THE CRYSTAL HOUSE

¶Playing with water¶

Mareike

Mareike fell in love with the game room immediately she entered. There was water everywhere in the room, and she could hear the rush of the water running down speedily from its source. The water was pouring down into a large glass tank painted with murals depicting the ocean; surfing boards, plants and flowers, sea creatures and even realistic ripples and waves. It felt like she had just stepped into her favourite place.

She smiled and bounced towards where their seats were arranged, but her movements abruptly stopped. She stared into the glass tank again and frowned; it became quite obvious that today's game would involve going into that glass cage and suddenly, she didn't feel too happy and bouncy anymore. She loved water that she did not have to drink or go into, she was content to just stare at it and wonder the secrets that it held.

Mareike sat down and turned sideways to glance at her reflection in the glass wall beside her. She always hated how she looked in clothes but today's outfit made her nauseous. The organizers had provided wears to use in playing the game; blue and white track suits which had matching swim suits and briefs. While the other girls looked snug and sexy in theirs, all she saw staring back at her was an overblown pufferfish. Hers were extra tight around the arms but the bottoms were worse around her waist, there was no breathing space and all her thigh fat clogged up in the small space provided. The only thing that made her remotely like the outfit was its colour. Still, it felt like her original suit and bottoms were misplaced or mismatched but there was no time to change nor a spare.

As usual, Mr. Han entered last with the masked men who immediately spread out and positioned themselves around the game room. Someone near her shouted.

"Hear, hear. The Head of House is about to address us."

Everyone laughed at the joke, even if it wasn't all that funny. Mareike laughed because she wanted to ease her nerves.

The man moved to stand in front of them and smiled. "Good afternoon to you too. As you can see, today's game centres around a water course. The goal is to reach that red ball at the edge," He turned back and pointed at it. "in less than ten minutes using any method you deem fit to escape the obstacles set before you. Is that clear enough?" He asked.

Mareike nodded along with everyone else and when Mr. Han brought out a black glass bowl, she followed her housemates forward to pick a number. Number five.

Mareike sighed and made her way back to her seat, watching as Ace went forward. By the time it got to her turn, she had already become familiar with the methods for dodging the obstacles so in less than three minutes, she was done.

Immediately Mareike stepped out of the water, her skin started acting up. She dashed for her seat at the far back, avoiding eye contact with everyone as she settled down to scratch herself thoroughly. She looked up after some seconds and caught Marcello's eyes looking at her curiously before turning away to whisper something to Femi.

She didn't know what to make of that, so she shrugged back into her track suit leaving the bottoms still perched on the edge of her chair till the itching had stopped.

"I like your tattoo." The person beside her whispered and touched her arm.

Mareike turned to her side and saw Priya pointing at her thigh. She ran the edges of a chewed fingernail down her face and used the track bottoms to cover it up.

"Oh, that is nothing."

She frowned. "It's not nothing. It's pretty and unique, never seen one like it. Did you get it back home? Can I see it?"

"Umm, yes I did." She cautiously removed the bottoms, bending down to scratch around the area. "Thanks, I guess. It was just a moment of defiance."