The Storm

The other semifinal was not long in finishing which meant it was time for the third place match. As my former team made their way to the arena I wished them luck. Leo and Paelyn returned wishes for my success in the final, but as I extended my regards to Kyle he responded with a mordant chuckle. He glanced at Ori and then back at me. “Woof,” he said and continued on his way. I felt my face flush.

“Sorry about him,” said Paelyn.

“It’s alright,” I said, trying to play it off coolly.

As they departed, Ori looked at me curiously. “What was that about?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I lied, forcing a laugh. “I guess he’s just upset that we lost to you.”

As they approached the arena, I saw the other teams coming out of it. I was out of earshot, but I watched attentively as Lilian passed her former party members. She stopped and spoke with Paelyn and Leo for a few moments, while Kyle hung back. Then they went their separate ways.

We spent the next ten minutes discussing strategy. Kristoff advocated for a slow, strategic approach. “The way I see it,” he said, “Bastian and I both have the ability to land a knock out punch, but with their strong defensive abilities that is easier said than done. We have to bide our time and wait for the perfect moment to strike, knowing we might only get one chance.

“What are those strong defensive abilities?" I asked. "Just for those who need a refresher."

Ori giggled.

Kristoff sighed. “Firstly they have Hashi. His ghost abilities make him very difficult to pin down, and we believe he can transfer this power to people he touches too, so you’ll want to keep that in mind when you go for an explosion. They also have the earth elemental–Gianna, Lilian–the ice elemental, and Garick–the paladin. Lastly, they’ve added Peter. He’s a hunter. His abilities mostly help with killing large monsters and shouldn’t have much relevance here. He’s probably the least of our concerns.” Soon the time to plan had elapsed, and Pasqual’s booming voice returned.

“Alright, would our finalists please make their way to the arena!”

“How does he do that?” asked one of our party, a guy named Frederick.

“He probably has some sort of voice amplifying ability,” said Kristoff.

“Huh. It’s weird to think he’s like us, you know… do you think he can die?” asked Fred.

“I don’t know. Theoretically it’s possible. It wouldn’t do anything to him though. He’d just wake up out there. It’s really only a game after all…a very high-stakes game.”

“Oh I wanted to ask, what’s that you keep tracing in the air? It looks like a big ‘B’.”

“That’s just how I open my menu,” said Ori, looking embarrassed.

“Why a ‘B’ though?” asked Fred.

“It isn’t a ‘B’, it’s a ‘P’,” I said. “For Pasqual.”

“Pasqual? Wait, are you in love with Pasqual?”

“No, it’s nothing like that!” protested Ori, her face reddening. “He had to script a new access point for me to use the menu since I can’t see the indicator.”

As we reached the entrance we passed Lilian’s team. She looked at me with a strange expression. “Hello Bastian, finally found a way to make yourself useful, I see. Not too useful though, I guess. Seeing as your team still lost.” She laughed.

“Hi Lilian, it’s nice to see you too,” I said.

Lilian glanced at Ori and then back at me. “Do your best to impress!” she said, and she tapped me on the nose like she was booping a pet.

“What’s with her?” asked Ori, when she had gone back to her party.

“I honestly have no idea,” I said, shaking my head.

We entered the arena and took our place at one end. It was after noon now, and I was starting to feel the heat.

“Alright, everyone. Remember what I told you. Don’t take risks you don’t have to, especially at the beginning. As soon as Bastian does his thing, we all rush in.”

As the final round started, the arena transformed into a kind of jungle. Thick underbrush covered the ground below sprawling canopy trees. We stood in a small clearing, towards the back of which there was a red flag, planted in the ground.

“The final round is an all-out capture the flag brawl! The first team to unite the two flags in their own clearing will win the contest. On your marks, get set, go!”

“Well that definitely changes some things? What do we do?” asked Fred.

“We could divide into defenders and attacks,” suggested Ori.

“That’s good,” said Kristoff. “Let’s form a high line in the jungle to lay in wait for them. Fred, you and Hilary can be our offense, but don’t get carried away. Wait for a distraction before making your move, and don’t expect to find it unguarded.”

“What about me?” I asked.

“You can hide behind the flag, on the ground there. If anyone comes, blow them up. That will also serve to alert us that there has been a breach in the line.”

“Okay,” I said.

“The rest of you fan out. Go about a hundred feet into the jungle, then find a good hiding place.”

“Good luck, you’re going to do great,” said Ori, extending her hand to me. As I took it, she gave my hand a gentle squeeze.

“You too,” I said. Ori smiled. Then she turned and jogged after the others.

I crouched down behind a clump of ferns, just a few feet from the flag. It was strangely quiet once the others had left the clearing. Pasqual may have generated a jungle, but he hadn’t brought with it the myriad birds and insects which fill it with noise. Instead, the trees, acting as a barrier to sound, produced a strangely serene space at the heart of the clearing. It was difficult to keep my focus as I lay on my stomach listening to the stillness. My mind kept wandering off to other things–the way Ori had taken my hand, what she had been on the verge of saying that morning...

Suddenly I heard something. It was only a faint rustling sound, but even that was out of place. Had the wind picked up? I hadn’t felt it. I wanted to look, but knew it could be dangerous to show myself. To be spotted at a distance by someone like Lilian would be disastrous. They would kill me before I’d be able to get close enough to attack. I waited. The sound continued, a sort of swishing in the grass, and it was heading towards me. It was hard to judge distance from that sound alone, but I waited until it sounded almost upon me. Only then did I raise my head enough to peer through the ferns. Fifteen feet away was Hashi. He was jogging through the grass, and looking all around. Should I try to catch him as he went for the flag or wait until he had taken it? He wasn’t moving as quickly as I had expected, but he had no doubt considered that it was of no use to claim the flag if you hadn’t conserved enough energy to get away with it. I ducked down as he looked in my direction. Had he seen me? I couldn’t tell. He wasn’t making any sound. Now he was. He was heading straight towards me–straight for the flag. It would be hard to stand up once I equipped the barrels. I would have to be ready to equip and use them the moment I got up. I opened the menu and selected the barrels. Equip? I waited. Was it the right moment? To blow myself up too early would be a disaster but at least my allies would be notified of the breach. To let him get away with the flag would be even worse. I had to go now. As noiselessly as I could, I rose and equipped the barrels. He was grabbing the flag, but his eyes were turned back the way he had come. Now was my chance. I selected the charges. Are you sure?

A strange feeling came over me–a sort of paralyzing numbness. Suddenly everything went dark. I had the sensation that I was falling, or that I was no longer on the ground but I couldn’t feel my arms or legs. Neither could I hear anything. I couldn’t breath, but I didn’t feel out of breath. I didn’t feel anything at all. Had I detonated? Was I dead? I didn’t remember being conscious before. Was this some spell of Hashi's? Was I banished to some shadowland by an ultimate attack? Had he possessed my body and stolen my senses? To say I was scared is an understatement, but yet I didn’t feel any of the physiological symptoms which one is so accustomed to in such moments–no shortness of breath, no adrenaline, no warmth in my core, or cold in my hands. Nothing. Moments passed. I wondered if I was dying: not in Eutopia, I had died there before, but maybe my body was dying–perhaps in some hospital room somewhere my brain was shutting down. I began to fear that this would last forever–or at least for days–with some part of me forced to live on in senseless awareness imposed on me by the unnatural power of Scuba to preserve the failing mind.

At last, the numbness lulled me towards sleep. It seemed to have a sort of calming hum to it–although I could neither hear nor feel anything. Instead, the “hum” was like what my brain replaced all sensation with. When I tried to focus on it, it vanished. When I stopped thinking about it, it returned. Part of me was afraid to let go of my wakefulness, but another part of me was relieved by the idea that my coffin of darkness seemed at last to be swallowing my consciousness. If I did wake up again, I hoped to find it was in different circumstances. If I didn’t…

But I did wake up. Suddenly I was gripped with terror, for it was dark and my arms were immovable. After a moment, however, my fear that I had awakened in the same dark void dissipated. I noticed the stars above me and recognized the familiar position of my arms. I navigated the menu to free my arms from the barrels and sat up. I was in camp, but there was something strange about it. It took me a few seconds to realize what that was–there were no campfires. Soon there were voices all around me, frightened and confused–asking the questions which I was asking myself. What’s going on? Did that happen to anyone else? Where is so and so?

I noticed a message in my inbox about the same time I heard others talking about it. I read the following:

“Do not be alarmed. At 3:03 pm today, we experienced a temporary power outage due to a heavy thunderstorm. While we have backup generators on site, they are used exclusively to keep the medical equipment operational, not the computers used to run Scuba. The regular power source is now fully restored. Unfortunately, the final match of today’s event is cancelled. We apologize for your inconvenience, and any fear which this unforeseen circumstance occasioned, and thank you for your understanding. –Dr. Eugene P.”

It took some time for me to find my tent in the dark. Leo and I spoke for a little while until Kyle’s arrival, but his dour attitude, led us all to turn in. I found it difficult to sleep, however, and after an hour of restless turning I got up again and crept out of the tent. I was surprised to see a number of the campfires had been relit. Not wishing to converse with strangers, but neither wishing to seek solitude, I wandered from circle to circle, searching the red illumined faces for one I recognized. At last I noticed Lilian, sitting alone on a log a little removed from the others. The dark, flickering glow which played about her face gave her the appearance of a beautiful devil.

“Couldn’t sleep?” I asked, sitting down beside her.

“Who said you could sit there?” she pressed in a bristly tone.

“Must we start all over again?” I asked with a sigh.

Lilian was silent.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

Still silent.

“What did you say to Paelyn and Leo?”

Lilian sighed. “I gave them a half-hearted apology.”

“Why? I don’t suppose you really owed them one.”

“It wasn’t to make up. Honestly I don’t care if they’ve forgiven me.”

“Then why’d you do it?”

“I guess because I felt a bit guilty about where I’d left them,” said Lilian with something between a chuckle and a sigh.

“Them in particular? You didn’t apologize to me.”

“Do you want an apology?” she asked sarcastically.

“No, but it would be nice.”

“It would be nice because you feel owed one? Or it would be nice because it feels good when a beautiful woman supplicates for your forgiveness?” she asked acerbically.

“Now there’s the old Lilian,” I said with a laugh.

“Oh, bug off,” she said.

“I think I know what you mean though. They idolized you–depended on you. But I got to see the other side of you. To me you always show your selfish side, to them you put your thoughtful side outward. That’s why you felt the need to apologize to them–for letting them down. Your response to me has been different. You met me with sarcasm right away as if to say, ‘isn’t this who you’ve always known me to be? Are you surprised?’ But for all that, I don’t think you left for selfish reasons.”

“Oh? I’ve been wondering myself, why I did it… go on then. Tell me what you think,” she said, sounding very nearly sincere. 

“I think you were worried that if you stayed you would risk tearing the group apart, so you did the best thing for everyone else and left–best thing in your mind, I mean–not the actual best thing.”

“Oh, and what should I have done?”

“Admit you were wrong. Apologize to Kyle and everyone else not just for using us, but for abusing our faith in you.”

Lilian let out a wry laugh. “I’m surprised you’d even suggest such a thing to me, you who supposedly know me for what I really am.”

“I never said that’s what you are. I said you show your selfishness to me and your generosity to others. I don’t think you are just the selfish person or just the selfless person. I think the real you is both of those people. I suspect the reason you acted the way you did to me was because you needed an outlet. You needed a chance to take off the mask you wear around others, even if only to change it for another mask, but I think in many ways the mask you put on around me is more dishonest.”

“I think you talk a lot of nonsense, but go on and finish what you have to say. How is it more dishonest?”

“I think to pretend to be better than you are is only humanity’s way of striving to be better. Of course it can stray into hypocrisy, but there is nothing wrong with wanting to be perfect. But when you act worse than you really are, in an effort to erode other’s expectations of you so that they will not be surprised or disappointed by your selfishness or meanness–that is a falsehood which has no nobleness. It is born out of fear that you will not live up even to your true self, or that you will act according to your true self and it will be judged mean and selfish. It seems somehow worse to have strived to be a good person and failed than to have accepted that you were a bad person all along.”

“I think you’re overthinking things. You see a beautiful girl, and you invent virtue for her even when you are presented with no evidence for it, because you're a stupid boy who wishes to find that pretty women are always honorable ones. How much more convenient for you that you may spot the most worthy women merely by appraising the handsomeness of our faces! You ignore the uncomfortable truth, that the prettiest women are seldom the most virtuous, kind, or faithful, and that when men chase after them they are pushing aside those more worthy of their attention because they are not as nice to look at!”

“Certainly there is some truth in what you say, but where is the relevance? It isn’t that I am taken in by your beauty, but that I simply see through the picture of yourself which you have chosen to hold before me.”

Lilian rose with a scoff. Now I could only see her silhouette against the glow of the fire. “If even after repeated evidence that I am a cruel, unfeeling person, you insist on thinking well of me then you are a fool. In which case, I will eat you up and spit you out, without any pity–and you’ll only have yourself to blame.”

Now it was my turn to be silent. When it was clear I didn’t intend to answer, Lillian walked away without another glance in my direction.