Hour 17

Even though she couldn't tell what the stout man in the cowboy attire was thinking, all she knew was he had gotten dangerously close, and his gun wasn't sighted in on her. She would've normally hesitated, but after everything she had experienced up until this point, she saw her opportunity and fired on him before her untrained aim could steady, resulting in the cowboy crumbling inwards like some kind of horrifying, living origami. Without having to devote much thought to it, she stole his pistol and executed him on the spot. Alex's choking brought her back to reality and she turned her attention to him in a desperate attempt to assess his wound. She wasn't an expert but after a quick examination she was able to determine that the bullet hadn't exited his body, meaning it was still in him. He wasn't bleeding enough for it to have damaged an artery but he was still losing enough blood to warrant her distress. "Hold on, Alex!" She ordered as she plunged her hands into her backpack and claimed a spare shirt. The entry wound wasn't on an appendage where she might've been able to manage a makeshift tourniquet, so all she could do with her medically untrained logic was bind the area as tightly as she could to prevent further bleeding. She demanded Alex, "Stay with me!" And he replied with a weak exhale, "You can't get rid of me that easy." She smiled between tears, but even so, she knew his injury was serious. Her phone dinged loudly, breaking her train of thought, and as she looked down, she saw the new message read, "v." She asked out loud, "y and v? Seriously?" Alex tried to sit up as he asked her, "What? What's wrong?" But she told him, "No, it's fine, everything is ok." As she scanned the field and her vision wrapped back to Alex she saw the discomfort punctuate his eyes, something he was trying to hide but failing at. She knew immediately she couldn't move him, couldn't promote any more blood loss. As she was trying to rationalize what her next move should be, a tanned man in a suit with slicked-back hair pushed through the perimeter of her vision and exposed the vulnerability of her left side. If she hadn't already been operating with a heightened vigilance from her last encounter, she might've fallen prey to his sneak attack; luckily, she was able to catch him mid-swing. With one shot from the same gun she had stolen from the cowboy, she distorted the thin flesh of his face, liquifying it into a horrible semi-solid as it pressed in on itself and expelled viscera from the back of his skull. The gun burned her hand, and some kind of debris bounced off her wrist from the discharge of the gun, but her focus never faltered from her target. She didn't like how casually she was able to kill people now, but this recognition was only a vague afterthought on the edge of her conscious mind; she didn't have the time to philosophize about morals. Her phone dinged yet again, and she received the letter "s." She heard two people fighting each other and looked to see them on the ground going at it mercilessly, one going for the other's eyes and the other trying her best to knee him in the crotch. At the same time, another desperately ran to the endzone closest to Emi, and as she maneuvered past the invisible lasers, she aimed at her. Emi's hand shook; until now, she had only killed people who threatened her or Alex, but this person had her back to her and was running in the opposite direction. If she made it to the endzone with the right answer, though... Emi fired 3 times, missing the first 2, possibly due to second-guessing herself but mostly due to distance and her lack of gun experience. The third shot hit her target in the back of her torso and she fell in a lazy tumble. The two who had been fighting on the ground stopped when the gunshot had cut above them, but were both too engaged in their war to see Emi coming, who shot through the back of one into the chest of the other, allowing them to die on top of each other. After executing these last few players and only gaining "n" from them, Emi was defeated. She dug at her scalp with her worn fingers as she cried in disgust and anger, she had no clue what her word was even though she had just ended 4 more lives in pursuit of it, and 3 of them hadn't even been targeting her. She had a little over 7 hours left to figure out this puzzle, but Alex didn't. Even though he numerically had around 19 hours left, the bullet lost in him had impaired his body to the point that he was physically deteriorating by each minute based on his labored breathing. Alex saw Emi's helpless expression as she glanced from her phone to him, and he asked softly, "Please don't give up, Emi. You're smart, you can figure...." He took in a breath and it looked like it hurt, his face pale and lips quivering, "...figure this out." He was pale, almost ghostly, as he spoke, and Emi found herself breaking. She had killed so many people today, he looked like he was dying, and he kept calling her Emi instead of em. It was too much. She squeezed the ground beneath her exhausted fingers as she shouted, "I'm not smart!" Alex yelled, in a shockingly venomous tone, "Yes, you are! You're the smartest person I've ever known! You can figure this out!" She looked up, new tears welling from hearing her docile brother yell at her, but they were mostly tears of emotional liberation rather than sadness. Alex still believed in her, that's all she needed to keep fighting. Alex noticed the ever so slight change in her expression, one only another sibling could ever know, and reasoned, "Maybe someone has something on them, a clue to what their word might be. Maybe it can help you figure yours out." His logic made sense, it couldn't hurt, so she looked over the bodies as he kept pressure on his wound. His words were encouraging, but in the end, she couldn't figure anything out. She had looked the bodies over twice each, even down to their wallets, but nothing made sense. A lot of people had no golden letters on their phones, some had a few but didn't amount to anything obvious. Searching the cowboys body she found he had a golden "x" as well as a concealed carry ID that revealed his name was Clayton. She grinded her fists into the ground, not wanting Alex to witness her anger. Painfully, he inquired, "Any clues?" She wanted so badly to say yes but she couldn't find it in herself to lie to him. "No... I have no idea what to do." He reminded her as he used his other hand to help put more pressure on his injury, "Don't forget, that lame voice said the word is important to each person. It's a part of who you are." "That could mean anything!" Emi said in a cry that was more hostile than she had meant. Alex heard the fear in her voice, but he couldn't say anything; nothing felt like the right thing to say. "Think, think!" Emi growled at herself in a dire effort to actualize some sort of miracle. "Something important to who you are, something intrinsic," she thought in a desperate loop. That's when something finally clicked in her head; she saw Clayton's concealed carry ID and she knew. She picked Alex up, and as best as she could to avoid stressing the side of his body that was injured, began speed walking. Alex stuttered in surprise, "E-Emi! What's gotten into you!?" She couldn't answer, all her mental and physical fortitude was powering her stride to the endzone. She walked briskly with all the strength left in her body, every fiber of her muscles fighting for all the forward movement they could produce while the audience of misty silhouettes screamed in exhilaration at the climax of the event. As the invisible lasers hovered above the foreground they were approaching, Alex yelled, "Give me your phone, you can't avoid those things and carry me at the same time!" Even through her mental rush, she understood what Alex presented and registered it as fact, tossing her phone to him. As she approached the base of the scorch marks from the prior victim he ordered her through it using the video function of her phone. A couple of beams got too close, burning some of her skin, but she was able to make it to the center point without serious injuries. Carrying someone was nothing like the movies would entice you to believe; Alex was light for his age, and Emi was decently athletic, yet holding him this far had taken everything out of her. She tried to hide her exhaustion as she asked him, "Are you ok?" He nodded as he hugged her tightly and said, "Go for it." Emi screamed, "Pennsylvania!" As loud as she could. For a moment, all was silent and she could feel both her own heartbeat and Alex's in her arms. Without warning, The ground began to quake and a door rose from the field in front of them, sporting a black polish with ornate silver swirls at the edges and boasting a golden knob. The narrator mentioned in an impossible voice, one that was half excited beyond reason and half bored out of its mind, "You have passed. Please continue." Alex asked her, "How did you figure it out?" Emi responded, "Back in truth or dare, I realized all of us had come from different states. It was only barely odd then, but now it made sense. We were told this was the final stage for America, and 50 people remained. 50 for each state, right?" She smiled with satisfaction, "I think we've been tested all this time, people from different states I mean. I checked everyone's IDs here, and it made sense. It hit me when the guy with the cowboy hat had a Texas concealed carry ID; Texas fit his letters perfectly." Alex responded, "that was still bold; you coulda died if you were wrong." She reassured him, "whether we live or die, we do it together. Now, let's go." He nodded, "Let's go," and she proceeded through the door, still maintaining a hold on her little brother.

Suddenly, she felt her arms give as Alex's weight disappeared from them. She didn't have time to yell for him though, there was a flash of light and then she became aware he was next to her, only, they were more floating than standing. It felt like an out of body experience more than anything, surrounded by black with some kind of purple spinal cord like structure in the distance with a vast nervous system of veins running out of its stalk in all directions. The voice declared, "You have won the right to represent America." Emi asked in a tone bordering on fury, "For what?" Though no sound escaped as the question left her lips, the voice answered, "To decide whose wish we grant." It made no sense to her. A wish? So many people had died, this was all for some kind of... Wish? Her mind couldn't accept it, the gravity of everything that she had experienced compounded on such a flimsy reward. She screamed, "What does a wish matter if everyone is dead!?" Again, her mouth couldn't produce any noise yet the entity still acted as though it heard her. The voice didn't answer, but the spinal cord structure and it's veins convulsed in a peculiar rhythm as if laughing. A new door rose from nothingness and the voice, now feeling like it was talking in her head, spoke, "You will continue onward to represent America in the final game." Alex encouraged her, "don't worry, Emi, we can do this. We have each other! nothing can stop us!" His voice sounded like it was in her head as well, but his was much more comforting to hear. Emi smiled, genuinely relieved to hear his positivity, "you're right. We can beat this." She didn't know what that meant, but she knew she meant it. She walked forward on blank space, Alex floating behind her, and confidently secured the knob in her hand.

But it wouldn't open, wouldn't so much as turn slightly. The voice scolded her, "Emily Wyatt may pass, Alexander Wyatt may not. Only she may represent America, he dies here."