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THERE WAS NO SLEEPING LAST NIGHT, simply put. Even after Jayde and Thebe came over and calmed me down, I still struggled to surrender to the darkness that was sleep itself. I wanted and needed to rest, but the thought of dying in the first game kept me tossing and turning.
Jaaspar and I were escorted through the hallway in our pyjamas since we were told to stay in them. My eyelids were heavy, and my back ached as if all the weight of the world were on my shoulders. Jaaspar was the complete opposite. He was wide awake and had the most energy I’d ever seen in him. Eventually, the other players joined us, with Anyma directly behind me.
“Here we go, Fate Artemis,” she softly said as she held onto my hand.
“Tag along with Jayde, Jaaspar, Thebe and me. We are all going to get through this game together,” I said. “You missed our little meeting last night. Didn’t Jaaspar ask the gazer to bring you to our room?”
“No, I fell asleep soon after the dinner. But I’m excited. You guys have a plan.”
“Don’t be,” I whispered as I quickly looked back at her. “I’m not sure how it will play out.”
The gazer separated all of us into small rooms. I looked through the circular window on the door that shut behind me and nodded to Anyma, who was in the opposite room.
“Fate Artemis. You’re with me again.”
There was only one other person in the room with me, the same woman who had pre-examined my vitals.
“Some players take their lives before the games have even begun. It’s good to see you’ve made it through the night alive.” She gestured for me to stand on the glowing circle in the centre of the room. It looked the same as the one in the courthouse.
I did as she directed, standing in the centre of the circle. I looked to the ceiling and noticed another illuminated circle directly above my head, the same size as the one beneath my feet. The surrounding lights dimmed, and the two circles flashed once.
“Player eight connected,” a robotic voice announced.
Eight was my lucky number, but it was just a coincidence that I was player eight in these Exogames and not an act of God that willed it. The lights turned back on, and the doctor came back into view. I was no longer a real human or even a prisoner. I was simply a number nobody would care about if I didn’t make it out alive.
“Now we have to do something about those clothes you are wearing. You cannot be seen running around Earth with pyjamas on,” she said.
She didn’t realise that she’d revealed a subtle clue about the first game; two clues, in fact. The first game was on Earth, which I already knew, but it sounded like it would also involve running or physical movement. Although, I hated exercise. I just laughed at her comment and tried to keep my observations subtle.
“No, definitely not,” I responded. “What’s your name, by the way?” I asked curiously.
“Rubie.”
“Just Rubie?”
“Just Rubie,” she repeated. “I don’t know my parents’ last names. I never knew them at all, actually.”
“Oh,” I said quietly, realising what she meant by it.
“It’s okay. I’m past all that.” She pressed a button on the control panel. A hidden cupboard in the wall revealed itself, and Rubie pulled out a pile of clothes and placed them on the square metallic table opposite where I stood.
“Change into these; you will be much more comfortable.”
I tried to take a step out of the illuminated circle, but something stopped me, a force field of sorts.
“Just wait until your clothes have been incinerated,” Rubie said.
“What? Incinerated? With me in them?” I asked in a panic.
The force field surrounding me opacified slowly, thankfully. If I was going to be naked even for a split second, I didn’t want anybody to see me. The circle above me brightened intensely, almost like the sun was directly overhead. I covered my eyes with one hand and the top of my head with my other forearm. With a lightning-quick flash, the pyjamas that once were on my body turned to ash. A small vacuum in the floor sucked the charred fabric into the waste system, and the force field faded away.
Rubie wasn’t in the room; I assumed she’d exited so I could change. I needed this moment to take captive every negative thought, cast them out of my mind and calm myself down by remembering that both Jayde and Jaaspar had an advantage in this game. I knew I was beginning to panic because my lungs only took in small amounts of air and my legs shuddered when I tried to move. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly through my teeth.
The clothing Rubie left for me wasn’t anything extravagant. It was just a simple black shirt and dark-grey cargo pants. Standard black boots waited for me on the floor beside the table. There was also a pair of socks and underwear since my original ones were incinerated along with my pyjamas.
“How do those feel? Too tight?” Rubie asked, giving me a fright. She’d entered the room again without any warning.
“Uh, no, these are perfect, thank you.” I tightened the laces on my boots.
The lights on the floor lit up a narrow path to a drop pod at the back of the room. This drop pod looked completely different to any of the other drop pods on Second Earth. It was much larger, enough to fit three people, maybe four if we squashed in like sardines, and it had a solid metal casing as opposed to the regular glass.
“Five minutes until the commencement of the first game,” Rubie said as she glanced at her watch. “I have to give you instructions on the game before you land on the ground.” She pulled up the instructions on her tablet.
My hands shook as I paced around the room and tried to twiddle my fingers, but the shakiness overpowered my willingness to distract myself. I shook out the nerves and waited for Rubie to read the briefing.
“Game one, Earth puzzle,” she read. “Players will be given a twenty-six-hour period to escape planet Earth. To do this, they will need to locate pieces of space bridge portals that have been scattered over the area where the players will land. Three alternating pieces must be found and united to activate a space bridge portal. Once the portal has been activated, only one player can safely cross before it is deactivated. If a second player attempts to cross over through the same portal, both players will expire, as well as any remaining players following the twenty-six-hour period.”
I gulped at that last bit. They made it sound so official.
“Portals? As in a gateway from one point to another? When did we invent portals?”
“Second Earth has had them for a while. They are off-limits to the public, hence why you have never seen them before.”
“I know we have advanced tech like the ships that fold spacetime, pretty much travelling faster than light. But portals, that’s a game-changer. I have to tell my department about it. They won’t believe this,” I said excitedly. But the excitement quickly faded when I remembered they had all betrayed me.
“I’m sure they will. If they are watching the games, then they will see the portals in action. It’s the first time they have been used in the Exogames.”
“I’m a bit confused. What do I have to do?”
“I’ll break it down for you. All you have to do is find three pieces, different pieces, of a space bridge portal, alright? Put them together and cross back here to Second Earth. Do not use the same portal as another player, and don’t run out of time,” she emphasised.
“Okay, you made it sound so much simpler. Why didn’t you just explain it like that the first time?” I chuckled.
“I have to do what I have been instructed and read this out to you thoroughly. Every player has to hear the written instructions first,” she responded.
“How will I know what the portals look like?”
“You’ll know. Just ask your friends.”
“Anyma?”
“Who?” she said as she looked at me with raised eyebrows.
“Jaaspar and Jayde,” I said in realisation.
Rubie winked before attempting to exit the room.
“What do I do now?”
“Survive,” she said as the door shut behind her.
I was moments away from beginning the first round of the Exogames. It was the first time the game makers had hosted one of the games on Earth, and I hoped it wouldn’t be a shit show. Nobody knew what was down there. For all we knew, it could be the end of all of us. Perhaps it was the easiest way to terminate all the players at once. Maybe it was punishment because Jayde and I had snooped around after our medical examination, and the other players were about to face the consequences of our actions.
“One minute remaining,” a robotic voice announced as the floor lights moved in the direction of the drop pod.
I stepped into the drop pod, and I was automatically strapped in with a hard-shell casing that covered my body. My arms were free to hold onto the handles on my chest, and my head rested comfortably with a considerable amount of cushioning to support it.
“Thirty seconds remaining,” the robotic voice said.
The inside was entirely black except for a red emergency button in case the automatic opening malfunctioned.
“Here we go,” I whispered to myself, panting as I tried to catch my breath, but my breath was always too quick for me to ensnare it.
“Twenty seconds remaining. Nineteen, eighteen.”
The countdown began, and I wasn’t prepared. I wanted to go back to Mars and spend the rest of my sentence there, but it was not on the cards anymore. That opportunity was long gone.
“Fourteen, thirteen, twelve.”
“God, please let me live through this. I’m not ready to die,” I prayed.
“Seven, six, five.”
I shut my eyes tightly and waited for the drop pod to move. It should have been only five seconds, but it felt like hours, and the robotic voice continued counting down.
“Three, two, one. Any questions? Too late. Good luck, players.”
My drop pod shot out of Second Earth and was free-falling in the direction of the planet beneath my feet. This drop pod was much faster than the ones on Second Earth. My internal organs rose to the top of my head. The only thing that separated me from certain death was only a few layers of metal. The small glass window in front of me was transparent, so I could see outside, but my vision was limited, and my drop pod shook me around as if I were invincible.
The pod linked up with another beside me and then another beside it. Eventually, all the drop pods were linked in a circle, rushing at lightning speeds towards Earth. I knew we had entered the planet’s atmosphere when sparks formed underneath the drop pods opposite mine, and the sparks underneath my drop pod crept up to the circular window.
Then I saw something that shook me to my core, something that scared me deeply. It snapped me into reality and made me realise this was all too real, that I was sitting on the fence between life and death, and the Exogames had truly begun. The drop pod directly opposite mine popped open, and the unknown player flew out, burning up in the atmosphere. It could have been one of my friends, and I desperately hoped it wasn’t. It could have been me. I held onto the handles so tightly with my sweaty palms, but it made no difference; the tighter I held, the more slippery it became.
Droplets of rain splashed on the glass from the clouds we fell through, and we gradually slowed as to not come to a screeching halt and landed gently in the middle of a dense forest. A thick layer of dust from the ground covered all our drop pods, and the automatic system waited for it to settle before we were allowed outside. I couldn’t help but consider the very high possibility that the air was not breathable.
The drop pods opened up, and the players exited in awe as they looked around with dropped jaws and bright eyes. I held my breath for as long as I could because I wasn’t going to take the chance at consuming contaminated air. My face turned blue, and I was lightheaded. The other players weren’t holding their breath, and they hadn’t dropped dead yet, but I was about to if I didn’t open my mouth. When I finally inhaled, it was the freshest air I had ever experienced, better than the properly purified oxygen from Second Earth. This natural air was earthy and crisp. It cleared my airways as I sucked it through my nose and let it flow out through my mouth, and for the first time, I felt at home. I felt deep in my heart that Earth was our true home.
The ground was hard underneath my boots but wasn’t solid like the metal flooring on Second Earth. It was firm, compact and had life growing through it. Plants, real plants, grew everywhere. I never got to see the plants back on Second Earth; they were reserved to the botanists on level thirty-four. The only time we saw vegetables was when we ate them in the main hall.
Above my head was the sky, a blanket of dark blue with small patches of what looked like cotton. I had never been underneath the clouds; they were always underneath me. I assumed it was towards the end of the afternoon, but I wasn’t sure since the daytime was different on Second Earth. A large flock of birds flew by, chirping away. No animals lived on Second Earth; it had been a rule ever since the population escaped the planet. All our meat-based meals were artificially manufactured. Those who had figured this out stopped eating the ‘meat’.
I looked behind me, then to both my left and right, but it was all the same, a forest. Twigs and dry leaves crackled under my boots, and the trees rustled in the wind. Grasshoppers churred all around — I recognised the sound because my father had shown me a video of insects once — and lizards scurried underneath the bushes.
I counted sixteen drop pods, but one was burnt charcoal black. I was slightly confused because I had counted seventeen players, eight boys and nine girls, back in the main briefing room. One player must have exited the games early. That, unfortunately, would have been an instant death sentence.
“Jaaspar!” I called with my hand up. “Thank God you didn’t die.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
I pointed to the burnt drop pod to my right, and he covered his mouth with one hand then proceeded to inspect it.
“Fate!” Jayde and Thebe called from the direction I pointed.
“You guys made it too,” I said as I hugged them both.
“Do you know whose drop pod that was?” Jaaspar asked them.
“No idea,” Thebe responded as she attempted to touch it but was pulled back by Jayde who warned her that it was too hot.
Jayde propped herself up on her toes to look around and count the heads of every player who stood in the ring of drop pods.
“Thebe, do you see the girl who sat next to you at the dinner?” she asked.
“Sapphire? Yes, she’s over there.” Thebe pointed to the short, thin girl with streaks of blue in her mostly bleached hair, who picked up flowers from the edge of her drop pod by herself.
“All the male players are here, so it must be one of the girls,” I said, worried that it might have been Anyma, but I caught her staring into the sky.
“Astatine. She’s not here,” Jayde said.
“I never introduced myself to her,” Thebe said with disregard.
“Me neither,” Jaaspar and I said together.
“I had a small chat with her at the dinner; she sat next to me. She was the one with dreadlocks,” Jayde continued as she moved us to the side, away from everybody who crowded around us to inspect the burnt drop pod.
“Yes, I remember seeing her in the briefing room,” I said.
“She was only nineteen and entered the games to try and give her mother a chance at freedom. Her mother was very weak, she had explained to me, and had quite a long sentence left to serve,” Jayde continued.
“Is that allowed?” Jaaspar asked with genuine confusion.
“Apparently, yes. But now I am considering the possibility that the game makers, or even the High Judges, didn’t like that she took her mother’s place,” Jayde said.
“Yeah, I agree. Her drop pod shouldn’t have opened like that,” I said.
The game makers didn’t like what Astatine had done, and they punished her because of it. They could have done the same to Jayde and me. The only reason I could think of as to why we were still alive was that the superiors didn’t know we had explored the game makers’ room without permission. If they knew, we wouldn’t have made it this far either.
All of our drop pods clicked, and gold spheres hovered out, similar to the camera at the previous night’s dinner. There was one for each of us. Some hovered high in the air and kept some distance, but mine was at eye level. It was still further away, but the lens followed my movements. The first game was being live-streamed to the audience and the game makers back on Second Earth. We were now at their disposal.
The realisation of our limited time snapped every one of us back into reality, and some players asked around to pair up. Jayde, Jaaspar, Thebe and I had previously decided that it would be best for us to work together, and Anyma was going to tag along with us too. Neon somehow squeezed into our little huddle and joined our conversation.
“What’s the plan?” he asked.
Anyma side-eyed me, then looked at Neon. Firstly, it was a ‘no’ from me. All of us had agreed last night that Neon was not going to join us in the games.
“Why don’t you partner up with those two,” Jayde suggested as she pointed to Hinata and one of the female players whose name I didn’t know.
“What? You guys don’t want me to join your group?”
“No, it’s not that,” I lied as I looked Neon directly in the eyes. “Maybe if we spread everybody around, it will be easier to finish the game.”
Surprisingly, he agreed and left our group. I didn’t think Hinata was too satisfied to have him either.
“Phew, that was close,” Jaaspar said, exhaling loudly.
“Do you two know what your advantage is?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Jaaspar answered.
“Same, I don’t know. The instructor, just before we dropped here, only explained what we have to do,” Jayde said.
“What was it we need to find? Portals, space bridges?”
“Space bridge portals,” Thebe corrected. “We need to find three pieces of a single space bridge portal to activate it, and we cannot use the same portal as someone else, or we die, most likely a horrible death. You know the game makers love that. The portals have all been scattered across this area, and I assume there is enough for one portal per player.”
“Sounds pretty straightforward,” Jayde said.
“If we each need a portal made up of three pieces, we need to find twelve total,” Jaaspar said.
“You mean fifteen,” I rectified, but he didn’t seem to hear me.
“Do you know what the portals are meant to look like?” Jayde asked as she scratched the tip of her nose.
“I’d imagine they’d be quite large. I don’t imagine a portal being activated through a small device,” Thebe said.
“How about we start looking around and actually try to find these,” I suggested. “We don’t know how far the game makers have scattered the portals.”
Sapphire was about to leave through a gap between the drop pods, but Thebe called out to her. “Hey, Sapphire, come join our alliance.”
“No, thank you,” Sapphire responded with a look of concern. “I’m not into joining groups just yet. Give me a few games to adjust to all of this.”
“All good,” Thebe said. “Good luck.”
There was a big enough gap for us to fit underneath the links that connected the drop pods. We crawled through and walked wherever our feet took us, over fallen logs and deeper into the forest.
Mountain ranges shaped the terrain, and each was decorated with more trees. However, a single mountain made of only rock stuck out like a sore thumb. The sun finally sank beneath the horizon, an issue that never arose back home, and the sky darkened completely.
“Shit, this puts us out a few hours,” Jaaspar said in frustration. “We can’t find any of the portal pieces at night. It’s way too dark to hunt the pieces down.”
Suddenly, the cameras that followed us shined a light to illuminate our paths, although it didn’t make much of a difference for our search.
“Oh... my... goodness,” Jayde slowly said as she looked in the distance. “Those must be the pieces.”
“What are you looking at?” I asked, confused because the distance was still dark, and trees blocked my view.
I waved my hand in front of her face to get her attention but she was too fixated on what I couldn’t see. Thebe clicked her fingers in Jayde’s ear to snap her out of the trans but there was no getting her back into our reality.
“Can you not see those?” Jaaspar apprehensively said as he raised his arm to the sky.
Thebe shook her head, and I just looked at him, awaiting a response. Jayde still stared in awe at the sky as if it were obvious what she was looking at, but Thebe and I couldn’t see anything.
“What is it?” I asked, terrified of what was concealed from me.
“It’s French,” Thebe said randomly. “Sorry, that’s something I say when I don’t know what is going on. It calms me down.”
“I do. I see them,” Jayde whispered.
“What is it?” I repeated. “What do you see?”
I needed an answer because the longer we went around in circles, the more my fear settled deeper underneath my skin.
“They’re beacons. Everywhere. Lots of beacons,” Jaaspar answered.