27086

“I’ll go.” I raised my hand in the midst of the crowd. Hundreds of eyes turned to me, causing my cheeks to turn bright red and my skin to go pale.

I swallowed hard and stepped forward.

“Brilliant!” The announcer said clearly through the microphone. “Number 27086, please step forward.”

They knew us all by number, never by name. I would be amazed if anyone remembered their name after being here as long as we have. We had gone from the wrongfully enslaved to now, their form of enjoyment, torture.

I took my place in line. I was bigger than her, the woman next to me, but she was a champion of the course. She had run it several times. Enough to make me look even more inexperienced than I was.

We knew the route, except I’d only practiced it in a dream.

The announcer got close to the mic. It squealed loudly, and the crowd groaned. “You only have one hour to complete the course.” The heavy, rusted shackles were removed from our wrists and ankles, and the chains dragged along the ground.

“Good luck,” opponent number 19820 winked at me, but this was beyond luck. This was survival.

With a nod, I stepped up to the line. No sooner did a gun fire into the air, she was off. I was still recovering from the ringing in my ears. “Go! Go!” cried the crowd, and with a slow jog, I was gone into the challenge.

Physically, I was ill-prepared for the course, but the champion was very well trained by it. Mentally, I was ready to take her down.

The first obstacle arose quickly. We had to scale the side of the cliff ahead. With limited resources, all that was provided were hooks and rope. Quickly, number 19820 fashioned a grappling hook; she effortlessly spun and secured it to the face of the top of the cliff. A slight tug and she was climbing the rope.

My fumbling fingers made it hard to tie the rope around the hooks and secure it for myself. The nervousness of trying to make it was causing me to shake and sweat profusely. I looked above, and my opponent was already halfway up her rope, scaling the wall as if it were second nature.

My first attempt, I threw the hook and landed shorter than intended. She was higher now, about two-thirds of the way to the top; however, she looked as if she were slowing down. I threw the hook a second time, latching it close to hers, but not close enough to truly snag. I had to move faster than my body would allow, or my lack of practice would be the death of me. I needed time. I needed leverage. By the time I made it a quarter of the way, she was already unhooking her rope.

“Wait!” I shouted my voice thin and filled with manufactured panic.

“Huh?” She looked down and saw me dangling.

“Wait.” I pleaded, shaking the ropes. “The ropes are caught if you let go now, I’d fall, please help me.” The guilt was a dull, unimportant sting compared to the adrenaline of reaching the top. I’d bought myself time and forced the champion to share my delay.

Contemplating, she reached down and began to hull me up slowly. In between grunts, she said, “If we both don’t make it back in time, it won’t be good.”

“I know,” I said.

I estimated that the first obstacle took us fifteen minutes or so; the thirty-minute gong should sound mid-obstacle next. I couldn’t risk losing that kind of time. Neither could she.

Once she hauled me over the cliff, she left me in the dirt, spinning away, running towards the swamp waters. I followed her, bringing our hooks and ropes.

Keeping a steady pace, not far behind her, we found the opening to the swamp maze. The champion effortlessly dived into the maze and swam deep underwater. There was no way she would know her way without making a mistake.

I, on the other hand, swung the grappling hooks high into the trees, effortlessly hooking onto a branch. I knew if I could get halfway across the swamp maze like this, then I would be ahead of her and the alligators that lurked below.

Jumping onto the first rope was a breeze, but trying to swing the grappling hook to the next branch would be a challenge…for any ordinary person, but again, it was effortless, hooked. I swung back and forth, gaining momentum, and once I was ready, I leaped to the next rope dangling. I swung again and jumped right into the swampy waters. I swam in the maze, feeling around for openings, coming up periodically to gauge where I was. Great progress.

“Hey, 27086, this way!” The champion called, but I could see that she was headed to a dead end. I didn’t follow or respond, but continued through my own route.

All of a sudden, I heard a scream cut through the swampy trees. I turned back and water splashing, thrashing in the midst was the champion. Do I go back to help her? Or… leeches, giant leeches were attaching themselves to my body, causing excruciating pain. I also began to scream and thrash violently, trying to pry their bodies off of me.

“I felt something!” The champion screamed, “There's something in the water! Go!”

I couldn’t just leave, but I had to. I could see her struggling; whatever was big enough to scare her was certainly big enough to kill me. With leeches still pressing their fangs deeper into my flesh, I pushed through the water.

For a moment, I stopped and looked back at her. She was still fighting off whatever was there. I couldn’t leave her, not after she stopped to help me. I was frozen, deciding if it was even worth the risk of losing. “Grab the rope! It’s right above you!”

With seconds to spare and still frantically thrashing about in the water, she managed to grab hold of the rope. More leeches were coming and latching on to my legs and back. I felt like I was going to pass out. I pushed forward, out of the waters. And as soon as I hit the muddy earth, the gong chimed twice, signaling that we were losing time.

I started to run fast toward the next challenge. Blood and mud squishing around in my shoes and the tole of the leeches draining me, finally threatening my demise.

Almost there. I said to myself, I kept pushing harder and harder, I had to make it to the end while she was still staggering behind me. I wanted to look back, but the adrenaline was telling me to stay focused forward.

With a thud and a loud yell, I hit the ground, shaking loose a few leeches whilst also smooshing a few. Blood was oozing out of me and on me. I felt dizzy and couldn’t tell if it was the branch or the leeches that made me fall. Pounding boots were closing in, and I could hear the bushes rustling behind me.

I couldn’t be last.

Get up and run! I screamed inside. All I knew was I didn’t want to die. If I stayed here and felt sorry for myself, death was all there would be waiting for me.

Run.

I kept pushing through, fatigued and bleeding, drained physically. My ankle had rolled and began to swell, pushing against the inside of my boot. Within seconds, she was past me. The champion was pushing harder, breathing, focused.

She made it to the third obstacle before me, but I was still on her tail. Two left. Twenty-five minutes left.

The champion was on the bridge, making their way across. A frail bridge, brittle and old, it looked like it was about to collapse at the sheer weight of her. Time was running out. I stepped onto the bridge, and one of the ropes holding together the warped and rotted wood threatened to snap. I stepped again and pop! A rope was holding tight to its last thread.

“Stop!” The champion screamed, holding onto the ropes still as stone. “Only one of us at a time, or we will both fall into the bog.”

“Well, how is that fair?” I screamed back at her. “The challenge is to see who finishes first, not last.”

The champion began to move again across the bridge once stabilized. She had a little more than halfway to go when I stepped again. Daring the bridge to collapse under us.

“What are you doing!” She yelled without turning to look.

“I’m crossing this bridge.”

“You’re hurt and you’ll kill us both.” She was shaking now, nervous. I had her right then, I knew it. It was a battle of the minds now.

I smiled, sad she was missing the grin, “Well, you'd better move faster then.”

Sliding my good foot in front, I leaped to the next wooden beam. Watching the rope twist and turn as the weight had more than doubled. “Go!” I yelled. “Hurry up!”

The champion refused to move. “No one has made it this far. You have to trust me, or we will both die!”

I moved forward a few more steps as the bridge swayed from left to right, creaking. “Move!”

She did, and as soon as she made it across, I was stuck a few feet from the end. The bridge was missing six beams, making it almost impossible for me to jump.

The Champion reached out her hand. “I got you. Jump.”

“How do I know you won’t let me fall?” I narrowed my eyes. The bridge was finally ready to give way; the long creek it made threatened us once more, a final warning. I was sweating more than before and feeling the adrenaline slowly slipping as I was prepared to accept my fate.

The champion said, “You would not be as formidable an opponent if you died now. You must at least make it challenging, make it worth the life I’ve lived.”

Looking over the gap, I saw not pity but a weary resignation in her eyes. She wasn’t offering me a hand; she was offering me her life. No more. I backed up and ran, my swollen ankle screaming, each beam splintering beneath my boots. With a final, desperate leap, the bridge finally fell, and I was hanging onto the arm of the Champion, who hauled me up.

We fell back and took a few breaths, and one sound of the gong rang out. “Finish it,” she whispered.

“I thought you wanted a challenge?” I asked with a smirk.

“No, you would have lost your life several times now, I as well. You risked your well-being and were injured. You can have the title. This life is not the one I wanted.” The champion sat up. “Fourteen minutes.”

I stood and held out my hand for her to join me. She hesitated, then stood alongside me. “I’ll see you at the end,” she said and bolted through the trees.

I wasn’t a loser. I looked around, tried to remember a shortcut. I couldn’t think, my head was pounding too loudly. Going left instead of straight, I remembered a path from the map I’d studied that would cut her route in half, and we’d both be in the final obstacle together. The net.

Mere moments after she had time to catch her breath, a sigh and a drop of the shoulders indicated she was not yet ready for my emerging. With a groan, she got on her hands and knees and began to crawl meticulously beneath the barbed wire net.

Calculating my route and the thickness of the mud, I knew I could rely on my arms to drag me through. I dove down into the sludge and pulled with my arms, wiggling through the barbed net. Scrapes and cuts, my hair being pulled out of its bun, I fought against it all to make it to the other side.

Thunder roared in the sky as lightning cracked. It was about to piss rain, but I wasn’t going to stop. Not now. Not when I was so close to tasting victory. I pushed and pulled my way through the tangled mess. My skin filed by each wire that brushed against me. There she was, right there, and gone she was behind me. My shorts began to rip and snag. I kicked my way out of the entangled netting and kept pushing. Buckets of rain poured on us. I couldn’t see, I was fed up, and finally just plowed through the net on my hands and knees. Faster. Faster!

I scrambled up and surged toward the line where I hit the ground, chest-first, crossing the chalk in a desperate, bloody lunge. Silence. Then, the announcer’s voice, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we now have the pleasure of welcoming our new champion…Number 27086!” The stadium erupted. I lay there, defeated and bloodied, but a slow smile crept onto my face. I won. I beat the champion.

Then, where was she? I shot back up, eyes blurred. “Where is the champion?”

The announcer laughed. “She’s right here, it’s you!”

“No…” I said, “Number 19820?”

“You won. She’s gone. Don’t worry about it.” The announcer said, ushering me to the inside of the ring where we started. He took me to an extravagant chamber where I was bathed and clothed. But something was still not right. “Now champion 27086. You will do this again every five times a day until a new champion comes along.”

My heart stilled. I stared at him. All I could hear was the champion’s voice. “Make it worth the life I’ve lived…You can have the title. This is not the life I wanted.” I was not a survivor but simply an exhibit.

End.