Silence. Lia didn't mutter another word; her argument had been countered with no way to rebuttal.
"Tsk," she said, looking away. "Okay."
"So what? What now?" Mateo asked.
"What do you mean, 'what'? Now we have to find out which of the four is going and which two are staying. Duh," Elijah said, rolling his eyes at Mateo's stupidity.
"I'm going." Lia instantly raised her hand; for some reason, everyone expected that.
"I'm also going," Abid chimed in.
"But you're hurt. Won't you hinder us if you go? Look at your legs," Mateo said questioningly.
"No. I will hinder no one. And even if I did, I'm the only person who could actually kill an Orc if we ran into one. With backup like you, this injury won't mean much. That's if you don't run away," he said, glaring at Mateo.
"I'm also going," Elijah said.
"Will you be able to shut up if you go? Your voice is unbearable to hear. Just imagine the screams when your flesh is ripped apart from your bones by Orcs," Lia said.
"Bitch, you wanna say that again?"
"Stop. There will be no infighting. That leads to death one hundred percent of the time."
"Well, tell this bitch to shut her mouth before it gets her killed."
"Haha, and you'll be doing the killing? Yeah, right."
"Tsk."
"Who will be the fourth member?" Abid asked, looking around.
"I will go," Isaac said, trying to stir his pride.
"No. You will stay. We'll need at least some strong people to hold down the fort. So you and Mateo will stay."
Isaac didn't rebut; he almost looked relieved.
"I'm fine with that," Mateo said.
"So wait, we are taking the fucking kid? He's a straight liability," Elijah said, looking at the kid in the corner who was speaking to himself. "He's a straight lunatic. Look at him."
It wasn't Abid who spoke this time, it was Lia. "No, we need him. Look at us; we are too big for some places, but his small body can fit through narrow spaces, and he can run faster."
Elijah looked like he wanted to rebut, but in the end, he only scoffed and looked away.
"Okay, so it's decided. What was his name again? Keruim?"
…
There is no way to get around this.
I can only think out loud. This is so shitty. I can lower my tone a tiny bit, but nothing like whispering. And even if I start talking, my body stops moving; it's like my brain shuts off. Hahaha, this is stupid. That means I will always have to be muttering something. Haha, I will look like—
And to stop thinking everything aloud, I have to say random stuff in between. I tried to force my mouth closed, but it goes against my will. It won't stop talking even if I wan—
"Keruim."
"One."
As I start to look around, trying to find the person who called my name, I see five other people staring at me.
"Come over here. We need a game plan on what we are doing. And you're coming with us."
"Two. Red. Blue."
"I'm not going." No, wait. Everyone is stumped by the words he spoke, but not Abid.
"If you don't come with us, you will be thrown out. In the end, you're just a kid, and that equals a waste of resources."
"Red. One. One. Red. One... fuck you."
"Hah! Such a foul laugh from a twelve-year-old kid. What do you expect for Fifth Division scum? Hah! What are you even saying? Red, blue... the fuck?" Elijah said.
"So, do you want to be thrown out, or are you coming with us?"
"Tsk. If I'm thrown out, I could get caught by Goblins, and then they will start eating me. They will tear my flesh from my bones. I can't have that; it will just grow back, and then they will tear it again. And the process won't stop. It will happen over and over and over."
Remembering falling into the pit of darkness, I start to remember how the sensation felt—of my finger being ripped from my hand and then regrowing, my hand slamming against the sharp corner of the cell piercing my eyes and then them growing back, and then before my very eyes is another piece of sharp stone.
"Tsk."
"One. Two."
Not even saying another word to them, in the end, I have to comply. My legs start to move toward the circle they had formed. Plopping down, I start looking at everyone.
"One, two, one, red... what the fuck are y'all looking at?"
"Tsk. Stop fucking saying one and two and we won't, bitch," Elijah said with a fierce gaze.
But all Keruim did was smile while saying the words slower. "O... n... e."
Before Elijah could move, Abid interrupted. "So, it will be us. Lia, Elijah, and you," he said, his finger pointing at me.
"One, two... whatever."
Taking his gaze away from me, he moves his finger toward the cracked stone-like dust and starts moving it aside.
"This will be me. I will be second to last in the formation."
"Tsk, you just wa—" Elijah was cut off.
"Because I'm the injured one here. I at least need something in between before I start running. And I'm the only one who can stop the Orcs for a second."
Elijah looked stumped.
"You will be in the front. Keruim behind you, and Lia in the back to cover our rear. Keruim doesn't bring enough manpower; he would only be a liability if he was in the very front or the very back. But that's not what we need him for." He started to look at me while he spoke.
"One, two."
"His body is small; looks malnourished, too. He can fit through small spaces easily—that point was made by Lia. His hands are smaller, and so are his arms. His arms can fit behind spaces without having us move them, which causes less noise. And that all together gives us a better chance of all of us living. He will take both of the weapons. Lia will get one and Elijah will." He said it while looking at them both. "You two are basically our tanks, so you need weapons. The reason I'm no—"
"One, two."
He stopped and looked at me. "One, two... what do you want?"
"It's nothing."
"One."
"As I was saying, the reason I'm not leaving weapons here is because the floor is cracked. If anyone comes, it will most likely be a human. The floor is all broken; y'all two can find yourselves some sharp stones and use those as weapons."
"...Okay."
"Okay," everyone says in unison.
Lia began to speak. "I doubt everyone remembers the layout of the entrance of this place."
...No one spoke up to contradict her.
"This is what it looks like," she said while moving her finger through the dust and forming the outline of a pathway.
"This right here is the entrance. I was the last one that came in. We are in like a cut-in under some building I thought was a wall. But hearing those screams we hear early and the cramped bars... I can't really think what we are under, but the layout goes like this:
To the front, and left, and right. A building that looks like it was burned down by fire, but it looks like there are more pathways we can go. But it might be bad, because I saw a lot of people running that way, and the more people are that way, the more Orcs there are also. We can probably find more cover there to hide the four of us. On our excursion, we need to find something flat, like a piece of scrap, to hide the entrance to this place to keep it secret.
To our right, it leads to the pit I think most of you have already seen. If you didn't, you must have been living under a rock. Hah, even under a rock is better than this.
In front of us also looks like it leads to the cages. I don't know, though; that is a guess. So, here's the layout in simpler terms:
To the right is the giant pit. To the left are burned-down buildings, but most likely a lot of Orcs and Goblins that way. To the front is the unknown."
She said it while looking into each of our eyes. "So, what will we pick?"