As the sun is rising, Rae is awake to see the letters on the trial board more clearly. When Angela awakes, she reads it aloud.

"Welcome to Magnetic Island. To attempt the Trial of Magnet, you must bring with you one of these marked boxes from this side of the island all the way across the other end of the island. You will find an altar of me at the end. There are horseshoe magnets provided just right below this board. The first to complete my trial will be rewarded greatly. May this trial bring us closer together. -Bipolar Bat (P.S. I do not have bipolar disorder. I am simply a bat with two magnetic poles.)"

Rae takes a provided magnet hanging on a bar below the signboard. She notices that the magnet has a switch on it, and as she tries playing with it, she realizes that the magnet only works when it's switched on. She sees a marked metallic crate and tries to drag that with her, while her magnet is on.

Angela also grabs a magnet, to attempt the trial on her own. She uses her magnet to pull her own crate as well.

Both allies take different paths while going the same direction, pulling their metallic crates with their respective magnets, while also clearing the path beyond them with the same magnet. They have to push and pull certain obstacles to clear the path or cross it. That's what takes this trial so much time and energy.

At one point, they get stuck, because there are metallic gates that don't let the box fit through them. Unlocking these gates with a key they found does nothing, because their boxes can't fit through the gates.

But Angela finds a way by using her magnet to navigate her crate above the gate. It is a challenge, but she makes it through. Rae doesn't see this and gets left behind.

As the sun was on its way down late in the afternoon, Angela comes back to see what's taking Rae so long.

"How did you do it?" Rae asks.

"I went over the gate," answers Angela. "Turns out, a lot of other tributes got stuck here as well, and if not here, there is another big obstacle after this."

"So…"

"So I'm the first to complete the trial!" Angela throws her hands up. "Check this out." Angela throws her sword at a distance, and then she uses a glove to force the weapon to come to her by vibrating her hand. "Magnetic!"

"Cool!" Rae is jealous, but she doesn't admit it openly. In fact, she knows Angela won this trial fair and square.

Angela and Rae call it a day as they return to the starting point of the trial, where they set camp. It is later revealed that the boy from One has been eliminated.

The next day, they set their sights on a pastel island nearby. They spend a good chunk of the morning rowing their boat to the island. That's where they find a meadow, with a giant egg sitting at the center.

"Does this egg crack?" wonders Rae.

"It might be poison gas if we're not careful. It looks too good to be true." Angela steps away from it. "I doubt it will benefit us."

They continue to explore the island and find no trial on it, except for the mysterious egg.

As the sky grows dark, Rae realizes how she hasn't been thriving ever since she came back from the abyss. Rubie died attempting the trial in Lunatide Island. Angela and Rae failed the trial in Broken Swamp. Angela won the trial in Magnetic Island, not Rae. Now, there's an egg sitting here and they have no idea what to do with it.

Rae then thinks back at the mysterious white island beyond the storm. For her to see it, especially beyond the storm, something is up. Could it be the treasure? In some years of the Hunger Games, there are hidden treasures that act as a bonus prize for the Hunger Games. If the eventual victor holds it with them until the end, then their prize money is doubled. Imagine how life-changing that would be…

But first, Rae must leave Angela behind.

They spend the night together, seeing no faces in the sky. Rae takes the watch after it was Angela's turn to sleep, and while she can kill Angela right here right now. Rae decides she can't do it. No, not to an ally who did nothing wrong to her, not to an ally who has been rowing the boat more than she has, not to an ally who won a trial fair and square and held no ill will to her winning the Trial of Depth.

Rae splits their supplies before she abandons the sleeping Angela.

I'm done here.


She has been swimming for the past few hours, making her way south and back to the storm, but the journey to it isn't easy. Rae would need energy to keep going, or she would have to conserve energy and wait for the waves to take her there. Rae isn't gonna wait though, especially when she thinks she has enough energy to keep moving.

She visits the Hub or the Central Island as she tries to make her way south. She finds a bunch of fruits and consumes them. They do not taste good, but she isn't getting a stomach ache at least.

She realizes she spends too much time getting lost in the Hub, because the sky is becoming dark once again.

But this doesn't stop her! She wants her treasure. She wants a reward she deserves. She wants to be the queen of this arena. She will conquer any hardships. She will conquer great challenges. She will conquer the stormy seas.

With her aqua vest, she dives back to the dark sea. As long as she heads straight in that direction, she knows she will make it.

Easier said than done!

She bumps into something that feels organic. The mutt roars at her, jaws sharper than anything Rae has ever seen.

It may be dark, but Rae can see the faint figure of the shark. She dives below, rises a bit, and repeats this pattern several times, but the mutt doesn't let her go. It's still following her.

Then she has no choice but to fight underwater!

She takes out her knife, and she can feel the mutt not letting go of her leg. She stabs it on the head, but it doesn't let go immediately. She can feel pain on her leg, like it's being ripped off, but she continues to stab the mutt repeatedly, until its jaw loosens and it lets go.

Rae's leg bleeds underwater, and while swimming with the vest makes it easier to swim, swimming with an injured leg is now going to drag her down.

She lets her guard down, but she continues to the direction she is headed for.


The pain in her leg makes it hard for her to sleep, so she spends the night trying to ease herself from the pain, holding her leg every now and then as she moves slowly to her destination.

She doesn't realize that she spends too much time floating for the next several hours. Actually, time is so hard to estimate these days. Rae lost count on the days she's in the arena, and she doesn't know how far she has gone. What she knows for sure is that she hasn't hit the border. Instead, she goes up to the surface and realizes that she can't see the island from here. She's not sure how far she has gone or where she is.

Rae questions her sense of direction, because she has no idea where she's going next.

After half an hour, she sees the thunderstorm. That's it. The past few days have been exhausting, and she's hungrier than what she's used to back home. The hunger messes with her brain, her sense of direction, her… everything. She wants the treasure, and while it's not yet finale time, she knows she will get it sooner or later.

Then it's nighttime yet again. Rae has really lost track of time, but she swims underneath the storm clouds.

Only to encounter another mutt.

Rae is here to fight though. If she wants that treasure, then she better do her best to make it out alive.

So with her knife, she stabs the creature repeatedly. It is easy to see it because it is glowing, but then it stops, as it dies.

She finds more later in the night, and her leg is feeling a bit better. There's still pain, but it's not as bad as yesterday, and it has long stopped bleeding.

With all these mutts coming at her, while there was a part of her that wanted to flee, she wanted to be remembered as someone brave. Even with the foolishness of fighting a mutt and risking herself at getting eliminated, she still fought them bravely, and if she died, she would've died with honor. It's the warrior in her that tells her to fight and never give up.

Few hours later, she finds herself back at Palm Abyss for some reason. The cuttlefish mutt is no longer there, but the materials used for the trial are still there, even those that haven't been completed.

There was an announcement just a few hours ago of the sea levels rising. She doesn't have a problem with that, however. She just needs to find the treasure, and she knows this isn't the right place, but she rests here anyway.