Chester was sure, at this point, that only pure luck was keeping him alive. It wasn't merely all the murderous monsters that made him think he should've died long before now; he was firmly convinced that his heart should have given out, with all the hammering it was doing. It was pounding so hard he worried it would burst. He could physically feel each pulse in his chest, like it was growing to twice its usual size every time it beat.

And that wasn't even getting into the dizziness that seemed to hit him every other step. In the past, they'd precluded a fainting spell. Now, the superpower that had grafted itself onto his soul without permission kept him conscious despite his certainty he wasn't getting enough oxygen.

All this just for the mere anticipation of putting attention on himself. No one was even looking at him right now. He was at the back of the group as they made their way down a dark corridor that resembled the emptied interior of an endless bus with its windows greyed out, as was his habit, in spite of his system's apparent dislike of his shyness. Every moment he remained out of the spotlight, so to speak, his points ticked down a little more. Each loss hit him like a dagger to the gut, and he urged himself over and over to speak up and get someone's eyes on him. It would eventually hit the negatives if he allowed this to go on.

But he couldn't. It was like a physical blockage appeared in his throat whenever he tried. He'd inhale as if to speak, only for the exhale to get stuck, trapping whatever words he'd intended to speak with it. Only when he'd resolved to give up on speaking did the breath finally escape, sounding like a sigh.

I've been doing so well, too, he thought, trying to swallow the lump back down. It seemed he'd finally reached his limit.

The sad thing was, he really had been doing well, by his standards. Leaving aside the flashy Spells that drew every monster in an absurd radius to him, and powered him up the more attention he had on him, he was pretty sure he'd spoke more in the last two days than the last two weeks.

But now, the problem was back. He'd never received a diagnosis for it, couldn't even bring himself to go to the doctors and admit something was wrong, so couldn't put a name to whatever the hell happened to him in times like these. He didn't know why it came or what caused it, but suddenly the thought of anyone looking at him made him want to scratch his skin off and rip out his muscles and crush away his bones. He couldn't stand the thought of someone perceiving his existence.

Luckily, everyone's attention was currently on John, at the head of the group. There were no eyes for Chester when John deigned to involve himself. He was moving strangely, stop-start, turning his head from side to side to watch things only his eerie glowing eyes could see.

"What is it, lad?" Doug asked. His voice was odd, like it couldn't decide whether it was the deep bass of a young man or the reedy rasp of an old man far past his prime. The rest of Doug's body was similar, with his impressive muscles wrapped up in liver-spotted skin. Chester couldn't imagine walking around in swimming shorts like that. The very thought was mortifying.

"The monsters really are avoiding our route, now," John murmured. The black skull on the back of his red leather jacket seemed to stare Chester right in the eyes, judging him, and he had to look away. "There's… hundreds of them," John continued. "Blues, greens, yellows. 100 to 10 to 1 ratio, like with the portals back there. They're just appearing from nowhere. Spawning. Then moving without hesitation the moment they arrive, heading towards where they're being assigned. Some kind of telepathy? Is the kraken controlling them? If so, is it always controlling them, even when we fight?"

The guy was entirely talking to himself at this point, his questions rhetorical. Not like anyone had any answers to those questions anyway; John had by far the highest capability to gather information on such things. Chester thought about it anyway, with zero intention of actually answering aloud. Not that he'd be able to get the words out.

It seemed clear, after everything, that the portals were the source of the monsters. Or, at least, a source. With the amount of monsters they'd seen running around, there'd have to be hundreds of portal worlds like the bus depot all around London. Maybe they were all being made in places like this, and the buses and trains were meant to ferry them around to different locations. He didn't think it likely that all the portal worlds would be mega huge things like this.

Then again, who the hell knew? He sure didn't.

No one had any answers for John, but they did have more questions. Alissa, specifically, with a hard-hitting one:

"So you think the kraken, if it is in control of all this, has been deliberately giving us winnable conditions?"

John glanced back at her, lips thinned. Chester's heart briefly dropped when he realised this put him in someone's peripheral vision, and felt so pathetic he wanted to bash his head against the wall. But that would only bring him more attention, and he just… couldn't handle that, right now.

His numbers were still falling. He knew he needed them. Survival depended on his ability to buy more skills and turn those Attention points into levels. A voice at the back of his head was screaming to speak up, wave a hand, do something to mitigate the cascading failure he was in the midst of.

Instead, he found himself ducking his head, moving a step to the right so Alissa was between him and John's glowing gaze.

"Yeah," John said. "Whether's it's the kraken or something else, our journey through this place could have been a lot harder. Instead, we've been presented with challenges, and— I was going to say rewarded for beating them, but that feels like too strong a word."

"Granted a reprieve," Jade said, Scottish accent slightly rolling the second 'R' in reprieve.

John made a humming sound. "Something like that. I'm just wondering what the next challenge will be, when we reach the end of this corridor. A yellow monster surely can't be the end of it."

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"What's the bet we'll have to fight through all the monsters in this room where they spawn?" Doug said, sounding almost hopeful, the mad bastard.

"Even odds," John replied. Peering around Alissa, Chester saw John look up, this time, contemplative."Reckon it'll be something bigger, though. A final boss."

Doug hummed, and they lapsed into silence again.

Chester let his head roll back and his eyes droop shut, remembering the pain the rock golem had inflicted on him. He hadn't even been near it. Hadn't engaged it for even a moment, as Radiance hadn't seemed to work on it. If they were going to face something worse than that… He didn't know what he would do. What he could do.

Honestly, this entire situation felt like a grim extension of the conundrum that had always plagued his entire life. Feeling powerless. Against himself, and against everything else.

Going to the gym and getting big hadn't done anything for his confidence, despite his brother's insistence it would help. What did being able to lift heavier things do for him? Not a lot. The muscles just meant girls looked at him differently, and in a way that didn't feel at all positive to his mind.

What did being able to draw attention to himself give him? Pants-shitting terror and anxiety. If this apocalyptic superpower bullshit was meant to help him get over his troubles, it had chosen the absolute worst way to go about it.

Attention had never done anything good for him. Earning Father's scrutiny only meant cruel words and insults. Encountering Mother in the halls earned uncomfortable interrogations about his overall poor performance in absolutely fucking everything. Gaining his classmates' notice led to disdain for his timid demeanour. Even alerting the household staff to his presence just yielded uncomfortable conversations, somehow. It never went that way for Grant or Jessica.

And it didn't really need to be explained why drawing every monster in sight to him was quite unpleasant.

Thoughts of Grant and Jessica just darkened his mood further. If the world was as cruel as it usually was, then his siblings were probably dead already, while Mother and Father somehow survived it all. He tried to cheer himself up by imagining what the system would be torturing them with. Father's would probably be forcing him to be nice to people, and it'd be even more painful for him than Chester having to gain attention. Mother was likely having to endure more than a single speck of dirt on her clothing or something. That idea made him smile, but it soon dropped.

Isn't it fucked up that I can't decide whether I want Grant or Jessica to be alive or not?

On the one hand, it would be nice to have the only two people in the world he felt consistently comfortable around still alive. On the other, he didn't want them to be subjected to some similar bullshit to what he was experiencing. There was a growing part of him that wished he'd just sat down and let the inevitable happen, all the way back at the gym where this began. A nice, swift end.

No worries. No monsters. No sadistic superpower systems. No having to see a little kid get torn apart.

Chester swallowed. His ears were ringing. He blinked as he noticed his Attention points weren't falling so rapidly anymore, and looked around. Lily was looking at him, an expression of concern on her face. He waved her off, not trusting himself to try and speak, but she only moved closer, dropping away from the full group—it was only then that he realised he'd fallen back a dozen paces. Thankfully, no one else had noticed, engrossed in a new conversation he hadn't registered a word of. They surely would have asked what's wrong, like Lily no doubt was about to do.

"You okay?" Lily whispered. Her green eyes were so earnest and sympathetic, almost seeming to glow in the shade provided by her motorcycle helmet. It should have looked so stupid, combined with her battered chainmail shirt that went halfway down her thighs. But it didn't. The redhead gave him the vibe of one of those people who made everything look good.

Mother would have thrown a fit at him interacting with an American. That just made him want to talk to her more.

But all Chester could do was shrug. Trying to verbally respond would probably just lead to an embarrassing incident that would only leave her more worried.

"Me neither," Lily said with a sigh. Her mouth was hidden by the lower half of her helmet, but the scrunching around her eyes implied she was smiling. "We just have to push through it, though, yeah? Keep moving forward, and all."

Chester nodded, averting his eyes. She was too nice, and he felt bad for burdening her with worries about him. He didn't know what to do with such a rare thing. Even Jade had gotten frustrated with his attitude, like everyone always did.

He felt he owed her for that, and so he managed a raspy, "I'll try."

Luckily, he was saved from any further awkwardness by John raising his hand and calling for caution. Lily and Chester quickly hurried forward to put themselves closer to the group.

"We're nearly at the core now," John whispered. "And the monsters aren't spawning anymore. The ones that have already been spawned are following their default and moving down the other corridors. The place will be empty, soon."

"How big do you think the place is?" Jade asked.

John paused, his head panning from side to side like a radar dish. "Huge. Maybe the size of a football stadium. Ever been to Wembley?"

"No, but I get the scale," Jade said.

"So. A huge arena," Doug mused. "Reckon you were right about the final boss, eh, Johnny boy?"

"Seems likely," John said, eyeing the old man warily.

Rather than start yet another pissing match between the two of them, though, Doug asked solemnly, "How do you want to do this?"

John blinked, and the glow vanished from his eyes, leaving them dark and fathomless in the resulting gloom. Long seconds passed before he spoke.

"You guys follow my lead."

As if it was going to go any other way.

The corridor didn't last much longer. After maybe two minutes of walking in silence, they reached the nexus of this enormous bus monster, and three great glowing eyes blinked down on them from the dizzying heights of a room that could, indeed, have easily fit a stadium within.

The eyes were every shade of blue, green, and yellow respectively, all swirling together in giant spheres with white, hourglass irises, like goats. They were being fed by a constant stream of shimmering white lights.

Chester had a horrible feeling he knew what those white lights were. He opened his mouth with the intention of pushing through the block and voicing that thought, but the room was filled with the boom of thunder before he could get a word out, and a dark shape dropped from the darkness above the three eyes.

"Fuck," John breathed.

Chester looked at his. That didn't sound good.

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