Hour 21

Sasha answered his phone on the very edge of involuntarily, survival had conditioned him to promote such action above all else. The voice on the other end wasn't the nasty voice he had been expecting, though this human voice still somehow found a way to crawl down his spine. The man spoke, "Turn your head, and you're dead. Raise your arms, and you're dead. Move you're body at all, and you're dead." The hot sweat that dampened Sasha's body suddenly chilled; he could tell this was no empty threat. He had just enough time to register the caller ID as someone named Rico before he was ordered, "Blink 4 times if you understand." Sasha complied, blinking quickly as he thought, "He must be able to see my face. This area is too open, though; he has to be in the trees somewhere." Rico said, "Good. I'm the wild card and have special instructions. For now, I want you to tell me what the phone call you just got told you about the game. I'm interested to know." Sasha began to panic; he couldn't talk, so how could he tell this man anything? As if things couldn't get worse, Emi began walking towards him obviously curious about what was going on. All he could do was shoot her a glance of unfiltered emotion that screamed for her to stop. Mercifully, she was able to pick up on his warning, at least to a degree where she knew to postpone her advance. Rico praised him, "Damn, you're pretty good, gramps. I dunno how you made her stop without speaking but you just saved her life." Shifting his tone, Rico added, "I'm losing my patience, though; get to the point. Every second you don't provide information I want to kill you more." Sasha desperately tried to speak in a futile effort to explain their situation, but no words came out. The other end was silent. Birds chirped in the background, but Sasha couldn't hear any birds near him. He thought it strange; maybe he was farther away than he thought. Then his mind jumped, "Wait, that's not the issue! How did he know my number? Was it because he was the wild card?" That's when Sasha realized, "Of course! If he had eyes on me, he would've seen my number when I drew it in the dirt for Emi! Damnit!" Rico hummed in a low, uncanny rhythm as he thought. Sasha reasoned, "If he can see me, ask me questions, and listen for responses, that means he hasn't lost any senses yet. Maybe he was looking for clues about what the voice said to us because he was trailing behind us, not yet impacted by these rules but witnessing our reactions to them." Then he second-guessed himself, "If he has different rules as the wild card, then who knows what any of this really means." Rico said, "It's strange you won't talk, you seem pretty smart. I've been following you for some time; I'm positive you picked up on me a while ago by your body language." Sasha came to terms within himself, "This guy is good, no amateur." Rico said, "You're the type smart enough to know your situation, smart enough to talk. You didn't, though; you tried but didn't. That can only mean part of the game is keeping you from talking; now I know why you motioned at your face and then crossed your hands; you were telling your companion you couldn't speak." Sasha felt a miniscule dash of relief that the man was able to figure that much out but that also only made him all the more dangerous. He was smart enough to decipher everything and now also knew their weakness. Rico uttered as if distracted, thinking out loud, "Judging by the way she pointed at her ears, she can't hear. That means she won't be able to talk to me very efficiently either or hear anything I say." Silence again, only the ghostly chirping of birds that Sasha could only make out in the phone call. Rico instructed, "After I hang up, text me what her number is. Understand? Blink 4 times for yes." Sasha hesitated, not wanting to betray his partner. Rico sensed his doubt and pressured, "Text me her number in 60 seconds or I gut her right now like a slaughterhouse pig. It's up to." Rico paused, then added, "This is between me and you. I'll be watching you, share any of this and it's game over." That was it, the phone call ended with a decisive click before Sasha could give him his requested confirmation blink. Sasha remained still; he couldn't bear to look at Emi as he angrily accepted, "I have to do it." He brought his phone up and texted Rico her number. Rico replied with a thumbs-up emoji that flicked its thumb excitedly. Sasha questioned, "Why didn't he kill us? He had the perfect opportunity right now, he would've removed his competition." There was little use in trying to unravel the nature of this cryptic new enemy, especially since they didn't know his rules as the wild card. Sasha turned back to Emi, who was becoming increasingly worried at the scenario in front of her. He hated obfuscating the truth from her, but he had no choice. He pointed at his phone and made a thumbs-down sign before using the same thumb to make a cutting motion across his throat, indicating he couldn't say anything. Then, he continued on before Emi could do anything. He was thankful she didn't press him for answers, though he knew their current lost senses made it hard to do so. They moved onward, hoping to finish as quickly as possible.

Though water was scarce in the first mile, it was rather abundant in the second. As they journeyed down a descending stretch of mossy earth, the trees began to appear further and further apart, and the ground became significantly more damp, pushing up moisture with every step. Before long, they were wading through a swamp-like wetland that gurgled with steaming mud as they trudged through its clumpy surface. Emi was slowly adjusting to not being able to hear but it was still strange slogging through the mud and not hearing the distinctive sharp suction sound as she plunged her feet in and out. The pungent earthy odor as she broke through the surface of the loose liquid was thick; without her sense of hearing to act as a passive distraction, the smell was obnoxiously persistent. Her shoes had gradually been soaked all the way through and she could feel her feet burning with blisters as her wet flesh scraped against the insides. Sasha wasn't doing much better; his knees were slowing his progress through the mud, but he still wanted to stay ahead of her to listen for threats. He had been concerned with her hearing loss; if he heard something, he wouldn't be able to warn her properly. Suddenly, he stopped, a sluggish wake of frothy sludge breaking away from his calves. Emi realized there were corpses in their path; one floated lazily under the chunky muck in front of Sasha in a silent scream, and the other 2 were morbidly contorted in final poses of anguish. Sasha examined them, and thought, "These are fresh, haven't been dead long." The truly odd part was he couldn't see any obvious injuries, the mud made it hard to tell for sure, but he was confident none of them had stab or bullet wounds on them. He also thought, "I didn't hear any gunshots or screams, so what's going on here?" The only good thing to come from his exchange with Rico was the fact it offered they could still use their phones to text each other, allowing him to maneuver around their current disadvantages. He texted Emi, who felt her phone buzz, and she read, "I don't see any obvious cause for death, but It looks too dangerous to continue this way without knowing how they died." Emi countered with her own text, "But we don't have enough time to turn back." Emi thought, "It's possible they died from running out of hours, but it's odd there would be so many in one spot. Maybe they had fought over something... No, there aren't any wounds." She also observed, "There's no flow to this mud; it's pretty stationary, meaning they're probably laying where they died..." It hit her, "No, we're already in danger!" She texted frantically, "We have to keep moving!" As if to illustrate her point, she saw another team finish on her phone and pushed forward, not giving time for Sasha to protest. As they continued on, neither noticed a white surgical mask caught on a broken branch hanging above the mud, nor the ghostly footsteps that walked up to it as an invisible figure claimed it.

The sun was beginning to set, and while the air was still laced with an uncomfortable humidity, the unwavering heat of the day had thankfully started to evaporate. She tried to remain committed to her march forward without letting the pain or unhelpful thoughts cloud her mind, but the shadows of night infiltrating her view started to remind her of the black space she had lost Alex in. It wasn't a fond memory but she did her best to convert it into power to fuel her wounded feet forward. Suddenly, she could just make out the blurry, distant edge of where the soupy muk met some kind of elevated surface. Once they made it past the marshy area Sasha, who had been trailing considerably behind, collapsed into a seated position on a log that creaked under his weight. Emi's hearing loss had severely downplayed his situation to her, he was out of breath and shaking. Dried mud was caked in multiple layers up his calves, and dirt and grime were cemented beneath his fingernails. It was obvious he was done, he had reached his limit long ago, and Emi was trying to to figure out how to continue through the night with him when she heard her phone ring... But it was less like "hearing" something, and more like something was in her head, like when the voice was communicating with her in the black abyss where she felt weightless. Its voice vibrated in her head, picking up the call on its own, "You've made it to the final mile; I hope you've rested enough during the first two because this one's going to be hard!"