The Golden Light

I can’t hide the smile plastered on my face, nor can I suppress the jittery feeling in my chest, which makes me want to jump up and down and scream at the top of my lungs with joy. I’m surprised that it was only Via, Asher and I got an invitation to The Golden Light, but it makes sense that they chose the best out of everyone in town that wanted to participate.

The Golden Light is a new game show that just came out, we’re going to be the first contestants, and we’ve been preparing for months. The goal is to get a hundred points- easier said than done. I’ve read basically all about it, the reward for winning is insane and it’s going to be streaming live for millions- no, billions of people to watch. There are going to be four teams, there is one captain per team, they decide the strategies, give advice, that sort of stuff. The crew members are the ones who get to go out, fight, explore, and go on adventures. I’m going to be a captain, that’s for sure, I’ve studied probably thousands of battle strategies. 

Right now, we’re on the train going to the place they’re letting us stay to interview us and all that stuff. I’m kind of worried about Asher though, he’s only nine, and he doesn’t like to talk a lot, I’ve heard that he is really good with his hands and creating stuff, but I’ve never seen him in action. I wonder how he’s going to do, and if we’ll be on the same team. Asher’s black hair is up to his shoulders, and he always is pushing his bangs out of his way so that it doesn’t block his vision. That might be a problem when we have to play. 

Via seems to notice this since she looks through her large blue backpack and pulls out a thin bright green rubber band. “Here, you could maybe tie up your bangs so they don’t get in the way,” she lifts up pieces of Asher’s hair and ties it up, his bangs are sticking out and pointed at the sky. He turns away when he catches me staring.

Via’s palms are a bit red, and I notice that there are droplets of sweat dripping from her forehead. “You nervous?” I ask, why would she be? When she’s spent all this time perfecting her shooting skills, I’ve seen her throw a spear ten yards away and hit it right on a moving target. She nodded her head, her green eyes glistening in the sunlight, and sections of her dark brown hair seemed blonde in the sunlight.

 I’m not sure what to say in response, so I say “hmm” and the three of us sit in silence.

Despite the fact that this train must be as big as a gymnasium lengthwise, there’s only us three in this cart, and we’re all huddled up together in the corner of the cart. The seats are cushioned with pillows and have a green pattern on it. The metal floor is concealed with black carpeting.

Before I knew it we ended up going to this giant monument with a bunch of fancy designs with glass triangles domed on the roof that’s taller than anything I’ve ever seen. There were colors that I didn’t even know existed, we were escorted into our rooms and I was interviewed.

Now, we’re being led to the base to meet our teammates and introduce ourselves. I was given a map and they just dropped me off in the middle of nowhere, I don’t know how I got here. Is this the right place, because the base looks like a shed house? It’s about as large as a farm. It’s made out of wood, and I turn around, but all I see are tall trees that touch higher than the sky. I look down on a map, hand on the door handle, double-checking to see if I’m really in the right place. My map has a glowing red dot, which is me, and a blue dot which is the final destination. The dots are slightly overlapping, creating a shade of purple where they are on top of one another.

“How are we supposed to win if we have a sucker who can’t even read a map?” Snarky voice questions. I turn my head to the right, there’s no one there, I whirl around to my left and the only thing in sight is the cluster of bushes. “Up here,” the girl shouts and I can just tell she’s looking down on me. I look up, and all I see is the canopy of the base. 

I lift my chin and a girl who’s probably about fifteen looks at me up and down and scrunches her face at me. She’s wearing shorts halfway up her thighs that are cuffed and have similar materials to jeans. She also has a plain white shirt and a thin sweater on top with a red and black checker pattern. Her hair is tied up into a bun and is dyed Magenta, and I can see her roots are dark brown. She strode into the shed house without saying anything else, and I followed shortly.

I felt a wave of relief when I saw Via’s familiar face filled with worry as she held up a deck of cards. The first thing I noticed was all of the boxes and barrels stacked on top of one another, filling up almost all of the room. “River,” Via said when she noticed me. She said it like a statement, with no emotion, and just said it to acknowledge my presence. 

“I’m going to be captain,” A voice from above me states, I look up-what is it with people just standing on high places-and I see a small boy with messy grayish hair sitting on the pyramid of wooden boxes. 

“Who are you to decide that? Also, what’s your plan? I’ve been studying battle tactics for months now, I basically know everything in the book, I’ve prepared for every situation,” I raise my eyebrows and smile. This boy looks as small as a child, is he even old enough to partake in this competition. 

“Let’s vote. Silvia, Veronica,” The boy responded, looking towards the pair and waiting for a response.

“I vote the cat-boy as captain!” Veronica called out, chunks of food falling out her mouth as she ate. “Hey Sil, vote the cat boy,” Veronica said.

This is unfair, my chest tightens and I frown, I didn’t study that hard just for two people to go on and say that I can’t become captain.  Cat squints his eyes and I notice that his pupils resemble a cat’s. 

A loud buzzing noise rang throughout the base- our base, and I just noticed the speakers planted across the base. “I hope you have all decided on your captains, on your watch, you can vote and submit who your captain will be. Keep in mind that after this, the games will begin, captains and teammates, will not be able to communicate with one another within the first ten minutes of the game.” Victoria yawned in the corner, stretching her arms and I glared at her. Doesn’t she take this seriously? “Mates and captains will communicate with one another throughout the game mainly using their headsets, each person has a watch on their wrist, which can be used for when you gain or lose points when you gain weapons,” I turned and saw “cat-boy” stretching in child’s pose. I gaped at him, what on Earth? I realized that Cat was the only one who didn’t say his name, well I’ll just call him Cat from here on.

A glowing light comes from the watch on my hand, and a blue hologram hovers over the watch, asking me to click on one of the names that will be our captain. Obviously, I vote myself, but Cat ends up being captain. This wouldn’t have bugged me as much as it did if it wasn’t for the fact that Cat sneers at me.

The voice counts down the time to start, Via and I dash out the door, I don’t see Veronica anywhere near me.

A sudden gust of wind hits my face, and I smile because the smell of fresh grass and flowers fills my lungs. I think of what I should do. Wait for a second, Cat never did tell us the plan. Well, I know that there are mystery prizes all over the arena, so it’s best if we find one first. Mystery prizes contain who knows what, all we know is that you gain points from them and you can use it however you like. I slow down a bit to scan the area, and Via does the same, looking in my direction. “What should we do?” She asks, her eyes drawn to a group of soldier ants, climbing up a tree, holding some small brown object.

I shrug, “Explore?” I say that like a question because I’m not really sure what to do. Exploring is our only option right now. Via nods her head and we both turn our heads in different directions, trying to spot something. I see Via’s figure move away.

She runs towards the left and jumps into a bush, and I rush after her. “Uh… Via?” I can’t find her, the trees are thick, so it’s hard to see in the distance. She jumps out from the bush next to me and I jolt backward, stumbling and regaining my balance. She grins and holds up a box that’s a mustard yellow with stripes. She yanks off the lid and it clatters onto the ground, making a popping noise as it gets pulled off. Via pulls out a small beige pouch, and I scoot closer to her to get a closer look. She opens the pouch, and inside are about eight black beads. She’s about to dump them in her hands, but as she turns the pouch, I grab the pouch. “Wait, we don’t know how dangerous this could be, don’t touch it,” I say. She nods her head, carefully pours one of the beads, and lets it roll on the floor. I grab a small stick that’s on the floor and squish it, to see what happens. A small mosquito buzzes around my eyes and I swat at it. The bug lands on the acid, and it tries to pull away as soon as it lands on the substance, but it’s too late. It starts to dissolve and slowly sinks down as its wings frantically move. Via and I exchange a knowing look. 

Via’s eyes focus on something that seems to be beside me, so I turn around, hear a soft thump, and see two blurry figures, one on top of the other. I can mainly see blue and gray clothing on them. There’s a light shade of blue- the same shade as the hologram that I used- that’s hovering over their wrist, but there are only red and one blue dot that appears on it. The blue one stomps on something, I think it might be near the head, and the one that’s on the floor tries to crawl away. The blue one grabs the gray one’s wrist and quickly slams their abdomen into the blue one’s knee. The gray one goes limp, and the person in blue searches through their backpack and grabs all their items. I’m about to call someone to help with the situation, but I realize that this was allowed. Actually, they give points for attacking people.

I turn to Via, but her eyes aren’t on the pair, I look up and realize that there’s another blurry figure farther away from us that’s on a tree. I recognize the familiar long black bangs and the brown sweater. “Asher’s on Lia’s team,” Via whispers from behind me.

I nod in a different direction, and she blinks in response. The two of us scurry towards a bunch of trees, where we’re less likely to be spotted by Lia and Asher. 

I see a guy with a large build charging towards our direction, and- wait. He’s not running towards us, he’s running towards something near us. I tilt my head and spot a glint of red. Via seems to see it as well, she starts to brace herself in a running position, but I grab her wrist. “We don’t want to cause trouble,” I raise my eyebrows. There’s no way the two of us can fight someone like him who’s probably almost twice our age. He grabs a box, similar to the one Via had, but it’s much larger. I just hope whatever was in that box wasn’t too valuable. He smiles and runs off dragging the box behind him.

A beep comes from my wrist, and another hologram pops up, the scores and an announcement saying that we can now speak to our captains appears. Team one has -5 points, wait, what? Team two has 70, Team three 25, and Team four, ten. 

I hear a click from my left ear, “Someone is already eliminated,” Cat says. “Team one, Silver. You guys are around the area, so you should’ve caught at least a glimpse of it. By the way, meet up with Veronica. She has a tool that might help you. By the way, keep your head up. There’s a lot of contestants jumping on trees,” Cat’s raspy voice says and another click shortly follows. 

You never even stated where she is, I think, making a tsk noise with my tongue. “I think I know where she is, I saw the direction she was headed when we left the base,” Via says. She walks in front of me and I walk beside her, following a path on the ground that doesn’t have any grass on it. A sudden pinch from my arm makes me smack Via’s hand. I scrunch my nose and she nods up at the tree, I see Veronica’s boot hanging down from a large trunk and can make out her figure laying down. She sits up and looks down on us, a smile creeping up on her face. She leaps down gracefully, landing on her tip-toes then standing with her legs side by side. I saw the shadow of some object zoom past me and a blurry gray figure swooped down into the ground. She tossed up a slingshot that fit neatly in my hands when I caught it. 

“We should head back,” Via said and she was about to turn around, a thin wooden piece of material zoomed past me and directly into Via’s skull. Her eyes were in the process of widening and her mouth hung open as she toppled into the ground. Small droplets of blood seeped out from the blade that had hit her, and the droplets turned into puddles that were starting to surround her head. It took a moment to register what just happened, and I whirl around and see a moving brown sweater and gray pants dash from hopping between trees. Asher, I recognized and zoomed after him, the wind blowing into my face- but I don’t squint my eyes the slightest. I can’t let him get out of my sight. He starts to lose me because I can tell he knows that I’m charging after him, he grabs the branch and suddenly swirls around, jumping in a different direction. I shove my right foot into the ground, ready to push off of it and bolt after Asher, when I stumble onto the ground. Crap, I think as I push myself back up, regaining my balance.

Where am I? The trees are way higher in the area, it’s harder to make out the sky in between all the green leaves and tall branches reaching out and blocking sunlight. I realize how dark it is, and I don’t know where I am. Is this how it ends? Silvia is dead, and I’ll soon die if I can’t find my way back to the base.

“Are you seriously going to give up now?” A familiar voice asked. “Boy, you better run you do not have time to be sad. Lia has a map and she knows where you are. She’s coming your way you better get out of there, and Asher, don’t you two have an  unresolved conflict?” Cat said and for the first time, I felt relieved hearing his voice. Wait, Lia’s coming my way? I think.

She’ll know my location anyway so it doesn’t matter if I hide, I brace myself and start sprinting, my chest feels heavy only after a few minutes since I usually don’t run. Footsteps get louder from behind me, and I see Lia’s shadow getting closer to me. 

“How foolish of you to think you can outrun me,” followed by a few giggles is all I hear, then all I see is black.