January 4, 2026 – 10:00 AM | Rest Period – Time Remaining: 11 Hr 06 Min
The air inside the makeshift barricade was thick with the suffocating scent of ozone, dried blood, and the stale sweat of desperate survivors. Malenia stood over Gilbert like a monolithic statue of war, her arms crossed tightly over her dented breastplate. The flickering firelight cast long, intimidating shadows across the ruined office space. She had just finished explaining, with brutal and uncompromising clarity, that the harsh terms she had laid out earlier were merely a pathetic introductory baseline.
After silently observing his clumsy, erratic movements during the last wave, it was glaringly obvious to her veteran eyes that Gilbert possessed absolutely zero physical foundation. His body was a soft, decaying monument to years of sedentary living. He needed to build a baseline of actual muscular strength and cardiovascular endurance before she would even consider letting him hold a sharpened blade. Therefore, after a lengthy, tense discussion with Courage—who had endlessly pleaded on Gilbert's behalf like a defense attorney fighting for a doomed client—they had agreed to start him off by simply strengthening his core.
Courage approached Gilbert, his usually bright demeanor tempered by the heavy gravity of the room. He offered a warm, encouraging smile and patted Gilbert firmly on his slumping shoulder. "Don't sweat it too much, Gil. We all start somewhere. I'll be running the drills right alongside you. We bleed together, we survive together, right?"
Stepping back, Malenia fully entered her trainer mode. Her voice snapped through the stagnant air like a leather whip, devoid of any maternal warmth or coddling. "We will begin with the absolute bare minimum. Three sets of ten push-ups. Your form must be flawless. Your chest will brush the concrete, and your arms will fully lock out at the apex. If you cheat the movement, you are only cheating your own survival. Begin."
Gilbert swallowed hard, the lump in his throat feeling like a jagged stone. He said nothing and immediately dropped to the floor, planting his uncalloused hands on the gritty, dust-covered concrete. Initially, Gilbert's mind, poisoned by years of watching anime protagonists magically awaken hidden powers, told him that ten push-ups was incredibly easy. A warm-up. A joke.
He lowered himself. The concrete was freezing against his nose. He pushed up.
One.
His triceps screamed instantly, a hot, searing flash of lactic acid flooding muscles that had not been engaged in half a decade.
He lowered himself again, his core trembling so violently it looked as though he were having a localized seizure. He gritted his teeth, his face turning an alarming shade of crimson, and forced his body upward.
Two.
At the apex of the second repetition, the illusion shattered entirely. His arms began to violently shake, his elbows buckling under the pathetic weight of his own body. He was already at his absolute physiological limit. Gasping and wheezing loudly, his lungs desperately pulling in dusty air, Gilbert turned his bloodshot eyes to his right. He needed to see how Courage was performing.
What he saw utterly crushed whatever remaining spirit he had left. Courage was executing his repetitions with the terrifying, perfected fluidity of a machine. Up, down, up, down. There was no hesitation, no shaking, no wasted kinetic energy. It was a flawless display of bio mechanical efficiency.
"Holy... ha... Courage... ha... you're really... fucking... ha... good... haa," Gilbert breathed heavily, his voice cracking pitifully as he shifted his focus entirely back to the floor, desperately trying to perform just two more reps.
He managed to lower himself, his chest hovering a millimeter above the grime. But upon attempting to ascend, his nervous system simply pulled the plug. His triceps gave out entirely. He dropped flat onto the floor with a pathetic, meaty thud, his chin bouncing painfully off the concrete.
Flipping over onto his back, Gilbert stared blankly up at the cracked, water-stained ceiling. He could feel a crushing, agonizing exhaustion radiating deep within his bones—the heavy, unavoidable consequence of not putting a single ounce of physical effort into himself for the past five years. His heart hammered furiously against his ribs, warning him of an impending cardiovascular collapse.
[LIVE FEED: UTAH SECTOR CHAT]
SaltyLake_Warrior: TWO?! HE DID TWO PUSH-UPS AND COLLAPSED?! Bro is built like a wet napkin. 💀
ArchWeeb99: I knew it. The training arc is already over. RIP Gilbert. Time to start digging his grave.
GamerGrill_Watcher: Guys, stop laughing. Honestly, if I was sitting at a desk playing MMOs for five years straight, I'd probably drop at two as well. It's genuinely sad to watch.
SaltFlat_Surv: The monsters outside don't care about his gaming achievements. If he can't lift his own weight, he can't lift a weapon. He's dead meat.
DoomScroller: Look at Malenia's face. She looks like she's about to throw him out a window just to spare herself the headache.
Malenia noticed Gilbert's immediate, catastrophic exhaustion. She did not offer a hand to help him up. Instead, she stepped closer, her armored boots scraping menacingly against the floor, casting a dark shadow over his prone, heaving body.
"I suggest you quickly grow accustomed to this agonizing routine, Gilbert," Malenia stated, her tone dangerously calm and deeply mature. "This is not a game where you can lower the difficulty setting. This is the bare minimum requirement to keep your heart beating when the horde breaches the walls. The intensity will only increase over time. I will not tolerate malingering, and I will not drag a dead weight. Get up."
"Yes... ma'am!" Gilbert forced out a response, using whatever remaining oxygen he had left in his burning lungs. He desperately tried to ensure it did not sound like he was mocking her, nor did he want her to think he was already fed up with the regime. He rolled over onto his hands and knees, his arms feeling like overcooked noodles.
Courage finished his first set effortlessly, sitting up and breathing heavily but steadily. He looked over at the trembling, sweating mess that was Gilbert. The cheerful cook dropped his usual humor, recognizing the dangerous psychological edge Gilbert was teetering on.
"Hey. Gil. Listen to me," Courage said, his tone authoritative but deeply supportive. "You just need to push to your limit. Do not worry about not doing enough compared to me, and definitely don't compare yourself to her. Take a break if you have to, Gil, but you have to finish the set. We'll grow steadily. Remember your games? A level one and a level fifty do not gain stats at the exact same rate. You are level one. Embrace the grind."
Gilbert said nothing. He couldn't. He continued resting on the floor, staring blankly down at a crack in the concrete until he felt his body's immediate exhaustion slightly lessening. He gritted his teeth, tasting copper in his mouth, and resumed his set.
For every three agonizing push-ups, Gilbert was forced to take a five-minute break. He would collapse, panting in the dust, waiting for his muscle fibers to temporarily repair themselves enough to fire again. It was a humiliating, public display of utter weakness. But slowly, agonizingly, he met the goal of thirty total repetitions.
As Gilbert dropped to the floor for the final time, the room spun. He could feel the pectoral muscles of his chest tightening, screaming in a deep, unfamiliar, tearing ache. He didn't have the energy to pick himself up, so he simply closed his eyes, intending to rest for just a single minute.
But by the time he opened his eyes back up, the lighting in the room had drastically shifted. The pale morning light filtering through the barricaded windows had turned into the deep, bruised orange of late afternoon. It was obvious that several hours had gone by. He had passed out from sheer physiological shock.
"Morning, sleeping beauty," Courage greeted him, his voice pulling Gilbert from the heavy daze. Courage was pulling a makeshift pan off the fire, the smell of roasted meat filling the room. "Go wash your hands. Dinner is ready to be served. Don't worry about anything else; Malenia finished setting the table, so just get yourself cleaned up, walk it off, and come sit."
Gilbert, still profoundly exhausted, his body stiff with newly forming lactic acid that made every movement feel like his joints were packed with broken glass, could only nod his head. He slowly dragged his heavy feet toward the nearest ruined restroom down the hall.
Leaning heavily over the cracked porcelain sink, he twisted the rusted knob. Cold, brown-tinted water sputtered out from the ancient pipes. While washing his trembling, blistered hands, Gilbert looked up at the shattered mirror. The sheer humiliation of his poor performance, the lackluster result of his very first day of training, and the terrifying reality of his own mortality hit him like a physical blow to the stomach.
His eyes welled up. He couldn't help it. The tears spilled over, mixing with the grime and sweat on his face. He wasn't crying because it hurt; he was crying because he had wasted his entire life, and now, when it actually mattered, he had nothing to offer the world.
[LIVE FEED: UTAH SECTOR CHAT]
DoomScroller: Oh man. Is he legitimately crying?
SaltyLake_Warrior: Reality check hits hard. Bro thought he was gonna level up in ten minutes and unlock a legendary skill.
Deseret_Veteran: We had guys break down and cry on day one of infantry boot camp, too. The tears don't matter; it's what you do after you dry them. Let him weep. It builds character.
SaltFlat_Surv: It's pathetic, but it's fundamentally human. If he survives this week, he'll be harder for it.
Utah_Holdout: Let it out, man. Crying is free. Just don't quit tomorrow.
[REAL WORLD: UTAH STATEWIDE]
Miles away from the blood-soaked ruins of the trial grounds, in a dimly lit, heavily crowded sports bar functioning as a civilian evacuation hub in Salt Lake City, dozens of anxious citizens stared up at the massive projection screen displaying the sector feed. The room was dead silent, save for the hum of a generator.
A burly mechanic clutching a warm beer shook his head, his face lined with deep, dark exhaustion. "He's all we got," the mechanic muttered to the bartender, his voice thick with a mature, sobering reality. "The kid is pathetic... a total waste of space. But he's standing in for my daughter's future. If he dies, our sector loses its protection rating. Come on, kid. Dig deep."
Sitting in a booth nearby, a retired EMT kept her eyes glued to the screen, her expression unreadable. "His heart rate is spiking, and he's barely oxygenating his blood," she observed quietly to her husband, tapping the table. "Five years of extreme muscular atrophy won't vanish in a day. He's going to suffer immensely. His fascia is probably tearing. I just pray his heart doesn't give out before his spirit does."
In a reinforced basement in Provo, a group of college students watched the feed on a cracked tablet. One of them, a girl wearing a faded university hoodie, pressed her hands tightly against the screen. "You have to make it," she whispered fiercely at Gilbert's crying reflection. "If you die, our sector fails. Please don't be a loser today..."
Back in the grim reality of the apocalypse, Gilbert stared at his own pathetic reflection in the cracked mirror as the sink's water continued running, filling the quiet, heavy ambiance of the ruined world.
"Can I really change?" Gilbert whispered to the empty room, a stray tear cutting a clean path through the dirt on his cheek. "I couldn't even do a mere ten fucking push-ups. I... I don't think I can make it through this sh*t. I'm going to die out here, and I'm going to drag them down with me."
He aggressively wiped his face with the back of his forearm, splashing a final handful of freezing cold water over his red eyes to wash away any lingering evidence of his breakdown.
"C'mon, Gilbert. Just suck it up," he muttered, slapping his own cheeks to sting himself back into reality. "Endure it. Endure it. Endure it. Endure it…"
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, he turned away from the sink and made his way back out to the makeshift dining table. The walk down the hallway felt like a mile.
Malenia was already seated. Her heavy armor was discarded and propped against the wall, revealing a simple, sweat-stained tunic underneath that clung to her heavily muscled frame.
"Hey there, m'lad— Malenia," Gilbert quickly corrected himself, catching the cringeworthy habit just before it slipped fully out of his mouth. "Watcha think of my effort today?" Gilbert asked cautiously, genuinely hoping to improve based on Malenia's critique.
Malenia, unlike her usual cold, dismissive, and utterly ruthless nature, looked Gilbert directly in the eyes. She didn't mince her words—she never would—but she wasn't overly unrealistic in her assessment, nor was she excessively cruel this time. She spoke to him not as a nuisance, but as a deeply flawed recruit.
"Your body is a tragic monument to neglect, Gilbert," Malenia stated evenly, resting her scarred hands on the wooden table. "You lack stamina, your core strength is practically non-existent, and your physical form was an atrocious insult to combat readiness. You are fragile. However... you completed the thirty repetitions. You took hours, you collapsed, you passed out... but you did not quit when your muscles failed. That stubbornness is the absolute foundation of a survivor. The physical strength will come, provided that stubbornness remains."
Gilbert nodded slowly, his tense shoulders dropping slightly as he absorbed her heavy words. "Hmmm, understood. I won't lie to you, Malenia. I was having serious second thoughts while I was in the restroom just now. The urge to just give up, to lay down and let the monsters take me, was really strong. Honestly... stronger than the urge to goonn."
Gilbert confessed this incredibly ugly, deeply embarrassing truth to Malenia with an entirely straight face, completely unashamed of his vulgar comparison. It was a testament to his broken psychology; his addiction to cheap dopamine and screen-bound fantasies had been the strongest driving force in his life for years. Acknowledging that his will to quit was stronger than his deepest addiction was, in his twisted mind, the most honest metric of despair he could offer.
[LIVE FEED: UTAH SECTOR CHAT]
SaltyLake_Warrior: BRO. Did he really just say that to a battle-hardened warrior?! 💀 My soul just left my body.
GamerGrill_Watcher: I WAS LITERALLY FEELING BAD FOR HIM TWO MINUTES AGO. THE EMOTIONAL WHIPLASH! 😭
DoomScroller: At least he's being honest? I guess? That is the most terminally online thing I have ever heard.
SaltFlat_Surv: That's the most pathetic, degrading metric for willpower I've ever heard from a grown man. But if it keeps him doing his damn push-ups and keeping our sector safe, fine. Be a degenerate. Just be a surviving degenerate.
ArchWeeb99: Malenia's face right now is absolute gold. She is physically blue-screening trying to figure out what that word means.
In the crowded sports bar back in Salt Lake City, the burly mechanic spat out a mouthful of his warm beer, coughing violently as the surrounding crowd erupted into a chaotic mix of groans, curses, and awkward laughter. "What the absolute fk is wrong with this kid?" a man in the back yelled, rubbing his temples in sheer disbelief.
Back in the room, Gilbert leaned back heavily in his creaking seat, looking entirely deflated and unmotivated despite his raw confession. "I still don't think I have it in me to finish this marathon. I'm too far behind."
Malenia stared at him for a long, heavy moment. She wisely chose to completely ignore his bizarre terminology, sensing that digging into his degenerate vocabulary would yield no tactical advantage. Instead, she focused entirely on the core of his existential despair.
"You are staring blindly at the summit of the mountain instead of the ground directly beneath your boots," Malenia shared earnestly, her golden eyes softening just a fraction, revealing the battle-worn philosopher beneath the warrior. "A marathon is not conquered all at once. It is a grueling, agonizing series of single, painful steps. Do not worry about tomorrow's bloody battles. Do not worry about the hordes of aberrations that await us next week. Simply focus on surviving today's push-ups. Can you do that, Gilbert?"
Gilbert took note of Malenia's profound words in absolute silence. He let the stark simplicity of her pragmatic advice sink deep into his exhausted, over-stimulated brain.
The heavy, philosophical atmosphere was suddenly broken as Courage kicked the heavy wooden door open with his foot, returning to the table balancing three steaming plates of food. The rich, savory aroma of the heavily spiced fish instantly commanded the room, triggering a violent rumble in Gilbert's empty stomach.
After sliding each person their portion, Courage took his seat. He paused with his fork halfway to his mouth, his cheerful smile faltering slightly as he looked between the two of them. The tension in the air was palpable, thick enough to cut with his combat knife.
"Alright, chow time," Courage announced tentatively. "Did I interrupt something? Why is the mood in here so incredibly off? You two look like you just planned a funeral."
Gilbert let out a tired, self-deprecating chuckle, the sound rough and dry in his throat, while Malenia simply picked up her utensils with quiet dignity.
"Just establishing a realistic baseline for our survival," Malenia answered calmly, cutting into her food with surgical precision.
"Yeah," Gilbert added, picking up his own fork with hands that still trembled slightly. He offered Courage a weak, exhausted, but entirely genuine smile. "Just letting her know exactly how close I was to tapping out in that bathroom... and figuring out how to take the next step tomorrow instead."