by Azalea Ellis
Adam leaned over me and pried at the flesh gripping my right hand. He let out a shuddering laugh. "I thought you'd lost the arm, because you weren't using it to swim. I thought…" he trailed off.
I smiled weakly. "No worries. My arms don't come off that easily."
Jacky knelt beside me and gave me a quick visual inspection, letting out a sigh of relief only when she didn't find any wounds. "You are loca. We thought for sure…” she stopped herself. “You were under for a long time."
"I'm just glad you guys kept an eye out for me. If you'd given me up for shark bait, I don't know if I'd have made it back."
She scowled. "You’d definitely be dead, stupid. If not for me and my crazy good tug-o’-war skills, no?" She sniffed and pursed her lips.
"Thank you. Now stop bragging," I said, giving her a light smack on the arm.
Zed finished helping Sam use the rock leaves to create a barrier around the opening of the scoop-cave we were all huddled in. He knelt beside me, his dark eyebrows pulled down in a horrible scowl. But when he saw me lying there, his eyes started to fill with liquid.
I frowned and shook my head. "Zed, everything's fine. It's okay. This is no big deal, I promise. I've dealt with much worse."
He shook his head and bit his lip hard, as he worked to push down the tears. "Is this…what you've been doing? Stuff like this, is what you've been going through?"
Adam cut away the shark that was gripping my hand, and gently slid the appendage out of the carcass.
I flexed my stiff fingers and muttered, "Thanks," then turned to Zed. "This is why I didn't want you involved. This Game runs on fear and death. But if one of the team needs help, we help. Like I helped stop the monster, and everybody helped me just now."
He pressed his lips together and clenched his jaw.
"Are you hurt?" Sam asked. "Do you need my help?"
"I'm fine, just a little winded," I said.
When I stood up, Jacky gave a whooping cheer and flipped the bird outward, to everything that was making our little makeshift hiding place quiver and shake.
We stayed huddled up under the rock as the world rumbled around us for what seemed like hours. Finally, things seemed to settle down and I tentatively shifted one of the leaves covering the opening and looked out.
Fire no longer fell from the sky, so I removed the leaf and crawled out, climbing up the rock for a higher vantage point. Except for the large landmarks like the mountain and the water down below, the landscape was completely different.
The lakes had spread and changed shape, and the greenery on the shore sprung from the sand, a riot of brightly colored blooms sprinkled among the transformed vegetation. The only things that were the same were the cocoon trees that had turned to stone. Mist from the mountaintop was quickly spreading to create dark clouds, but for the moment the sand sparkled clear and bright, reflecting light from the water and the sun. Here and there, patches of dark flame shone, rippling shadows as they burned a new land into existence.
Chapter 32
Into this wild Abyss/ The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave--/ Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,/ But all these in their pregnant causes mixed/ Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,/ Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain/ His dark materials to create more worlds,--/ Into this wild Abyss the wary Fiend/ Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,/ Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith/ He had to cross.
― John Milton
We hurried to grab samples of the last of the flames before they burned themselves out, and brought them back to the feather-headed Moderator, who had survived, protected by the stone trees.
He took the bulbs from us and secured them in a padded briefcase. "It gladdens my heart to see you alive," he said. "May your strength lead you on." He turned and walked into the trees and sprawling bushes till his hunched form disappeared from sight.
The Cube popped up with its usual message.
DO YOU WISH TO RETURN FROM THE TRIAL?
YESNO
I stepped forward, a shaking finger hovering over the cube surface. I pressed, "No,” and let out a breath.
IF YOU DO NOT RETURN NOW, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO UNTIL THE NEXT ALIGNMENT. ARE YOU SURE?
YESNO
I picked "Yes."
Jacky went next, and Sam after her, both repeating my actions.
I turned to Zed and Adam, who would both be staying on Earth. "I guess we'll see you guys in about nine days, your time. Good luck." I bit the inside of my lip, wishing things could be different, and I didn't have to worry about the two.
Adam ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. "Ah, damn it. With things like this, you leave me no choice, Eve." He stepped forward and quickly chose the option to stay in the Trial world, rather than return to Earth. "If I leave you alone with these two," he flicked his fingers to Jacky and Sam, "how can I trust you'll survive? I have to be here to watch your back, especially when you keep putting yourself in dangerous situations."
"Hey!" Jacky said. "I… Well, I’d be offended, but I’m just glad you decided to stay. We’re a team, and we should stick together, no?"
Zed stepped forward and pressed "No," too, but I grabbed his hand in a crushing grip before he could confirm his selection.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I hissed.
"I'm going to stay, too. I can help you, Eve. I want to be here.” He wriggled his hand in my grasp, trying to force the issue. “Just let me stay and help."
I thrust him back hard enough that he stumbled, and growled, my claws fully extended. "You're not staying."
He steadied himself and stepped forward again. "This isn't your choice to make. The whole reason all this happened is because I wanted to keep you safe. There's no way I'm going to just watch you go into danger and not do anything to help."
My heart clenched, because I knew I'd be saying the same thing to him in this situation. But I also knew what would hit hard enough to make him stay away despite all that. "I don't want you here, Zed," I said clearly.
"You want me to be safe, I know. But it's no safer if I go back, now. Adam was supposed to be with me, help protect us, but now it will be just me and Blaine."
"NIX doesn't know you exist. I want to keep it that way, and I’ll need you on the other side as a point to return the team to next time. And it's not just that I want to protect you by keeping you out of this Trial. You're weak," I said, stepping forward and poking him in the chest with my claw. "If you stay, you're going to put me and my team in danger. We’ll have to be looking out for you every step of the way. If I needed your help, I would ask for it." I took another step, pushing him backward and glaring at him with every ounce of malice I possessed. "I don't need your help, and I don't want it. So please, do as I say and quit making trouble for me."
He stared at me for a moment, searching for something in my eyes that I made sure he didn't find. "O—Okay. Are you sure?"
"I'm damn sure. Now please, hurry up and go back so we can get on with it." I pointed toward the Cube.
He moved forward, and with one last glance back to me, he selected the option to return to the normal world and popped out of existence.
There was a moment of silence, and then Jacky let out a low whistle. "Damn, that was vicious." She laughed ruefully, and clapped me on the back.
Sam pinched his lips together. "She was doing what she had to, what needed to be done to get the job done. It was the right thing to do."
“Sam, my boy, you’re coming ‘round.” Jacky clapped him on the back with a laugh, hard enough that he stumbled forward.
I took a deep breath and turned toward the mountain. It stood towering over the land like a giant. "In my dream, there's something important up there. Who's up for some rock climbing?"
Of course, the sky chose that moment to start a torrential downpour.
* * *
We dove for cover, but it seemed to be ordinary rain, aside from how much of it there was. It dried up
quickly, and I realized it had put out the last of the fires.
We made our way to the base of the mountain, wary of shark monsters, but either they had all died or they were in hiding, because none showed up to attack us.
When we reached the base, I looked up, my eyes tracking the side of the tiered mountain up, and up, and up. "This is gonna be great training, guys," I said, wiggling my still bare toes in the sand and adjusting the straps of my heavy pack on my shoulders. I extended my claws and tested them against the rock. They made satisfying scores in the surface. "Jacky, we're going to need your rope again. I want us all tied together, but leave some slack in the line so we're not all tugging on each other. I'll go first and cut hand and footholds with my claws so you have something to hold onto. We're going to go diagonally across the rock surface, moving in zigzags. We'll stop once we reach the top of this first section and reassess. Don’t slip, it’s still wet from the rain. Got it?"
They all nodded silently, though Jacky was grinning and clenching her muscles, Sam was looking up at the mountain in apprehension, and Adam seemed to be absorbed in his own thoughts, his eyes constantly scanning.
Thus, we started a climb of many days.
A plateau topped each butte, each its own little ecosystem with water either falling down from above or springing out of the rock side, and most containing different things trying to kill us. In just the first few days we encountered more than enough danger and hardship to last a few Trials, and grew stronger at every turn. When we weren’t fighting against our environment, Adam spent his time quizzing us, and teaching strange theories and complicated math we’d never need in real life. But they stretched my mind in new ways, and I found, to my surprise, that we could level up the mental Attributes spontaneously. And in another surprise, my Beauty also leveled up spontaneously. I could only guess it was because I was so much more fit than I’d been before the Game. My Physique was a high level, and the two things obviously went together. I had no mirror, but I could feel cheekbones instead of vague pudge on my cheeks.
A sucking-mud swamp gave Jacky a chance to practice her Skill when we chose that plateau to rest on for the night. It was safe enough as long as we didn't walk into the mud. Anything that touched it would be sucked down as if some huge monster was slurping at it through a straw. Jacky played in the mud until she gained the finesse to control her body’s adherence to the law of gravity to the point that she could float through it. She also liked to use her Skill to reduce her gravity while we scaled the mountainside like spiders, grinning cockily at the rest of us who grew tired while climbing with huge packs on our backs.
Another plateau held what seemed to be a fruit orchard, a notion that was quickly disproved when Jacky ate some small, bright cherries, and Sam had to heal her when she started to asphyxiate. She smiled euphorically while choking to death, after which Sam had an idea, and ate a few himself. When I snapped at him, he reminded me of his Skill. Every time he healed something, his body grew a natural resistance to it. But at the same time, it also grew the ability to replicate that damage, slightly augmented. He was hoping to add the berries’ effects to others of the same type he already had, and create a harmless, painless paralytic ability, which he could use to fight.
On another plateau, swarming bugs camouflaged themselves expertly until we had settled in for a meal from the food we'd brought with us in our packs. Then they came after us in sheets and waves, biting and clawing and wriggling at us until Adam sent a jolt of electricity through the damp air. They smelled like roasted almonds covering the ground with their crunchy carcasses.
But my biggest concern was actually our food supply. If my calculations of the time in-Trial versus the time in the real world were correct, we would be there for about forty-five days. We were pushing our bodies hard, and like I'd wished, we were leveling up many of our different Attributes through old-fashioned hard work. But that also meant we were eating like ravenous hyenas, and would run out of food within days, despite having filled our packs to the brim with little else.
Ten days into our climb, I was sitting the early morning watch against danger and contemplating our situation. I groaned and rolled my shoulders, then pushed up from my rocky perch to stretch my sore and stiff muscles. I felt like I'd gotten only a few hours of rest. Sleep was difficult with the luxurious damp stone mattress, the insects, my grumbling stomach, and the constant worrying at the back of my mind that I would need to get up and fight at a moment's notice.
Water was a nonissue, seeing as the stuff was everywhere, even in the group's shoes, in our blankets, and hanging heavy in the air. But delicious and energizing as it was, it had no calories. We would run out of food in a day or two, and I'd already noticed the others self-rationing to try and make it last. Doing that would only make it harder for us to get stronger. "We're going to have to acquire a taste for monster," I muttered. "Hope it's edible," I sighed. The sad thing was, I wasn't joking.
I sat down on the edge of large rock ledge we had made camp on and looked out into the darkness of the trees and heavy jungle-like foliage that covered a large portion of this plateau. I let the familiar feeling of power roll through me, allowing my eyes to pull in light through the fog cover from the bright, milky thick stars and the single moon hanging low in the sky at that time of night.
Adam walked over, holding a glowing bulb on a stem, a makeshift light bulb created from a carnivorous plant he'd ripped the leaves and teeth off of. With a tired sigh, he plopped down beside me and shot me an excited grin. He wasn't wearing a shirt, since the night was warm and the bugs had mostly dispersed this late. The intricate design of his tattoo had spread significantly since the last time I'd seen it, having crawled up his arms and started to reach across his upper back.
I wondered how he'd done that to himself. A mirror? "Have you been up all night?" I asked in a low, hoarse voice, and then coughed and cleared my sleep-scratchy throat.
“I’d been doing some work on augmenting my program to help get past NIX’s security again. It’ll be more powerful, more robust. They won’t know what hit them. I just wish it wasn’t so humid here. It’s not good for the electronics.”
“It’s funny that you brought your computer, because when we went into the Trial, you were still saying you wouldn’t be coming with us. What would you have needed your computer for?” I raised my eyebrow, suppressing a smile.
He looked away with an embarrassed half grin. “I may have been having second thoughts.”
“That’s great, but you should be sleeping. Your watch was over hours ago.”
He shook his head. "I need less sleep now, remember? Unfortunately, the less sleep I get, the less I seem to need. It's gotten to the point where I can barely sleep five hours straight. So I figured I'd be productive. And I don’t just mean with the program." He smiled in excitement, a rare expression on him.
"So what have you been doing?" I raised a curious eyebrow.
"I," he paused for effect, "have been practicing with a new, absolutely awesome Skill. This is going to blow your mind."
I grinned, unable to help being infected by his enthusiasm. "Show me."
He nodded and pulled out a large berry from his pocket. We'd found them a few days before in the poisonous fruit orchard and dubbed them inkberries both because of the instant-staining, abundant black juice they provided, and their bitter taste. Adam had gathered tons of them. He crushed the berry into the palm of his other hand, letting the dark fluid pool in his palm.
"Wait," I held up a hand. "You're about to show me a new Skill, right?"
He nodded.
"So…I seem to recall you jumping on me when I revealed I'd solved the Oracle's puzzle and had a strange dream that turned out to be prophetic."
He bit his lip, obviously understanding what I was getting at.
"But you got a new Skill," I said. "Something obviously of interest to the rest of the group, and you kept it a secret? When did you get this awesome Skill?"
"The desert Trial. An
d before you continue, I didn't tell everyone partially because of all the other important things going on, and partially because I didn't know how to use it properly. It's taken a lot of practice to get to this point. And it's kind of…personal. I haven't shown anyone yet. "
I grinned at him, "I'm just messing with you. And I'm honored that I get to see it first. So hurry up and show me!"
He tilted his fingers toward the stone between us and let a drop of ink slide down onto it. He frowned fiercely, his eyes locked onto the dark liquid.
It moved, seemingly of its own accord, spreading out into thin lines and blobs on the stone.
I caught my breath in surprise, watching as the ink moved eerily, forming the easily recognizable image of a giraffe.
He let out the deep breath he'd been holding. "I'm not used to drawing in front of other people."
"Whoa," I whispered, eyes locked on the cute creature. "You just drew that with your mind. Awesome! Can you do it with your eyes closed? How far away can you be from the drawing for it to work? I'm assuming you could do words, too, and not just images. Adam, that could be extremely useful," I rattled away, my mind already spinning with possibilities.
Then, he took another deep breath and whispered, "Animus."
The ink climbed out of the rock, the giraffe poking its head and neck out, then lifting itself with a hoof on the stone and pulling the rest of its body upward.
My eyes were as wide as they could go, and I definitely wasn't breathing. I'd seen a lot of fantastical things, but this was new.
The giraffe was a thing of ink and air, black and clear, and three-dimensional. It sniffed curiously, and then started to move around.
Adam blew on it, and it flattened its ears under the relatively strong onslaught of wind and seemed to glare at him fearlessly before running around to hide from the artificial gusts behind my knee.
It peeked its head out from behind my protection, almost tauntingly. After a few more seconds, it disappeared, disintegrating into clearness and falling away on the air. Where it had been, there was no trace of ink, no flat drawing on the ground, no anything.