Tanya was trembling. Standing next to Dianna, and facing the huge half-orc Kalha. The latter had a terribly sadistic and aggressive expression on her face. Tanya grabbed Dianna's hand and tugged her as she walked to the gate of the settlement. There, a warrior was handing a spear to each of the students, and then, dispatching them out of the settlement. Tanya couldn't help but think. "They have these massive walls with a group of heavily armed warriors guarding it… and they give us a pointed stick? I don't care if their weapons are primitive. This is like sending us out to die."

Tanya took advantage of a large space in the line, and slipped in right behind Emily and George. She was sure Emily wouldn't turn around to see George, and consequently, she wouldn't see them either. It was the perfect spot to go unnoticed. Tanya glanced sideways at Dianna, and then at Emily. She imagined herself looking just like them. She also saw how everyone was watching them with mean eyes. "This is ridiculous. Without makeup and accessories, we look like triplets. If it weren't for the fact that Emily never lifts her eyes off the ground, she would notice it too. I don't think it's going to take her too long to figure it out, though. How will she react?"

At that instant, George looked to his right for a few seconds to see one of Beth's friends. Then, he turned around as if he knew what he was going to find. However, he was surprised all the same. He stared at Tanya and Dianna for several seconds. Intrigued, Tanya looked around for the girl George had seen before them. She was shocked when she saw her. It was a girl who looked a bit like Emily, although her hair was black and her eyes were brown. Tanya turned slightly to Dianna and whispered. "What the hell is going on? Do all the high school girls look like Emily now?"

Dianna also looked a little surprised as well. "I had no idea that one looked so much like us. And much less that she was a friend of Beth. She keeps whispering things in Beth’s ear."

Tanya whispered to Dianna. "Who is she? I've never seen her before in high school."

Dianna saw Tanya out of the corner of her eye and whispered. "That you've never seen her before in high school? Really? What about you? Until today, you were a ghost like her to me, and now you're giving me orders?"

Tanya looked at her puzzled. "Orders? Wait, no! It's just... Haven't you talked with a dark being? One covered in scars. Didn't you meet him before you appeared here? He told me about you."

Dianna turned her face away, gritting her teeth. Tanya understood that the answer was affirmative, but she didn't have a good memory of that encounter. She tried to convince Dianna that they could work together. "That strange being told me that you and I could..."

Dianna didn't wait a second. It was obvious that she wasn't interested in anything Tanya intended to tell her. She broke away from Tanya and went straight to talk to the girl who looked at them as if she were the general of a great army. Haughty and self-confident. As if they were all mere insects around her.

Dianna said something to that haughty girl. Something Tanya couldn't hear. Then, the haughty student put her hand on Dianna's shoulder, as if they were new friends. Although Dianna didn't seem very pleased with that gesture, she did nothing more than blink an exaggerated number of times. A few seconds later, they both looked at Emily and then at Tanya. Tanya couldn't help but feel a horrible shiver. "What the hell is she doing? Are they friends now?"

Just at that instant, the line of students dissipated in front of Tanya. It was her turn. She stood in surprise, facing the perplexed warrior who handed her a spear. The warrior looked for a moment at Emily and then at Tanya. As if he had a strange deja vu. Finally, he handed the spear over to a flustered Tanya. Tanya quickly headed to the right, out of the fortified settlement. Away from everyone.

Tanya found herself alone as everyone formed groups. Trembling, she whispered as she saw the forest in the distance. "OMG! I'm going to be left alone in a situation like this? That idiot warrior said that staying alone was a suicide."

Tanya turned around and tried to look for Dianna in Beth's group, but she only saw Emily. As she watched her, she managed to relax for a second. "She looks beautiful even in those shitty clothes."

Tanya watched dead jealous as she talked to Richard. "Even she has been lucky. I didn't expect that gesture from Richard." She watched them for some time, trying to scrutinize the high school handsome boy's intentions. Then, she inadvertently whispered with a hostile look. "If you hurt her, I'll hurt you."

Tanya watched as the students slowly grouped together, unable to approach any of them. "I've never really talked to any of them. What am I going to tell them? Hi! I'm a cheap version of Emily. Can I come with you?" Without realizing it, she was shaking more and more.

Trying to find allies, she looked at Ian for a second. He seemed to be doing stretching exercises. "What the hell is he doing?" Tanya studied his face carefully, checking how he was analyzing each of the faces of those present. Then, she realized. "Oh, shit! I hope he's not trying to do what I think he's going to do." She focused on herself and her options. "And now what? Damn it! I can't stay here."

A strange sensation made Tanya's eyes fix on the haughty stranger who looked a bit like Emily. She was whispering something to Rebecca while looking at Emily. Within seconds, Rebecca quickly lunged at Emily. Tanya watched, as a shudder ran through her body, how Rebecca shoved Emily and she fell to the ground. "Fucking motherfucker!"

Tanya found herself walking forward without knowing how. Thinking of nothing but the pain and humiliation Emily going through, her mind was cloudy, she only had one idea in her mind. Hurt Rebecca. Even if her body was weak and Rebecca had twice her strength, but she couldn't take more than three steps. The stranger stepped in her way, cutting her off.

Tanya was perplexed by the boldness and confidence of that student. "Who the hell is this moron?" Tanya began to realize that the girl she knew nothing about, looked like a puppeteer pulling the strings. "If I openly confront her, I'll be in her sights too. What the hell does she want?" Suddenly, she was shaking much more. "Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like finding it out?"

She was not alone, behind her were Beth, Nina, Dianna and the other two useless girls. Tanya clenched her fists, feeling helpless. "I can't do anything against all of them. Just having Dianna as an enemy is a nonsense. The things I've heard about her make my hair stand on end. Damn! How do I help Emily now?"

Tanya couldn't help but stare into Dianna's eyes. She tried to appeal to her sense of guilt and decency. She did so without knowing if it would do any good. Tanya looked even more intense when she saw Beth and Nina laughing at them.

A terrible shiver drew Tanya's attention away from Dianna. In the distance, right behind them. Ian looked bigger and more muscular than usual. Much bigger than he had been a few seconds ago. His body looked as if he had just finished training. Ready to break a world record in any discipline of strength or skill. He had the look he used to have when he was about to make a mess. Tanya couldn't help but remember the recommendations that the dark being had given her about Ian. "OMG! This is going to get really ugly."

Dianna noticed that Tanya's expression had changed, and it wasn't just because four girls were trying to scare her. She turned around, looking for what Tanya was seeing, and then, she found Ian. In that instant, she stumbled backward, bumping into the arrogant mystery girl. Dianna seemed to be trembling. When she reached Tanya's height, she bumped into her as well. For a second, they looked into each other's eye. Dianna was incomprehensibly scared. As if she had seen something different than Tanya. As if her world was different from the rest.

Tanya noticed that the stranger was also looking at Ian, but she didn't seem alarmed. She watched him for at least five seconds, calculating something. Just like she had done when she talked to Rebecca. Then, calm and confident, she approached one of the groups of boys. The group that Hector and his undesirable friends were forming. Emily's inveterate stalkers.

All that tension seemed to freeze when Richard was heard screaming. He was furious and out of his mind. Tanya had never seen the blond boy with blue eyes like that. "Are you fucking crazy?!" Richard reached over to help Emily, but Emily shrank back so Richard wouldn't even touch her.

Richard enraged, realizing all this, yelled at Beth. "Do you see my father anywhere? Do you see him?! And yours? Look what a coincidence! You can't blackmail me now saying that your father will fire mine! You crazy bitch! You'll never tell me what I can or can't do again."

Tanya left Richard screaming as she lost herself in thought. Scrutinizing her next steps. "Joining her group is not an option if Emily is going to be in it. I can't be that close to her without..." She reconsidered it for a second, realizing there were more pressing things than that. "I don't want to find out what it means that Emily can take back what was stolen. I hope that doesn't mean she'll try to kill me to take it from me…"

For a second, Tanya thought about concentrating and whispering "pause". She wanted to know if her gift was still there, but she remembered everything the dark being had told her and didn't even try. Next, she looked up and glanced at the rest of the students. "Regarding the others. Many of them look like scum to me. I don't intend to join such riff-raff."

Tanya looked Dianna in the eye as she grabbed her hand. She looked so much like Emily that Tanya couldn't help but blush. She got very close to her trying to whisper in her ear at the same time as she searched Kalha with her eyes, as if she wanted to run away from her. "Let's go together! I heard how those creatures said it's all a trap! They threatened to kill me if I told something. I can't talk here. Please, follow me!" Then, she let go of her hand, taking her time. Recreating herself in the softness of her skin and her scent. Trying to restrain her growing arousal, she turned around. "I hope she will listen to me and follow me!"

Tanya started to walk towards the forest as she heard Richard's screaming, accusing Rebecca and her filthy friends. It was obvious that a new leader was rising. A leader who would have to face many adversities. "I don't know who that puppeteer is and what her intentions are, but I'm sure she's up to something and I don't plan to be here when everything blows up. It's a shame I can't see the monster-hunting demon do his job, but I know that, to him, I'm just another prey."

When Tanya heard Ian's voice rise above all the others, she knew it was time to run. However, she couldn't let him see in which direction she was fleeing, so she quickly moved to the right, inevitably damaging her delicate feet when stepping on that adverse ground. "Come on! I don't have time to think about the pain."

When she felt she was out of Ian's sight, she kept walking as fast as she could, but trying not to hurt herself too much. She didn't want to get hurt unnecessarily.

She looked back, in case Dianna had decided to follow her, but to no avail. Then, she watched how all the students were looking at Ian, dumbfounded. "You're all expendable idiots who don't know you're going to die at the hands of that beast. In there, the only one who’s safe is Emily."

Tanya walked almost half a minute with the utmost care. Avoiding every stone. Cursing every meter walked. "It's obvious they're not going to give us anything that give us any advantage." At that instant, a twisted thought flashed through her mind. "I guess we're easier to hunt this way."

Tanya felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up like spikes as she heard the gallop of many people. Everyone at the entrance of the settlement ran out in a stampede. It was obvious that they were doing themselves a lot of harm running like that, but no one slowed down. "What the hell?! Has Ian started the hunt? OMG! We're going to die!" Tanya instinctively quickened her pace.

Trembling and overwhelmed by the tortuous ground, she saw Richard running at more than 15 meters away, towards the forest. "Have you decided to run away too? Welcome to the club!" But he wasn't running alone. Many were following him. Among them, George. Tanya couldn't help but notice him. "How the hell can that degenerate run so fast? He always needed glasses, and now he seems to see better than me?" To her astonishment, Tanya also noticed that everyone was bleeding from the soles of their feet as they desperately ran. "OMG! That's gotta hurt."

Terrified, she looked back, but Ian was nowhere to be seen. "I don't intend to hurt my feet that badly. I'll go around the settlement so he can't spot me."

However, with every second she walked around the walled enclosure of the settlement, she realized with some desperation that indeed, that place was really huge."How big is this settlement? How many of those warriors can fit in there? Hundreds? Thousands? Who feeds all those people?" Distressed, another twisted thought crossed her mind. "I hope they don't eat humans."

When she was about to continue her arduous task, screams began to be heard in the distance. Tanya looked back in shock. Though she could not make out anyone from so far away, she did see several students fleeing from the settlement's warriors. She also saw them being caught up and dragged to the entrance. Tanya noted with surprise that only a few were caught and most were ignored. "OMG! What the hell is going on?"

Tanya continued to watch expectantly, but didn't move closer. However, everything changed when screams of despair and pain began to be heard. Heartbreaking sounds of torture and death. She also watched as everyone who remained fled in horror. "OMG! They're killing them!" Tanya turned around and walked away with a blank stare, imagining how they would be eaten next. Feeling terribly distraught as tears welled up in her eyes.

For several minutes, she walked around lost in thoughts like... "I have to hide. I have to get something to protect my feet. I have to..." But the excessive pain in her feet brought her back to her senses, only to discover something that would make her even more desperate. "What the hell?! I cannot go around the settlement!" An immense precipice cut off her path not far away. She walked towards the edge, but halfway there, a nauseating smell caught her attention. "What the hell does it smell like? It smells like something dead." In that instant, she thought of the apes they had mentioned before leaving the settlement. "OMG! Please, I hope it's not the apes!"

Completely clean bones scattered on the ground, not far from her feet. "OMG! What the hell is that? Are those the bones of a person?" Every second Tanya that looked at the ground, she found more and more bones everywhere. Too many bones to belong to just one person. Tanya felt the hair on her body stand on end, sending shivers down her spine.

Suddenly, a small rustle in the undergrowth startled her so much that it almost made her heart leap out of her mouth. The shock was so intense that she was not even able to run away. Her feet seemed to be glued to the ground. On the other hand, her hands did respond, allowing her to grasp the spear tightly. Holding it with both hands in a defensive position.

After a moment and as if it was a reflex action, she remembered how each of the spear characters she had created would position themselves. She even corrected her posture by recalling them over and over again. "That's it! Stay behind the tip of the spear. I'll attack anything that comes out of that thicket." Luckily for her weak body, nothing dangerous came out. After a few caws were heard, a raven slowly emerged from the thicket.

Tanya hesitated whether to stay or run away. "Calm down! It's just a simple raven. A filthy bird that surely eats any remains left on the bones." But once the raven regurgitated words that almost anyone could interpret as human, those options dissipated. "Help, Help!"

For a few seconds, Tanya froze. She didn't know how to react to a talking raven. The raven turned around and started to move in small hops along a path where the scattered remains of corpses were becoming more and more abundant. Tanya didn't follow it, so the animal turned around and cawed at her again. Then, it repeated again. "Help, help!"

Tanya took a single step forward to see how the raven would react. After a few seconds in which it saw her impatiently, the raven cawed again and shouted. "Come on!" Tanya was speechless as she watched the animal move faster and faster as it repeated with each small hop. "Help, help!"

Uncertain, Tanya followed the raven at some distance, afraid of not knowing what she would find. But on the ninth step, she found a light-haired girl, lying on the ground. She was surrounded by bones, some carrion and torn clothes. The girl wore a pelt cloak and carried some bone weapons.

Tanya thought horrified. "Is she dead?" But she immediately changed her mind when she saw small spasms in the girl's hands. In turn, the raven cried out again for help only to curl up in the girl's hand. The image aroused tenderness in Tanya. "It must love her very much."

The girl began to babble, to the surprise of both of them. Although almost nothing of what she was saying was understandable except for small fragments. "Mom? Is that you? Help me please, Mom!"

The voice was very weak and too much like Emily's, but not the same, which made Tanya nervous. "Calm down! It's not Emily. It can't be! Maybe it's someone like us." She thought imagining how similar Dianna, Beth's haughty friend, Emily and herself were.

Tanya slowly calmed down and tried to focus. "For some reason, she's lying there, delirious. How am I going to help her? What should I do?" Calmer, she began to approach and asked in a voice that sounded a little louder than a whisper. "Hello! Can you hear me?" Suddenly, she felt a heavy drowsiness. As if the air was charged with something that imprisoned her. She began to feel a slight dizziness that grew more intense every second.

The girl's voice grew louder. "Mom! Is that you? Help me, please! It hurts so much! Make it stop, please! Make the pain stop, Mom!"

Tanya shuddered. "She has no wounds. What hurts her?"

The raven cried out to her again at Tanya's stunned look. "Watch out, watch out! It's them!"

Tanya felt terrified, suffocated and dizzy. She wasn't even able to think clearly. Unable to help herself, she began to stagger. "What the hell is happening to me!" In the midst of her drowsiness and fear, she saw how she was suddenly surrounded by many shadows, in an atmosphere of strange darkness. It was as if the forest itself had changed. It was distorted and seemed to change shape, as if from a nightmare. Alarmed and with her eyes on the ground, she saw that the light-haired girl was no longer there.

Suddenly, the shadows swirled and began to speak to her. "Is it you? Are you that hateful little girl who turns everyone into monsters? Yes, it's you! Damn you! You're going to suffer, green-eyed redhead. You're going to suffer, Emily!"

A sharp pain from out of nowhere began to overtake her. Tanya was horrified, but her mind worked fast. She immediately understood that they were "thieves", as the scarred being had called them. Furious and overwhelmed by an immense stupor and pain, she screamed. "Shut up! Emily's a good girl! She always has been! I only played with her once in the park. I only talked to her once. But it was enough for me to notice it right away."

Tanya remembered that sweet feeling you get when you find the perfect person for you. Maybe calling it love at such a young age was crazy, but that feeling had only grown with time. Tanya kept screaming, thinking of Emily as if she were perfect. "If we were all like her, the world would be a beautiful place."

The shortness of breath and immense pain, made her stagger as the shadows screamed back. "You're lying! You're a monster! A monster like..."

Tanya interrupted them screaming and trying to overcome the horrible pain. "The essence that came to me, made me a better person than I had ever been. I changed because of her. I was trash like all of you. I..." Tanya clenched her teeth tightly as she cried.

The shadows screamed and threatened her. "You're still trash Emily and you always will be!".

Tanya, terribly angry at the horrible accusations towards the being she adored most in all of existence, yelled at them. "She didn't do that to all of you! You were already monsters before you ran into her!"

The mass of shadows screamed deafeningly at Tanya's terrified gaze. "You lie!" Suddenly, out of all those shadows, one stepped forward. A figure she had seen before. It was the same one she had seen in that 3D recreation, only a few hours before. Terribly distressed, Tanya let out a word she had practically never uttered. "Mom?"

The figure frowned, as if she was disgusted by being called that. "How the hell can you be alive if I killed you with my own hands."