16-Sympathy

          On the way to the floor where the third game was going to be taking place, I saw Boris... And Axel... I couldn’t look them in the eyes... not after what I almost did to them... The guard was next to me on the way there, but I felt it...

          I felt that Boris was going to ask me about the rules of the third game, as soon as he gets a chance... The rules I didn’t know... So I needed to make a plan... and make it fast!

          My wrist... and leg... hurt like hell...

          I know he will approach me soon. Hmmm...

          Oh!

          OH!!

          It’s... pretty simple actually...

          Yes... yes that shall work...

          We make it to the floor where the third game will take place, and I make the preparations for my big brain plan. „E-Excuse me-“, I tell the guard next to me. „C-Can I sit down there?“, I ask, pointing at a place near the elevator with which we just came here, with my unbroken hand. „What?“, the guard said, confused. „Y-You see, sir, my leg...“, I show at my stabwound, „I can’t stand st-traight... I need to sit down... p-please-“

          „I-I don’t think I should allow you, mister Kenneth.“, the guard said. He was a young, handsome guy. Seems like he just recently got this job... Heh... perfect!

          „Come on, please...“, I saw Boris searching for me. Crap, at this rate he’ll find me!

          „The announcement will be made just now, so you need to listen and-“

          „I will still be able to hear the announcement from there... please...“

          „O-Okay, but as soon as the announcement ends you gotta be at this spot or else you’re disqualified! Got that?!“, he said, trying to sound tough, but I could recognize sympathy in his voice. This guard was a good man... unlike me...

          I hope he has a happy life...

          „T-Thank you, good sir!“, I said, and immediately rushed towards the spot... I quickly sat there and hid as well as I could between the elevator entrance, the wall and the players and guards in front of me... From here I could see Boris’s and Axel’s legs and hear their voices, but they could not see nor hear me! That is my brilliant plan! To hide from them until the announcement is finished and until the game begins! They won’t find me within the players, so naturally they will report me for cheating, since I didn’t tell them the rules for this game in advance... But, THAT is why this simple plan I got is so effective!

          They will report me to the first guard they see, and they will report me as Kenneth Kelley, but the guards most likely don’t have a clue who I am, so they will have to show them who exactly this cheater is...

          And even if they DO happen to know how I look, the guards will still have to search for me! Since the amount of players and guards exceeds 60 in this room, they will hardly find me, since they will be looking at faces of each player... not their legs! Not down, but up! They will look above, not below! In other words... They will look for me, but will never find me before the game starts!!

          And once the game does start their report will be useless, due to the nature of these games!

          Let’s say this third game is like the first one, where we are split into groups. Chances are, I will not end up in the same group as Axel, since we were in the same group in game #1. I might end up with Boris, but the chances are 1/38, since there are 41 players participating, one of which is myself, one is Axel and one is that Moustache-guy, who was also with me in game #1, so we will most likely not be in the same group this game...

          Now, let’s say it happens to be like the last game, where each player is independent of others... EVEN BETTER!! Then there will be no way for them to show the guards who I am!!

          The only other option is that this game doesn’t have any groups... in other words...

          That this game all of us will be playing...

          This is the only scenario where they could show the guards who I am, but I mean what are the chances that more then 40 players will be playing one games at the same time-

          „WELCOME TO THE THIRD GAME, WINNERS!! IN THIS GAME ALL 41 OF YOU WILL BE PARTICIPATING AT ONCE!! NO GROUPS AT ALL!! “

          FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!!!!!!

          Well shit... this might be troublesome...

          „NOW, BEFORE I EXPLAIN WHAT THE GAME IS, I SHALL FIRST TELL YOU WHAT KIND OF SYSTEM THE NEXT FEW GAMES WILL BE RUNNING ON... “

          New system?? 41 players... 6 games left... C-COULD THIS BE A --

          „TOURNAMENT!! THAT’S RIGHT!! FROM NOW ONWARDS ALL OF THE NEXT GAMES WILL BE REPRESENTING A TOURNAMENT!! THE NEXT GAMES WILL HAVE A LIMITED NUMBER OF WINNERS, IN THE CASE OF GAME #3 THIS NUMBER IS 32. FOR GAME #4 IT’S 16, GAME #5 IS 8, GAME #6 IS 4, GAME #7 ONLY 2, WHO WILL COMPETE IN THE FINAL ELEMENT GAME TO BECOME THE ULTIMATE WINNER!! “, the announcer said... I knew it... But... if this is the case then-

          „LET’S GOOO!!!“

          „SO ONLY 9 OF US WILL BE ELIMINATED?!!?“

          „THIS MEANS I HAVE A CHANCE!!“

          I could hear lots of players talking, including Josh... I stayed quiet in the spot where I was hiding, so I couldn’t tell any of them that...

          They couldn’t have been further from the truth...

          While it is true that in this game there will only be 9 players eliminated... There is a big catch to this... One that is so scary and frightening that it freezes my body once I realize what it is...

          This means that, once enough players are eliminated from a game... you won’t be able to withdraw from the games, even if you have enough money right then and there!!

          To be more precise, this means that, once enough players are eliminated in a game, you can no longer do what Janneth did in game #1!! That’s maybe one of the reasons she quit so early on... While it is true that you could just wait for the next game to begin if you do want to withdraw from participating, this still means that, from this game onwards, to quit you either have to win fast, which I doubt will even be an option, since everybody is playing at once, so you can withdraw in the same game you win, minimising the fee you have to pay to get out... or... you quit as soon as the next game begins, which will increase the fee...

          But not only that... the worst part is that every single player who wants to withdraw will do the same... And I’m positive that, as the game goes on and the games get more and more dangerous, more players will want to withdraw, resulting in players fighting for who will withdraw first from each game, in other words...

          The future games will become a fight for who loses first... not for who wins first...

          I doubt that will happen in this game, maybe not even in the next one, since there will be 16 players to be eliminated... but games #5 and #6 will sure look like that...

          I wanna end this as soon as possible... I gotta warn Josh as soon as I get the chance!

          But that’s not now... for now I still hide here and wait...

          „SO NOW, WHAT EXACTLY IS THIS THIRD GAME?? WELL, IT’S A MEMORY GAME!! YES, YOU HEARD THAT CORRECTLY!! A MEMORY GAME!! “, the announcer said.

          Well this is... unexpected, to say the least... But still... I’m sure that this will be the most terrifying memory game I will ever play in my life...

          „THE GAME WILL TAKE PLACE IN THE ROOM RIGHT NEXT TO THIS ONE!! OR SHOULD I SAY... ABOVE THIS ONE... “, just as he said that, the floor above us s-started collapsing!! N-No, wait-

          „WHAT THE HELL-“

          „AAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!“

          „OH SHI--“

          I heard players yell, while I had all of those same thoughts at once. Turns out the floor didn’t collapse, but instead a staircase slowly came down from the top via some mechanism. I don’t know why couldn’t we just enter the room above via the elevator, instead of via this staircase that probably cost a few million dollars to make...

          We were asked to climb the staircase, and we were told that we will find out all the rules after every player climbs them...

          Shit...

          I had 2 options: either I start climbing now, since there will be more people so Boris and Axel have a smaller chance of seeing me, or I climb as late as possible and hope that they climb them before me...

          I choose the latter option because of my wounded leg. Let’s hope this gamble goes my way...

          As players climbed, I was looking for Axel or Boris. Soon I saw Boris climbing, but Axel was nowhere to be seen!!

          I guess they split, so that they can search both the players who have and the players who have not climbed the staircase... FUCK!! I didn’t even think this was an option...

          I got up – „Nngh!“ – my leg hurt like hell when I did, and I slowly started making my way towards the stairs when-

          „...“, I saw Axel.

          He was right in front of me. We were looking each other in the eyes for a bit, when he-he-

          He closed his eyes and turned around and walked away, without saying a word... I was... confused... Why didn’t he…

          But I didn’t think too much of it and moved onwards...

          I was the last one to climb the stairs, and after me the stairs went back up, and a layer of metal covered them, making the floor flat... When I looked around the room I realized why we couldn’t go here via an elevator...

          This entire room was a giant periodic table.

          „NOW, PLAYERS, LET ME EXPLAIN THIS MEMORY GAME: AS YOU CAN SEE THIS ENTIRE ROOM HAS A GIANT UN-ASIGNED PERIODIC TABLE ON THE FLOOR WHERE YOU’RE STANDING, UN-ASIGNED BECAUSE IT IS JUST NUMBERS WITHOUT LETTERS, AND ABOVE YOU ARE- “

          Lights in this enormous room turned off. It was complete darkness. Then, giant LED screens lit up in each corner of the room.

          „-LED SCREENS THAT WILL DISPLAY 1 OR 2 LETTERS, REPRESENTING AN ELEMENT!! EACH SCREEN WILL DISPLAY A DIFFERENT ELEMENT, AND YOUR GOAL IS TO STAND ON THE TILE OF THE PERIODIC TABLE WITH ONE OF THE 4 CORRESPONDING NUMBERS BEFORE THE TIME RUNS OUT!! THE TIME LIMIT FOR EACH ROUND IS 45 SECONDS, WITH 45 SECOND BREAKS BETWEEN EACH ROUND!! FOR EXAMPLE: THE 4 SCREENS SHOW LETTERS H, He, Li AND Be, THEN YOU, THE PLAYERS, SHOULD COMPETE TO STAND ON THE TILES MARKED #1, #2, #3 AND #4!! THE FIRST 32 PLAYERS WHO DON’T STAND ON ONE OF THE RIGHT TILES WHEN THE TIME RUNS OUT WILL BE ELIMINATED, AND THERE WILL NOT BE A FIXED AMOUNT OF ROUNDS!! INSTEAD, YOU WILL PLAY UNTIL 32 OF YOU GET ELIMINATED, HOWEVER LONG THAT TAKES!! WITH ALL OF THAT SAID... GOOD LUCK, AND MAY THE MEMORY GAME BEGIIIINNNN!!!!! “

          When the announcer finished talking, the tiles on the floor lit up! Each of the tiles now had a lit up number inside them, corresponding to the number of the element that tile represented. The tiles were about 1x1 meters each, so there wasn’t that much space for us players stand on...

          The LED screens showed us the first 4 elements, before I even had a chance to think about the rules, or about other players...

          And the elements shown were...

          Mg, Tl, Rh and V...

          And I had no idea where any of them were...

 And now, a few fanarts by J.K. Borealis:

                   And thanks to Paradox for the ultra-super-mega-giga-special-awesome new cover ^^

You'll be able to see the clean version of it in the next chapter, since Tapas won't let me upload it in this one...