The apocalypse: I can copy any talent

# Chapter 1: The Weakest Talent in History

The rift opened above the city at 3:14 PM on a Tuesday.

By 3:20, I was already the joke of Sector 7.

"COPY?" Bo Hai laughed so hard he nearly collapsed against the shelter wall. "That's it? You touch something and copy it at *ten percent*?"

Thirty survivors crowded the concrete bunker. Every single one stared at the fading blue light still glowing from my palm.

"Show us again," someone yelled from the back. "Copy something impressive this time."

I didn't answer.

My hands wouldn't stop shaking. Twenty minutes ago, the sky had split open. A monster made of teeth and too many joints crawled out of nothing. Officer Reyes got torn in half trying to hold the door.

I'd touched his sidearm on the way in. Panic. Grabbing for anything.

**[SYSTEM: Talent Detected - Marksmanship]**

**[Copy Successful - Efficiency: 10%]**

**[Slot 1/3 Occupied]**

Ten percent of a dead cop's aim. My grand Awakening.

"Copy," Bo Hai repeated, savoring the word like it offended him personally. He'd Awakened Iron Skin two hours ago and already appointed himself king of our shelter corner. "So if you touched me, you'd be ten percent as tough?"

"That's generally how percentages work."

A few people laughed. Not with me.

"Useless." He turned his back. "Stay against the wall, Copy-boy. Don't die where I have to look at it."

---

My name is Zhang Wei.

Six hours ago, I was a warehouse inventory clerk with a bad knee and worse credit.

Now I was the weakest Awakened in a shelter full of people who'd rolled actual talents. Iron Skin. Fireball. Enhanced Speed. One guy could talk to dogs-honestly more useful than what I got.

**[SYSTEM: Host Status - Talent: COPY]**

**[Current Slots: 1/3]**

**[Slot 1: Marksmanship (10%)]**

**[Note: Copy efficiency increases with training, repetition, and willpower.]**

"Willpower," I muttered. "So if I just believe hard enough, I stop being useless?"

**[SYSTEM: Correct assessment. Though phrased with unnecessary sarcasm.]**

I nearly dropped the sidearm. "You can hear that?"

**[SYSTEM: Always listening. It is my entire function.]**

I decided right then that I hated the System.

---

The screaming started an hour later.

Not the panicked kind-we'd had plenty of that. This was sharper. Closer.

"They're inside the perimeter!" Someone's voice cracked from the outer checkpoint, fear cutting through every conversation at once. "The mutants are inside the fence-"

Bo Hai moved before the sentence finished. Iron Skin hardened across his forearms in visible grey plates. He shouldered past slower survivors toward the door, confident in his new invincibility.

I grabbed the dead man's pistol and followed.

Staying in a room full of people who thought I was useless felt more dangerous than running toward whatever was trying to eat us.

---

The checkpoint was chaos.

Two mutated dogs-if you could still call them dogs-all wrong angles and too many teeth. They'd breached the barricade. Guards were falling.

"Fireball!" someone screamed.

Orange light caught one creature mid-lunge. It shrieked backward, burning fur filling the air.

The second turned toward the girl who'd cast it. Young. Maybe twenty. Her hands still glowed with unspent flame-but she was out of energy.

"Move!"

I raised the dead man's gun. Aimed with ten percent of a talent that belonged to someone who'd never use it again.

Fired.

The shot caught the creature in the shoulder instead of the skull. It shrieked, staggered-and turned toward me.

"That was either brave or stupid," the fire-girl breathed, scrambling back.

"Ask me again in ten seconds."

**[SYSTEM: Host has diverted a Class-1 Mutant's aggression. Reckless. Effective. Do not make it a habit.]**

The creature lunged.

I didn't have Iron Skin. Didn't have Enhanced Speed. I had ten percent of a dead man's aim and four seconds.

Two shots. First missed completely. Second caught it between the eyes.

The thing dropped mid-leap. Slid to a stop close enough that I smelled burnt fur and rotted meat.

Silence.

"Huh." Bo Hai's voice came from somewhere behind me, annoyed I was still alive. "Lucky shot, Copy-boy."

"Ten percent lucky." I muttered.

My hands shook so hard I nearly dropped the gun.

**[SYSTEM: Talent Efficiency Increased - Marksmanship: 10% → 14%]**

**[Reason: Combat application. Host demonstrated willingness to act despite low power.]**

I stared at the blue text.

For the first time since the rift opened, something other than dread moved through my chest.

*It goes up.*

"You're the Copy talent." The fire-girl appeared at my elbow. Up close she looked younger, dark hair in a hasty knot, hands still warm from her spell. "I'm Mei. You saved my life."

"I panicked and got lucky."

"You panicked, got lucky, and hit a moving target twice while it was trying to kill you." She raised an eyebrow. "I've seen Awakened with better talents freeze up doing less."

"Careful," I said. "Compliments go to my head. Rough day."

A surprised laugh escaped her, quickly swallowed-like she wasn't sure she was allowed to laugh yet, this soon after watching people die.

"For what it's worth," she said, quieter now, "Bo Hai's an idiot. Ten percent of a good talent, growing every time you use it, sounds better than a hundred percent of Iron Skin that never gets stronger."

I hadn't thought of it that way.

**[SYSTEM: Correct assessment. Host possesses the only Talent in this shelter with no theoretical ceiling. Recommend Host stop feeling sorry for himself and start training.]**

"You too?" I muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing. Talking to myself."

---

The shelter commander called an emergency meeting an hour later.

Survivors packed shoulder to shoulder in the main hall. Exhausted. Scared. Still smelling of smoke and blood.

"The rifts aren't closing." Commander Osei stood on an overturned crate. "Three more have opened across the city in the last two hours. This isn't contained. This is the start of something we don't have a name for yet."

Murmurs rippled. Someone near the back started crying.

I scanned the room out of habit-old warehouse instinct, count the exits, count the threats. My eyes landed on a woman near the commander's crate who hadn't spoken yet.

Thirty. Sharp-eyed. Tactical gear too professional for civilian. Watching the crowd with flat calculation, measuring exactly how much use each person might be.

Her eyes found mine.

Lingered half a second longer than anyone else's had all day.

"We need every Awakened talent catalogued," Osei continued. "Combat capacity first. I want to know exactly what we're working with."

"That won't take long for some of us." Bo Hai's voice carried, smirk thrown in my direction. "Copy-boy's running at ten percent of a dead man's aim. Real game-changer."

Laughter rippled through the hall.

My face heated-but before I could answer, the sharp-eyed woman spoke.

"Ten percent." Her voice carried easily, flat, cutting through the laughter without effort. "And climbing. Marksmanship, wasn't it? Fourteen percent after a single engagement."

The laughter died.

"That's a four percent gain off one fight." She was talking to herself now, calculating something behind her eyes. "Compound that over a hundred fights. A thousand." Her gaze pinned me. "Tell me, Copy-boy-what's your talent's efficiency cap?"

**[SYSTEM: Unknown. No recorded upper limit for Talent: COPY.]**

I didn't say it out loud. Something in my face must have given me away anyway.

The woman's expression shifted-sharpened-into something that looked less like curiosity and more like *want*.

"Commander." She didn't look away from me. "I'd like to requisition this one for the scouting team."

"He's a ten percent Marksman." Osei frowned. "We need combat capacity, not liabilities-"

"He's not ten percent of anything." The woman cut her off. "He's the only person in this room whose power has no ceiling. Everyone else peaked the moment they Awakened. This one's still climbing."

The whole hall went quiet.

Thirty survivors stared at me with expressions that had shifted from mockery to something far more unsettling-the particular attention people pay to something they dismissed too soon.

**[SYSTEM: New Faction Interest Detected. Recommend Host proceed with caution.]**

"Caution." I muttered, as the sharp-eyed woman stepped off the crate and walked toward me through the parting crowd. "Sure. I'll get right on that."

Behind her, Bo Hai's smirk had curdled into something that looked a lot more like worry.

I realized, with a lurch that had nothing to do with the monsters outside, that surviving the rift might be the easy part.

**[SYSTEM: New Quest Available]**

**[Join the Scouting Team: Y/N]**

**[Reward: Access to Class-2 Talent sources. Increased survival probability: 23%.]**

**[Warning: Faction politics detected. Trust no one.]**

The woman stopped in front of me. Close enough that I could see the faint scars along her jaw, the calluses on her fingers.

"Name's Han Xue," she said. "I lead the forward scouts. You come with me, you'll see more combat in a week than most see in a year."

"And if I say no?"

"You won't." She smiled-thin, not friendly. "Because you just realized your power grows. And you're already hungry for more."

She wasn't wrong.

Behind her, Bo Hai was still staring, face twisted with something that looked like fear. The mighty Iron Skin user, suddenly worried that the joke might stop being funny.

Mei caught my eye from across the room. Gave me a small nod.

*Go,* her expression said. *Be something more.*

**[SYSTEM: Decision Required]**

I looked at Han Xue. Looked at Bo Hai. Looked at the cracked ceiling that had opened into hell.

"Fine," I said. "When do we leave?"

Han Xue's smile widened. "Now."

She turned and walked toward the exit-and I followed, because staying here had never really been an option.

Behind us, the shelter's survivors watched in silence.

None of them knew they'd just watched the weakest Awakened in Sector 7 walk out the door.

None of them knew what he'd become.

**[SYSTEM: Welcome to the tutorial, Host. Try not to die.]**

---

## End of Chapter 1

# Chapter 2: The Scouting Team's Invitation

"Name's Han Xue." The sharp-eyed woman stopped close enough that I had to tilt my head back to hold her gaze. "I run scouting and recon for this shelter. As of thirty seconds ago, so do you."

"Nobody asked me if I wanted the job."

"Nobody asks the guy with an uncapped talent anything." Han Xue's smile didn't reach her eyes. "They just recruit him before somebody smarter does."

Behind her, Mei raised a hand like she was back in school. "If he's in, I'm in. He kept me from becoming dog food two hours ago. I'd like to return the favor."

Han Xue's eyes flicked to Mei, assessing. Something in her expression eased-barely. "Fireball talent, level two. Decent control under pressure. Fine. Both of you. Briefing in ten minutes. Gear up."

"Wait-"

"Ten minutes, Copy-boy." Han Xue walked away without looking back. "Clock's running."

**[SYSTEM: Faction Alliance Established - Scouting Team (Han Xue)]**

**[Note: Alliances with stronger Awakened increase survival probability by 340%.]**

"You could've mentioned that part before she walked off," I muttered.

**[SYSTEM: I could have. Watching you flounder is occasionally entertaining.]**

I decided once again that I hated the System.

---

The gap in the outer fence was barely wider than a doorway. Reinforced with scavenged rebar and a padlock that looked like it was doing most of the actual work.

Beyond it: the city.

Or what used to be the city. Streets cracked open where smaller rifts had bled violet light before sealing themselves shut. Storefronts dark. An ambient wrongness in the air that hadn't been there a week ago.

"Rule one." Han Xue checked the strap on her combat knife with the ease of long habit. "Anything bigger than a car? We run."

"Rule two-"

"Anything smaller than a car, we assess before we engage."

"Rule three-"

"Let me guess." I kept my voice flat. "Don't die."

"Rule three is don't get *me* killed." Han Xue's eyes were ice. "Your survival is a nice bonus."

Mei snorted quietly beside me. "She's warmer once you get to know her."

"Is she?"

"No." Mei shook her head. "But it's nice to hope."

We moved through the ruined streets in a loose triangle. Han Xue on point. Mei and I trailing at angles she'd assigned without explanation.

Twenty minutes in, we found our first target.

A mutated stray, mid-sized, faster than any dog had a right to be. Prowling a collapsed convenience store for scraps.

"Class-one." Han Xue's voice barely carried. "Good training target. Copy-boy-you're up. Try not to embarrass the team."

I raised the dead cop's pistol. Breathed the way the copied instinct told me to breathe. Fired.

The round caught the creature in the shoulder before it finished turning.

It shrieked. Staggered-then lunged not at me, but at the nearest moving target.

Mei.

Her Fireball caught it at close range. The creature dropped in a burst of singed fur and smoke.

Han Xue watched the whole exchange with no visible reaction. Her version of approval, I was learning.

"Adequate." She gestured at the corpse. "Copy-boy, get close. I want to see if there's anything worth taking off it."

---

The creature's corpse smoked faintly on cracked pavement. I crouched beside it out of morbid curiosity, resting a hand against its foreleg.

**[SYSTEM: Talent Detected - Enhanced Agility]**

**[Copy Successful - Efficiency: 10%]**

**[Slot 2/3 Occupied]**

I nearly fell backward. "Wait-I can copy from *animals*?"

"You didn't know that?" Han Xue's eyebrows rose slightly-the most surprise I'd seen from her yet. "Copy talents are rare. Most assume they only work on other Awakened. If yours works on mutants too..." She trailed off, calculating behind her eyes. "That's a much bigger deal than I estimated."

"Great." I flexed my hand. Something in my legs felt different-not dramatically, not yet, but present. Like a held breath I hadn't known I was holding until it released. "More people wanting to own me. Exactly what I was hoping for."

**[SYSTEM: Two active Talent slots occupied. Marksmanship 14%. Enhanced Agility 10%. Recommend field-testing Agility before relying on it in combat.]**

Ten percent of a mutated stray's speed wasn't nothing.

It might, someday, be everything.

---

Three streets deeper into the ruins, Han Xue crouched at a corner scanning for movement.

The ambush hit.

Not mutants.

People.

"Well, well." Bo Hai's voice carried from the mouth of an alley. Iron Skin plated across his forearms. Flanked by two other shelter survivors I recognized from the bunk rows-opportunists who'd figured out fast that the old rules didn't apply anymore. "Heard the great Han Xue took Copy-boy scouting. Figured I'd come see what the fuss is about."

"This isn't your patrol route." Han Xue's hand drifted toward her knife. "Turn around."

"Funny thing about patrol routes." Bo Hai's grin made my stomach drop. "Commander Osei doesn't actually know you took her best scout and a fresh Awakened outside the wall without full clearance, does she? I could mention it. Or..." He shrugged, easy and cruel. "I could just settle things myself. Out here. Where nobody's watching."

"You're threatening us over a *grudge*?" Mei's voice cracked with incredulity.

"I'm settling a score." Bo Hai's eyes locked on me. "Copy-boy made me look stupid in front of the whole shelter. I don't forget that kind of thing."

Behind him, something large shifted in the ruined store at the alley's end. Drawn by raised voices and the smell of the earlier kill.

Bo Hai didn't notice.

I did.

"There's something behind you," I said.

"Nice try." Bo Hai stepped forward, plated fist rising. "Save the tricks for someone who-"

The mutant came through the storefront's broken window in a spray of glass and rusted shelving. Twice the size of the stray we'd downed earlier. Jaws already wide.

It wasn't aiming for Bo Hai.

His two flanking allies scattered the instant the glass shattered. They left him standing closest to the thing's charge, his smug expression only half-collapsed into panic.

"Move!" Han Xue shouted, knife already out. Too far. Too slow.

Mei's Fireball needed half a second of charge time she didn't have.

I didn't think. I *ran*.

Copied Agility answered a call I'd never tested. Legs moved faster than they had any business moving. I closed the gap between myself and Bo Hai in a blur that startled even me.

Shoved him sideways-hard enough that the mutant's jaws closed on empty air instead of his throat.

We went down together in a tangle of limbs. I twisted. Raised the dead cop's aim on pure adrenaline. Put three rounds into the creature's exposed throat before it could recover its lunge.

It crashed down half a foot from where Bo Hai lay.

He stared up at me wide-eyed. Like he was seeing me-actually seeing me-for the first time since the rift opened.

**[SYSTEM: Combat Application Confirmed - Enhanced Agility Efficiency Increased: 10% → 13%]**

**[Marksmanship Efficiency Increased: 14% → 17%]**

**[Note: Host has now saved the life of an antagonist. Recommend evaluating whether this was strategically necessary or simply a character flaw.]**

"Little of both," I muttered, breathing hard. Still straddling the space between Bo Hai and the smoking mutant corpse.

Bo Hai scrambled backward. Iron Skin plates retracted as the adrenaline drained. For once, no smirk anywhere on his face.

"You-" His voice cracked. "You just saved my life."

"Don't read too much into it." I stood, offering a hand he didn't take. "Mostly I just didn't want to explain to Commander Osei why I let you die on an unauthorized scouting trip."

Han Xue crossed the alley at an unhurried pace. Sheathed her knife. Looked at the mutant corpse, then at me, with an expression that had fully abandoned its earlier flatness.

"Two Talent slots active." She shook her head, almost to herself. "One from a corpse. One from a live mutant mid-combat. Both improving under pressure in real time." A pause. "Command was right to worry about wasted potential. They just picked the wrong direction to worry in."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning..." Han Xue's mouth curved-the first genuine smile I'd seen from her. "You just became valuable, Zhang Wei. And people in this new world do very inconvenient things to protect valuable assets."

Behind her, Bo Hai was still staring at me on the ground.

Past the fear, past the humiliation, something else was surfacing in his expression.

Calculation.

I filed that away next to the growing pile of things about this new world that made my skin crawl.

**[SYSTEM: Host Status Update]**

**[Slots: 2/3 Occupied]**

**[Marksmanship: 17% ↑]**

**[Enhanced Agility: 13% ↑]**

**[Warning: Faction tensions escalating. Recommend Host maintain strategic ambiguity regarding Talent limitations.]**

We walked back to the shelter in silence. Han Xue on point. Mei watching our six. Me somewhere in between, replaying the fight in my head, feeling the new efficiency settling into my muscles like something that might actually keep me alive.

Behind us, the ruined city hummed with the low, wrong vibration of the rifts.

Ahead, the shelter gates opened to admit us-and Commander Osei was already waiting.

---

## End of Chapter 2

# Chapter 3: The Third Slot

Bo Hai didn't thank me. I hadn't expected him to.

What I hadn't expected was for him to fall in step beside me on the walk back to the shelter. Iron Skin fully retracted. Voice pitched low enough that Han Xue and Mei couldn't hear.

"This doesn't make us friends," he muttered.

"Wasn't under that impression."

"But I owe you." He said it like the words tasted bad. Like admitting anything to me physically hurt. "Watch your back around Han Xue. She didn't recruit you out of kindness. Command's been quietly building a file on every uncapped or unusual talent in this shelter since the second rift opened. You're not a teammate to her. You're an investment."

I filed that away next to the growing pile of things that made my skin crawl. "Why tell me?"

"Because if Command decides you're too valuable to risk in the field..." Bo Hai's jaw tightened. "They lock you in a lab instead. I've seen it happen. Kid two shelters over. Uncapped Regeneration talent. Haven't seen him outside a testing room since." He shrugged, already peeling off toward his own bunk row. "Debt paid. Do what you want with it."

**[SYSTEM: New Information Logged - Potential Faction Risk: Shelter Command]**

**[Recommend Host proceed with strategic caution regarding talent disclosure]**

"You could've warned me about that before I agreed to scouting duty," I muttered, alone in the corridor now.

**[SYSTEM: I could have. Where would the character growth be in that?]**

"I'm starting to think you enjoy this."

**[SYSTEM: I am a System. I do not enjoy things. I merely note, with mild interest, that Host's suffering correlates strongly with Talent Efficiency growth.]**

I decided the System and I had a complicated relationship.

And left it at that.

---

Two days later, a new rift tore open four blocks from the shelter's perimeter.

Smaller than the first. Violet light bleeding through a crack in the middle of what used to be a parking garage. Close enough that Command couldn't ignore it.

"Recon only." Han Xue checked her gear at the fence gap. "We assess the rift's stability. Note what's coming through. Get out. No engagement unless engagement finds us first."

"When does it ever not find us first?" Mei asked, not really joking.

"Optimism, Mei. Try it sometime."

---

The garage, when we reached it, was worse than I'd braced for.

The rift itself pulsed faintly in the gloom of the collapsed lower level. Violet light licked across concrete in slow, wrong rhythms. Crouched near its edge, feeding on something I didn't look at too closely, was a creature unlike anything we'd faced yet.

Tall. Wrong-jointed. Skin like wet stone. Where its eyes should have been, only smooth unbroken grey.

"Class-two." Han Xue went utterly still. "That's above our authorization. We observe and withdraw. Nobody move-"

The creature's head snapped toward us anyway. Grey. Eyeless. Somehow, impossibly, *aware*.

"Or it finds us first." Mei's voice was grim. "Called it."

---

It came at us fast.

Faster than the stray. Faster than the mutant that had nearly taken Bo Hai's throat.

Han Xue's knife found its flank in a strike that should have staggered anything we'd fought so far. The creature didn't even slow.

"Fireball!" Mei's blast caught it dead center. Scorched stone-grey flesh.

It kept coming. Backhanded Han Xue into a concrete pillar hard enough that she crumpled and didn't immediately rise.

"Han!" I was already moving.

Copied Agility surged me forward faster than I'd managed even against Bo Hai's mutant. I put myself between the creature and Han Xue's still body. Raised the dead cop's aim.

Fired. Once. Twice. Three times. Center mass, exactly the way seventeen percent of a stranger's training told me to.

The creature barely flinched. Grey stone-flesh absorbed the damage like it was nothing more than an inconvenience.

**[SYSTEM: Warning - Current Talent efficiency insufficient for Class-2 engagement. Recommend immediate withdrawal.]**

"Little busy!" I backpedaled as the creature's too-long arm swept the space where I'd been standing.

Mei dragged Han Xue back toward the garage entrance. Fire building in her free hand for another cast.

I found myself alone between them and eight feet of grey, eyeless hunger.

I did the only thing I could think of.

I lunged. Copied Agility carried me low and fast beneath its next swing. I slammed my palm flat against its stone-wet flank as I passed.

**[SYSTEM: Talent Detected - Stoneform]**

**[Copy Successful - Efficiency: 6%]**

**[WARNING: Slot Capacity Exceeded. Host may only sustain 3 Talents simultaneously.]**

**[Select Talent to discard, or accept Willpower Override to expand capacity temporarily.]**

Six percent stone skin wasn't going to save me. Discarding Marksmanship or Agility mid-fight definitely wasn't going to save me.

"Override." I snarled it, no idea what it would cost, no time left to care. "Do it. Now."

**[SYSTEM: Willpower Override Accepted.]**

**[WARNING: Overriding slot capacity draws directly against Host's stamina and lifespan. Proceed with extreme caution.]**

**[SLOT 3/3 FILLED - Stoneform (6%). Temporary 4th Slot Unlocked via Override.]**

Grey crept faintly across my forearm where I'd braced against the creature's blow. Thin. Uneven. Nothing like real Stoneform.

But enough. Barely enough.

Its next strike didn't shatter the bone beneath it the way it should have.

The creature reared back, confused for half a second by the fact that I hadn't simply broken in half. That half-second was all Mei needed.

Her second Fireball caught it square in its grey, eyeless face at point-blank range. This time it staggered. Shrieked.

And finally, finally collapsed.

---

Silence dropped over the ruined garage.

My arm throbbed where the borrowed stone was already fading. Something in my chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with the fight.

**[SYSTEM: Class-2 Threat Neutralized]**

**[Combined efficiency gains: Marksmanship 17% → 21%. Enhanced Agility 13% → 18%. Stoneform 6% → 9%.]**

**[Willpower Override cost logged. Host has expended six months of natural lifespan.]**

I stared at that last line for a long moment.

The ache in my chest sharpened into something closer to dread.

"Six months." I said it quietly. To no one. To the ruined garage. To whatever cruel mathematics had decided that was a fair price. "You couldn't have warned me about that part before I said yes?"

Mei, still catching her breath a few feet away, looked over sharply. "Before you said yes to *what?*"

I hadn't meant to say that out loud.

**[SYSTEM: Lifespan Remaining: 47 Years, 6 Months (Estimated)]**

**[Note: Host's long-term survival now directly tied to managing Willpower Override usage. Recommend prioritizing Talent efficiency growth to minimize future reliance on Override.]**

**[Additional Note: The System does not apologize for necessary sacrifices.]**

"We need to move." Han Xue was on her feet, staggering but upright, blood trickling from a gash on her temple. "That shriek probably drew half the Class-ones in a five-block radius. We're not sticking around to-"

She stopped.

Stared past me, into the deepening violet glow of the rift behind the fallen creature.

Something was moving in it. Something large.

"Run." Han Xue's voice was flat. Commanding. Utterly without hope. "Now. Both of you. Don't look back. Don't stop."

I looked anyway.

Because that was who I was now. The idiot who kept looking. The one who needed to know.

And what I saw-what rose from the rift's depths as the violet light swelled to blinding-made the ache in my chest feel like nothing at all.

**[SYSTEM: WARNING - Class-3 Entity Detected. Imminent Threat Level: EXTINCTION.]**

**[Current Survival Probability: 0.3%]**

**[Recommend Host make peace with any lingering attachments.]**

The thing that emerged had too many eyes.

And every single one of them was looking directly at me.

---

## End of Chapter 3