Nightfire Warriors - A Space Opera

35. Wake Up Call

What was supposed to be an exciting, nail-biting, and edge of your seat mission turns out to be a complete letdown. My team lost within a quick day or so because of stupid actions. In the end, a teammate dies, they take down our hovercar, and we'll never rise from our humiliation. Nick states it's the worst mission we've ever done.

Walking into judging feels more nerve-wracking than walking to the principal's office. The room feels colder than usual. The bright chandelier is blinding my face, and I can barely see the panel of judges in front of me. Sweat saturates my forehead when I stand in place with the other warriors. Palmer, Amanda, Kendall are sitting behind the table. They have scary looks of despicable and disgrace on their faces. Abigail, too. She's the only one standing, as usual, welcoming us in.

She is extra glittery tonight. The bright pink, silver rhinestone shirt she's wearing sparkles faintly and fast like Christmas lights. "Hello everyone." Her vocal cords are taut as wire. "Originally, I was going to welcome thirteen of you, but I see now we only have twelve. With these circumstances, we are still going to have an elimination."

She hasn't called me out yet, but I know the time is coming.

Despite they draw names randomly to see who is critiqued first, I feel there is control because it seems too coincidental that the best goes first, and they save the worst for last. The entire Capture the Flag game was somehow recorded even though I didn't witness the camera crew following me. Not sure how they operate on missions, but the cameras had captured our best and worst moments.

Justin's performance plays back for all of us to watch. One thing that did impress me when he starts explaining to the mentors how he went about his strategies. How he thought it was a good idea to track Keith of all people because undoubtedly, he was the first to know where both flags were. That should have been our strategy!

Frankie receives great feedback as always. Three weeks in row, he has been consistent and improving.

"Frankie, have you ever thrown forcefields before today?" Kendall makes it a point to ask.

"No," Frankie replies. "That was my first time."

"Your genetic abilities are advancing," Abigail notices. "Excellent. If the rest of you guys exercise your abilities as much as Frankie, you'll be able to discover new tricks, too."

The next warrior is called down, and it's still not me. My head is down, and I'm trying to hold back any tears. The other eleven warriors standing close to me must see that I'm upset. Everybody's critiques feel like a build up for my terrible breakdown.

When Cody steps forward, Abigail says that he should have been on the other team. Like she felt sorry for him for being on such a lame team. Those aren't her exact words, but that's the vibe I'm picking up on. My team was in fact lame. Mikey couldn't even answer some of the judges' questions. He didn't know what the strategies were, and, with humiliation, thought at one moment Nick was assigned as an offender. Maybe if he didn't goof around all the time, we would have had a chance. I don't understand him sometimes.

"Up next is Sagittarius," Abigail announces.

I take small steps towards doom.

"Sag, what did you contribute to the mission?" Abigail is acting like she has no idea what I did on the mission.

"I was the captain," I say.

Abigail hesitates. "O—okay, then. Let's see what you did."

My performance on the mission plays back on the monitor. Everybody in the room is watching. Of all the moments, they had to show the one where we fall into Keith's trap. It's shown to everyone in the room that I was tortured by Frankie. Everybody winces and makes uncomfortable sounds when they see the Fleshbyte eating my shin. Then the most horrifying scene of all. I look away but can still hear what's happening. Kendall isn't looking at the monitors either. During the playback, we take a moment to stare at each other. I mouth the words I'm sorry to her.