17-Clever

          45 seconds.

          That’s how long we had for each rounds of the game. This meant that, while each round is super short, this could run in dozens of rounds!! This game not only questioned your memory of the periodic table, which you could somewhat maybe remember from the first game, but it also tested your concentration. And if your concentration fell off, even for only a couple of seconds, it could already mean your defeat!

          I realized this in the first few seconds of the game. I saw everybody rushing in panic, due to the abnormally small time limit. It was pure chaos.

          People were pushing and yelling at each other, trying to find one of the 4 safe tiles to stand on.

          I took about 15 seconds to look around me for familiar faces. And I saw them…

          Boris, the Moustache-Man, Yellow, Axel, Josh and-

          -the fourth roommate.

          At that moment I remembered that name… Damyan… Linda also mentioned him and Janneth… Could it be-

          I shaked my head. I have no time to be distracted by dumb shit! I rushed to re-unite with Josh. “AAAAHHH!!”, I yelled due to the sudden pain in my wounded leg. Fuck! With this wound I won’t be able to do the most important thing in this game, that is: to run…

          “JOSH!!”, I yelled, and he fortunately heard me and came over. I looked around to see where most of the players are standing. Then I heard Yellow saying “OH!! I KNOW THAT ONE!!”, while she rushed towards one of the tiles.

          “We’ll follo-”, I started, but then saw that I was not the only one who heard her. Everybody did. The scene looked frightening. About 20-ish players, all at the same time rushed towards her, and, as soon as they stood still on one of the tiles, they all pushed her and fought against each other in order to claim the tile before the time runs out.

          Yellow fell on a tile next to that one and laid there still. T-This is-

          “I-I think she hit her head!”, Josh said, worried about her. He started running towards her, and I instinctively followed him. “J-JOSH, WE DON’T HAVE THE TIME FOR-”, I started, but the pain hit in. “NGHM!!”, I bit my lip and slowed down a bit, but still went towards Yellow and Josh.

          Josh and I made it to her, but we were not the only players there. The fourth roommate was also standing next to her!!

          I guess he was there to fight with the other players, but he was too late, just like us…

          “Are you alright, miss?”, Josh asked. I looked at him surprised. No. Shocked! He didn’t care about the game anymore… He didn’t care that he will lose and end up in a debt that he will never be able to recover from…

          He only cared about if Yellow got hurt…

          I shed a tear. Josh is such a nice person, who just had bad luck in life… He doesn’t deserve all of this! I mean look at me! I didn’t even flinch when Yellow fell and stopped moving! I only cared about getting on a safe tile and saving myself!! What if s-she’s unconscious or something God forbid – worse!!

          “I…”, Yellow spoke… “Oh I’m more then fine… I feel amazing!! ”, she grinned at Josh. At that moment one of the players who were fighting each other fell on top of Yellow, who was still laying on the floor.

          It was Moustache-Man!!

          I guess he got pushed here… Well, he’s going down with us I guess…

          *BEEEEEP!!!*

          “TIIIIIMMMMEEEE IS UP, LADIES AND GENTLEMAN!! ”, we heard the announcer…

          So this is it… This was the end of the line for both Yellow, Josh, the fourth roommate, Moustache-Man and I…

          I just wish Josh made it a bit further then this…

          Damn it…

          “NOW THE 4 WINNING TILES WILL LIGHT UP, AND EVERY PLAYER WHO AT LEAST TOUCHES ONE OF THE CORNERS OF ONE OF THESE TILES WILL PROCEED TO THE NEXT ROUND... THE WINNING TILES WERE- ”

          “NUMBER 12!!!! ”, as the announcer said that, tile number 12 lit up. I see… So the winning tiles will light up at the end of each round… Interesting. There were 10 players who won by standing on that tile…

          “NUMBER 23!!!! ”, tile number 23 lit up. 9 players won from that tile.

          “NUMBER 45!!!! ”, tile number 45 lit up. Another 10 players won. Among them were Axel and Boris.

          “AAAAAND, NUMBER 81!!!! ”, our tile… lit up…

          “Wh-Wha-THe fUck!?!”, I said in confusion. We were supposed to be eliminated, but all of a sudden we are the winners!??!

          “Oh, wait, you didn’t even realize it!?!!”, the fourth roommate said. “AHAHAHAHA!!! YOU ARE EVEN DUMBER THAN I THOUGHT!!”, he laughed.

          “I don’t understand.”, Josh said. ‘Me neither, Josh, me neither…’, I said to myself in my head.

          “Ahahah! That’s only to be expected of you, Damyan!”, Yellow said. SO HE IS DAMYAN!! THE PLAYER WHO WAS THE FIRST ONE TO BEAT GAME #2!! THE GUY WHO LINDA MENTIONED ALONGSIDE JANNETH!!

          “You see, guys, I tricked all of these idiots who were eliminated just now! This is the right tile, not that one…”, Yellow told me and Josh. Then she showed at two guys who were closest to us. “Those two got lucky.”

          When I looked at them I realized why she said that. Those two were some of the people who were fighting each other a moment ago, and their feet touched the corner of the tile we were on. I guess they got pushed juuuuuust a tiny bit on this side… This also meant that Moustache-Man had some luck in him too, ‘cause he fell right on top of Yellow in the last second, so he was also saved. But all of the other players got eliminated…

          So that means that the 29 players in the other 3 ‘right’ tiles, those 2 idiots, Moustache-Man, Josh, Yellow, Damyan and I all made it to the next round. That makes 36 winners and 5 losers so far. At the end of this game there should be 32 winners left, so that means that 3 more players will get eliminated…

          I’m beyond impressed by how Yellow tricked all of the losers of this round! She yelled that she knew which tile was the ‘right’ one on purpose, because she knew that if she stood still on one tile, other players would do anything to stand on that same tile, and would probably push her out of the way in the process. While, she did, indeed, know which tile was the ‘right’ one, she still stood on the wrong one, so that other players would fight each other over that one. This meant that they would all focus on that tile, and would completely ignore Yellow from that point on. She single-handedly eliminated 5 players with her clever trap!!

          This girl was a dangerous opponent! Just like Janneth was. The difference being that Yellow is still in the games…

          But this also gave me more info on the type of person Moustache-Man is… He was nowhere near the level of Damyan, Yellow or Janneth!! He was a super easy opponent, and, if I had to bet…

          I would bet on Moustache-Man being  one of the 3 players left to be eliminated in this game.

          I say this because he was one of the so called ‘idiots’ who fell for Yellow’s trap. Granted, I also fell for it, BUT he showed me in total of 3 times that he made it this far due to pure luck!!

          The first two times were in game #1, when all he did was copy Josh’s and mine strategy, that is: taking candies next to the candies other players took. In the case of Josh and I we only used this strategy between us, but he used this all the time throughout the game! And now he also did what the majority did! He just followed others around in both games!!

          This was a relief, because it meant one less difficult opponent…

                    “HOLY SHIT!! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR LEG, MAN??!”, Josh freaked out. I guess he hadn’t noticed it earlier due to how dark it was. “Iiiit’s a long story… I’ll explain everything once we finish these hellish games… How’s that sound?”, I asked.

          “Sounds good… Heh… “, Josh looked at me and smiled, ”Let’s win this and go for a beer later, Ken!”

          “I- Yeah, sure!”, neither Josh nor I had the time for me to explain to him how I don’t drink alcohol, so I’ll tell him about it later.

          For the first time in a while I felt like I had a real friend… I couldn’t wait to finish this and go out in a bar with Josh to talk with him about everything.

          Who knew that I would make one in the fucking Element Games out of all places?!