Bleeding Brilliance Chapter 2: The Threat And The Over Looming Death

Chapter 2: The threat and the over looming death(Edited)

The train Cyril was riding was called "East-West Express." This train operated from the Phania City to the Autumn City. The train's speed was around 200 Km/h.

It had around 20 compartments; 15 for pa.s.sengers and 5 for other purposes. The last three were for merchandise. The first two were restricted for pa.s.sengers and were only accessible by the staffs. Cyril was in the 17th compartment.

The fear of death overwhelmed him. His whole body began to shake. He felt suffocated. He couldn't think of anything for a moment as his mind went blank.

'No, I won't die. My luck is one. I won't die. I won't die.' Cyril comforted himself.

He started taking long breaths to calm his mind as he gradually understood he couldn't find any solution being anxious and scared. Finally, Cyril calmed down and also his body stopped shaking.

Looking around the compartment, Cyril began to think of the causes that could result in such ma.s.sive deaths.

'The threat could be a natural disaster like an earthquake. System failure or colliding with another train is also possible. Other possibilities could be hijacking or bombing.'

'No! Just thinking mindlessly like this will only waste time. I have to think of other ways to identify the threat. The situation that could lead to the death of so many people, what could it be? What? What? WHAT?'

His eyes started looking everywhere searching for something. The more he looked around, the more anxious he became.

'Death could occur any second. Thus, the time is limited… Sigh! Who am I kidding? I don't have any information or clue. I am totally hopeless.'

Countless thoughts came into his mind. Cyril started to rack his brain even more as the fear of death began to overwhelm his whole existence.

'No! Speculating like this won't work. I am overthinking. I only need to think about the threats at the moment. But many unsorted thoughts are automatically coming in my mind. Maybe this is because of fear that I can't think straight.'

'What should I do to think clearly? To concentrate on one thing? To clear my mind of all the messy thoughts?... Got it! Maybe I will try writing.'

With this thought, Cyril took out his small notepad from the pocket and started listing the threats. While writing, Cyril noticed that his hands were shaking.

He consoled himself while soliloquizing, "My luck is 1", so I won't die, and I do not need to be afraid. However, another thought occupied his mind afterward, 'I may not end up dead, but after the so-called incident, me losing hands, legs, or any other body parts would be considered a luxury and I would regard that as best case. Worst case scenario would be falling into a coma or getting my brain damaged.'

As he shook my head, Cyril's lips flashed up a light mocking smile.

'I would rather accept death than ending up like that.'

Raising his hands up, Cyril slapped himself hard. 'I won't die nor will anything bad happen. Calm down, Cyril. Nothing bad will happen.'

Shaking his head with force, Cyril tried to empty his mind. He turned his gaze toward the other people in the compartment and started to observe them.

He noticed some were sleeping while some were fiddling with their phones. He saw girls were taking selfies with various poses. Some were reading newspapers while some were talking with other people. He also noticed a few young couples flirting with each other. Whatever they were doing, they all had smiles on their faces.

'These people are so engrossed in their own bubbles. They don't know that at any moment their whole world will vanish. They will all die. Poof! Gone.'

Cyril felt they were somewhat fortunate as they wouldn't have to worry about their death.

'When death comes, they wouldn't even feel it.'

Finding his mind starting to think about dying again, he focused his attention on the notepad and pondered about the listed threats.

'No, it can't be an earthquake. When it would come, it would take everyone's life. Everyone…huh... Everybody.'

Cyril's eyes glowed for a moment as he realized something. "Yes, that's it!" Cyril exclaimed.

'I finally found a way to identify the threat. I had only checked the people from my compartment only. To get more clues, I need to check people of other compartments too.'

As Cyril walked toward the gla.s.s door, it automatically opened. Cyril made his way to the 16th compartment.

'If I start staring at people to find out their LUCK, my actions could alert the so-called threat. I need to be discreet. Even if that didn't happen, people might feel uncomfortable or might find me suspicious if I start staring at people one by one.'

Being wary, Cyril wore gla.s.ses. It was a dark sungla.s.ses. This way Cyril wasn't afraid of alerting others when he checked others' LUCK.

After that, he started to check the LUCK of the people of the 16th compartment one by one. Then he moved to the 15th, 14th, 13th…..

During this process, Cyril pretended to tie his laces or pick something up from the ground or looking for something or someone or asking for something with other people while chatting with them.

In this way, he reached the 3rd compartment then returned to his seat in the 17th compartment with a heavy heart. This whole process took him around an hour and a half.

Cyril felt proud of his acting abilities. Some people and the staffs of the train were curious about his actions. However, he didn't attract too much attention.

While some were somewhat interested in why he was wearing sungla.s.ses inside a train, they didn't overthink about it as people have seen all kinds of weird action and as to what Cyril was doing, they found it less weird compared to others.

Taking his gla.s.ses off, Cyril started to proceed through the conclusions inside his mind.

'Finally, I checked all of the people in the train. Their LUCK was in the range of normal. It means nothing was going to happen to them. Then only the people of the 17th compartment are going to die.'

Taking out the notepad, he crossed the earthquake and kept wondering about other threats.

'Natural disaster can't be this discriminating- only to kill the pa.s.sengers of the 17th compartment. This narrows my list of threats to… d.a.m.n! Someone is plotting. Guns and bombs are possibilities. I need to look at the equipment of the people here to see if they have guns or bombs or something that could cla.s.sify as the threat.'

Cyril again started checking the information of the people in his compartment to check their "Equipment." Before Cyril had looked at their information many times, however at the beginning, Cyril only paid attention to their level and LUCK. This time he started checking all of the pieces of information like "Equipment," "Profession," "Details" and "Current State" of all the people of the 17th compartment more carefully as to not miss any clues that might be related to the future death incident.

However, Cyril was soon disappointed. He didn't find any suspicious types of equipment or person.

'Argh! This is really frustrating! Nothing at all. But if there's a bomb already planted, then I wouldn't be able to find it. Chances of me surviving exist, but I don't want to lose any of my body parts or suffer from major injuries. Sigh, I wish I had better LUCK.'

Cyril opened his eyes wide as he realized something.

'Wait! I think there was another person beside me who was not going to die. Maybe with him, I could get some clues. Hmm? I didn't find him while checking a while ago. Did I miss him? I need to check again.'

Cyril remembered there was another one in the compartment who had LUCK lower than 10- it was 9. So there was a good chance he would suffer fewer injuries. That person luck was indeed quite good.

No, in fact, it was excellent.

Of all the people, only that person was going to survive with minor injuries.

As Cyril continued to look, soon he found that person. Cyril noticed something odd about this person.

'I am getting a strange vibe from this person. I feel that this person is here but at the same time absent. Initially, I didn't see him when I was checking everyone's level. But when I checked everybody's LUCK, I could see his LUCK, but when checking all the information again, he seemed to have disappeared. So strange!'

However, Cyril shook this thought off his mind. 'He might have gone to the washroom. I think the fear of death has messed with my mind. Is it even possible for someone to be and at the same time not be? Argh! I need to gather my thoughts and not waste any more time.'

Cyril could only see the back of that person. He was sitting near the end of the compartment. He was wearing a light blue hoodie, and it was difficult to figure out his age. Cyril glared at the person, and the Screen materialized in front of his eyes.

You have gained some information about the target!

##############ERROR##################

Warning! Information cannot be calculated correctly.

Name: ??Allen ??

Age: ??

Level: 2??1??

Profession: ??a.s.sa.s.sin

STRENGTH: ?? INTELLIGENCE: 68

DEXTERITY: ?? CHARM: 90

LUCK: 9?? WEALTH: 70

KINDNESS: 10 HONESTY: 5

Status: Injured( STR, DEX fall by ??)

Equipment: ?? Dagger, ??, ??

Details: Dead people are her only friends. Be cautious around her. A single wrong word will cost your life.

Current state: Extremely annoyed by the stare

As Cyril saw the information, feelings such as surprise, fear, and curiosity developed inside him together at the same time.

'Error? This had never happened before? What caused this? And so many question marks!!. LEVEL 2?' As Cyril started reading the information, he was surprised by the "error" and "?" nevertheless those didn't occupy his mind for long as something else stole his full attention.

As he saw the level, unknowingly a small smile appeared in his face. Cyril had previously thought no one could ever reach more than level 1, but now, he found it was possible. This made him feel joy. Cyril also found many new, unknown and extremely perplexing information.

"Oh! So many new things. Oh! This person is a girl, and her name is Allen and a…...an a.s.sa.s.sin. WOAH! Also, why are there so many question marks? All these things are new. I need to figure out these things."Cyril mumbled curiously and started pondering about the newly obtained info. "Wait! Why it's sometimes showing level 1 and sometimes level 2? It keeps changing from 1 to 2 and 2 to 1. Is it because of the Error. So Strange."

"It's saying she is annoyed by the stare. Is it talking about my staring?--COUGH?" As Cyril was reading the information and pondering, he had an impulse to cough.

He moved his arms and coughed on his upper sleeve as he didn't have any tissue. As he coughed, a red hot liquid came out of his mouth. Cyril got confused first and later realized it was his blood. A short moment later, a feeling of suffocation and weakness started to spread all over his body.

Cyril tried to move but he couldn't. Cyril felt something stuck around his chest. As he turned his eyes downwards, he saw a small knife into his chest. Blood was flowing slowly from there. 'Ah! What happened? I didn't even feel anything?' Cyril thought as he started feeling pain around the chest.

Ahhhhhh!

Cyril heard someone scream suddenly. He turned his gaze towards where the scream was coming from when he saw a girl looking at him with fear in her eyes while screaming. Next thing, he saw the girl's head, with her mouth opened, rolled on the ground.

"What the-"

Then he saw the man who was sitting next to the girl who just lost her head was about to say something but got stabbed in the neck by a similar dagger that was stuck in his chest.

More and more people of the 17th compartment started to notice. As they started making noises, more and more lives got reaped. Cyril could see the blood flowing from the people's neck, chest, and heads, but he couldn't see who did it. Those people could do nothing as death's claws extended towards them and ended their lives.

Name: Cyril Silver

Age: 18

Level: 1

Profession: Student, Author

STRENGTH: 1.2 INTELLIGENCE: 60

DEXTERITY: 1.3 CHARM: 30

LUCK: 1 WEALTH: 10

KINDNESS: 68 HONESTY: 73

Status: Severely Injured

Equipment: Pen, Mobile, $106, Notepad, gla.s.ses

Details: A very simple boy struggling to write a good story. He can be your good friend.

Current state: Extremely Anxious, Scared