Chapter 11

“We should get to that next checkpoint,” Fites said after a moment, hooking his thumb over his shoulder.

Solvr was panting. “I need a break—just for a second. That worm took a lot out of me.” She looked at her wristband. “Also a lot of my health.”

“Well, the checkpoint will help with that,” he said.

She let out a long breath. Her heart was finally starting to slow to normal after the battle with the giant worm.

“Do you ever fish?” she asked.

He snorted. “That’s a random question.”

“I know, but do you?”

“I don’t do stuff,” he reminded her. “My family never took me camping, and I’m not much of a self-starter. Do you fish?”

“Sometimes. But I hate worming the hook.”

“Now it’ll be easier. You have a good reason to hate worms.”

“It’ll be harder. I know how it feels to be the bait.” She let out another long breath. “I think I’m good to go.”

They walked to the end of the corridor. It took a sharp turn around the wall. After they turned, the floor vibrated with horrifying pounding.

“What is that?” she asked, stopping suddenly. It sounded like footsteps in the distance. “There can’t be another monster before we pass a checkpoint. It wouldn’t be fair!”

“I don’t think it’s a monster,” Fites said.

“What is it then?”

“Hammers? A lot of these games have a level with hammers.”

“Oh, yeah.” She had seen that before. They walked on, rounding another corner, and saw hammers beating down on a rubberized stretch of corridor.

“Right again,” he boasted, wiggling his eyebrows at her. She just shook her head at him before turning to look at the sequence before them.

She didn’t understand why the floor was rubber until she stepped on it. Every time the hammers pounded down, she bounced off the floor. She took a wobbly step forward and nearly fell. She braced herself by reaching for the wall, but it was shuddering too.

Fites bounced over to her, taking measured hops in time with the hammers.

“I have practically no life left,” she explained, worried he thought she was being too cautious. “I’m at, like, fourteen percent.”

“You got this,” he said. “Just hop with the beat.” He bounced, humming, and hopped past the hammers.

“Easier said than done,” she said.

But he has done it, she admitted to herself.

She remembered his clapping from before. She now heard the claps in her head, in time with the hammers. She hopped along. Every thud of the hammers made her fly into the air a little, but when she timed them with her own jumps she jumped high and had perfect control.

This is fun, she thought. It would be more fun without the hammers, though.

She reached the end, where Fites was waiting for her. They were both panting.

“Checkpoint,” he announced. One of the pyramids was off to the side. They scanned their wristbands.