Hide and Seek is a Team Challenge! Sort of!

“Happy hiding, my ass.”

Eligh was pressed to the ground beside Oliver and Jordan, their faces inches from the dark soil. The sun was hitting its high afternoon peak and the heat beaming down on them made the situation less bearable than it already was.

The girls and Oliver’s friend, Anton, had their knees dug into their backs, peering over the top of a small, mossy range that just barely obscured them from view. It was a desperate attempt to hide after having been found by one of the three giant bears within the first forty-five minutes of the game.

“You’re complaining? Feels like my knees are mating with a rock, Eligh. Do you even have meat back here? You just bones?”

“Mara!” Eligh cried and got slapped atop the head by Anton who kneeled on Oliver’s back. “Ow, dude. We just met!”

“You wanna get slapped again?” Anton hissed, “Shut up! You’re too loud. We’ve already been found once. Are you that eager to lose Phase Three?”

Eligh grumbled so he could remain unheard, “Can’t help it when Mara Ono’s bony knees are jabbing holes into my back.”

He yowled in pain as Mara grabbed his left ear and tugged upward hard. “What did you say?!”

“You heard that?!”

“Shut up!!” Oliver cried this time, and when the jungle floor rocked under the weight of a massive teddy-bear footstep, everyone fell silent. It was like they all had agreed to stop breathing.

The girls and Anton ducked their heads under the range, which was shaped a bit like a tidal wave, until they practically lay flat on top of the squished men below. More footsteps shook the grounds, sending the birds aflutter as the upset leaves in the trees vibrated dangerously.

Wait.

Eligh labored to look up, watching a nest of five black birds take flight above the trees. Birds? He thought. Since when—

He didn’t finish the thought. Mara pushed his head down and lied her body flush atop his. He could feel her anxious breathing on the back of his neck, her heart beating as fast as a snare against his back. Goosebumps traveled from his nape to his toes and back up again, but he remained calm. The wannabe-cute-but-creepy-as-hell bears were obviously on to them and, if caught, his team was down to stretching one chance across a day and twenty-three hours.

Survival with those odds would be nearly impossible.

With great difficulty from his position on the trembling ground, Eligh fished the tiny black cube out of the gift orb in his pocket, tossed the orb casing away, and reached out to grab the metallic wrist cuffs of both Jordan and Oliver who were squished on either side of him.

If this thing is a gift… He told himself and felt cold metal begin to rapidly encircle first his hand, then his arms, and everything until all parts of him—and Mara—were covered in a heavy metal sheet. The sounds of the metal clicking together let him know that the cube wasn’t done expanding.

It stopped after several tense seconds, and then there was a collective gasp as his groupmates’ bodies suddenly turned clear.

“Shh!” He urged and locked eyes with the giant teddy bear with hearts for eyes as it appeared above the group and bent its massive face low to the ground.

From its eyes, red lasers zipped out and fanned out over their area. Over them one, upward. Then again, downward. And twice more before sucking the scanner lasers back into its eye sockets.

A demon! Eligh cried internally and started to sing, It can’t see us. It can’t see us. It can’t see-ee~ us! in his head until the thing slowly returned to a standing position and trudged away.

The group of six waited with bated breath until the rumbling of the jungle floor ceased completely before any of them moved a muscle. Once certain that another cyber-bear wouldn’t sneak up on them, Eligh retracted the metal sheet until it was cubic once more, and the girls and Anton detached themselves from the guys underneath.

“Huuuu-aaaaaah!” Jordan breathed out, screaming as he stretched his aching body.

As Eligh and the rest stood up to do the same, Tessa crushed Eligh with a body-heavy hug. Hanging on him, she cried, “How did you do that?!”

“H-H-How? How d-did I? I-I just…” Eligh was trying very hard to answer, but he was more fish than human the way his lips were just flapping out gibberish.

Plus, Mara peeling Tessa off Eligh by the back of her collar the way one would pick off an old Band-Aid didn’t make the situation any easier for him to handle.

Because… what was that? What did it mean? Was this his year?

IS THIS MY LUCKY YEAR?!?! Eligh bit his bottom lip and silently did a high fist pump, oblivious to the round of stares he received from his cohort.

“Eligh!” Oliver interrupted his moment with a sharp tug on his shirt and pointed up overhead. This side of the jumbotron was showing his name: ELIGH PERSIL. His age: 23. His blood type: AB. And two status updates:

INTELLIGENCE: SMARTER THAN WE THOUGHT??? (nah, can’t be…).

SUCCESS ODDS: 48% | THANK MARA ONO FOR BEING ON YOUR TEAM.

Oliver snickered. Eligh backhanded him in the stomach. “That damned Kaien,” Eligh grumbled and stuck a finger at the jumbotron. To his utter surprise, his appearance blipped onto the screen like it had earlier in the day; only this time, his face continued to pop onto the screen until he filled about twenty circles.

“Does this happen to you often?” Anton asked, looking at Eligh while Eligh frowned. He watched himself lower his raised finger through the multiple screens of the jumbotron.

Then, he heard a bird call pierce the air and turned to look. He knew nineteen of his faces on the jumbotron would be looking elsewhere, but one face would be looking directly into the camera. He saw the black bird’s eyes gleam and said mostly to himself, “It’s the birds. They’re the same surveillance birds from the city.”

As if on cue, the rumbling footsteps of the Care Bear wannabes could be heard, and Mara returned their attention to the jumbotron. A larger image was showing on the huge screen, and this one was in motion. She said what everyone else was thinking.

“We hide from the birds. They survey us and the organizers program the bears to seek us out. If the birds can’t find us, then neither can the bears.”

“Right.” The others said.

But Jordan said, “Cool. Now what is the plan?”

For now, their only choice was to run. So, they did. When they were in a secure enough area where they could catch their breath, Oliver randomly tripped over something poking out of the undergrowth. He faceplanted with his arms spread wide and his feet nearly reaching his head.

“Wha?! Bahaha! What the hell are you doing?” Eligh guffawed loudly, slapping his knees.

“Oh, shut up.” Oliver growled, letting Anton help him to his feet. They worked for a bit brushing the wet soil off his knees when Anton noticed the thing Oliver had tripped over.

It was a silver cylinder with a flat top.

“What is this thing?” Anton asked and reached for it. When his fingers were close enough to tap the top of the cylinder, the top burst open into the fanned-out shape of a large, carnivorous plant. The group yowled in surprise and shuffled back several steps.

As they all stood hugging each other in suspense, the gaping cylinder opened for a single antenna-like arm to rise out. Attached to its head was a white, square sheet of paper. It stopped moving. Someone needed to take it.

Eligh nudged Mara’s shoulder, “Go get it.” He whispered.

She snapped her head at him and nudged him back, “You go get it!”

“No, Eligh! What if it eliminates the person who touches it?” Tessa warned, grabbing the group’s attention.

“Yes, exactly!” Eligh hissed and turned his attention back to Mara. She was glaring, hard. He swallowed. “Uh-Uhm… Maybe Jordan can get it.”

A three-second silence followed before the entire group, save Jordan himself, agreed. “Yeah, let Jordan get it.” They said.

The older man frowned at all of them and marched up to the suspicious contraption. He snatched the paper off the holder and the silver cylinder closed itself back up and was swallowed by the ground. Jordan grumbled in his loud voice, “We would have all been eliminated as a group, you bastards.”

“Ah.”

“Oh yeah. You’re right.”

“He’s right.”

“Sorry, Jordan.”

Eligh wasn’t sorry, but he patted Jordan on the shoulder anyway for being ‘a real one.’ As a group, they took a look at the paper Jordan held in his hand. Tessa read.

“First Mission: Cook yourself a meal, BUT DON’T EAT IT! Find a team hungrier than yourselves and give every morsel to them. #peace #GearUp!Games.”

For a moment, everyone stared at one another. And then all at once, their stomachs rumbled like a whale with diarrhea.