At the moment the test started, the whole crowd of students rushed toward the ocean. It almost evoked images of eager college students enjoying spring break in a time back before the Great Wave. Except for the fact that it was the middle of winter on a tiny island off the East Coast, of course.
The sounds of wet feet slapping the soaked sand quickly turned to the splashing of bodies hitting the cold water. In comparison, the students' gasps of shock at the sub-zero temperatures were nearly inaudible whispers.
Alexandre ignored all these reactions from his fellow students as he reached the water's edge and slipped in, impervious to the biting cold. He deliberately stayed a bit behind the rest of the crowd, understanding the true nature of this test. It wasn't a speed race by any means, but a test of physical and mental endurance. Jack Blades certainly seemed to be a fan of those.
Regardless, there was nothing to be gained in potentially getting in the way of idiots who were eager to be at the front of the pack. Anyone who tried to shove Alexandre out of the way would probably cause a fight, and that would be quite an annoyance to deal with.
The professor maintained a casual lead as he strolled across the surface of the water, using his power to continue walking on it as though it were solid ground. A handful of students, almost certainly driven by a combination of ambition and stupidity, tried their absolute hardest to keep up with Jack Blades by swimming. Alexandre found their efforts very amusing.
About ten inflatable boats similar to Coast Guard rescue vessels launched from the shoreline and pulled close to the students. The sight of these boats was a relief to those who were struggling the most from the cold, even though none of them were truly in any danger so long as they used their Hunter energy to generate enough body heat to make up for what the water was sapping away from them.
In Alexandre's estimation, the primary purpose of the boats was to offer temptation for students to give up and fail, though they'd certainly come in handy if the others proved to be even more pathetic than he assumed they were.
Within a few minutes, the differences between the swimmers became evident. There were a few factors at play, actually. The first was that while most of the students knew the technical details of how to swim properly, their skill levels varied widely, which affected their endurance. Even if they'd all been in an Olympic swimming pool, the amateurs would've worn themselves out more quickly than the more seasoned among them.
But this was amplified by the aforementioned expenditure of Hunter energy to keep one's body warm. To someone like Alexandre, even though he was realizing he still had much to learn about the finer points of controlling his power, it was easy to channel Hunter energy in multiple ways at once. It was barely more difficult for him to swim like this than it'd been to keep up with Jack Blades in the running test previously.
But that wasn't the case for the students who had the normal amount of control over their energy, considering that they were new Hunters. They intuitively drew upon power to sustain their body's functions, yes, but this was in constant conflict inside them. When they focused on using their muscles and coordination to the utmost ability to keep up with those around them, their ability to regulate their body temperature fell close to ordinary human levels, and vice versa.
So it was little surprise that, as time passed, the students least able to control their Hunter energy were slowing down, realizing they were slowing down, and beginning to feel the beginnings of panic at the back of their minds.
Five minutes. Then fifteen. Then half an hour.
Finally, the drones overhead blared out a message that the first failure had dropped out of the test and raised his arms over his head in panic. An inflatable boat was already on its way as the student began to scream in terror, and it picked him up at once.
Alexandre smiled cruelly to himself as this happened. Well, it seemed that there had been some true weaklings among them after all—and indeed, as though this first failure had triggered some kind of silent signal, a handful more people changed direction and swam for the boats, while others raised their arms and waited to be picked up.
Alexandre himself was a decent swimmer, but nothing exceptional. He knew he'd need to carefully manipulate his energy to make up for the environmental hazards and his own lack of expertise, but he also knew that this wouldn't be an issue. From here onward it would be, as it were, smooth sailing.
But about ten minutes later, something very peculiar happened. Alexandre became gradually aware of a strange sensation—an unknown, oppressive feeling that was bubbling up from deep within him. It was… dread?
Alexandre became suddenly, acutely aware of the deep blackness underneath him. He recalled a fact he'd learned in school as a young boy… that you only needed to go a hundred miles at most off the East Coast to leave the continental shelf. At that point, the depth of the ocean started to drop to hundreds of meters… then to thousands…
How far out were they from the continental coast, exactly?
Alexandre's heart tightened suddenly. His breathing became shallow, and an irrational terror came over him that was almost paralyzing. He felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the ocean.
He was fucking immortal. He'd survived so very much in his young life. How could he be feeling such a stupid, primitive fear as this!? It made no sense!
But as he glanced around, Alexandre realized he wasn't the only one experiencing this terror of the abyss. Marlon, a few meters away from him, seemed also to be close to panic, his movements becoming clumsy and erratic.
Fear spread among the swimmers like a toxic gas. Some students became completely disoriented while others struggled to catch their breath. A few even sank into absolute panic, screaming in terror as they lost control and began to bob beneath the waves.
"What… is… doing this!?" Alexandre screamed at nobody in particular. The wail left his body like a Zombie's guttural roar.
It was then that the realization slammed into him like a meteor.
All the news stories, the tears of joy on the faces of public officials when they realized that, despite the end of the world that had come upon them, things wouldn't get any worse.
Zombies never swam across large bodies of water, never followed their fleeing prey as they sought asylum on distant shores.
And Hunters, due to the Z Virus in their veins, had more than a little bit of Zombie inside them.
"Why?" he snarled to himself, struggling in the midst of the chaos to keep afloat, to keep focused. "Is seawater toxic to the virus? Or maybe something else entirely… But I'm sure I'm right! The virus is trying to make us avoid deep water, but it's also backfiring and making it harder for us to swim, damn it!"
With this realization, a surge of adrenaline filled Alexandre's body. New strength spread through his limbs. The dread wasn't gone by any means, but for a moment, Alexandre had more control over his body. Now he just needed to find a solution, and quickly, if he wanted to avoid his own body and power turning on him, forcing him to flee or to succumb to the clawing horror of the abyss.