It was bad. Very bad.
Alexandre suddenly felt his entire body violently contract. An oppressive sensation seized him, as if a dark, invisible force were trying to drag him down into the unfathomable depths of the ocean.
Breathing became nearly impossible—each inhalation was a losing battle. This second wave of panic was stronger, harsher, more vicious than the first. His vision blurred at the edges, shadows creeping in, warping ordinary shapes into hostile figures. For a moment, Alexandre's mind wavered.
If he didn't do something now, he'd black out, and that would be it.
A cold shiver razored its way through his nerves. His heart drummed so violently it was all he could hear, the thud echoing in his skull. He tried to control his breathing, to drag his mind back to order… but his instincts were screaming with the animal urge to flee, to scramble from the freezing water, to forget the race and just grab onto anything that might keep him above the dread.
In a brief moment of clarity, Alexandre scanned the chaos. He spotted Marlon, gripped by that same wild terror. Marlon's face had once again turned gray like a corpse's, his eyes wide and staring into the black void below. He thrashed in the water like he was battling something only he could see.
No. Alexandre couldn't afford to let himself get sucked into this group hysteria. He closed his eyes, trying to once more separate mind from body, to see himself as nothing more than a puppet of meat and bone at the command of his mind.
But it was… different this time. This was worse, deeper. Something was crawling around in his head that didn't belong to him. The fear within him felt maddeningly artificial, a subversive invader from beyond.
Around him, things went from bad to worse. A piercing scream cut through the air as a student, no longer able to cope, went underwater—then resurfaced, wild-eyed and gasping, panic written all over his face. Another nearby clung mindlessly to a swimmer, both of them spiraling underwater.
It was pandemonium. The whole group was fracturing and flailing, panic melting order into riot. Overhead, the drones hovered, utterly indifferent, scanning the chaos and announcing eliminations with robotic finality. Rescue skiffs lumbered in the background, scooping up failure after humiliated failure.
Despite the panic locking up his chest, Alexandre fought to once more save his friend. "Marlon! Stay with me!" he shouted, but his words barely carried over the hiss of the wind and the crashing water.
But before he could try again to reach Marlon, a dark force slammed down even harder on Alexandre's mind, a mental blackness that threatened to smother him. Pressure mounted behind his eyes, and his body turned heavy and numb.
Not now. Not like this.
Not after everything he'd endured up to this point!
Digging deep, Alexandre forced his thoughts into the storm inside him, clawing through the panic for a memory, a plan. Claire had just said that blood could snap people out of this hive-mind panic. But why blood? Why did it break the effect?
His mind spun, but finally locked onto something: the Z Virus spread and multiplied via blood. Alexandre had initially supposed that it was the sight or smell of blood that had caused the healing effect—some sort of predatory instinct, as it were. But what if it were the other way around? They were surrounded by the intensely salty brine of the ocean, after all, and salt in that concentration was deadly to all sorts of microbes. When there was much more salt inside a cell membrane than inside it, the cell could rupture on contact.
In other words, what if the seawater was a poison to the Z Virus, causing it to seize up all throughout the body for a short time? It hadn't been a permanent fix, but perhaps it would be enough…
But the mechanism for the effect didn't really matter. One way or another, Alexandre knew that he had only one choice.
He acted fast, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek. The pain was only information to him, but he could feel the flesh separating under the superhuman strength of his jaws, letting the iron tang of blood fill his mouth. He opened his lips and seawater rushed into the open wound, sending more uninteresting agony through his nerves as a cloud of slightly darker water spread out from his face as he swam.
For a moment, he wondered if he'd been completely wrong about his theory.
Then the terror began to fade.
That paralyzing panic lost its strength. The chaos in his mind began to thin, and slowly, he started to regain his grip. His breathing steadied. His theory was working.
Meanwhile, the rest of the scene was still a disaster—students crying out, drowning in panic, drones droning overhead, eliminations coming one after another. Alexandre kept his focus, pushing on through the water and veering slightly off course to return to Marlon.
His friend was still there, flailing without coordination, eyes glazed in confusion.
No time to be gentle. Alexandre powered towards him, grabbed his arm, and used the limb as leverage to swing a hand harshly at his face. Alexandre hooked his thumb into Marlon's gasping mouth and savagely tore open the soft flesh of his inner cheek.
Given the amount of seawater Marlon was already swallowing, it was no surprise that the result was immediate. Marlon jerked in shock, blinking as if surfacing from a bad dream. Confusion once more replaced the terror. "W-what?" he groaned. "What the hell is this!?"
Alexandre didn't give him space to process it. "I'll explain later," he snapped. "The Z Virus keeps taking control through our blood. We can stop that effect for a bit by creating a new wound and getting saltwater into the bloodstream. If you feel the panic again, you have to bite or cut yourself at once, you understand me?"
Still rattled, Marlon gave a shaky nod.
Alexandre locked eyes with him, steady as they tread water, ignoring all the chaos. "Drink some seawater. Your body'll make you want to throw it all up, but the salt is fighting the virus. I have a hunch that'll keep it at bay, and our bodies are tough enough that it won't kill you."
Marlon, still wincing in pain, managed one final nod—and forced himself to gulp down the freezing, stinging seawater.