Chapter 12: Before the trial

By the end of the day, August and others were moved to another place where they would stay for the night before the experiment. It wasn't as big as the previous one, and here you could find about 50 boys.

All of them were fed with some teas that were composed of different mutagenic herbs that would allow the experiment the next day to go smoother. August knew that not a lot of them would return since he had already seen how a bunch of kids were disappearing after the experiment, and considering the place he was in, there was a little chance they were let free.

August picked a place to sleep and sat there thinking about his goals and trying to stay strong for what was to come. Despite his outside coldness, he was terrified, like anyone would be.

There are a lot of things that could go wrong, resulting in only one outcome - his death. He was determined to walk through the path that was there to come and walk out of it as a better version of himself.

He had little concern about his well-being at this moment. He was so looped on his agenda that he stopped thinking about things that did not relate to that topic.

But it was soon to change, and he will have to understand that he was not the only one unlucky. He is not the only one that is living with constant pain and dreadful dreams.

The room was slowly enveloped in the unenlightened darkness, bringing the entire room into a ghost-like silence. Rare shouts of the crowns were the only sounds that echoed around the castle. Nobody spoke, and everyone in the room was thinking about what was there to come.

This lasted before someone nearby, August, spoke. His voice was just a whisper that could've remained unheard by anyone in the world, but in the total silence of the room, it was heard by everyone that was present.

"Will we survive?" his voice slightly trembled. It was clear what he felt about the things that were soon to come.

Someone answered his question in a much calmer voice "We have to. There is no other way around it."

The previous voice replied with slight frustration, "Have you seen how many remained after this step? They will most likely kill us! Do you want to die?"

A calmer voice replied, "They will make us strong. This place does not tolerate the weak"

Those words silenced the trembling voice, but not for long. "What if…. you were to die tomorrow?"

"That means I was weak", replied the voice with no hesitation. It was straight and bold to the point.

Trembling voice now sounded better than before; however, you could feel that fear was still there. "I'm Eskel. You?"

"Geralt", replied Geralt.

Eskel, who was naturally scared of tomorrow, wanted to speak about something, to release some stress and forget about the terror that was arising inside of his chest. The closer he got to the experiment, the worse his condition seemed.

"How did you… end up here?" inquired Eskel, finding no other topic to ask about.

Geralt remained silent, not answering straight away, thinking of how to answer Eskel's question before saying, with an unsure voice, "Unlucky circumstances."

This earned someone else a chuckle. "Huh, we are all got here by unluckily circumstances. At least this place is better than what I used to live before."

"Who are you?" inquired Eskel, hearing an unfamiliar voice.

"Lambert", replied the boy.

"What do you think about tomorrow," inquired Eskel from Lambert.

Lambert rolled his eyes back, nobody could see it, but this is a character he earned during his childhood. "Why do you care? Anything better than before, it's just things that I wasn't able to influence, one thing I wasn't able to change…" started Lambert, but didn't finish speaking his sentence.

Hearing no full reply from Lambert, Eskel said, trying to lift the mood, despite being the one who is scared the most, "I know that everyone here has fear. I hope all of us will walk alive out of this obstacle, and I truly believe that"

August spoke up. He stayed silent, listening to the others speak, but he strongly disagreed with the words of young Eskel "Belief won't help you make it out of there" his voice was icy as winds on the north pole. With his words, he was bringing the mood of everyone present down below the sea level.

Geralt, who heard August speak, reacted quite negatively to such words. Instead of being neutral or supporting others, helping them make it through, August was making things worse.

"Was this necessary to say those words?" inquired Geralt in quite an offensive manner. He sounded rather offended than scared by August's words, but something inside of him screamed that he had to speak for those that were scared to open their mouth for themself.

"It is the truth. Nothing will change whether you will believe in something or not," replied August, being as cold and speaking harsh words. They were truthful, but at the same time, they were unnecessary, since they would make others feel worse.

Geralt replied with slight anger in his voice, he wasn't speaking aloud, but his voice sounded threatening. "It does not matter what you believe in, and it matters that with your mouth and mind, you want to ruin others' mood and courage."

August was quite stubborn, not accepting Geralt's words. "I don't care about those things. I just like the truth rather than a truth that is covered in the beautiful soft lies."

Someone else interrupted them with a shout, "Stop!"

Everyone silenced and waited for a new one to speak. "It does not matter if this is truth or lies. We need to hold together; we are all in this together!"

Geralt, who heard a new voice speak, answered with a sincere voice, "Thanks, Gwelt."

August, being a lonely one in here, avoiding any contact and failing to notice a lot of things that are happening around him, inquired, "What do you mean?"

Gwelt was kind enough and, with no hate or anger, explained, "You and all of us are in this together. Don't you see that all the mentors have good relationships with each other? We need to be like them and be friends to survive. This is a harsh world, after all."

Gwelt was the oldest one of all of them. He was just a kid that was given birth inside of the bandit camp, his mother was captured by them, and he was later adopted by the bandit as his son.

A man took care of him to the best extent he could, but because of the way he lived, he learned what it meant to live like a bandit. His father wanted the best for him and educated better qualities than those he possessed, one of which is loyalty.

He taught him how was it important to stay loyal to those that you can entrust your life with. Living without those that you can support and gain their support back in return was torture for a human. From this, Gwelt learned that lesson and engraved it into his heart.

This got August thinking. He felt that those words of Gwelt were right on the spot. It would be hard for him to pay back to those that slew his family. He won't be able to stand his ground alone against the entire community. Therefore, he needs someone that will support him along the way and will assist if the help is required.

August concluded something inside of his small head of his and closed his eyes, whispering, "Hold strong and be ready for tomorrow", with his eyes shut and mind drifting into the dream world. In which he was once more met with those nightmares that won't stop till the threat is gone.

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I will update on Mondays 0:00, Wednesdays 0:00 and on Saturdays 0:00. If people like the story, this might go up to 4 chapters a week.

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