Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning even though I am more than a few hundred yards away from the nearest body of water. It’s that feeling, when you are slowly sinking into the bottom of the ocean while you are trying to reach for that globe of light shimmering from beyond the surface. You try your best to reach for it, but no matter what you do, the weight of the ocean only seemed to push you even deeper. What I’m feeling about Cora has always been like that. She has always been the better daughter and she always had the positive attributes of a typical Hardin: heroic, bold, famous, humble, just perfect. While me, I was a typical Hardin because I was hard-headed and arrogant.
I hated Cora. But deep inside, I always knew that I wanted to be like her. No. I wanted to be her.
I always wanted to prove myself by pursuing my dreams and not to simply accept the life that has already been set for me. It’s just unfair. I thought that being more than a normal human being would be awesome, but it’s—it’s a lot worse.
“Daydreaming as always, aren’t we?” Cora mocked as I went back to my senses. Suddenly, I was on-stage with her. I didn’t even remember leaving my seat.
I was not ready to see her yet. I was still mad about her for not making a stand. She gave in. She let herself be imprisoned in this Folkvang cage for five years and even became a Valkyrie. She simply accepted her fate.
“Look at us guys! We look like twins!” Cora exclaimed. The audience started cheering and howling.
“Cora, I’m not ready for this,” I mumbled. “I’m not yet ready to see you.”
“Oh my Andie-girl, you’ve grown!” she beamed, ignoring what I just said. I also noticed that we were almost the same height now. “Oh and look at your—“ she paused for a moment and stared at my chest. “My baby sister’s a woman now, too? It’s been so long.”
And just like that, we grabbed each other and exploded in tears. On-stage.
“Awwwwwww,” the audience sighed sympathetically.
Also crying, Deni started to talk in her mike again. “Sorry to say this but, Freshies’ Day is supposed to be a happy event. Why don’t we all stop crying and start being happy instead?”
No reaction from the audience.
“You know, because these two sisters finally saw each other again! And on-stage, too!” Deni added. The crowd applauded.
I unwrapped my arms from Cora and began wiping off my tears. She also repeatedly whispered “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m here now” while caressing my face, but it only made me cry even more.
I was still crying when I walked back to my seat with my camp. My campmates started hugging me. Of course, Seline’s hug was the longest.
“I’m so happy for you,” Seline whispered. “And you’re both very pretty.”
“You’re prettier,” I told her.
Cora was now holding the mike. I think she was supposed to give us the welcoming remarks. She began.
“Today is a very special day. But, if you look at it more, there is no reason for this celebration. We were stolen from our homes, made to suffer in the woods-- shouldn’t we be mad at this academy? Shouldn’t we be mad at our parents?”
I suddenly became nervous for her, momentarily forgetting that we just had an emotional meeting after not seeing each other for seven years.
She is the bravest person I know. Even Dad couldn’t tame her. Yes, I admired her more because of that, but that changed when I found out that she became a valkyrie. She simply gave in. She didn’t even put up a fight.
I wanted to stop her from talking not because I did not want what she was doing, but because I was afraid for her. Some of the older ladies, probably members of the faculty, have begun to show up when Cora began her speech. Maybe they were already expecting trouble.
“But no,” she continued. “We are all here, seated and later, we will be putting ourselves in danger because the academy deems it fun.”
Deni started to stand from her seat, so did the other officials.
“They even called it a game,” Cora declared. This time, Deni went to Cora and whispered her something, but Cora just ignored her.
“I suffered this for five years. And even after those five years, I still am suffering,” she held back a sob. “I will be suffering for eternity, I know, for not having enough courage to live the life that I really wanted.”
This time, I stood, but Seline kept on pulling me down my seat.
“Maybe even my sister thinks I must be weak,” Cora said, looking straight at me. “Because it was me who taught her to live her life and yet I, myself, was not able to live mine.”
“I don’t, Cora! I don’t! Stop!” I couldn’t hold back, although what she said was partly true. Louise helped in restraining me from running to the stage, but I just kept on flailing and thrashing around.
“Yes, we are all special, and that must come with a price. I, for example, am a Norn, so is my sister. Others here are witches, vampires, psychics. Because of these extraordinary talents endowed to all of us here, somehow we are obliged to spend the rest of our lives doing something most of us don’t even want to do. And so, I began to ask myself, is there even any more reason to live?” Cora continued. I calmed down and listened. “I thought about killing myself many times when I was still in the academy, but looking at my sister now, no, looking at all of you, my beloved campers—“ her voice faded to a sob as she paused for awhile to wipe her tears.
“I realized that so far, it was a life well spent,” she declared. “I wanted to protect my family, my sister, my fellow people and that is what I’m doing right now as a Valkyrie.”
I calmed down and peacefully sat on my seat.
“No, this life is not just about me,” she said. “This life is not also about you. This life is not even about this academy. This life is about serving for the good of others. And that is what I’ll be doing and what you’ll be doing for the rest of your lives. As I end this short speech, let me just warn you, that after five years in this academy, you will emerge as completely different people. Might as well enjoy your current selfish selves now.”
And just like what a typical Hardin always gets, Cora got a standing ovation. I even saw some of the campers drowning in their own tears.
“And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for!” Deni exclaimed while wiping her own tears with a tissue. “Sigurd’s Redemption!”
The audience cheered. “May I now request the Freshies to proceed to the Colosseum arena?”
I, Seline, and the other freshies started walking towards the space at the center of the Colosseum. From down here, I could see the red, blue, green, gold and even silver banners being waved from the audience. The camps also started chanting their camp cheers and catchphrases. I turned to look at Cora who gave me a double thumbs-up while mouthing ‘good luck’.
This time, Cora held the mike. “Remember, that you can wound, immobilize and grapple but there will be no maiming, killing or stabbing in this competition. One who fails to follow these rules will be punished severely or worse, be fed to the dragons.”
“We have dragons?” I asked Louise, who was still standing beside me. She just shrugged.
“Also, we will be watching you from here. A magical TV will appear later at the center of the Colosseum showing the competitors and what they’re doing during the game so we will definitely know those who fail to follow the rules.”
I gulped. I can’t bear the idea of making a fool of myself in front of everyone, including my sister and worse, we will be shown in large magical TVs. I turned to look at Seline and even she looked nervous.
“Now, everyone will exit through the Colosseum gate. And of course, we must also know that the first five who will reach the Sword of Sigurd will obtain fame and glory in this academy. So is everyone ready?”
“YES, we are!” we exclaimed in unison, although I was really not quite sure where the sword of Sigurd was.
“Then, the race to the sword begins—“ Cora paused.
“Now!” Cora and Deni boomed. Not knowing what to do really, I started to run like what the others did.
“This is a race!” Seline shouted as she passed me. “Run faster, Andie! Haha!”
When we got out of the Colosseum, we were not in the Rubicore camp anymore. Suddenly, we were in the woods that looked a lot like the one I got trapped in for a hundred days. When I looked back, the Colosseum was also gone. I watched the other girls disperse into the woods as I just walked calmly.
Maybe the people watching from the Colosseum are already thinking ‘What is she doing? Why isn’t she running?’ but I don’t really want to care. I finally saw my sister again and this stupid game had its way to interrupt us. I still wanted to ask her a lot of questions. Like, how did three old ladies manage to persuade her to come into the academy in the first place? I’m quite sure she didn’t even actually have a hard time in the Flight of the Valkyrie. She could have escaped so easily and fulfilled her dream of serving others in a different way.
I was still walking, but now, the sky seemed to darken as I entered the woods. It was swampy and muddy below, now I even regret not wearing my combat boots. Suddenly, memories from my Flight flooded my mind: long sleepless nights, being chased by wolves, I’m even sure I was being stalked by little men at some point. That was a horrible experience. To think of it, I was never left alone my whole life. I even had my own personal butler, Conrad, who attended to my every need; even in making my simple school projects.
I walked on the muddy trail for at least a few more hours. This time, the woods seemed to have thickened. Only a small trickle of light filtered through the thick wall of leaves up ahead. I continued to walk calmly, ignoring the fear that was slowly growing inside me as more memories from my Flight flashed in my mind. When I heard a twig snap, I began to run.
I didn’t even know how I thought running would save me because at the corner of my eyes, I could see black figures running alongside me. I ran as fast as I could. I didn’t care if dirty water splashed on my face. My legs even threatened to collapse on their own. And they did.
I stumbled forward, raking in all the mud into my shirt and my face. The people watching from the Colosseum might be laughing at me right now. But now’s not the time to worry about that. I only managed to wipe the mud off my eyes when I turned to see the figure of a huge black creature leaping towards me. I tried to cover myself with my arms as if they would be of any help. I winced when I felt the creature’s weight and I was expecting the creature’s jaws to bite off my arms but they never came. I opened my eyes again and realized the creature was dead. I pushed its dead body aside and was just about to stand when two of the same creature leapt towards me at the same time. Two arrows zoomed in from the right and hit the two creatures, right at their necks. The two of them fell dead on top of each other.
“I won’t be there to save you next time,” said a low female voice that I didn’t recognize. “If you come across them again, find a river and retreat there. Fenrirs hate water.” Then she left.
“Hey, wait! Don’t go!” I called. I ran after her, but she already disappeared. I only caught a glimpse of her braided black hair.
I collected myself and started walking again. I definitely lost my sense of direction since I didn’t seem to remember from which direction I came from. I might just be walking back to the Colosseum, instead of walking towards the sword.
I continued walking for several more hours until I heard some girl shrieking and squealing in fear. I immediately ran to her. I sneaked up behind a bush and watched what was happening.
A blonde girl was hanging upside down. She was screaming and panicking as if she was on a roller coaster even though she was simply hanging by her ankles fifteen feet off the ground. I was about to come to her rescue when several silhouettes began to emerge out of the bushes from the other side.
“Well well well, it looks like those teeny girls are playing that stupid game again. Nice,” said a low gruff voice. I wasn’t quite sure though because I was a bit far from them and they looked too little to have that kind of man’s voice.
“Look boss! Her panties are showing!” cried another one. There were about a dozen of them.
“Who cares about the panties, did anyone bring the cooking pot?”
“Coo..coo..cooking pot?” the girl stuttered as she tried to cover her underwear. I didn’t know why she was wearing a skirt in the first place, but it definitely done her in. Good thing though that these little men-like creatures weren’t perverts.
“Yes, yes,” the little man simply said. “You see, I’m kinda’ sick with eating raw meat. I want some steamed human flesh, instead.”
That was when I went out from my patch of bushes.
“Okay guys party’s over, you can go home now,” I said.
“Look, boss, there’s another teeny girl! Too bad, her panties aren’t showing!” cried the little man who commented about the other girl’s panties earlier.
“And who do you think you are?” asked the biggest little man who was apparently, their boss.
Not wanting to reveal my identity, I simply told them: “I am your worst nightmare.”
“Well hello, Your Worst Nightmare, I am Tower! Captain of the Dwarf Special Force!” declared their boss.
“And I am Private Everest! Second in command in the Dwarf Special Force! Can we take your order?” cried the other little man. Tower face-smacked himself.
“Shut up, Everest,” said Tower. “You’re embarrassing the whole squad. I told you to keep what you learned in the city to yourself! The teeny girl might be thinking we’re stupid.”
“Umm—excuse me? Can you please help me get down from here, first?” the other girl demanded.
“Just a moment,” I told her, a bit annoyed. I turned to the dwarves. “Now boys, I hear there’s a lot more teeny girls hanging around in the woods across the river. They’re a lot meatier compared to this skinny, non-juicy, bony, sickly girl. You may even get sick if you eat her.”
“Hey, I’m not skinny and sickly! And I’m a lot juicier than you are!” cried the apparently dumb blonde hanging upside down. I glared at her. “Oh-- yess. That’s so smart. I get it now. Yeah, she’s right, Captain Tower! I’m bony and sickly! I’m poisonous! You’ll get diarrhea if you eat me!”
Tower thought for a moment. “Diarrhea? Isn’t that some kind of deadly sickness? Oh no, Really? Good thing you said that. We were just about to eat you,” he said. Then, to my shock, he turned to me. “Then why don’t we eat you instead?”
“Because, umm—“ I faltered. “I know! If you eat me, the other group of girls would know that they’re in danger so they would go home and you won’t be able to find them anymore. What would you prefer: one teeny girl or five teeny girls?”
“Everest, you learned math right?” Tower asked. “which is better, one teeny girl or five teeny girls?”
“Of course, I learned math,” Everest insisted. “Now, teeny girl, tell us where we can find the other five teeny girls.”
“They’re under a huge tree across the river,” I told them although I’m not sure if there was even a river in this forest.
“I know that place!” cried another dwarf. “It’s this way!”
Then they scurried off.
“That was impressive!” exclaimed the blonde girl when the dwarves were out of earshot. “Now, can you help me get down?”
I climbed the tree to loosen the trap. I intended for her to fall face-first to the ground but she still thanked me for saving her life.
“Thanks for saving me, but, you could have warned me before you loosened the trap, you know,” she said. “I’m Leshia, by the way. Leshia Charm, Keltainen.”
“Sorry,” I managed. “I’m Alexandra Hardin. You can call me Andie. I’m from Skiferlair.”
“Really?” she said, looking a bit surprised. “A Hardin--- in Skiferlair?”
“What do you mean by that?” I felt somewhat hurt. “I like being in Skiferlair.”
“Well, you could request to transfer to our camp,” she said. “Skiferlair’s camp may seem nice and extravagant but I hear they lose all the time.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And yet a Skiferlair camper saved your ungrateful little ass.”
“Hey, you’re a Hardin. That doesn’t count,” she said.
“And you’re—you’re mean and prejudiced!” I yelled. “If you think Skiferlair is a stupid camp, then you should be transferred there, too!”
“Are you calling me stupid?” she pointed at herself. “You’re the one who’s prejudiced!”
“Fine! I’m sorry,” I finally said. “It’s just that—“
She stared me and almost seemed sympathetic as I continued talking. “I just really want to be like my sister, you know. And I can’t do that if on the first day, everyone is already calling my camp a loser camp.”
“I also get that feeling a lot,” she said. “My sister’s currently the camp leader of Keltainen and I feel a lot of pressure because of the fact that she’s watching me right now.”
My eyes widened when I remembered that we were being watched from the Colosseum. I wonder what Cora’s reaction was when I told Leshia that I wanted to be like her.
“Okay,” I said. “Now let’s get moving.”
Leshia and I walked side-by-side through the forest. Fortunately though, Leshia had a swordstick that was supposed to help her fight the monsters that we were to encounter. Finally, we arrived at a clearing and we can finally see the hilt of a sword. The Sword of Sigurd was actually a hundred-foot tall statue of a sword thrust into the ground.
“There it is!” Leshia cried. “But I doubt if we are still among the top five. It’s almost sun-down. We’ve been stuck in the forest for hours.”
“That doesn’t matter now,” I simply said. “The most important thing is that we made it through. It’s not yet Odin’s Feast anyway so this contest doesn’t really matter.”
Leshia nodded as she considered it. “You’re right.”
We began to run across the clearing until we were just a few hundred meters from the sword. The base of the statue was on a steep rocky hill above us. We began to climb and we were already halfway up the hill when suddenly, the ground shook so hard that the ground opened beneath me and I fell and got stuck. I thought I was falling straight to hell. Leshia, on the other hand wasn’t as lucky as I was. She went tumbling down the side of the hill. When she came back, her legs, arms and even her face were bleeding.
“Are you Ok?” I asked. “You look kind of red.”
“Kind of red?!” She boomed. “I’m bleeding!”
“I know,” I said. “Can you help me out? I’m stuck.”
“Just push against the ground and pull your legs out,” she said.
I tried to push for a moment but I was really afraid my legs might come off.
“Push harder,” she demanded.
“I’m pushing,” I said. “Hey what’s going on with the—“
The trees from the forest at the bottom of the hill began to shudder. The leaves rustled. The birds flew out of the trees. We heard wolves whimpering and when they finally stopped, monsters came pouring out of the forest.
My heart raced at the sight of them: crazy red eyes, green mossy trunks on their faces, green warty skin and woody chicken legs.
“Earthens!” Leshia exclaimed and went speeding up the hill. She seemed to forget about me.
I began to panic. Tom-toms loud as thunder ringed against my ears. There was a horde of goblin-like monsters racing up the hill. I struggled to pull myself out of the crack. I tried my best to pull my legs out but I was still scared that I might injure myself. Fortunately, Leshia came back.
“Sorry!” she exclaimed. “I almost forgot about you!” Leshia was panicking as she also tried to pull me out of the crevice. But even with her help, I still remained stuck.
“You go ahead, Leshia! Go!”
“No! I can’t leave you here!” Leshia insisted.
“Why don’t you call for help from the people at the sword and then get them back here!”
“Here, take my sword,” Leshia handed me her swordstick as if it would be any help. “I’ll be right back!”
I tried to pull myself out of the small crevice again. I felt a slight progress but my legs were still stuck. I don’t even know how I got trapped in here. Meanwhile, the mob of earthens just seemed to advance from downhill. As a monster got near, I would immediately smack its tiny chicken legs. One would then go tumbling down the hill and cause the others behind it to stumble. I waited for Leshia for several minutes but she never came. My arms were also tiring out from too much swinging.
“Where is she?!” I cried to myself.
More earthens came stampeding towards me but luckily, they were not strong enough to climb the steep slope. I pulled myself out of the crevice as hard as I could but I was still stuck for another ten minutes. It was when a giant earthen began crawling up the hill and began shoving the other smaller earthens out of its way that I finally had the courage to push against the ground as hard as I could.
I was able to get out of the crevice, but the pain in my legs was so excruciating, I didn’t even have the courage to look at them. I swung really hard behind me when I felt a tusk poke my butt.
“Leshia! And other people up there?” I called. “There’s a horde of goblins down here. Could you help me?!”
No answer.
I continued swinging against the monsters. Some tried to grab my swordstick but I wiggled them off. I whacked their heads as hard as I could. I was never as violent my entire life. I yelled at every hit, I kicked, I stabbed, I maimed and I must be fed to the dragons right now for breaking all the rules. More earthens, including the big one, advanced and I decided to continue climbing uphill. I finally reached the top. I was on a plateau. The base of the Sword of Sigurd was just a short sprint away.
I looked at the stage connected to the sword but not a single soul was there. Could they have abandoned me? I started to run towards it, nonetheless.
I was still running towards the stage when suddenly a moist, slippery rope wrapped around my left ankle and caused me to fall to the ground face-first. I screamed the air out of my lungs when the rope began to pull me back to the side of the plateau. I tried to hold on to the grass as much as I could but I continued to be dragged towards the edge. Then, when I dared to look at the other side of the wet rope, I saw the giant opened mouth of the bigger earthen I saw earlier. The moist slippery rope wrapped around my ankle was its tongue.
I was crying, begging the people, probably still watching me right now to help me, but nobody came. I was, at the same time, angry and desperate. I dared to look again at the giant monster’s mouth and it was now just a few feet from my bleeding legs. My whole body trembled now that I had a closer view of its green warty monstrous face. This was worse than all the horror movies I ever watched and ever had nightmares about. I was shrieking while kicking against the tongue because it simply was the most disgusting thing that ever came in contact with my skin, but it won’t budge.