She almost died. But she didn't. She's still here. She's still here. She's still here.
And she's not going to stop fighting.
.oOo.
Magdalena Pichler, 18
Northern European Female
1 Kill
The wave carries her from one end of the maze to the walls all too quickly, bruising Magdalena's body as it keeps pushing against her. It's relentless in its battering, and she can feel the very air in her lungs being forced out as it pushes her against the wall again. Is this what it feels like to drown? Is this how she'll die?
But then the torrent stops, and she's finally able to breathe. What a simple but essential luxury she's been afforded, to breathe in deep, shuddering gasps of air as tears well up in her eyes.
She almost died. But she didn't. She's still here. She's still here. She's still here.
And she's not going to stop fighting.
The water is up to her chest now, and keeps on rising. She tries to walk through the water, but instead throws off her boots and lets them sink into the floodwaters. Then, peeling off her wet socks and rolling up her pants, she starts to swim through the waters. It's surreal to swim through the maze after having to walk through here for so long, but whoever's masterminding the arena that she's fighting in must have figured out a way to get all of this water in here. Did they had a dam that they opened? A water tower that they had pushed into the maze? Was a lake pouring itself into the maze after they had destroyed whatever barrier had kept the waters from coming into the maze before?
But the waters keep rising, now surely at six feet and rising. If she keeps calm, she'll be able to hold on for long enough to find the other competitors and fight them. Somehow, she's kept a hold onto her sword - it's still light in her hand, and she moves it to hold between her teeth as she keeps swimming. The thought of her, swimming around with a sword between her teeth like she's some boy dancing with a rose in his teeth to get the girl of his dreams, almost causes her to let go of the sword to laugh. But she regains her composure, and keeps swimming.
She's not going to make a mistake now.
She's not going to die now that she's so close to the finish line.
The waters are rising steadily, lapping closer and closer to the top of the walls. Will it spill over and cover the maze entirely? She doesn't know.
But she's going to try to get to the top of the wall.
Swimming over to the top of the wall is simple, but Magdalena struggles to find a way up the wall. Trying to haul herself onto the top of the wall doesn't work, but eventually she figures it out - jamming her fingers and toes into little crevices that dot the wall get her up slowly but surely. Soon, she's above the water and soaking wet - but holding onto the top of the wall.
And when she musters up the strength to swing herself up and stand on the top of the wall, above the flooded maze, she sees that others have made it up before her.
.oOo.
So she runs towards it - because she has no choice.
.oOo.
Juliet Acres, 13
Russian Female
1 Kill
The waters have continued their ascent against the walls of the maze, and Juliet keeps clinging onto the wall that's left while trying to climb up. But she keeps falling back into the water, keeps losing energy every time she tries.
She's stuck until the water's high enough for her to climb onto the top of the maze.
And as she waits, she discovers that the water is kind enough to do just that.
It takes a while, but she eventually gets onto the top of the wall to stand up, knife in her pocket just in case. She draws it out as she looks around the rest of the maze, seeing the twists and turns that made up this huge labyrinth. The other three have made it on the top of the maze, and they're walking around the tops of the walls while trying to avoid each other. She's near one of the edges of the maze, and looks in fascination to see the massive dam above them, far away from the maze but close enough to let water into some opening in the maze, and realizes that she's only a few walls away from getting out of the maze and into whatever is outside.
But then she sees the outer wall collapsing under the water, and she screams.
The others are facing the same issue as well, running towards the square strip of stone that made up the middle of the maze. It's the clearing where it all began, and Juliet knows that some light packs and boxes must be floating inside the centre.
So she runs towards it - because she has no choice. Like magic, the paths of stone that used to be the walls of the maze keep disappearing behind her. Maybe it's dynamite, or being they're conveniently falling due to their structure. Whatever the reason, she doesn't let it stop her from continuing to run along the walls and to the centre. More than a few times, she has to jump into the water and swim to the next wall that can bring her closer to the centre, where she'll be safe from the falling walls.
Or so she hopes.
Soon, she's reached the long, square strip of stone that makes up the clearing. The others are either almost there or already walking along the stone, trying to reach the other competitors. There's the boy from Britain, who, Juliet realizes with a thrill running down her spine, is about her age and running with a knife in his hand. Then there's the boy from Poland, with a knife as well and a piece of rope with a rock tied at the end. She'll have to avoid him.
And then there's the girl from Northern Europe, with a sword that easily dwarfs the rest of their knives.
She'll avoid her as well.
In fact, she should stay as far away as she can from the rest of the competitors until there's only a few left.
Juliet holds onto her knife and leaps into the icy water, swimming to one of the larger boxes that float in the centre. She holds onto the box and lets herself float in the centre of this large square, knowing that none of the other competitors will try to attack her when the others are so close. If someone else had gone in first, she wouldn't have tried to swim in case someone tried to drown her.
So now she floats, holding onto the box and watching the others with the knife in her hands.
Let the games begin.
.oOo.
And if he's not hallucinating, it's starting to break.
.oOo.
Karol Karski, 15
Polish Male
2 Kills
They're all walking around the square, trying not to get closer to each other in case they underestimate the skill of their competitors. Karol leaps across what have must been an entranceway to the clearing, stumbling onto the stone path that's now only a foot or so above the waters. He's got to be careful when he jumps - if he stumbles into the water and loses his knife when he's so close to the finish, there's no way he'll survive an attack from the other tributes. He's good as dead without this knife.
The dam that hadn't been visible from inside the maze itself is now visible to them all, looming over the competitors with a shadow that is cast across for what seems like miles across the waters of whatever lake or sea that this maze is in the middle of.
And if he's not hallucinating, it's starting to break.
There's a boat in the distance as well - actually, there's several, all floating around the labyrinth with little figures of who must be soldiers standing on their decks. They must be waiting to pick up whoever's left after this final battle, and for good reason - the water from the dam is starting to gush out even faster.
Now that it's overflown from whatever canal has fed it into the maze, it's raising the waters of the lake even higher, up to match the height of the maze. Was the maze built on an island? He doesn't understand how it was positioned exactly, or how whoever made it managed to keep it safe from the rest of the lake until the dam was opened in a few positions. Perhaps the dam was there for that reason - to control the water levels. Truth be told, he doesn't know if he knows any of the answers to how it was built, how they made the walls fall so quickly, or how they made sure no one just swam away from the maze.
But he does know that he's about to fight again.
The boy from Britain is starting to edge closer to him, and Karol pushes the dam out his mind. No, he has to focus on this fight, one of the last times he'll have to kill before he can go home.
After all, he's only three away from becoming the last one standing - or swimming, by this point. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the girl from Northern Europe leap off of where she's standing and swim towards the frightened girl from Russia.
"Good luck," the boy says to Karol, and Karol raises his eyebrow in confusion, not understanding what the boy is saying. But then it's all too clear - the boy is attacking him with a knife, coming all too close to striking Karol in the heart. Karol stabs back as well, and gets lucky. His knife manages to embed itself in the boy's arm, who leaps back with a howl of pain. Karol comes closer, hoping to get lucky again with a strike. If he can do it, he'll be able to get that much closer to finishing.
Only one can win, after all.
But then the one thing that Karol hadn't thought of happens - the wall they're standing on collapses into the water as well.
.oOo.
No, he can't let himself think. He's got to keep calm, he has to keep fighting.
This going to be the only way he can win.
.oOo.
Norman Bennet, 14
British Male
1 Kill
He doesn't know if he'll get through this, but he knows one thing: he's doing the best he can.
When he finally surfaces after almost being dragged down along with the collapsing wall, he sees the boy from Poland surface as well. They both eye the closest wall at the same time, and swim as fast as they can to the last thing that resembles land. It's a race against time and each other to get to the wall, to be the first to get there so that they have the upper ground.
Somehow, praise his lucky stars, Norman is the first to reach the wall. He hauls himself on top of the wall and stabs at the Pole when he tries to climb on top as well, landing a nasty hit through the boy's hand. The boy screams, but doesn't let go - he somehow gets his hand free and disappears under the water.
Then begins their cat-and-mouse game - the boy surface and tries to climb onto the wall, and Norman tries to stab him. In some dark corner of his mind, he knows that this is wrong, but it doesn't stop him from trying to get rid of this opponent.
It's just another person in the way. He needs to be brave. He needs to get this boy out of the way.
But the boy somehow manages to get onto the top of the wall and faces Norman, holding a knife in his hand. The old pain in Norman's leg resurfaces, and he fights back a grimace. No, he can't let himself think. He's got to keep calm, he has to keep fighting.
This is going to be the only way he can win.
All too quickly for Norman to react, the boy knocks Norman onto the stone of the wall that they've been fighting upon. Norman braces himself for a quick death, praying to the God above who's watching over them all to take pity on him, but the blow doesn't come. Instead, the boy forces Norman's head under and holds it there.
Norman struggles, but he can't free himself of the boy's grasp. No, this won't do - he's panicking, and he's going to lose air if he keeps letting the boy fight him like this. He has to calm down. He has to relax.
He has to be brave.
He lets his muscles relax, and after fifteen seconds of agonizing terror the boy lets go. Norman pushes himself back up, now knocking the boy off of the wall with a well-aimed kick. He takes a deep breath of air and coughs up the small amount of water he's swallowed, suddenly realizing in the panic that the boy has lost his knife.
Norman has, too.
When the boy climbs back up, Norman stuns him with a well-aimed punch to the face. The boy's more resilient that Norman expects - he manages to stay standing, shoving back with a tackle that knocks them both into the water.
And now they're both underwater, pulling at each other's hair and trying to push whoevers on top back down into the deep. But as always, they surface at the same time and try to push each other under, holding their breath as best as they can whenever they're under. It's like they're wild animals, fighting with no other reason than the fact that they've been made to.
But then they freeze - it's not because one of them landed a blow, or because the other is finally giving up.
It's because of the massive bang in the air that tells them that the dam is starting to break.
.oOo.
Judging by the speed that it's flowing out of the dam, the maze is going to be submerged more quickly than they all expect it to be.
.oOo.
Magdalena Pichler, 18
Northern European Female
1 Kill
She had started on top of the wall with the other four, but it's when the little girl from Russia jumps into the water and swims as fast as she can to the centre of the water that Magdalena realizes that she's going to have to chase after her. So when the boys run at each other and begin their own fight to the death, she grabs her sword and swan-dives into the water below her.
It's colder than she thought it would be, even if she's been in it before.
Now that she's swimming through the area, she can see the dam above them all that's releasing water back into the lake that they're on. The maze must have been built on an artificial island, where the engineers had made sure that it was above the water by draining the lake and then damming up the source of water that fed it in the first place. And now they're flooding it again, but the canal that they've built straight to the maze is now overflowing with the water that is rushing through it and is feeding into the lake.
Judging by the speed that it's flowing out of the dam, the maze is going to be submerged more quickly than they all expect it to be.
Magdalena keeps swimming to the little girl, noticing that the boys still haven't reached a clear victor. Now they're grappling with each other on top of the wall, and she gasps when it falls into the water under their feet. Now they're swimming, just like her, but to another wall where they can continue the fight.
Boys, she thinks with amusement. If they lose one thing, they'll just find the next replacement and continue where they've left off without even thinking of another solution.
She keeps swimming closer to the girl, and by this point the Russian has noticed that Magdalena is travelling towards her. She holds up her knife and shouts at Magdalena, her voice tense and nervous. "Я буду драться с тобой!"
Magdalena's almost there now, and she grabs onto the box and gives it a shake. The girl screams, slashing at Magdalena's hand with a knife. She's scared, so scared…
Just like Monika…
Magdalena pauses. The girl is confused by the fact that Magdalena isn't moving, pausing as well to stare her in the eyes. Slowly, surely, Magdalena takes her sword out and holds it in front of the girl.
Then she lets it hit the box, the weapon sliding into the murky waters and out of her reach.
The girl's still scared, and when Magdalena reaches out to calm her she slashes her knife across Magdalena's chest. It cuts through her clothing and her skin begins to sting. Without looking she knows that the wound is already starting to bleed. Magdalena grabs the knife, too quickly for the girl to react and pull it away, and throws it into the water. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to help you."
The girl's eyes widen in realization, and she points to the boys. As one pushes the other's head underwater before they both topple in, she asks an unspoken question.
What do we do about them?
Magdalena shakes her head. "We'll let them fight. If we're lucky, they'll get rid of each other."
As she mimes out the two fighting with her hands, a massive bang! causes the two to pause and stare up at the dam. Something's breaking inside, and Magdalena screams as she sees the wave of water coming towards them. It hits the boys first, but soon enough it hits herself and the girl before dragging Magdalena under the water. Down to her death, her mind thinks as she tries not to die.
Through some small miracle, Magdalena holds onto her breath as the wave pushes herself underwater. Deeper and deeper she sinks, until she can't feel the wave's grip on her. Now her lungs are begging for air, and she starts to swim back up to the surface. There's a horrible, vibrating sound under the water, and she looks this way and that for the cause. What could it be?
But now her lungs are burning, and she pushes upwards to the surface. Up and up she goes, but each stroke feels like she's going nowhere. Her lungs feel like they're killing her, bit by bit, and she finally opens her mouth to breathe in the air that isn't there.
As the water rushes into her lungs, she sees dark pairs of hands reaching towards her.
As she closes her eyes and sinks into nothing, she can't tell if they're too late or not.
Yes, we are ending on a cliffhanger and there is nothing you can do about it... NOTHING
Stay tuned to see who's left tomorrow! I hope none of y'all are too mad haha
But yeah, we're ending the chapter this way. You'll find out tomorrow who wins and who doesn't, as well as get to see the epilogue and everything! So we all just have to wait 24 hours - not too bad, right? Especially considering a year ago when this was uploading every two months or so LOL
Well, get ready! How did you like this chapter? predictions? Any upsetting incidents? Anything you're happy about? How do you think the children will fare - will we have any surprises in the epilogue, or is there a clear winner(s)?
I'll see you all tomorrow WITH THE LAST CHAPTER! This is insane wow
Enjoy. Until the epilogue, TheAmazingJAJ