10 LEVELS (On Hold)

13. Level 2: Half a Heart

Yoyo fell to the ground - her eyes wide open. Freez knelt down beside her and held her hands, tears flowing from her eyes like the waterfall outside.

"Yoyo! YOYO! Get up, you idiot!", Freez cried.

I could not watch this, but I could not turn away either. Until now, the death threat had seemed just that - a threat. But only while looking at Yoyo's vacant eyes, the fountain of blood from her chest and the half-embedded arrow; did I grasp the seriousness of the situation.

Freez flung around her backpack and took out some bandages - trying to stop the flowing blood. Her hands were shaking, but she didn't stop.

"Yoyo! Yoyo!", she kept repeating.

Skyla knelt down beside her and kept a hand on her shoulder - trying to state the obvious.

"She's dead," I said. My voice was unrecognisable, hoarse and dry.

Freez stopped her feverish attempts. Her eyes were ghostly - pain evident in them. Skyla turned her around and gave her a hug. In normal circumstances, Freez would be jumping and trying to wriggle out from this (she was really ticklish and to hug her was a really difficult task), but right now, she just sat limp.

"Only for this level!", Siya reminded us. We seriously needed that!

"We've to go!", Skyla said. Freez whipped up her head with her eyes asking "How can you even say that?!"

"Yoyo might already be waiting for us on that place after the level. She needs us! I can't even imagine how she might be feeling right now."

I looked towards Juhi and I guess we were both looking the same at taht moment - shocked and ghastly. Somewhere in both our minds was the thought - we could have been in Freez and Yoyo's place.

I turned away and started looking for something.

"What are you doing?", Juhi asked, her voice barely audible.

"Trying to find some sort of long stick or something. We gotta make sure that none of us step on a trap again," I replied.

After I had the idea of using one of the torches, Skyla took it (she had the longest arms among us) and started to lead the way, Freez said, "We can't just leave her like this!"

I knew what she meant but could not think of anything else. As an answer to her question, Yoyo's body started to turn into glittery powder, from her toes up, that vanished after a second. In a minute, she was gone. Only the bloody floor gave any signs of someone being killed there.

Her backpack and weapon (a big dagger) did not vanish and Siya picked them up. Freez took the dagger and the food and water was distributed. Juhi gave the bandages that were found from Yoyo's bag to Freez as hers were almost finished. And then, we started ahead.

Nobody talked, just our steps and Skyla's cane touching every tile made any sounds. Somehow, it seemed darker now, although torches still lined up the walls.

As we walked, we came across three traps, and every time Yoyo's vacant eyes flashed across mine, reminding me that it could happen again. First trap was a fall to death by getting stabbed by multiple spikes, next was getting trapped inside a two-by-two feet sqaure room that came up from the ground like a flash and in this, death came by getting crushed by two of its walls which apparently had spikes. We saw this as the walls fell apart after completely crushing whoever was inside - as if we must see what would have become of our friends if they would have been caught. The downward slope of the corridor made it much harder to save ourselves from traps. The last one was a backet of lava pouring down. I pulled Skyla back in time to prevent her hand from getting burned to ashes.