my father to let me not enter, would he have said yes?

Why am I even here in the first place? A question I couldn't answer. But I could change the question. If I can't seem to find the purpose behind me being here, I will change the question.

But what questions can I replace it with? How can I change it when everything seems to be the opposite of what I know? I know that I am outside of my home, I am literally thrown away from my comfort zone. So How?

Those 3 letters have slammed my head back to my bed. I trace it with my index finger, How?

I stand up, nothing a good meal couldn't fix.

Upon arriving at the cafeteria, I am shocked to see everyone, Did I spend too much time dwelling on the hacking thing and had not noticed it was already lunch time? That made me think, Will I once again have to deal with Camila knocking on my door? I hope not.

I pick up some hearty meal, a meat portion bigger than my fist, a bowl filled with soup that goes over the line where it should be, and a large soft drink to replace my usual caffeine. I don't need something to heighten my alertness. My head is already filled with thoughts.

I sit beside Alistair, my usual spot, but He looks at me like it's day 1 and I am not supposed to be sitting with him. But since I knew very well the reason behind that, I zipped my mouth.

I am taking a spoonful of my meat, on my 5th spoonful when the bell rings, usually the bell will only ring if it is the start of class, or it is the end of class. Today is the first time I heard it ring, It is past lunch time, and it usually does not ring during this time.

"Announcement to all contenders." A female voice said. A cold tone voice, giving it the sense that it came from a computer generated behind a person. All of us looked at each other. Apparently, they are as clueless as me.

"It was seen, on our security footage, that someone, had been playing around with others." The female voice continues, I look around. There are different expressions given by my co contenders. Playing around? They still have time to play around? If yes, what sport?

"Amara Sevilina, and Marvelus Torres, will now be ask to leave the premises. Thank you." The voice said, without remorse, with full conviction. If the voice earlier had no emotion in it, now there is. I am starting to doubt if that really came from a computer.

My heart dropped to my stomach. The shock has made me feel something drop on me. I hold my fork tightly in my fingers, trying to compose myself. Someone obviously can't because I heard a silverware drop to the floor. I look at Amara and Marvelus, but it wasn't them. It was Alistair.

But what I don't understand is, why instead of feeling heavy, I feel light. Like a sudden weight was removed off my chest. Which I hope was only the feeling, You don't literally drop your heart to your stomach, Right?

Every happens so fast, the fork I've been holding on to have been removed from my hand, and before I could even take a look of who took it, It was Amara.

"You, bitch, I only did it because I thought you did!" She claims, lifting the fork in the air and directly stabbing it towards me. I hold on to the nearest thing I could get my hand into. But Amara was too fast, so I just held my hand in air blocking her from me.

I am waiting for a sting of fork, their forks are pretty sharp here. But when seconds has passed and I still haven't felt it, I open my eyes.

I saw Treyton, infront of me, drips of blood pouring on top of the floor, the four fingers of the fork are about half an inch deep in his palm.

"If I were you, and I would like to keep my dignity even after being thrown out, I would not do this. But, trusting your judgement, apparently, You do not have some." He says, grabbed some tissue, wrapped it around his palm before slowly walking away. Amara cries, curling herself into a ball. Marvelus goes ahead to comfront her, but gives me a hell of a look first. I ignored it, and follows Treyton instead.

He goes straight into his room. I wanted to knock but seeing it slightly open, changed my mind. "I wanna help you." I say with a straight face. I didn't want to sound excited, or I would have give it away that I was thankfuk for what he did.

"You wanted to help? Thank me first." He says, I reply with a force smile before saying thank you. And he smirked at me, I tighten the tissue in his palm, making him groan in pain.

"You always make me do things for you." He says, staring his deep blue eyes on me. With his black hair slicked back.

I tapped his wound. He again groans in pain.

"It's your red hair." He says. I asked in confusion.

"Your red hair looks really attractive." He continues. That's when I remember, since everyone of us came from a different faction, not all of us have red hair. And in my faction, majority of us have red hair, so I never really considered it special.

I put the last bandage around his wound. Taping it to the corner of his hand before finally letting go.

"I compliment you, the very least you can do is return it." He says, I pinched his wound again. He groans in pain.

"You are one entitled boy! What, you think because You praised me, you feel the need to receive it too?" I say. He nods.

"Explain to me why I need to?" I say. His exoression changed.

"See, it is your choice to compliment me, so why expect the need for return?" I continue. He just stares at me.

"Is the faction 7 girls always this independent?" He asks with a smile.

"Is the faction 9 boys always this arrogant?" I reply, both of us laugh.

After dealing with Treyton, I ran back to Alistair. But since he returned to his afternoon classes, I just went ahead to Alessia's room.

"Thank god you're here." She says, looks like the announcement had been broadcast to the whole centrus.

"I am so hungry, Alistair didn't returned to me. How can I eat with all these hand ropes?" She continues and stands up.

"You didn't know?" I ask, gently removing the ropes on her wrist. She stoods up and rests her back on her bed frame.

"What?" She says, before scooping up food. I pity her in this position. I badly wanted to help.

I try to compose my self, looking confident as ever before lying. "Ah, I just thought you know. I didn't attend classes." I say.

That is the worst lie ever known to man. Please buy it. "He - he, I know that, you're here. Camila will give you a handful." She says, finishing her meal.

"I could stay here and finish my study, if that's okay with you." I say before sitting.

"It's okay, I kinda miss people a lot, I don't get to see you guys because I am tied up. She says, raising his hand in the air with the rope marks in it.

"When will you get untied?" I ask, remembering I have an ointment in my pocket that I had used on Treyton earlier.

"Until I signed an agreement promising I won't climb the walls anymore, ropes stays with me." She says. I applied some on her hand then immediately ties her again. But with less force this time. She says thank you and then I sat again. My mouth is eager to tell her that we already had a solution to her problem. But I wanted to wait for Alistair, I wanted to have someone to tell her with. The more support this idea gets, the better.

"Why aren't you signing the agreement then?" I ask attempting to sit and unloads my bag to the table on her room.

"My mom just died, what kind of daughter will I be if I just let the chosen hinder me from attending her last moments? And if I end up still not being able to do so, atleast I can be proud and say I did everything." Alessia says, flashing me her biggest smile.

I really wanted to tell her everything, I wanted to tell her we have a shot at doing so. I wanted to tell her she can see her mom, My lips are forming the words, but even before I could speak, Alistair grabs me by my shoulder and tosses me aside.

"You are quite heavy, I thought I could just sweep you off easily." Alistair says while fanning his hands down. I flashes him with a frown eyebrow.

"Alessia, we will tell you something, but promise me, even if you had a single doubt of us not doing it, please say so and we won't pursue." Alistair says to Alessia, as soon as he had faced her. I smile my biggest. Now we're talking.

"Let's do it." Alessia says, with her smile bigger than ever. It also made me smile but I already reached the end of the corners of my mouth, I could no longer smile bigger.

Alistair and I switched looks. He then again faces Alessia. "Are you 100% sure, because I already told you, even if there is a single percent of-" Alistair couldn't even finish his words, Alessia shut his mouth using her index finger, which I can see is pulling the rope tied to her bed frame causing her finger to be stretched more than usual, and when pain seeps in, she lets go.

"Okay. We will talk about this later, us being together is unusual as it is." Alistair says before changing his gaze to me. "And you, you and your friend better came up with a good plan we can execute. We were only doing this once, we better make it right." Alistair continues, and grabs a pen on Alessia's table, writes down the words, "The farthest right on the corridor, there is a spot where the security footage doesn't reach." The words had filled the board so he waited for us to read it, and when Alessia and I nodded, He erases it and continue writing. "Meet me there at 9 o'clock." Again, both of us nodded before he turned around to the door and disappears.

I signaled Alessia I also have to go, she wanted a concrete plan, and I will need to do my best.