RESURGENT-SYSTEM: Survive the Beasts

You Earned It

"Wow wow wow! Is that real? Is this a joke?" Ethan exclaimed partly excited, partly jittered, losing his composure the moment he saw the funds which was actually what he checked before the UI of Interactive blue transparent displayed screen vanished. 

Terranova: "you earned it, Ethan. And please comport yourself, you're beginning to draw attention." 

Ethan looked around and observed a good number of people chattering and staring right at him, he quickly waved at an incoming taxi and at the same time, took out his cellphone and checked his bank account balance to be sure. 

"Yes! O my gosh!" Ethan exclaimed enthusiastically clenching the fist of his left hand to express how happy he was as he entered the taxi. 

"Where to? Dickhead." The taxi driver asked after waiting and wondering why he wouldn't tell him his destination a couple of minutes after he had entered his taxi. 

"Deer Creek Diner, please." Ethan said not minding the name the guy just called him. At this point, nothing could corrupt his happiness because he had just confirmed that the $3000 USD balance was real. 

Ethan alighted with a full distended gravity of ecstasy around his cheek and a happy look in his eyes as he went straight to the eatery feeling rich because that was the first time in his entire life he was having such amount of money in his bank account. 

He felt dignified when he sat on one of the roundtable chairs and requested for a Pierogies, fried catfish and shrimp platter with a bottle of red wine immediately after a waitress approached him with a menus. She wondered who he was because she could identify the faces of the people who patronize them regularly and he's a totally new face. Deer Creek Diner happens to be the only functional eatery outside the walls of the capitol hill. 

"Gosh, this is tasty!" Ethan's vocals vibrated delightfully as he smutched a mouthful of shrimp and added a spoon of pierogi's without taking his eyes off his meal. Unkowning to him, the waitress was staring from a distance, sitting on a contemporary chair with her left side jaw resting on the palm of her hands. 

Terranova: "I think you've got an admirer, Ethan." 

Ethan's brows clunched in wonder before he lifted his face and looked around to see for himself. In half a minute, he noticed the waitress staring at him as their eyes collided, he had to bring down his face shyly again. 

"I don't think so, Terra. Maybe she's hungry. Everyone is hungry nowadays, even a cordon bleu, so, get over it." He muttered to disagree with the resurgent system. 

Terranova: "I know exactly what I am saying." 

"Knock it off, terra. I have a girlfriend already and I can't wait to see her. I just need to purchase a ticket into the Capitol Hill." Ethan asserted showing no interest at all. 

Terranova: "I wonder how much the ticket cost..."

Sighs* 

"I thought you know everything. Well, one ticket cost $5000 dollar." Ethan mumbled. 

Terranova: "uh-oh, she's on her way to you." 

"What?... Whaaah! Emmmmm." Ethan panicked and swallowed hard the bolus in his mouth as he lifted his eyes to see the waitress actually heading towards him. 

Terranova: "be cool, Ethan." 

"Hi! Aah, I hope you're enjoying the meal?" The waitress asked with a cheerful smile like sunrise on her face whilst she grabbed one side chair to sit next to him.  

Ethan first looked around to see if there was anyone else staring but the few customers were all minding their business, and so he was confident enough to talk, 

"Yeah, sure. I guess you prepared it?" He asked because she seems to be the only one in the eatery who was serving... 

"Nope. We have the kitchen over there." She said, pointing at a door close to the front desk. 

"So?" 

"Oh, my dad and my best friend, Emma. They both prepare the foods while I serve. Sometimes, Emma had to play the role of a bartender whenever customers are much. Though we barely have more than twelve people frequenting the eatery ever since the awakening that formed the alliance and brought about the segregation." She gasped and looked away briefly. 

"I see! What's your name?" Ethan asked and felt comfortable to be interacting with her. 

"Isabell Wells. And you are?" She replied with a nudge to shake his hand. 

"Ethan, Ethan Hills." He said stretching his right hand to reach out for hers. 

"Nice meeting you." She said affectionately. 

Cleared throat* "same. So, what about your mom?" Ethan asked after a moment of silence as they stared right into each others eyes. 

"About her? Ummm... She was lucky. And she forgot us sooner than we expected. We only get to see her when she comes with some members of the faction in her sect to both deliver food and also take out raw materials back to the capitol hill." She replied sad-faced. 

"Awful. What's hers? Did you get to know?" Ethan asked sympathetically. 

"They call themselves the parrhesia-dauntless. They are the faction gifted with extraordinary strength to fight. I believe that's the reason they play the role of collection and protection." She explained. 

"They are the ones protecting the capitol hill, is that it?" He asked to know more because it seems she knows about what's going on inside the capitol hill of which he was clueless about. 

"Yeah. You don't know that?" She asked as though it was strange for him to not know. She felt he was pretending until she saw the sincerity in his eyes. 

"No. I don't. All I want is to find a way to get into the D.C. United, maybe I could earn it into the Capitol Hill or better still stay there and stand a better chance of survival than outside here in the wild." 

Isabell scoffed and suppressed her laughter so she could talk sense into him because she knew he needed it... "What makes you think getting into D.C. United means you're safe? Gosh! What was he thinking... Listen, Ethan. D.C. United is like an arena designed for a game of death. The factions built it to entertain themselves every day. People who go in from among us ends up fighting in the arena against those bioactivated beasts you are trying to run from. Why do you think nobody ever comes out after going into D.C united?..."