[Day 10 {week 2}] - Monday - January 10, 0000 A.A

It was early in the morning, around 7. It was at this time that the bioluminescent lights of the forest began to dim away. Niko had about enough with waiting. It's been days since they ran out of food, only cooking and eating vines with the bunsen burners. Everyone was just about tired of eating plants every day. Staying like this would get them killed, so he decided to act before he died of hunger.

Niko signaled for Zane to come over to where he and Rai had spent the last week huddled up with each other.

“What up man?” Asked Zane when he arrived, it was evident that he hadn’t been sleeping well. A lot of people haven’t been doing much of that lately.

“We’re wasting time. We should go out and get some supplies from the other classes,” whispered Niko

“What?! Are you insane?! We need to wait for the Military to come get us!” hissed Rai, low enough to only be heard by them.

“She’s right man, we should just wait.” agreed Zane.

“For how long though?” He asked, stopping them in their tracks,” I know you guys are thinking it too, I'm not saying they won’t come, but in the events, they don’t or come late what do we do? Think about it, what if that dinosaur from a few days came back? It could easily destroy the building if it wanted to and eat us all. If we’re prepared we might have an escape route ready to leave.”

Both Zane and Rai looked down, deep down they knew it was right but still didn’t want to go through an experience whatever was out there, not yet anyway.

“Ok.” said Zane,” But we should get a few more people, and prepare some weapons.”

“I’ll try to convince some others to see if they want to come.” Said Rai as she stood up to leave.

“I’ll go inform the teacher then, see if he can give us anything.” Said Zane as he left to discuss things with Mr.Val.

As they left to accomplish their task, Niko foraged through the classroom looking for things that could be made into weapons. He took anything sharp, any staff he could find, and anything that could be used as a blunt weapon. A lot of people looked at him with questionable expressions wondering what he was doing, but a few, which Rai had already asked, could guess.

With the items and some things to attach them, he went over to where Zane was talking with the teacher.

“I see…” said Mr.Val,” Not like I can stop you. All I can do to help make some weapons, but that's it, I can't walk as it is now.”

“That's fine Mr.Val, we'll try and get you better stuff from the nurse’s offices when we get back.” Said Zane.

“That would be helpful. Ah Niko,” Said Mr.Val as he saw Niko coming over with a bundle of items to use.

“Let's see what you got.” Mr.Val looked over the things Niko got as he explained what he wanted to do with them,” A spear huh….that could work, but you should test the sharp edges on that Beetle’s Chitin plates to see if it works. We can also use its intact teeth as they already look fit for a spearhead.”

Hearing the teacher’s plan, Niko looked over to the rotting corpse of the Beetle he had killed. The smell had been tolerable these past few days, tolerable only because no one wanted to touch it or get out to dispose of it. He walked over to the carcass with a couple of the sharp objects and promptly tested each one on its back most Chitin Plates, many easily going in. Most of the teeth hadn’t broken, but he only took the larger 6 with him, after checking out how they fared, before returning to Mr.Val.

For a couple of hours the both of them work on making spears from the materials with minor help from Zane, Rai, and those who were willing to go out to get food.

Of all the 30 or so students in the classroom, only 7 decided to come. The first 3 were Rai, Niko, and Zane, the others who wanted to come were Callie, Ranzer, Leo, and Richy. Callie was dead set on murdering those creatures (not the Beetles per se, just the creatures themselves), since, according to her parents, her little sister got her arm bitten off by them. Ranzer was a scary guy with a heart of gold, he dressed much like a gangster every day, but was one of the kindest people Niko knew; he sometimes went over to Martial arts club to spar with Zane since he practices Muay Thai. Leo was the class clown but hadn’t made a joke since the last one when this all began, he was still cheerful and upbeat but seemed to understand it was yet to be the right time to joke around. The last one, Richy...was a stick, a short stick. He was a skinny, small, guy with glasses and looked absolutely terrified yet still volunteered to go.

Using some leftover PVC pipes from a lab the class had previously done and the teeth of the Beetle, as they feared better than most of the knives, the spears were completed. The group tested them by stabbing the corpse of the Beetle. Richy nearly dropped his but seemed determined to fight the creatures. Niko and the others weren’t sure he was going to be of use, but they needed the extra hands if they wanted to go out there. It took a solid strike to puncture through the carapace of the Beetle, and on some occasions got stuck. The test ended with them getting covered with some blue blood, though disgusting there was nothing they could do about it. So some adjustments had to be made before they could go.

“Alright, Here's my key to get into the classroom.” Said Mr.Val handing Niko the key,” don’t do anything foolish out there and stay alert!”

“Yes sir.” Said all 7 of them.

They moved over to the door which had already been unblocked by others in the class. Niko twisted the nob and had to push hard to get the door opened. Some multiple vines and plants had made their way into the hallway. Their growth had blocked the doors from being opened, so they had to cut off a lot of vines before the door could open.

Peeking down the hall. Around 2 classrooms away Niko spotted another Beetle holding the button half of a human corpse, chewing and taking frequent bites. Seeing the guts and brain matter spilled from the person in question nearly caused Niko to regurgitate the vine paste from his stomach. Opening the door wider to look to the left of the hallway, he saw the back half of a Beetle around a small corridor that connected this hallway with another one.

Pulling back when he was done he closed the door and said,” we’re splitting into 2 groups, there are 2 of them on either side of the hallway.”

“Bloody hell…” Said Mr.Val remembering the pain one had given him.

“Think everyone is still in?” Asked Niko.

After a few nods, they headed outside silently, not to attract the distracted Beetles. When all of them were gone, the door was locked behind them as they proceeded to split up. Niko, Rai, and Leo went for the one in the side corridor, while the rest took on the one down the hallway. All of them snuck silently towards their target trying their best to be as silent as possible. The fact that the beetles had yet to notice them was a godsend. Trekking through the hallway also proved difficult when oddly overlapped vines covered the hallway floor every here and there. The usually white hallway had been transformed into a mashup of dark blue vines and odd flora that covered it. There were plants that they had never seen before, plants that shouldn’t even exist.

An interesting fact about these vines was that they were much like glow sticks. The pressure made them grow brighter.

At one point, the screeching of a beetle startled Richy, causing him to drop his spear. The spear hit the floor amongst the silence causing both beetles to look over, feelers now a bright red… The beetle, Niko’s group was going after, turned its body so its head looked down the hall towards them, while the beetle Zane’s group was going after lifted its head and looked straight at Richy.

Everyone stood frozen as a staring contest with the beetle began, then one of them screeched lowly and the other responded with its own screech. After a series of those, they went back to munching on the corpses, feelers returning to their green color.

Everyone released a sigh of relief, intrigued by the interesting discovery. Zane took a coin from his pocket and tossed it to the side of the Beetle they were going after. The coin hit a piece of the white wall that the vine hadn’t covered, with a ‘ding’, soon after, the beetle’s head crashed right where the coin had been, horn cracking the wall. It searched for the cause of the sound with its red feelers for a bit, and when it couldn’t find it, returned to the corpse on the floor.

Seeing this they re-thought their plans; if the beetles couldn’t see, their hearing would be incredibly good, So they decided to set up a distraction and then attack. Zane had his team go against the wall and hit the floor with his foot, when the beetle heard it, it looked and gave another screech to its brethren. When the beetle which Niko’s group was going after poked its head around the corner to answer, all 3 rushed up to it and clumsily lodged their spears right in its head.

“SCRRREEIIIRIIIRKRRKKRIRK!” It howled with pain pulling back as all three of them managed to keep a hold on to their spears and got another shot in. It now red feeler began thrashing about violently, but would not let go of the corpse they were holding.

Hearing its brethren scream of pain, The other by Zane mad dashed towards the location, as it got closer to Zane’s group, their spear hit into its sides, striking at the exposed underbody, with even Richy managing to hit it. It cried out in pain too as it tried to fend off its attacker. Its 6 legs with sharp points being a troublesome factor.

Zane kicked the thing straight in the face, breaking a few teeth, knocking it unconscious before he finished the job.

Niko’s group had created enough noise to confuse their beetle, it raised part of its body in the air to decide where to attack, giving Leo the perfect time to stab it through the head. Both had died fairly easily which gave them all hope that surviving wouldn’t be as difficult as it had seemed. However, as they rejoiced, 3 beetles, with one crawling over the slightly vine-covered ceiling, appeared, all attracted by the noise. They dashed toward Zane’s group as they were closest, Niko with his group went over to assist them. They were a little shaky on their legs but managed to get there in time. The first two on the floor paused in front of the dead body of their brethren feeling it out with their red feelers, One now noticeably bigger than the others. The one on the ceiling jumped down in the direction of Richy twisting its body in mid-air with a mouth wide open.

“Srkekeiiei!”

Richy yelped in shock, dropping his spear and was rooted in place by fear. In the nick of time, Zane managed to push him away but got pinned to the floor by the beetle after a strong fall. Then both human and beetle started a deadly battle of strength as Zane held on to its horn and lower jaw, preventing the creature from biting it all the while pushing it away with all his might, but the beetle was retaliating, droll dripping onto Zane, eager to bite his face off. Furthermore, its red feelers were now firmly wrapped around Zane’s neck and squeezing. Given enough time, even with all his training, Zane would pass out from lack of oxygen.

The other two stopped getting distracted by their dead brethren and dashed toward them again, angrier than before, Niko and Leo took one on, while Callie, Ria, and Ranzer took on the slightly bigger one, whose carapace is now noticeably tougher. They were too busy fighting their own battles to see Zane's predicament. Each Beetles’ feelers proved to be a problem thus they aimed to cut them first.

Richy saw this too, he was scared to death as the thing was only a few inches away from him, but he knew he needed to do something or Zane would die.

‘Move you moron, you volunteered for this! Save him!’ Screamed Richy to himself, he took back his spear with shaky hands and looked for where to stab it. Zane was still struggling against the beetle, but in all honesty….he was goddamn pushing it back, albeit little by little, but his face was still turning red from the lack of oxygen.

Richy decided to go for the eye and after fumbling with angling it right plunged his spear into it. The beetle lurched backward and began crying out in pain, this allowed Zane to flip them both reversing positions with Zane now pinning it down.

“Rolls had changed bud!” Said Zane, ripping off the 3 feelers, before he began pummeling the poor creature with his fist alone, It could be said that although the carapace on top of them was particularly tough, the beetle’s underbelly was any but. Soon blood was coming from the creature's pulverized mouth, legs flailing around before it was finished by another spear strike. Zane stood back up and wiped some sweat off his forehead before looking over to Richy.

“Thanks for the help man, owe you one.” He said as he shook his hand in pain.

“Did you kill the thing with a damned fist!” Asked Leo when he and Niko had finished on their own, with a few scratches on their arms.

“No, though I damaged it well before Richy killed it.” Said Zane.

“No..I-I think it was p-pretty much dead before that,” replied Richy.

“Heh, looks like it.” Said Ranzer looking at the messed up jaw of the creature,” still it got you good.” he continued, looking at the bruise beginning to form around Zane’s neck.

“Yeah, it's not going to be fun swallowing…”

“Alright, let's go look for food and other people.” Said Niko urging them to move on.

Everyone took a quick break before moving on down the hall to the first classroom on the right. Its door was wide open with an arm sticking out onto the bloody floor. The body the first beetle had been chewing on was also here. Leo and Richy couldn’t handle the metallic smell of blood and the sight of the dead bodies causing them to puke whatever was left in their stomach, green grotesque vine paste. The rest held back but some were close to doing the same. They didn’t bother checking this room, the motion sensors had turned off the light and it was dark, turning them on was bound to scar them more than what they had seen already, so they closed the door and left silently. The door on the left wall was closed but from its window, they could see a scene similar to what would have been seen through the right one. Tears made their way through with a few of them sobbing, Zane was counting down numbers as he regulated his breathing to calm down.

They moved on from room to room checking all of them before entering, they even went back towards the direction Niko’s group had first been heading, but all they saw was the same as the first 2 rooms. A lot of people had died. Once they were about to give up on looking for people and head to the cafeteria, they finally found a room next to the staircase with movement. Peaking into the window they saw around 21 people, most sitting down silently in their spots and on their phones, with around 5 including their teacher, surrounding a table with 1 of 2 decapitated creatures other than Beetles on it, both of which were completely dissected.

They heaved a sigh of relief when they saw other people alive apart from their group and knocked on the window. Everyone turned their head towards the window leading to the hallway. Leo waved at them pointing at the door for them to open it. Shocked eyes filled the room as people moved the barricades they had on the door and opened it.

Before they could see anything, Niko put a mouth on his lips, signaling for them to keep quiet while they walked in with blue blood over their clothes…

Once the door closed shut and was barricaded again they were swarmed with questions.

“Why were you guys outside!”

“What with the blue paint?”

“Don’t ya know there are monsters out there?”

“Do you have food! We're really hungry!?”

It took a while for the teacher to settle down in her class again. Her name was Mrs. Stillwater, she was a biology teacher in the school, teaching up to AP bio.

“Where do you guys come from?” She asked.

“Mr.Val class, everyone is good there, so we were checking for anyone else….plus food and medicine for the injured.” Said Niko

“That's good...a lot better than us…..” she said looking over a corner the student avoided where 4 bodies were covered in bags. Looking over the group understood what she meant.

“A raptor thing killed them…” she began,” That thing was vicious and ripped them apart after killing the other creatures that appeared. After that, I shoved a pole into is *ss so it would die a horrible death.” She said with an angry expression. Niko and the other shivered a little after that comment but said nothing.

“So, M.Val’s class is some ways away from here, how many people are alive?” She asked.

That question brought back the sights they saw through the hallway, and for the uncountable amount of time today, Rai, Richy, and Leo broke down into tears again, the rest also had a complicated expression as they tried to hold back their tears.

Seeing this a whole class could guess what had happened and the previous excitement died down.

“How many,” Mrs.Stillwater managed to choke out.

“In this hallway? W- where the only 2 classes left.” Said Niko wiping away tears that had managed to squeeze themselves out.

It hit this class hard, and it was sure to hit the others. Mrs.Stillwater said nothing, just stood there even angrier than before.

Either way, they knew nothing could be done. After everyone calmed down, 2 of the students who were in the Martial Arts club with Zane decided to join them in exploring the second floor to see if there were more people. For now, their main weapon would be chairs to smash the beetles in the face.

This classroom was getting low on food, having very little, so they needed to get some for everyone. They had, apparently, not gotten to the point of eating vines. Since Mrs.Stillwater’s class was also the closest to the staircases it was decided that they would move Mr.Val’s class in there to keep everyone together.

Once they arrived at the class, they told the teacher of their findings.

“The fact that they are blind is a good thing, but mostly everyone is dead……” Said Mr.Val as he trailed off.

“Well here take this might help on your exploration on the second floor.” he said passing a lighter and 4 small bottles of green liquid, with cloth hanging out from them” Just light it, throw it, and it will explode.”

They nodded before helping the class move to Mrs.Stillwater’s room taking anything that was of use. Some people along the way had been stupid enough to look into some classroom only to start crying and puking in horror. When they got to Mrs.Stillwater's room, a few people were dragging the corpse of the slightly larger beetle into the classroom.

“What is that for?” ask Mr.Val as he sat down in one of the chairs with his chemicals set out for him.

“I’m going to dissect it, find out what I can about it.” Said Mrs.Stillwater. “The other creatures were odd, the raptor thing was close to what we thought its insides were like but had interesting things. Plus I can find the perfect place to aim to kill it easily.”

Niko and his team left them to their talk as they made their way around the 2nd floor. They fought Dozens of beetles, which were thankfully in separate intervals. Twice now, there was a group that had over 7 beetles, but thanks to Mr. Val’s Moltov’s, burned them all away. This caused some problems with the vines and hallway catching fire, but thankfully there were fire extinguishers all over the school.

The 2nd floor was a graveyard. Only 53 people were alive of the hundreds on the floor. The other 2 additions were those smart enough to hide in cupboards before they were killed. Those two were beyond help at this point, they were so scared that they could barely walk. The only reason they had been found was due to sobbing coming from one of the rooms. It took a lot of effort to walk through the blood, body parts covered room.

When they returned to the classroom people had used desks, with vines to keep them together, to barricade the area, and had people with spears and other weapons to attack the beetles on sight.

They reported to the teacher the situation which got both of them pretty angry at how only 2 classrooms of the 50+ on this floor were semi-good to go.

“There is a chance people in other areas of the school survived so there’s still hope.” Said Mrs.Stillwater, renewing everyone's mood,” On that note, I think you should head to the cafeteria for food first before that or everyone will starve. But before that, I found something about the beetles.”

This got the attention of a lot of people in the classroom as everybody listened tentatively to what she was about to say.

“What is it?” asked Mr.Val.

“Firstly”, she began,” I would like to mention what you 7 did”, she continued pointing towards Niko’s group,” was extremely stupid and dangerous, I was by pure sheer luck you even manage to do what you did, any from my classroom would have likely been taken out by now.” To her word the small group the formed around Mr.Val’s table look confused as Mrs. Stillwater continued her explanation.”Sure the damned beetles couldn’t see, and their hearing was great, but you forgot about the fact that they travel and acknowledge each other by pheromones.”

At the revelation, their blood ran cold, in the heat of the moment they had forgotten about or just didn’t even know of that fact.”I believe the only reason they didn’t immediately rush at you was because of the scent the dead beetle in your classroom left and the blood on you, the others probably just thought you were some of their dead kin and didn’t bother with you till you attacked them.”

“Oh my god….” said Richy shivering as the realization set in. Lady luck had been working hard this whole time and no one had known. The rest of the group were wide-eyed even Mr.Val was contemplating on himself for allowing them to go without bringing forth every possibility of danger before allowing them to leave.

“So to say, please think things through before doing things, even so at least you got to find us so that should be plus. But it gets worse” Mrs. Stillwater then took her notepad and began flipping through some pages looking for something else she had noted.

“Oh no what could be worse than this already, we nearly died nothing could be worse than that.” Replied Leo.

Mrs.Stillwater drew in a breath before saying, “I think we're in a hive.”

“Shit….” Responds Mr.Val.

“What he said.” Came Leo.

“They have a reproductive organ, sterile though. I've checked the 4 I got in here and all of them were the same, all-female. In addition to that, most of their bodies are stomachs.” She said,” So my conclusion is that they are saving food for their Queen and taking it to her.”

“And no one has seen any trail of beetles going outside…..” Said Rai.

“Which means we likely have a Queen somewhere in the school, with multiple possible beetles variants that we haven’t seen yet.” Continued Mr.Val.

“Shit indeed…..” Said Ranzer.

“The beetles are huge already, what is the Queen like? Wouldn't the cafeteria be the perfect spot for it? With the food in there?” Proposed Callie.

“Oh god, I hope not, because if it comes to that…” Began Leo.

“We’ll have to eat the beetles.” Finished Niko.

Everyone looked at him like he had lost his mind,” Uh no mate I was going to say we go outside and look for food, I’m not eating these things.” Said Leo.

“Outside with all the walking disasters? The Giga that appeared a few days ago?” scoffed Mrs.Stillwater with a raised eyebrow,” Good luck with that. Plus from what I could gather, the meat is edible….it's just blue.”

“ Get to the cafeteria, please and find some food, I’m not eating these beetles,” said Mr.Val.

On that note, Niko and his team of 8 went down the stairs to the first floor.

~~~~~~~~(10:45 AM)~~~~~~~~

The stairs down to the first floor were clean, unlike the bloodies and damaged halls they had to go through. This staircase had been the only undamaged one out of the 3 leading to the first floor. The other 2 had been destroyed, likely from the explosion they had heard days ago or some other creature. Whatever the beetles or other creatures had done, it had caved them in, leaving huge gaping holes leading outside, along with what looked to be crushed human bodies underneath the rubble. Some people must have tried to escape... These had been the root cause of why the second floor was so overgrown with vines and other plants that grew on them. Fortunately, the stairwell was less covered in vines allowing them to have an easier time moving around.

The staircase led to the most popular region of the school, Velysium Hall, useful in this situation for many reasons. When coming down the stairs one would see a massive area with comfortable lounges set up in the center. It had a high ceiling from which many lights and posters hung. What made it most fortunate for their current situation was the fact that on the right side of the wall were where all manufacturing, woodwork, and robotics classes were, while the left side held the bigger clubrooms such as the martial arts room and archery range. The rooms on the right would be useful for them to make weapons, while those on the left already had a few usable ones. Taking that section would be essential for their survival.

Arriving at the bottom of the staircase the group stood on either side of the doors leading into that area. Niko took hold of the handle of one and pushed it open slightly to peek beyond them. The entire area was a mess, the chairs, tables, and pots of plants that once decorated the large lobby were scattered all over; Some destroyed, others bloodied. The vines in this area were much fewer compared to the second floor but still prevalent. They lined some sections of the floors and hung from the ceiling, wrapping around some of the lights; some had also managed to come through the vents and down to the floor.

Near the center of the room was a large pile of human corpses, all of which were likely from the rooms in the surroundings as mostly all the doors were torn open with blood trails leading out of them. But the most distressing factor of all was the large mass of beetles in the area, nearly 70 could be seen crawling everywhere, dragging more bodies, or storing food in their stomach to head off somewhere. Scarier yet, next to the mount was an even bigger beetle than the smaller ones around. It was similar to its smaller kin, only double the proportions and 6ft tall, an extra pair of legs, larger teeth, with thick barbed mandibles looking as if they could snap even steel in half. Its 3 feelers did not end with hair, but instead sharp blades.

Niko pulled back and despite his shaking hands managed to close the doors silently. Seeing his visibly shocked and terrified face, the others began to worry.

“Dude….What's out there?” asked Leo, a little hesitant to know.

“This….this just got a bit more complicated.” He said as he racked his brain of possible solutions to take care of the massive beetle outside.

To his words Callie decided to take a peek at what was out there, soon enough everyone took a quick look and instantly regretted it. Forget the regular beetle, the metallic scent of blood was so heavy it nearly made them choke. So much death had happened in the area that the whiff of it alone was intoxicating. Now to add to that an even bigger and deadlier beetle prowled around the mountain of corpses in the center of the lobby.

“This is crazy!” Hissed Callie,” No way are the toothpicks we're holding is gonna scratch that thing!”

“ What the hell is that! Seriously, what did we do to God to deserve this!” complained Leo looking out with wide eyes towards the giant monster.

The rest stood frozen in silent panic, even if they did manage to kill it, the smaller ones were still too much for them to handle all at once. Unfortunately for them, they had been SEEN.

The massive beetle had caught them looking through the door, although its eyesight was still no better than its kin, it was enough to make out Niko and his team were not beetles, despite their scent. The creature now looked straight at them where the door was slightly open. Everyone felt a chill fall down their spines, only to remember that they couldn’t see and breathe a sigh of relief.

“SREEEIIIIKKkckkk!”

Then as if to refute their belief the monster charged straight for the door, with barbed mandibles wide open.

“OH SH*T!” said Leo as he pulled back Callie and slammed the door shut.

Not even seconds later the massive beetle crashed straight into the door, caving it in as it splintered from their side, its huge horn breaking through right next to Niko, who in question barely dodge it.

Everyone was in shock, that beetle had been around 20 meters from their position, and covered it in an instant! Not only that but the doors to the stairwell were made of hardwood as thick as their legs!

“F*cking Run!” Said Niko, urging everyone to book it back upstairs.

No one questioned it and began scrambling to go back upstairs. Richy had to be slapped hard by a friend of his who had joined their group so he could begin running too. The Massive beetle was continually slamming into the door as it groaned, creaked, and splintered under its powerful blows. The smaller beetle had begun gathering around to try and pry their way through the small opening of the door but their bodies were too big for that and only raging red feelers could be seen trying to get the heavy doors open. If the beetles were intelligent enough to pull from the other side they were dead.

Niko ran up the stairs after everyone had gone up, and right next to him along the way,” Niko, you think it can get through?!” asked Zane worried at the approaching danger.

“No.” Said Niko,” not now at least!”

They soon reached the second floor where the rest of their team were panting from the shock and adrenaline coursing through them as they ran from the monsters trying to break the door.

Seeing them in such distress, the other students hurried over to help them calm down.

“What on earth happened!” Asked Mr.Val when they were assured into the room. Mrs.Stillwater ran over as well from the beetle corpses she had been studying with some of her students.

“I hate this world, I hate life, I hate when things happen just because someone talked about it!” Said Leo, visibly annoyed and angry.

Everyone looked at him in confusion before the answer came from Callie,” There was a giant beetle downstairs! A lot bigger than the others!” She screamed.

“Great, just fucking great…” Came Mr.Val.

“Could that have been the queen?” Asked Mrs.Stillwater.

“Don’t think so since it wasn’t Sh*tting eggs everywhere! Worse yet, it could see us!” Said Ranzer.

That last part fell hard on everyone who was listening. Blind they could confuse the beetles and attack them from unsuspecting areas, like using music from a phone to get it to go after it before stabbing it in the back. Granted the beetles were great with scent and pheromones, but when the people were covered with their blood they could hardly tell the difference. Now with a more powerful one that could see? Fat chance they could take it that way.

Niko continued with the explanation while everyone else went to rest, they had been through enough for one day and didn’t want to leave the classroom for now. At least till they cooked up a plan to kill that beetle.

“So, let me get this straight,” began Mrs. Stillwater,” that beetle was twice the size of the normal one, but still covered a 20-meter distance in seconds, and looked to have denser plating than the other?”

“Yup.” Respond Leo.

Mrs.Stillwater sighed as Mr.Val scratched the side of his head, “So how the hell are we taking these things down?” Asked Callie.

“A gun?” Proposed a guy who was listening in like a few others.

“Unless you have one, don’t say stupid things.” Stated another guy, likely the first’s friends, as he slapped him on the back of the head.

“Ok...on a more serious note, would it be possible to make a much bigger explosive Mr.Val?” Asked Mrs.Stillwater.

Mr.Val thought for a second before shaking his head,” I’m lacking the materials, we would need more materials to make it work, and I am not sure where we could get more.”

Considering that there was little else they could do to take care of the giant beetle below, they decided to put things off and do something else, waiting for an idea to pop up. In the meantime, they sent some people up the stairs to check out if anyone was alright from there and to gather any materials from up there.

Niko’s team wanted to go up, but it was decided that they had enough and should sleep on it. They didn’t like it but got comfortable and took a nap anyway, the stress they accumulated throughout the day finally taking its toll as they went off to dreamland.

~~~~~~~~(13:30 AM)~~~~~~~~

After about a 3 hour nap, Niko and his team got shaken awake by very optimistic teenagers with huge smiles on their faces.

“Wa--was all t--his an elab--orate pr--ank and no o--ne died? Is that why y--ou’re smil--ing?” Asked Leo as he groggily woke up from his nap

“What? No” one of them said,” This is as real as it gets buddy! We figured out how to kill those things!”

Looking at the confused looks on their faces, the teenagers just dragged them over to the side of Mrs. Stillwaters’s classroom where everyone, who wasn’t guarding the area outside, was gathered and seemed to be very excited with whatever it was they had done.

They pushed through the crowd till they arrived where Mr.Val and Mrs.Stillwater had 7 tanks of something sitting in front of them, all modified to be more portable with straps and a hose attached to them.

“What's going on?” Asked Ranzer

“Well, while you were resting, we finally realized how stupid we were. The horrors of the situation didn’t help with logic and everyone forgot about the storage room and what was inside of them. The people who went to the 3rd and 4th floor came back with a bunch of materials from there, which was when we realized we hadn’t taken the items out of the chemical storage rooms on this floor.” Began Mr.Val.

“When looking through we found the remaining tanks from the liquid nitrogen experiment we had from a few weeks back, along with 4 tanks of 75% gas and 25% kerosene for an explosive mix.” Continued Mrs.Stillwater.

“Then one of the students, Maya,” said Mr.Val nodding over to the girl in question,” had the bright idea to make a flamethrower, as well as a liquid Nitrogen, spray out the tanks. So we refashioned some other theater rooms backpacks, straps, and other stuff along with some of the tubes and equipment we found on the second-floor storage rooms and made them. That is what you see right here.”

The shock was clear on their face, they never really realized the kind of weapons people could build out of things found in school. They had not only made the throwers, but also the multiple of Mr.Val’s explosive vials, using the vials they could find in the storages, to take care of the little ones.

“Wow….and we slept through it all…..that's kind of sad...sorry guys,” said Zane.

“Nah, it was no problem, plus you guys can repay us by going down there killing those things and bringing back some food.” Said Maya cheerfully.

“Before that, we need a plan.” Said Mr.Val as they began preparing for the assault.

The throwers were heavy, so the normal people didn’t have a chance at carrying them and using them effectively. However, thankfully, there were a few that could carry it, like Zane and his club members, along with Callie. Half of the people were chosen to fight the monsters downstairs. Of those, half had multiple vials of explosive liquid to work with. The weapons they were given consisted of not only spears but clubs and hammers. They even broke a few tables and screwed on some straps to act as shields. They were all ready to attack those basted beetles.

Within a few minutes and putting on their equipment and organizing a plan, it was finally time to take on those beetles.

Trivia ------

It is Universally known that humans and all creatures, in particular, need to dispose of their waste at some point in time, in essence, they need to Sh*t. Since no one would dare leave during this time (would you?) both Mr.Vall and Mrs. Stillwater’s class needed to delegate space to use the restroom., though the smell was less than welcoming with a few people having diarrhea, everyone had to use a bucket to dispose of their waste through the window.

Also, there was no TP available anywhere, that might just be the true disaster here.