Chapter 10 #2
Mr. Malon directs us all to enter a 3D circle structure with over a thousand interconnected wires.
We all make our way into the giant maze ball, and each receive a special white technological glove with sharp edges.
Each glove is connected via Bluetooth to the giant computerized maze, which enables us to write in the air while in there.
“As rehearsed in class, you will each have to face the world’s hardest and unsolved math problems. The questions will digitally appear, and you will answer the questions in the air and write out your answers with your fingers.
You will be graded on your ability to avoid distractions and provide potential proof statements to solve these enigmas.
The mind can be a tangent. Pun intended.
But you can use that to your benefit!” Mr. Pitagura Malon emphasizes with delirious passion.
“You have a thousand minutes. Begin.” What’s a thousand minutes in hours?
So we have to do this for the next sixteen or so hours? What on earth!
I look at the virtual questions as they appear in the air and I begin to write, my fingers sprinting, my brain tangled in a thousand thoughts, trying to solve the problems. The Common Conjecture, The Unsolvable Minus, Connway’s Conjecture, The Triple Prime Predicate…
and on and on and on and on and on and on it goes.
I feel like I’m gonna faint. Tosh flies past me, almost hitting my head.
I’ve been standing for six hours, and I still have ten to go.
Math is my strongest subject, but solving unsolved theories and equations is the most frustrating thing I have ever done. Calculating all the possibilities, then realizing no answer. Then creating an impossibility to answer the problem. I continue this for the next ten hours through the night.
Glancing to the right, I notice Zavish is already slumped to the floor. I have to try to stay awake. And not to mention, I have to block out everyone around me as their numbers fly in the air, hitting mine in the virtual space.
“Time’s up.”
Urgh! I flick my glove away and draw back, holding my head tightly, hoping I answered those questions correctly. This is the hardest result to wait for. I want to know right now if I solved even one question right.
I stand, dazed, as the numbers float around me, wondering how on earth I just took a math test and didn’t feel good at the end of it.
I almost feel propelled to throw up, but I don’t have time to be lost in my emotions or feel pity for myself.
Gosh, I just want to go to sleep, but I can’t.
Since I have a bedtime waiver tonight, I’m going to use it.
I step out and go to the library and begin to read more books for the 10 by 10 challenge.
The mountainous moon-like clock on the top of the walls strikes 3:33 a.m. I bite my teeth in dread.
I am walking by the Chemistry hall, pulling on my golden sweater to stop my hands from shivering.
Suddenly, I feel a strong hand grab mine and I turn, thrown back in shock to see him.
It is Pesh. Last time I saw him, he walked away annoyed with me because I mentioned The Seventh Zone.
He is wearing a black outfit with gold inscriptions traveling up to his neck and somehow exposing his chest in an alluring golden silhouette.
I snap out of my observation at the sound of his voice. My eyes cut into his.
His rugged hands intertwining with my aching hands erupt my drained heart into a burst of happiness and my stomach explodes with fluttering butterflies, surging sudden strength into my insides.
He sees me staring and lets go of my hands with a twinkle of a smile in his eyes. “You’re tired.”
“Um… yeah. It’s just… Math Test.” He noticed?
“Math Test is in the library?”
“Um… no…” I stutter. I open my lips to explain, but there’s no point. “I’ll get some sleep later.”
“You better. If you don’t, I might punish you.” Is that a tease? He probably means it.
“Got it.” I fold my lips, looking down.
His eyes stay on me, gently. “Where are you going? To your Chem Test?”
“Yeah.” I look at him, rubbing my palms against my pants subconsciously.
He edges up on me, causing my back to touch the wall. “Are you scared?”
“Somewhat.” I tuck my hair behind my ear.
For a moment, he stares at me on this day where I am so drained and empty. I can feel his breath on me, so much my taste turns savory sweet.
In the silence, I feel like he is the moon in this dark place I am in.
The moon speaks to me in silence, and I speak to him, and he does not blind me with his light.
The feelings from my heart set my body aflame, drawing me to his intensity.
I no longer realize when I stare or when I draw close.
All I long to be is one with the moon and to see the moon cradle me.
I am looking up into his glowing eyes as his body covers my view completely.
“Forget all the rules.”
I stare at his eyes for a moment, then my eyes flicker into reality. “What?”
“Forget all the rules.” He walks away.
The wind from his departure blows my hair back, and I long for more time with him, but I try to shake it off.
I have to focus on my test and try to incorporate what he said—forget the rules.
For a split-second, I am lost, trying to forget him.
I cannot figure out what he meant by that, so I proceed to my test.
I enter and see about thirty or so empty spaces.
Patron Suzandrick points toward one. I approach it and look down to see an underground hole that is probably thirty feet deep, knowing my instructor’s love for three’s.
I can hardly see much, but there seems to be mud on the inside.
She comes toward me and before I can say anything, she pushes me in!
Thud… I land on the mud, my face smashed in clay.
I spit out sand particles that stick to my tongue.
In the same moment, I begin to feel tingling in my hands and feet.
An intense thirst overpowers me, and I suddenly feel dizzy.
A vapor of hot air is flooding my way and clouding my vision.
I look all around me, trying to find the chemical equations I am supposed to solve, but I see nothing.
I remember what Pesh said, forget all the rules. I gulp, and it hits me!
Oh my goodness, I am in a chemical equation. I have to solve myself. But how?
The ground beneath me starts to sink and red-colored water floods in. I think I know what’s going on. That’s supposed to depict a volcanic eruption.
Grabbing the wall, I try to avoid the pit forming in the middle of the mud.
The earth above me begins to sink and the wall that I am holding onto starts to shift, going under.
I realize it is going to sink, like a subduction zone, but I deduce that an asteroid or meteorite metaphor of some sort is coming next, so I jump forward into the water.
This will be my only way of escaping suffocation or possibly being crushed to death.
I hold my breath underwater, and I see huge chunks of different colored rocks being thrown into the water. I don’t know what that means. I try to think of the next step: how does a diamond get shiny? It has to be polished.
I pick up one of the rocks, a blue one, and it feels like hard plastic.
Noticing a glass-like capsule on the inside, I take it and throw it, but nothing happens.
I swim to a red one, and I try to break it in two with my hands.
It cracks and begins to shine. I swim in a rush to the other rocks and begin to crack every one of them to induce the chemical to light up.
The entire water begins to glow, and I can see the bottom a little better.
Able to see clearly now, I look to see I’m not alone.
There’s Zavish in the water surging forward, solving an equation.
His hands move as though solving a puzzle.
It’s probably a chemical equation. Suddenly, a rock surges toward him, banging into his head and knocking him out. I rush toward him. God, I escaped that.
I grab him and shake him in my arms desperately. “Zavish! Please wake up! Please!” Water foams into my mouth and I press my lips shut, lest I drown.
He is unresponsive. He couldn’t be dead, could he? Oh my God.
Oh no! I notice a multitude of rocks falling into the water. Crap! I propel myself away, trying to keep them from blocking my path.
I swim down as deeply as I can to escape the falling rocks. That’s when I see a circle-shaped door. I pull it, but it doesn’t open. The falling rocks intensify, and one hits my leg. I scream underwater, hurt, struggling with the door. It doesn’t pull, so I try to push.
Argh! It pushes me farther away, to the surface!
I struggle to breathe, treading water again.
That’s when it hit me! There’s pressure pushing me backwards toward the end, like a test tube with bubbles underneath.
The door is not a door. It is an opening, and I am in a backward test tube.
And if this is true, then it should be open.
But it seems closed. I touch it and feel a physical door, yet my mind tells me to do the irrational thing, dive in headfirst into the door like an open test tube.
Struggling to overcome the crowding rocks while fighting for breath, I decide to go with my instincts. I crash my head straight into the door.
Crash… it opens, and I fall into a room with what looks like doctors and Patron Suzandrick watching a screen of students who are still in the pit.
I see Zavish on the side of a bed being resuscitated by a nurse.
God, I hope he is still alive. Before I can look, Suzandrick jumps up and turns to me with wide eyes, almost in shock.
I gasp for air and stare at her, drenched and terrified.
“How did you do that?”
“Do what?” I can hardly speak, so tired.
“Figure out it was a lie, that the two tests were combined together to make one, find the virtually deceiving door and dive head in for it, all of that! How?”