Oh no! The sun is rising! My eyes had been open this entire night. No sleep. My body has a very drained, tired feeling like I'm drugged. Jace is concerned about my lack of sleep. However, I tell him coffee is my best friend, and hopefully, the next challenge won't require too much energy. Sometimes the missions are mental and not physical. And there are no excuses for arriving late to missions.
I ask Jace to drop me off at the amphitheater. I don't want to draw attention from the other competitors. He finds my request comical but does it anyway. We land, inconspicuously, of course. I step out of the hovercar onto a field of grass and close the door behind me. I thank Jace for everything. He smiles back and takes off. The hovercar disappears into the sky, out of sight above the clouds, and I'm alone—
At least I thought I was. Four more hovercars whoosh in and drop off warriors. My competitors! They are arriving for today's mission. Then I see Justin, Keith, and Tyrone stepping out of the same hovercar. But I'm missing from the picture. I may be fortunate this time. No one is going to notice I'm late. We usually keep our warrior uniforms at the amphitheater, so violating the dress code isn't an issue. I jog across the field to catch up with them. Nobody notices me slip into the crowd except Tyrone.
"Where have you been?" he demands, whispering. "I thought you were going to miss the mission."
"Uh..." I'm apprehensive about acknowledging I did a mission with a Nightfire warrior. I don't want these people to gossip. Competitors are mocking me enough. It's best if I keep my interactions with Nightfire a secret. However, I'm sure the producers are going to make me spill tea at confessionals. "I'm back now," I say. "No one noticed I was gone, did they?"
"Just the three of us," says Tyrone. "Don't do that again. I was worried about you for a second."
Rather than heading to the arena like we usually do, we gather backstage. Desks are set up for us, and there's a white, dry erase board. Kendall and a female turtlehead I've never seen before are waiting for us. They have welcoming smiles, but I'm nervous. This challenge is quite different from the rest.
"Just find a seat," the turtlehead says, her voice smooth as honey. "Hello, everyone. My name is Turquoise. I'm going to be your tutor for the day."
Sitting in my seat, it strangely doesn't feel like high school over again. Frankie sits behind me, not sure how far. It doesn't bother me if he is smirking at me, trying to find a way to hit me in the head with crumpled paper without exposure. What really bothers me is my eyelashes feel like they have little weight on them. I'm not sitting up straight at the desk. Nevertheless, Turquoise's voice sounds like a lullaby that could put me in a peaceful dream...
No, I force myself. Stay awake. This is important!
Today's teaching is about combo attacks. Turquoise shows us diverse kinds of grenades—plasma and regular—and how we can use them simultaneously with a rifle. These new tricks she demonstrates don't look easy. Some warriors know how to do this already. The teachings and critical points are blurring in my head.
Turquoise finishes, thanks to us for having her teach, and leaves graciously.
"All right, everyone," Kendall says. "This is a special and dangerous week. Your mission tomorrow will be a capture the flag game on planet Pandora." Kitty's softest squeal overpowers everyone's low excitement.
Sounds dangerous enough. Steal the enemy's flag, take it to your territory, and you win. Add guns, genetic abilities, and environment, then everyone's strategies will be beyond my expertise. It's also a chance to see how everyone fights.
"You will be competing in two teams of six." Kendall starts to explain the rules. "And you will need to figure out strategies on how to steal your opponents' flag. And how to defend your flag. You must bring it back to your territory. The team that successfully steals the flag first, and takes it back to home base, will be safe from being eliminated at the next elimination." She's explaining slowly and precisely, so everybody fully understands. "Two members will be responsible for defending the flag. Two will be responsible for stealing the opponents'. One will be the captain of your team. One will have a wild role, meaning they can be responsible for anything you choose. I recommend being strategic with that one. There are thirteen of you, so one will be left out. That person will serve as a trolling fool during the game. The objective of the fool is to sabotage the game by whatever strategies they come up with. The fool will also be safe at the next elimination."
Tensions start to rise.
"Note that everything and everyone in and outside of this planet is at your disposal. You have one hour to pick the fool, to pick the teams, and assign responsibilities. At the end of the test, you will be judged based on your responsibility for the whole team. Know your strengths," Kendall finishes. "And choose wisely." She silently gestures a goodbye with a friendly smile and walks out. All thirteen of us are left in the classroom, alone, with no sort of guidance to figure this out. As adults, we should be able to oversee this calmly and rationally.
We're getting ready to pick the teams, and we must decide on that one person who will be the fool. I can tell you right now this is going to be some bull crap because everybody will have desperate desires to be the fool.
It's chaos! Everybody tries to talk over one another. Somebody waves their hands wildly, desperate for attention. Danny has a comical panic attack from the rules and starts blatantly avoiding everyone approaching him. The cocky ones try to take leadership but fail miserably.
I remain at my desk, isolated from the group, and watch how everybody will organize this. Hopefully, they'll forget I'm in the room. Best case scenario: no team will pick me, and I'll end up being the fool. Then again, people like Frankie will make damn sure I do get on a team, so I have the possibility of getting cut. Endless strategies, manipulated ones too, can come into play here.
The word I hear the most throughout the shouting is: "no!" coming from multiple people. Like everything someone says, someone else disagrees with. "Well, we have an hour," Cody reminds everyone. "We have to pick somebody! We need to go down the line, one by one, and vote who the fool should be."
"No!" Frankie barks. "The whole team has to agree on that."
"What about nominations?" Tyrone asks. "I think maybe Sag should be the fool—"
Everybody shuts Tyrone down with that one quickly. Half of the room says "no!" And the other half: "Hell no!" So there goes my plan.
Tyrone erases everything Turquoise had written on the dry erase board. Glad somebody has the initiative to write responsibilities down. A new visual is on the board. We are free to volunteer for whatever duty we might be interested in. All we must do is sign our name in that specific column. The fool column is empty. Every time someone tries to print their name there, volunteering, Frankie erases it immediately. Predictable they don't want me safe from elimination. This is a popularity contest. Whoever will be fool is the most liked out of everyone.
This is why I believe Justin is going to be the fool. But his name appears in the captain column, with Frankie and Tyrone. They're teaming up. Leave it to Justin to pick his squad while everybody else is sitting here arguing. His team already has advantages. Frankie has his shield, and Tyrone has his fire. It's genius! Pick both great offenders and the best defender. And you're going to shut the whole other team down. I need to be on that team! Before I can stand up from my chair to volunteer, Justin approaches Kitty and someone else. It's over. No way I can join the dream team now.
The rest of us aren't happy about this, including me. I gaze at the whiteboard and see Justin's team, already assigned responsibilities, ready to go.
"That's not fair!" someone complains. "Because basically whoever's not on that team are the leftovers, and we have no choice—"
"Well, you were sitting back, not saying anything," Frankie argues. "So, it is fair."
I find it cruel to call my team leftovers, even though that's somewhat true. Although I do believe most of us received the shorter end of the stick because we are soft-spoken. Consequently, I end up on a team with Cody, Keith, Virgo, and three other warriors I don't know very well. It's not over yet. We must pick a fool from the "leftover" warriors. Everybody either wants Frankie or Keith to be the fool. Since Frankie is already on a team, the majority seem okay with the latter.
"Okay. Let's vote!" Justin demands the group. "If you want Keith to be fool, everybody, raise your hand." He presents it like voting for Keith isn't an option, and my hand goes up into the air with everybody else's. Justin marches up to the whiteboard, writes Keith's name in giant letters with a marker. KEITH LEWIS: assigned as fool.
Justin's team breaks, and the six of them walk off in different directions. Already, they're strategizing, organizing, and everybody is doing something productively different and using their strengths to their fullest potential. Most importantly, I catch Danny sending secret messages, passing a note to Frankie in the act, and I can only hope he doesn't see me back. We have a problem; this team is very intimidating.
And this is what happens.
What was supposed to be an exciting, nail-biting, and edge-of-your-seat mission turns out to be a complete letdown. My team had no sense of unity, no awareness, and too much assumption. Their ideas were trash because no one took the mission seriously. Only Virgo and Cody's maturity saved us from degradation, and even then, they had some intense arguments. The lack of my sleep didn't help either. The amount of participation I contributed should have been better. Completely lost, we're dumped into Pandora and defeated within a day. Finding their flag was a needle in a haystack. Somehow Justin's team successfully locates ours within five hours. By the end of today, I'm going down with the team because I was captain. Also known as the scapegoat. I should have been an offender! After heated debates and fifteen minutes of wasting time, it was best if Virgo was offender with Cody.
Oh, and that's not all.
Everyone fought to their most total capacity. During the mission, I'm introduced to a new creature called the Fleshbyte. Pretty much a mutated rat. Their motive is to relax you. Inexplicably, human skin terrifies them, so they eat you alive instead. Once I witnessed Virgo getting devoured by one, exhaustion completely punctured my aim. And I ended up obliterating my teammate, Virgo, instead.
Yes. Dead. Meaning, he's eliminated from the tournament and killed off. Apart from me thinks he is going to run out from the corner and reveal himself. I repeatedly tell myself whatever happened in those ten seconds didn't indeed occur—seeing his ashes evaporate into the air. Still, he's gone. Unless the medical team can reverse time or have the equipment to reform him, it's officially the end of his life.
It's an awful lot to take in. I bet Virgo's family is watching from home. Does he have a father who just lost his son and now wants my head on a platter? Just imagining his family grieve makes me nauseous. Keith says people die in these tournaments—that it does happen. Maybe once every two or so years. And the warriors who do the murdering are usually eliminated.
I ask Keith who else has died in these tournaments. Three years ago, during Ryan's tournament—right before he became declared as one of the six—he killed this warrior named Jackson. The lunatic who said he was going to bash Ryan's teeth in. It's a disturbing story. Basically, a preventable fight commenced between them, and Ryan's super strength decapitated Jackson, which ultimately gave him a spot on the elite team. He obviously wasn't eliminated. Favoritism had something to do with it. To make a long story endless, no one talked about it. It was just a sad day for everyone. For Abigail, especially. She tries not to let this sort of thing happen.
And that's it. We must continue the mission. Continue with our daily lives. Abigail always chants, "the show must go on!" and it grinds my teeth in dissatisfaction. As much as Virgo signed up for this, it's different when I caused the killing. I must stop having the mindset of an earthling. We're not on Earth anymore. If this were a real mission, and somebody died, I wouldn't just surrender. Would I? Yet, I'm appalled we're proceeding without any sort of acknowledgment about Virgo's death.
It's all Frankie's fault Virgo is dead. He just had to show off his cool Fleshbyte! Yes, there are a million ways Virgo could have died, but that would have been one less way. I was trying to save a teammate. How can I miss my blast? My team will never rise from humiliation.
Walking into judging feels more nerve-wracking than being sent to the principal's office. The room feels colder than usual. The chandelier blinds my face and shines bright at the panel of judges in front of me. They have scary looks of despicable and disgrace on their faces. Like they already know what has happened this past week.
Abigail is extra glittery tonight. The bright pink, the silver rhinestone shirt she's wearing sparkles faintly and fast like glitter. "Hello, everyone." Her vocal cords are taut as a wire. "Originally, I was going to welcome thirteen of you, but now, I see we only have twelve. Under these circumstances, we are still going to have an elimination." She hasn't called me out yet, but I know the time is coming.
The entire mission somehow recorded our best and worst moments, even though I didn't witness the cameras following me. Justin's performance plays back for everyone to watch. One thing that did impress me was when he started explaining to the mentors how he went about his strategies. According to Justin, most of their plan was improvised. Abigail wouldn't expect anything less because it's essential to make decisions in the heat of the moment.
Kendall makes it a point to ask Frankie if he has ever thrown forcefields before today. He admits the mission was the first time. Which means his genetic abilities are advancing.
Throughout the ceremony, my head is down, and I'm holding back tears. They must see that I'm upset. Everybody's critiques feel like a build-up for my terrible breakdown.
When Cody steps forward, Abigail exclaims she feels sorry for him for being on such a lame team. Those aren't her exact words, but that's the tone. My team was lame. One can't even answer the judges' questions. Two teammates didn't know the strategies and, with embarrassment, didn't know each other's responsibilities. Had we not goofed around in the beginning, we would have stood a chance. I don't understand these warriors sometimes.
Abigail announces my name, and I venture cautious steps toward doom. First, she asks what I contributed to the mission, seemingly clueless about what I did, and then we proceed.
My performance from the mission plays back on the monitor. Everybody watches. And then the most horrifying scene begins. I look away but can still hear Virgo's horrific end. I wonder how my competitors make of this. Do they think I'm after them next? Are they more scared of me than they are sad for losing a friend? I have no idea. Kendall doesn't watch the monitors either. During the playback, we take a moment to stare at each other. I mouth the words I'm sorry to her, and she smiles sympathetically.
The playback finishes and the monitor turns off. Abigail takes a deep breath and says, "Now, I think everyone in this room knows exactly how I feel when a warrior in this tournament kills another competitor. It makes me want to send them home. Because you guys are good enough to prevent something like that from happening."
"Everyone in the room knows it was an accident," says Kendall.
Abigail shakes her head. "That still doesn't change what had happened going into this mission." She doesn't sound angry, but her voice is powerful. "I just don't think your role as the captain did anything for you. Your aim was off by one-hundred miles. There were multiple opportunities where you could have done the combo attacks you've learned with Turquoise. And you should be able to blow things up without using your hands at this point. You looked so lost. Had no idea what you were doing."
Every horrible and humiliating critique about me stabs my heart one right after the other. I can't bear what Palmer has to say, notwithstanding when he speaks, disparage is obscure from his tone. Disappointing him is unaccountably the worst. His first instinct was when he found out I was chosen for the captain, a total manipulation from my teammates to try and get myself blamed for our downfall. Abigail agrees.
Everyone knows I'm not a leader. If they were going to choose me as captain, then I should have been amazing! I did a task that requires abilities I'm weak at. Cody has the classic ratios to be one of the best captains, and I don't. It put our entire team in jeopardy. Kendall admires me for having the courage to be the muse. Nice to know she's giving me the lecture easily. Either way, her words hurt. I fought a lousy fight exceptionally well. The last thing they said was to choose wisely. My team did not.
After judging, while the mentors are deliberating, we're gathered in the training room to wait. Waiting for each week's decision feels longer than the last, even though they critique fewer and fewer warriors. The energy in the room is always daunting. I'm sure everybody is guessing to themselves who's going home.
I'll be shocked if I'm eliminated. There are people on my team who didn't contribute as much as I did. I know Abigail doesn't blame me entirely. After stepping up to the plate and embarrassing myself, there's no way I'm going home—not even the bottom two—zero chance.
"Are you okay?" Tyrone takes the time to check on me. "You got it pretty hard back there."
I shake my head. "She hates me that I killed Virgo."
"That's not true," Tyrone says slowly. "Why would you think that?"
"Doesn't everyone else?"
Tyrone glares at me. "All right, Sag. Sit down with me." I slide down the wall, and we sit on the floor together. He takes a glance at the other competitors to make sure no one's eavesdropping. "You need to wake up, Sag. This isn't just a tournament. This is a sanctuary, a beacon of hope for people like—oh, I don't know. Maybe kids who are afraid to tell their parents who they really are feel they have no purpose in life. It takes more than an honor to be here. Millions of amateurs try to do lame missions for fame, for money. To try and make a name for themselves when really, they're getting nowhere in the industry. You fit the classic stereotypes of those people because you don't know what you're signing up for."
I glance away. "Tyrone, I don't need another wake-up call speech."
Tyrone curls his lips in. "I think you do. Frankie's just trying to prove what he's capable of to the judges. You can't take it personally. I'm not telling you how to fight. I'm telling you how to survive."
It comes as a bit of a shock that it's not about being the best fighter. Managing weapons, having lethal genetic abilities, and performing combo attacks, although that does control it. But the million-dollar question is, how long you can stay alive. Survival.