"I can’t do it! I really can’t!" Abigail scread, shaking her head frantically, on the verge of collapse.
Magnus grabbed her head with both hands, forcing her to stop shaking, and roared, "The hell you can’t! You and Emma, you’re both Awakened! You can do this! Even the regular folks made it up the pillar, and you..."
He cut off suddenly, as if sothing clicked in his mind - regular folks, Awakened...
Yeah, that was it. The pillar tops... maybe they were like the crystals - useless to normals, but not to Awakened.
"No more nonsense! Climb, damn it!" Magnus bellowed. "Abigail, listen! If you can’t make it, you die! But I’ll make sure your sister dies with you too! Got that? If you want her to die alongside you, then yeah, both of you just stay here and rot! Loud and clear?!"
Without waiting, he turned and started climbing fast.
Ten seconds passed. The crimson seawater surged again, waves clawing forward. Magnus glanced back - Emma was dragging her sister up with all her strength. Abigail shouted for her to go ahead...
Still pulling that sacrifice crap now? Really?
Magnus’s eyes burned with rage. Seeing Emma struggling, he reached into his pocket, pulled out half of Abigail’s hairpin, then scanned the other pillars. He hurled the hairpin with deadly aim. A man clinging to a pillar scread as it hit him square. He plumted into the crimson water below.
The seawater froze. Ten more precious seconds.
"Move your asses! One more second wasted and I start killing myself!"
With that extra pause, the Doyle sisters hauled themselves higher. Magnus needed them up at least halfway - six ters was the mark.
Why six ters? Because their central pillar was ten ters tall, while the four surrounding ones only reached five. When the seawater hit five ters, it’d claim more lives - then freeze again for a while...
The sea stirred once more, creeping up, licking at Emma’s heels. Abigail saw it and snapped - biting her lip, she forced herself upward, digging out every ounce of strength.
The water rose fast. Magnus had climbed to around seven ters. He looked to the other pillars - on three sides, people scread and burst into fla as they fell into the red tide. The water paused again, this ti at 3.5 ters.
Three gone. Only one pillar stayed untouched.
The man on that one - he was the sa bastard who’d been yelling directions earlier. A solid middle-aged guy.
Magnus didn’t know it yet, but that was Knuckle, the prison’s top dog. Emma and Abigail had climbed up to about six ters, just below Magnus. Beneath them, six people were still stuck on the four smaller pillars. That gave them no more than sixty seconds before the crimson seawater reached their spot.
Knuckle stood atop his pillar, body calm, no flas. Just as Magnus had guessed - he was one of the Awakened. He didn’t move, just stood there, feeling that familiar tingling rush from the day the world changed. His whole body went numb, a burning heat surged through every inch of him, and then - power. He’d hit his second awakening.
"Hurry! Keep climbing!" Magnus shouted down at the two sisters.
Aside from Knuckle, none of the six on the other pillars showed any sign of awakening. Magnus hauled himself up onto the top of the central pillar, then reached down and pulled the Doyle sisters up after him.
The top of the central pillar was wide enough - five people linking arms wouldn’t circle it. Maybe eight ters around. Once they were all on top, Magnus looked toward Knuckle again. The water kept rising. After awakening, Knuckle realized he was still trapped up there and looked a bit rattled.
Now only Knuckle and the three on Magnus’s pillar were left in the anomaly zone.
Knuckle looked up at Magnus, emotion flickering in his eyes, then slowly sat down cross-legged, eyes shut. He, like Magnus, felt it - the crimson seawater probably wouldn’t harm them now.
Sure enough, the water rose around Knuckle’s body. He didn’t scream. The water just kept climbing, but there was no reaction from him, no pain. And the seawater didn’t stop.
As it rose higher, Magnus, Emma, and Abigail all felt that streak of static lightning storm through them again. Arms, legs, spine - it hit all at once. Second awakening. All three, at the sa ti.
It only took a few seconds. Magnus was the first to open his eyes, and that’s when he saw it - on top of the central pillar, a new, smaller pillar had appeared. White, the size of an arm in thickness, like the others. At the top sat a familiar black crystal - football-sized.
It made his chest tighten. He’d seen this crystal twice before. He knew what it ant.
This ti, though, sothing felt different. The world around him slowed down, like it was stuck dragging through molasses. But Magnus could still move just fine.
He glanced down. The crimson seawater barely inched upward now. Emma and Abigail still had their eyes closed, deep in the mont.
Magnus didn’t waste a second. He stepped over to the small pillar, took a deep breath, and placed his hands on the crystal. It was cold as ever - that sharp, chilling sensation, familiar as his own heartbeat.
He gripped it tighter, and the crystal began to break down, turning into swirling black vapor that poured straight into his hands.
Once it all sunk in, Magnus held his hands up in front of his face. He needed to see - just what kind of power had this black crystal given him this ti?
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