by Azalea Ellis
On the ninth day since the last Trial, Blaine drove us all into what remained of the real countryside. We thought the Trials would be nine days apart from the last one on, but the exact time the Boneshaker would start was a tension-causing mystery.
I sat next to Zed, berating myself that he was seated in this van, facing this fear along with us, because of me. "I should have never let this happen to you," I murmured.
He turned to me in surprise. "Let this happen to me? You didn't have anything to do with it. Well, except..."
"That you did this for me. Right? You did this for me, and if I'd been more careful, hadn't left that Seed, hadn't let you know anything was wrong..."
"You mean if you'd lied and kept secrets from me better." He clenched his jaw.
"Yes. Exactly! No matter what, I should have kept you safe and separate from all this."
"And then I'd go about my life blissfully unaware and happy? Is that what you think? That’s not how it works. If I didn't figure it out now, it would have happened eventually. Or maybe I'd never understand, and just go about my life wondering what happened to you and why you disappeared. That's not what I want. You didn't cause this. I chose this."
"You didn't know what you were choosing!" I hissed. "Not knowing is better. It's better than knowing because you’re forced to live it!"
"If you'd told me, I'd have known! And I would still—” he cut off as the Boneshaker started to play, reverberating through us all. "What is that?"
"The Boneshaker," Jacky said grimly. "It will get loud."
Adam grunted. "At least it's better than listening to you two bicker," he said to Zed and me.
"Better step on it," I said to Blaine.
He nodded, and started to accelerate past the point where the pod beeped an incessant speed limit warning and started to shudder lightly.
Sam gripped the seat beneath him and took a deep breath. "Are you sure this is safe?"
Blaine frowned. "It should be safe?"
"Should be?" Sam's grip tightened more, and he looked out the window at the blurring scenery as the pod shot down a straightaway.
"Yes. Whatever teleportation device is being used for the Seeds and to take you to the Trials, from what I can tell it takes into account the movement of your body and neutralizes excess kinetic energy. So, you should be fine."
"But you don't know."
"Well," Blaine cleared his throat, "I do not have access to the technology, so it is technically just speculation. But I am rarely wrong, and the speed should help to mask your signal from NIX when you go. They will still find you, but it might take a minute or so longer."
"That's not much time, guys," I said. "So we need to finish this quickly so Adam and Zed can return and get away before NIX comes for them. We've got the upper hand this time, because they don't know we know how they're going to track us."
As the song grew louder, I swung the large pack on my lap around to my back, and wrapped my arms around Zed.
Across from us, Adam did the same, so Zed was as covered by our bodies as possible.
Because Zed wasn't officially a Player, Bunny couldn't add him to my team, and thus we needed to forcefully take him with us to the Trial, so I could make sure he was safe.
A few seconds later, the pulse slammed through the pod, and all of its passengers popped into the Trial.
Zed's eyes were closed, and I stepped back from him in case he threw up, keeping a hand on his arm to stabilize him against the dizziness. He opened his eyes warily, but they grew wide as he took in the world around us.
We were on a white-sand beach under a tree with drooping leaves that looked like cocoons. We'd been deposited about a mile from the base of a colossal mountain that seemed like a lot of flat-topped buttes and mesas gathered together and stacked into a tiered tower. Huge waterfalls came from openings in the rock faces and spilled down from the top, which was obscured from view by the thick clouds of mist that rose like a veil of waves all around the mountain and coalesced into a sight-blocking layer higher up.
Multiple vast lakes cut through by what seemed to be randomly shifting sandbars reached out from the base of the mountain in all directions and spilled out into rivers that cut through the lush land we stood on. The sun shone bright even through the clouds, the colors were deep and richer than any I'd seen except in the Trials. For the first time, I thought this place had something which I, living on Earth, might be envious of.
But that thought was quickly replaced by a mix of tension and watchfulness, because I remembered this view. In fact, I'd seen it the night before, in the painful dream I'd gotten after the Oracle's first gift had been solved and injected itself into me.
"It's beautiful," Zed said, taking a deep breath of the invigorating air. "And it smells like it comes out of a scent bottle. An expensive one. I've never seen water so beautiful."
I grimaced. "Yeah. Wait till the water turns out to be acid. Or better yet, a paralytic, so you drown peacefully if you try to take a swim in it." I wiggled my bare toes in the sand, suddenly rethinking my decision to forgo shoes on my “mutated” feet. Yeah, they’d be in the way when my claws slipped out, but my boots offered great protection.
He took a step back from the water's edge. "Really?"
Jacky walked over and poked a finger in. When nothing happened, she took the finger out, sniffed it, and then put the tip in her mouth. "Just water," she said. Then she started to convulse.
Sam lunged forward, grabbing onto her face with his hands, ready to heal.
Zed sucked in a breath, eyes wide, and both Adam and I tensed in horror.
Jacky stopped twitching, and pulled back with a grin on her face.
Sam frowned in confusion. "I can't feel anything, I don't—” he cut off, and his eyes widened, then narrowed at her mischievous look. "You were faking."
She snorted a loud laugh. "Sorry. The idea popped in my mind, and I couldn’t resist."
I let out a loud breath, along with the rest of the team. "God, Jacky! Get away from the water. You scared me half to death."
She pursed her lips and walked back to us, then turned to look up at Zed, her mirth sliding away. "That was a joke, but it was in bad taste, no? Because here, it would more likely be real. And maybe I did just eat poison, and it’s only waiting, like a cat in the bushes, to strike me."
Adam spun in a circle, his eyes taking everything in as he scanned for danger. "It's beautiful here. And it's just as dangerous as it is amazing. Don't do anything without testing it out first, or watching someone else do it without dying."
We'd been deposited close to the cube this time, so we waved the other Players over as they arrived. As always, I checked for children. When one appeared I stiffened for a moment, until a group of older Players gathered around her, obviously protective.
I nodded to them in acknowledgement and allowed myself to feel relief. Zed would be enough to protect today.
Jacky gathered up her spit and loudly shot it into the sand.
The ground started to tremble underneath our feet, causing gentle ripples in the otherwise glassy water.
We all took a collective step back into the cover of the trees.
"What did you do, Jacky?" Sam said, looking a tiny bit sick.
Her eyes widened, and she shook her head mutely.
Zed imitated Adam's scan of his surroundings as the shuddering grew more pronounced.
"Guys, you remember that Intelligence Trial? The one with the puzzles?" I said.
Sam stepped closer to the rest of the group, starting to scan the surroundings as well. "Who could forget? Do you think this is another one?"
"I don't know. But that's not the point. Do you remember when I got caught in that string-room-thing with the Oracle?"
"Yeah? We never saw this Oracle, but I remember the cube said you got some sort of reward for that."
"Puzzles. Last night, I solved one of them." I held up my left hand to show the ring. "It turned out to be some sort of Seed. It increased my Perce
ption, and made me pass out. I had a...dream. Maybe you'd call it a vision. Because I saw this place. Except I saw fire falling from the sky. I mean, it looked kinda like fire. But also like water. And it was dark. And the mountain was alive."
Adam stared at me, nonplussed. "Why didn't you say something?"
I bit the inside of my lip. "What would I have said? I had a weird, freaky dream and saw all this stuff I can't explain, most of which I can barely remember?"
He nodded slowly, "Yeah. If you said, 'Hey guys, I just got injected by this strange Seed I got from an intelligent Trial monster, and then I passed out and had a weird dream-slash-vision. Just thought you should know,' that might have been nice."
I scowled. "Well, if I'd known this was going to happen, I would have."
"Umm, guys," Sam said, "is this really the time?"
We fell silent, waiting for something to happen and throw us into action.
Shortly after that, one of the tree's cocoon leaves started to wiggle.
I grabbed Zed's arm and drug him away from it.
The team moved with me, each of us scanning our surroundings in a different direction so nothing snuck up while we were distracted.
The cocoon unfolded, and an ancient looking old man emerged from within, hanging from his head, which sprouted brightly colored feathers in lieu of hair.
He dropped to the sand with a pop, and steadied himself with a cane. His back bent like the curve of a fruit-laden tree branch, and he smiled at us kindly out of a face with no unwrinkled spot.
"Hello, children. I see that you are all here, and appear to be ready."
At least it wasn't an Intelligence type Trial. From all our combined experiences, the Intelligence types never had Moderators.
When there was no response, he continued. "Very well then. That volcano," he pointed with his cane, "is about to erupt. To win the Trial, you need to capture some of the fire and bring it back to me. Inside the Cube are the containers for that. Everyone please take one. And be quick about it. We don't have much time."
He continued to speak as the Cube doled out clear glass bulbs. "Point the end toward some of the flame and snap the seal. It will suck inward and seal the fire within."
"Is that all?" someone asked.
His eyebrows drooped over his eyes, along with the feathers on his head. "You must survive, too. That is enough."
The ground gave a rolling heave, and a booming wave of sound followed, forceful enough to almost knock me off my feet. The clouds around the mountain were writhing, but I still couldn't see above them to the tip of the volcano.
The feather-headed old man reached upward with is cane and prodded the tip of the leaf-cocoon.
It reached down and wrapped around his body, then drew upward along with the other branches and shrank in close to the trunk. It shivered, then settled, color changing to a dark gray that spread out from the trunk to the tips of the cocoons.
One of the Players rapped their knuckles on the tree. "Stone," they announced.
All around us, the other trees started to pull their limbs in close and do the same.
Adam ran to one of the cocoons and patted on it, trying to get it to open, but it pulled away unconcerned and stiffened as its color leached away. He turned to me and shook his head in futility.
Something started to fall through the clouds. Something flickering dark and light, and heading our way.
"Uh oh," Jacky croaked.
"Fire," I said. In my dream, the land for miles and miles had been covered, cleansed by the flame. "There's no outrunning it."
I looked to Zed, whose eyes reflected the light of the flickering sky. I willed the panic down and started doing mental calculations. In less than two minutes the fire would reach the ground. Since there was no way to escape the mountain’s spewing wrath, we needed a way to weather through it.
The trees around us curled up and turned to stone in ever widening ripples. “Find us a place to take shelter,” I snapped to the group, already racing toward the still-green trees. If the Moderator was hiding in one, I knew they could keep us safe. I launched myself at the side of the tree, used my momentum to take a few more steps upward, and grabbed one of the folded green leaves. With a firm grip, I use gravity and my feet pressing against the trunk to rip the leaf off. It ripped away from the stem with a milky white spray and started to calcify even as I fell to the ground. Once it was hardened I couldn’t unfold it, and I tossed the useless thing to the ground in frustration.
I repeated the process, but this time snapped the leaf as if I was airing out a dirty rug before the gray spread through it. It straightened and hardened in that position, a makeshift leaf umbrella against the coming firestorm. I dropped the stone leaf at my feet and moved on to the next green tree. When I’d used up as much time as I could, I turned and sprinted back to the others, snatching up the huge leaves I’d harvested as I ran.
I pulled up a map Window through my Command Skill and followed the moving dots on it to the rest of the team. Adam was leading the others over the lake, across the sparse sandbars rippling a path through its depths, toward a large rock jutting diagonally out of the water. I followed them out into the deeper water, each lunging step splashing the crystal clear liquid up and out.
Zed looked back to see me, relief loosening his face.
A dark shadow moved across the water in the corner of my eye and drew my alarm. “There’s…something in the water,” I screamed, gasping for air.
They immediately started to move faster, but the resistance of the water impeded their movements, while the shadow raced toward them. They would not arrive quickly enough.
My heart crashed around in my chest, and the sick feeling of fear and helplessness made me want to scream. I pushed myself harder and started to catch up with the group, but I knew the creature, slicing toward them like a bullet, would reach them first.
I threw the leaves like Frisbees towards the rocky overhang, slipped off my pack and hurled that, too, and then turned to intercept the creature. I inserted myself between the team and the approaching monster with only seconds to spare and jumped as hard as I could. I blocked off everything in my mind but the monster. My body twisted in the air and I brought my clawed left hand down first, thrusting into the water as the monster passed beneath me.
I caught a glimpse of the legged, spiky-spined shark in the second before I thrust my hand into the lake and hooked my claws into it. They tore through its thick, rubbery skin, just behind the head, and continued tear as its momentum forced my hand along the body. I realized it was going to rip itself free in a frenzy of pain and anger, so I curled my clawed fingers inside even harder and wrenched, swinging my other arm around. That hand slammed into it right above the tail, and then we were both under the water, and it was thrashing around with a strength I had no hope to match.
My claws ripped free, and I saw only huge, curved teeth in the opening of its tube-like throat before it was on me. I sliced my pointed fingers through the water as quickly as I could, and slammed my right hand into its jaw right behind the mouth to throw off its toothy aim. With the other hand, I raked across its murky black eyes, slicing them open.
It tried to get away then, but I dug the fingers of my right hand in even farther, far enough to clench them together on the inside of its throat cavity. If it left, it was taking me with it.
With my left hand, I continued to thrust, holding my hand and fingers straight and compact like I was going to karate chop it, but using my claws like daggers. They allowed me to pierce easily, and I did so, again and again, stabbing indiscriminately.
The volcanic fire started to hit the top of the water and fall down, un-dampened by the liquid. A piece hit the creature’s torso and evaporated some of its flesh into a flashing, dark mist. I prayed none fell on me, because I was too busy fighting the monster to focus on anything else.
My lungs burned and my arms weakened from lack of oxygen, but the creature finally slowed, having lost too much blood to continue. I
ignored my exhaustion and searched desperately for the surface of the water, disorientated after the shark’s mad, blind flight. Luckily, we were close. If not, I’m not sure I would have made it.
I burst through the surface with a gasp, and only after a few breaths of air cleared the blackness from my eyes did I realize I was still holding the huge creature in a death grip with my right hand.
Blood dyed the water, splashing into my face and rolling over my head as the fire rained down, all around me. If these creatures were anything like the sharks of Earth, others would come soon, and I knew I didn’t have the strength to fight them. If I didn’t get incinerated first, that is. But as I tried to remove my forearm from the monster’s throat, I realized I was stuck. Somehow, the corpse had tightened around me, and something hard pressed together around my wrist. I couldn’t release my fist to make my hand small enough to slip through the entrance wound, and so the huge bleeding beacon was stuck to me.
With a single sob of exhaustion, I started trying to swim back to the rock overhang with one arm, dragging the shark like monster. Water kept finding its way into my mouth and nose as I struggled to stay afloat.
I heard indistinguishable shouting on the shore, and then Adam calling out to me. I looked blearily upward to Jacky holding a huge length of rope in her arm. I was too winded to shout acknowledgment, but she threw it anyway, spinning her body and releasing the rope so that it flew in a wide arc through the air, unwinding as it went.
It landed in the water not far from me, and I grabbed on with just enough time to wrap the loop around my shoulders before they started hauling me forward. I sliced through the water, the rope never losing tautness, and was soon being grabbed by the hands of my team.
I coughed, spitting up some water, and then collapsed onto the warm sand beneath me. Someone grabbed me and drug me, shark and all, under the protection of the jutting rock and hardened leaves.
Behind me, I heard the wet sounds of slashing and stabbing, the evidence of my team fighting the monsters that had followed me.
After a while, the fighting died down and I regained some of my energy.