Yes, she'll have to ration the food.
.oOo.
Andrea Gamper, 12
Iberian Female
0 Kills
It gets dark in the maze when the sun finally decides to set - too dark.
But it's still just enough for Andrea to continue jogging through the maze to find a place to hide.
There's a small pack that jostles between her thin shoulders, dyed with some bright yellow dye that gleams in what little light she has left in the day. She's already rooted through the bag to inspect its contents - a bottle of water, a few cans of food that she'll try to eat later tonight, and a long knife with an ugly, sharp blade.
She had thrown the knife away. She doesn't want to hurt anyone here, even if it means that she'll be killed herself. She'd rather throw it over the wall and into another section of the maze than know that she had something that could kill another.
Even if she's being a fool, she'd rather stay a fool than be a murderer.
When she reaches a dead-end in the maze, another small pile of rocks lying in the corner, Andrea crouches down and takes the pack off of her shoulders. She feels lighter at once - although it's small, running for hours with this pack has taken its toll on her shoulders. They're going to be sore in the morning, aren't they?
But the cans prove to be stubborn, and she ends up taking a rock to one of them to puncture it and open it up entirely. The edges are jagged, but Andrea wraps her hands in the cloth of the pack to lift it open. Inside are small peaches with the heavenly scent of peach juice lingering in the air. Peach juice spills out of the can and onto the ground as she lifts it up, and Andrea lets the juice spill into her mouth. She savours the taste, sucking up every last drop before turning her attention to the peaches.
She hadn't realized how good food tasted until now. Maybe it's because she hasn't eaten since this morning, but she's famished. But she can't get ahead of herself - there's only a few cans of food, and too many possible days left in this maze to eat it all on a whim.
Yes, she'll have to ration the food.
After finishing off the rest of the peaches, Andrea hides the can under the pile of rocks - perhaps that's what they're for - and puts the rest of her supplies into the pack. She feels rested after the food, and ready to keep running until she finds a place to sleep.
Andrea starts at a quick pace, as fast as she'd run after the boys in one of the soccer games that she always played at her own school. As fast as a boy, some of the girls tittered while sitting in the corner and trading pens so that they can sign each other's autograph books. She had ignored them then, but there's always been a pit in her stomach about being called a boy.
Maybe she is.
After all, it's been ages since her mother and father, not knowing what to do with their five-year-old daughter, told her that "you have girl and boy parts, darling." When she was older, Andrea had looked up what they had meant in a dictionary, the book telling her that it meant she was a hermaphrodite.
She didn't like that word. There was something odd about it, something that whispered that she wasn't right, that she shouldn't be proud of being herself. Sometimes, she wished she had just been a boy instead - on other days, she wondered if she was. But it wasn't polite to talk about it.
And the one time she had, it had ended with her friends pushing her out of the school.
But no one's here to judge her now, is there? She can do whatever she wants, and no one can tell her that it's wrong.
So she runs as fast as she can, a grin on her face and her hair dancing in the wind.
.oOo.
How many more hidden talents would be snuffed out between these stone walls, in the blink of an eye and the swipe of a blade?
.oOo.
Amal Issa, 17
Afrikkaan Female
0 Kills
She doesn't mind being alone.
The maze that's she's been walking through - to keep track of where she's going, she's only been taking right turns when she comes to a crossroads - is growing darker by the minute, but she's able to keep moving fairly quickly. She's never been afraid of the dark, and she feels safer now that other competitors would be finding a place to sleep for the night. It's better to operate at night, when no one will think of looking for her.
A gunshot blasts and sends its harsh sound into the night, and Amal nearly leaps out of her own skin. Is someone shooting at her? Has someone found a gun, of all things, in the clearing where they had begun the competition? Are they trying to kill her?
But the gunshots sound like they're from far away from where she is in the maze, and Amal listens to each shot. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven and onwards, Amal counts seventeen gunshots in total from the distant shots. And then, right after them, there's a blast of trumpets that last for a full minute.
Then the night is quiet again, and she realizes, all too quickly, that it's supposed to tell them how many are dead.
So seventeen are already dead. Are they all from those first few minutes in that clearing, now soaked with the blood of the dead and gone, or did some vicious competitors decide to start killing already? Ever since she squeezed through the opening out of the clearing and ran like her life depended on it - it did, she supposes - she hadn't thought about who was dead. Was Bosede dead, that quiet, vicious boy who had likely killed most of the competitors in the first minutes? Were the boy who had conducted the orchestra and the girl who had played the violin dead, their talent forever lost to the winds of time? How many more hidden talents would be snuffed out between these stone walls, in the blink of an eye and the swipe of a blade?
Were the littlest of them all dead, that girl from Russia and the girl from Spain - was that what it was called? - and the two from Turkey? She hadn't spoken to them, but she had watched them with concern last night in that ball with the food that tasted divine and where the Germans, all dressed up in their finery, told them to dance. They were too small, too young to stand a chance against people like Bosede. They shouldn't be here.
Now she hopes that one of the bigger boys has managed to get rid of Bosede, because they're the only ones who will ever stand a chance against him. If they don't, he'll kill them all without thinking twice about it. She knows that he will.
She hopes he dies, for the little girls and boys who are either wandering the maze or lying dead on the ground, but also for herself.
Because she doesn't want to come across that man in the night. She doesn't want to see Bosede in this maze. Amal doesn't want to fight him. She doesn't even know what Bosede would do if he came across her.
That's the scariest part of all.
.oOo.
Abigail has refused to take anything into the small area, but Juliet's hidden a knife under her pillow.
Just in case.
.oOo.
Juliet Acres, 13
Russian Female
0 Kills
She's lying in a sleeping bag in a little nook that Abigail discovered around the corner from the clearing, just far enough away from the clear itself and its entrance obscured enough by the dark and the large stone walls that no one will come across it. At least, that's what they hope - Abigail has refused to take anything into the small area, but Juliet's hidden a knife under her pillow.
Just in case.
She looks over at the girl she's allied herself with - her friend, who's already saved her from death. Abigail is sleeping peacefully, a thin whistle coming from her lips every time she breathes out. Perhaps they should have set up a schedule to watch for anyone who stumbled upon the area, but Juliet thinks that they'll be safe. After all, she's awake now, isn't she?
And she's hungry.
Juliet looks back at Abigail, making sure that the girl is asleep. Then she slips the knife out from under her pillow, and stands up as quietly as she can. The dirt sounds terribly loud when she steps away from Abigail, but the Canadian doesn't make a sound and Juliet lets out of a sigh of relief.
Then, she walks through the opening and back to the pile.
One left turn and two rights later, Juliet is back in the clearing. She jogs to the pile and roots through it for one of the food packs, tossing aside a few weapons in her search for food. When she finds a pack with a chocolate bar - praise the Lord! - she rips the wrapper apart and devours the bar. When she's halfway through, she remembers that there's only so much food here, and forces herself to savour the chocolate bar.
But then she hears the breathing, and the chocolate bar falls out of her hands and onto the ground.
Her grip tightens on the knife, and she holds it up in the air. "I'm armed!" she yells out in Russian, hoping that whoever's here will be intimidated by the knife. "Don't come close to me!"
"You speak Russian?" A boy steps into the moonlight, out from his hiding spot in the shadows cast along the walls of the clearing. "I do too - I'm Karol, the boy from Poland. Are you the girl from Russia? I have no weapons - I just wanted food - I won't do anything to you. Please let me go."
Juliet nods, still holding onto the knife. Although the boy is thin, he's still taller than her, and she's not going to let herself get tricked. "Take a pack of food and we'll leave in opposite directions."
"And we'll never see each other again." Karol nods, taking a pack of food and backing away slowly. "Thank you."
And then he darts forward, grabbing a small-ish sword and running as fast as he can. But instead of running after Juliet, he disappears into the maze - through an opening in the opposite direction of the room that they've found, Juliet notes with relief.
She follows soon after, taking the path back to where Abigail is sleeping and burrowing back into her sleeping bag. Abigail rouses from her sleep, staring blearily at Juliet. "Sleeping well?"
"Never better."
.oOo.
In the deepest crevice of her mind, she hides the fact that she just doesn't know if she would kill to survive.
.oOo.
Magdalena Pichler, 18
Northern European Female
0 Kills
She's been falling in and out of sleep for the past hour, but now that it seems to be well past midnight she's suddenly wide awake again. What she would do for some more sleep!
Then again, maybe it's best if she just stays awake for now. After all, she doesn't know how many people are left in the maze, and any of them could try to attack her in the night.
If she wasn't scared of killing someone, she would do the same.
She touches the sword that's lying by her side, wondering if she'll ever get the courage to use it. At home, she had always hated the thought of the war and fighting and all of the useless death that comes with it. So many lives lost, all because a few egos refused to give up a pointless fight.
That's one of the reasons she let in the children from the woods, who surely are now hiding somewhere in her large mansion. She had told her parents that they were back at the home and begged to let the three stay at the house, and they had seemed to agree after she almost burst into tears. Franz, Ernst, and Monika should be safe from whatever authorities are looking for them.
Maybe they're watching her right now.
She turns onto her side, looking at the one pack that she had managed to grab from the clearing in the middle of the maze. When her chains had been cut, she had frozen - she couldn't find a way to make herself move until the boy from Afrikka had stabbed the girl from France and Magdalena had realized that there were people here willing to kill, to murder to make sure that there's less competition here.
So she had ran to the pile and grabbed a sword and a red pack, sprinting back to the edge of the clearing and scaring away some of the more frightened kids by holding the sword in front of her. She doesn't know what she would have done if they tried to grab her pack. She hopes that she wouldn't have attacked them, but a little voice in the back of her nags that she's just as bad as the rest of them.
In the deepest crevice of her mind, she hides the fact that she just doesn't know if she would kill to survive.
Sleep comes over her again, and she dreams of nothing for the next few hours before some sixth sense or guardian angel rouses her from sleep. She looks up, and then she hears it: the heavy footsteps of someone running through the maze.
Magdalena leaps up and grabs her sword just as the unknown runner bursts around the corner, two small knives tucked into her hands. It's the girl from Italy, someone who Magdalena remembers to be named Maria. Magdalena is unnerved by the girl's heavy breathing, and backs away to the side of the wall.
The girl throws one of the knives, and it slams into the ground when Magdalena jumps out of the way. She shrieks, and Maria narrows her eyes in the moonlight above their heads. "Attenzione."
And when she lunges towards Magdalena with a second knife, Magdalena realizes that she's all too ready to fight.
.oOo.
This girl just won't die, and Maria is sick of it.
.oOo.
Maria Bellini, 17
Italian Female
1 Kill
This girl just won't die, and Maria is sick of it.
She launches the first knife at the girl on the other side of the path, but it bounces off one of the walls that stretch up to the sky and lodges itself in the loose dirt beneath their feet. Maria curses, not caring if her father is watching this or not. She's fighting for her life, for heaven's sake!
And then the girl gives a careful swipe of her sword, too far from Maria to make contact. Maria narrows her eyes, trying to think of how to surprise this new opponent. Then, she knows what she'll do - she stabs downwards with her knife, letting her arm swing below the girl, then rams it upwards. It rips through the girl's shirt, the same colour of dull black and the same fabric of Maria's own shirt and pants that has been given to every competitor, and in the darkness, Maria can see blood begin to spill onto the dirt.
Finally, she's getting somewhere with this fight.
She just might win it after all.
But then the girl parries the strike with a swing of her own, making contact with Maria's left arm. Maria curses again, a pain suddenly erupting in the muscle of her bicep. The girl must have cut through part of the muscle to make it hurt so much - but thankfully, it's Maria's wrong arm. She still has her right arm to attack the girl with.
And attack she does, tackling the girl and knocking her to the ground. Then, she's on top of the girl and stabbing at her head. The blonde manages to dodge the attacks, twisting her head this way and that and trying to push Maria off of her. When the girl manages to knee Maria in the back with a desperate kick, Maria falls off of the girl and crawls on her hands and knees, trying to search for her lost knife. She can't lose it, not now, not when she still needs to kill this girl and get rid of another opponent. She needs to win, she needs to get back home.
Maria needs to survive.
When her searching hand brushes against the cold steel of a knife, she grabs it and turns back as quickly as she can. The girl is above her, lunging towards Maria with her all-too-sharp sword. Maria screams as it pierces the skin of her leg, burying itself deep into the muscle of her thigh before the girl pulls it back out. Then, she feels warm, sticky blood that starts to spurt out and travel down her leg to soak into the ground.
Maria stabs at the girl with her last knife, knowing that she's made contact when she sees the knife hit the girl in the side of her chest. It's shallow, but hurts enough for the girl to stumble backwards with a cry of shock. "Autsch!"
Maria pushes at the girl and tries to stand back up, but the pain of her leg causes her knee to buckle before she falls back to the ground. The other girl, managing to keep herself together despite the pain, slashes the sword at Maria and misses.
And then there's a horrible pain in her chest, and Maria looks down to see that the girl's sword has buried itself in her chest. How… how did it get there?
There's even more blood now, and she tastes it in her mouth as the girl pulls the sword back out and pushes it into Maria's neck. And then she doesn't feel the pain anymore, and she feels oh-so-light as her eyes begin to close.
She thinks about her father, still at home with his patients, and smiles. He wouldn't be able to put her back together, even he offered everything he had to God. Maybe this is for the best.
And suddenly, everything turns to blindingly white light, and she can see so much more clearly now.
CHAOS CHAOS CHAOS CHAOS CHAOS CHAOS
11th: Maria Bellini, Italian Female; Killed by Magdalena Pichler. Created by later . glader.
Maria was a fun, spunky gal who ended up being too vicious to be someone to really root for, but still really fun and complex. I thoroughly enjoyed her through the story, especially knowing what she would do to win. She was supposed to make it into the top ten (in an earlier plan, she would have faced Elaine here and won!) but I changed quite a few things around and the fact that she met Magdalena at this moment spelled disaster for Maria. Even though she's apprehensive about killing, Magdalena can do it - she just did. And she proved herself to be a capable adversary to Maria, to the point where a few lucky strikes allowed Magdalena to finish as the victor of the battle. Thank you to laterglader for this lovely girl, because I really enjoyed writing her. I hope that you're satisfied with this ending!
And we move into the final ten! Yes, we keep making our way to the finale. Next chapter will be a small interlude, but no worries: the next chapter will have some fun things. I promise.
Enjoy the chapter! Keep reading, review if you want, and have a good day in general. I don't have much to say, but I do have a poll that I'll be putting up just before I give y'all this chapter. Go vote in it!
Until next time, TheAmazingJAJ