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Chapter 5

{{ Thomas' POV 😕 }}

Thomas Ralfen brushed his neatly kept hair out of his face. You would think having glasses would help keep the hair out of one's face, but apparently not.

Thomas walked swiftly down the white, glowing corridor, his long legs eating up the floor in great strides. He glanced down at the tablet in his hands and nudged his thick-framed glasses farther up his nose. He continued down the hall and through two sliding doors that opened with his presence.

The room he entered was composed of three bleach-white walls and one massive screen that spanned the entirety of the fourth. Thomas had worked in the mansion for years, but this room was still the only one that felt like home.

The floor was covered in neat rows of tables, a person bent hard at work over each one. Glowing screens lit up the faces of the workers as they swiped and tapped, the wall screen displaying a small image of each table's task. Everything from cam feeds to new creations in the making spanned the screen surrounding one large aerial view of the arena.

Thomas returned the greetings addressed to him and walked over to the master table that was set in the middle of the room with the perfect view of the wall screen. First order of business: waking up the new contestants.

Every new child was injected with anesthesia to ensure that there weren't any unnecessary complications. With the push of a button and the entry of a password, seven bodies on the screen began to stir. One after the other, each contestant pulled themself off the ground and ran into the dense forest.

Thomas continued to watch the main screen for a few more minutes, before turning towards the doors. Once he reached the exit, the doors slid open and he turned to face the bustling game personnel. "A new cycle has just begun. Please be alert for any new complications. I trust all of you will handle your posts with excellence as you always have. Let Infinity be our savior and remember this is one step closer to total peace."

All the personnel had turned to face him when he began talking and as he finished a chorus of "Let Infinity be our savior" filled the room as he spun around and the doors slid shut.

{{ Renesmee's POV ❤ }}

"Renesmee, please go find Mr. Ralfen and make sure he has deployed the new contestants."

"Yes ma'am," Renesmee replied with a slight nod. She exited the Governor’s office and started down the burgundy carpet that covered the floors of the long, wide halls leading to the Stream.

For as long as Renesmee had been in the mansion, she had always tried to avoid the Stream, with its white walls and sterile glow. It had always reminded her of a health clinic, which she had never been fond of, and disliked more now that she dealt with all the medical transactions of the new contestants.

She stopped briefly at the double-wide, white sliding doors that opened up into the Stream. With a curt nod at the guard stationed beside the entrance, she stepped forward and the doors slid open. It wasn’t hard to spot Thomas as he was one of the tallest people in the room and was directing the busy workers as they hurried around the room.

Renesmee stood in the doorway for a few seconds, not wanting to interrupt him, but he spotted her and strode over to where she stood.

“Renesmee, is there something you need?” Thomas asked, his ever-present smile spread across his face.

“Ms. Binet wanted me to check and see if you had managed to deploy all the new contestants yet,” she answered, giving him a small smile of her own.

“Funny you should say that I was just on my way to bring Rayne the personal cam feeds of the new contestant. They’ve all been tagged and sent to the arena, the last one just woke up.”

“That’s perfect. Then if you have all the files there, I can take them to her office and you can carry on here. I know how busy it gets after new ones come in,” Renesmee gestured toward the tablet Thomas held against his chest.

“Actually, if you don’t mind, I can take it myself. I needed to talk to her anyway and this will give me an excuse to get away,” he chuckled as he peeked behind his shoulder into the bustle of the Stream.

“Of course, if you really wouldn’t mind. I have to run down to the medical bay so you taking her the files would save me an extra trip.”

“Don’t let me keep you then, I’ll see you at dinner,” Thomas waved as he left towards the Governor's office. Renesmee started off down the hallway once again, leaving one fluorescent glow and heading toward another.

{{ Coryn's POV ☀️ }}

Coryn’s head was spinning but still, she ran. Her brain wouldn’t let her stop even though her body was screaming for her to do the opposite. She didn’t know how long or how far she had run but she didn’t think she could go much farther.

She slowed down to a jog and finally took a moment to view her surroundings. Basically just trees. Lots and lots of trees. She came to a complete stop before practically collapsing by the base of a particularly large tree. The past few days had been a blur and all she could really remember were several blows to the head, a cold, stone cell, and the small single-seat drone that took her to the arena. Thinking about the trauma made her skull throb dully and she massaged her temples while resting her head against the tree trunk.

She had managed to pull herself back to her feet after a five-minute break, but physically couldn’t make herself move faster than a walk. She hadn’t taken any more than a handful of steps before a beam of light caught her eye. Cautiously, she approached the glare until she could identify the source as a sheet of metal. She bent down and dusted the leaves off the long sword that sat on the forest floor.

Years on the streets and fending for herself had made Coryn overly cautious, so the conspicuous blade set off a host of warning bells in her head. Slowly, she lifted the sword with both hands, testing its weight as she spun it in a wide circle. In addition to knives, she had taught herself how to use a sword, until the movements had become second nature. One could never be too prepared in Gravara, especially if you had people you needed to protect.

Coryn knew it wasn’t a coincidence that she had found a weapon so easily, it had been placed there for a reason by the Infinity Controller, who was probably watching her at that very moment. There was nothing she could do but prepare herself for the inescapable hell that would soon catch her.

She breathed out a humorless laugh, “Let Infinity be my savior.”

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