Chapter 9
NINE
J ust as the sound of my name on his lips brushes against my ear, I cough water, inhaling deeply. Staring at my feet and the floor I'm currently sitting on, I realize I'm not in the well anymore.
"Luce! Come here!" Thea waves me from the side.
My thoughts are in disarray as I slowly move to the side.
"Are you okay? You look a little pale."
"How long was I there?"
"A few seconds. Just like everyone else," she replies. "Well, except for us because Mr. Grumpy over here had something to prove." She sticks her tongue out at her brother, who's currently still giving her the back treatment.
Groaning loudly, she shakes her head.
"After everyone is done, they'll finally announce the first trial. I'm so curious about what it's going to be. They change it from edition to edition, you know. You never know what to expect."
"You know quite a lot about this," I murmur.
"There are rumors, of course. You always hear about it and how much fun it is. But I've never been allowed to go to one before."
"Uhm, you said the last edition was a hundred years ago."
"Oops, I did say that, didn't I?" She giggles.
"That means you're over a hundred years old?" I blink.
"Around there," she says with a mischievous smile—which I take to mean she's much older than that.
"And your brother?"
"He's a few... decades older than me."
I nod, storing that bit of information. I'm a baby compared to them—hell, probably compared to anyone in here.
Soon, a whooshing sound envelops the room as the hole fills up, the ground appearing once more as it was before.
"The well has absorbed all of your wishes. Now you are officially part of the seventy-ninth edition of the Wishing Games!" Inara says excitedly.
"That means we can finally reveal what awaits you for the first game."
The screen behind them lights up again, showing five squares, each corresponding with a trial. With the wave of a hand, Inu brings the first square into focus, the question mark slowly disappearing to be replaced with the picture of a bridge.
My brows furrow in confusion, and I'm not the only one baffled by the ambiguous clue.
"For the first trial, you are allowed to work in teams of up to five individuals," Inara starts. "Of course, if you don't trust anyone, you can attempt it alone." Her lips tip up in a cunning smile.
"There are, of course, advantages and disadvantages to this. If any member of your team dies during the trial, you all die. You will be putting your fate in the hands of strangers—and potential enemies," Inu adds smugly. "You have five minutes to choose whether you will compete in the first trial as a team or by yourself."
Hushed whispers and suspicious glares abound in the crowd.
"We'll be a team, right? Me, you, and Cer." Thea immediately grabs my hand, her smile intoxicating.
I find myself nodding despite myself. As a human, I doubt I'd do much by myself. I don't yet know how demanding the contest will be, so I'll benefit from having them by my side. But what's in it for them ? Because if I die...
"Are you sure? I'd be the weakest link," I admit honestly.
"Nah," Thea dismisses my words. "We'll make it through this, trust me," she adds confidently, pointing to her brother with an amused grin. "Cer is practically unbeatable," she whispers in a low voice.
He scoffs, but he doesn't turn, nor acknowledge our conversation.
"If you've decided how you will compete, please form a queue in front of the stage to receive your task for the first trial."
"Wait... Is there a different task for every team?"
"It seems so." Thea nods as she gets to her feet. Her hair is magically dry while mine is still soaking wet—well, I guess being human has some downsides.
She takes my arm and hops over to her brother, looping her arm through his, too. She's probably the most excited and energetic person in this room. Everyone else is wary, suspicious, and greedy for the prize. Not Thea, though. She seems to be in it just for a good time—or maybe annoying her brother.
To my surprise, there are a lot of people who form teams, only a few choosing to compete in the game individually. But as I study the teams, I note that almost all have partnered up with their own species, or at least as close as possible.
As if reading my thoughts, Thea explains.
"There are a lot of enmities in the underworld. Half of the people in this room hate the other half. I'm surprised no one has started a fight yet. Especially with humans."
"Do you guys hate us so much?"
"Hate you? Of course not. I find you rather cute," Thea adds vehemently. "But not everyone shares my opinion. Most hate humans because they're different—and powerless. But mostly different."
"Awesome," I mumble, suddenly realizing why everyone was staring at me with distaste. In fact, the people I suspect are also humans have partnered up together. I'm probably the only one with non-human teammates.
"Don't mind it. The wolves over there hate the foxes." She points to two teams that are currently baring their teeth—fangs?—at each other. "The nymphs abhor the satyrs." She points to another cluster. "And it goes on and on. Very few get along." She shrugs as if this is simply the nature of things.
"Is there any wiki page for the underworld that I can use for reference?" I joke lightly.
"Wiki?" She frowns.
"You know, like an encyclopedia."
"Of course not!" she says, horrified. "To have all that information in one place would be extremely dangerous. Every kind viciously defends its secrets."
"Then how do you know stuff about them? How do you even know they hate each other?"
"Oh, you just observe who kills whom, how they do it and why they do it. That should give you a general idea," she explains matter-of-factly.
I open my mouth to say something, only to snap it shut when I realize I'm rather speechless.
The underworld sounds...awesome— not.
On the stage, Inu and Inara materialize an odd-looking board that is mirrored on the screen in the back too. One by one, the teams go up to the stage and, using a small needle, they prick their fingers and let a drop of their blood fall onto the canvas of the board. Each time, the blood flows around, filling some invisible crevices until they transform into numbers—that, if I'm not mistaken, are coordinates.
When it's our turn, I offer my blood, but Thea doesn't allow me, pushing me behind her as she takes the needle and stabs her pinky. The red liquid stains the canvas, traveling around until it settles into a combination of numbers and letters.
40°45'22″N 73°59'17″W
"Congratulations, this is your location," Inu says, transcribing the coordinates onto a piece of paper and handing it to us. Before Thea can grab it, her brother does, barely acknowledging Inu.
"You're so rude sometimes, Cer," Thea grumbles in annoyance. And just as I've come to expect from him, he doesn't answer back.
When all the teams have received their locations, Inu and Inara finally announce the theme of the first trial.
"At every one of the locations you've received, you'll encounter a spirit that refuses to cross over to the afterlife. Your job is to do whatever it takes to convince it to leave this world and continue its incarnation cycle. Each spirit will be different. They will have different motivations and different reasons for why they are still stuck in this world. You need to help them cut their ties so they can move on."
Of course ghosts would be real too. And our job is not only to find one and interact with it, but somehow convince it to stop being a ghost?
I'd laugh if the situation weren't so dire. This is exactly the scenario I would picture in a bad movie. Nikki and I used to have this oddly cute tradition on Fridays. We'd find the worst-rated movie and watch it. Most often, it was something involving the supernatural and they all featured very bad special effects.
My lips tip up in a melancholic smile as I remember cuddling with him on the couch and laying my head on his chest, the thud of his heart the sweetest melody. He'd hold me in his arms and soothe me with his gentle voice whenever a jump scare would pop up on the screen. We'd be initially taken aback, but then we'd laugh it off.
But my smile quickly falls as one of our conversations suddenly echoes in my mind.
"If I were a ghost, I'd never leave your side," he joked as we watched a movie. "I'd haunt you for an eternity."
I smiled lazily at him, taking his words as jest.
"But then you'd never have peace," I countered, thinking about the movie's idea of an afterlife where souls go to either Heaven or Hell.
"You are the only peace I seek," he whispered.
Back then, I never thought I'd be a moment without him, or that life would be so cruel to take him away from me so young. Back then, I thought it was the two of us against the world, in our little world, and no one could ever intrude on that.
But I was wrong.
I was wrong to take everything for granted.
Yet here I am, being given a second chance.
Every breath I take, the world I live in changes irrevocably, and with it my perception of what's real and what's not—of what's good or bad. Every second, I feel as if my sanity is under threat by all this new fantastical information foraging its way into my brain. But the truth is, my sanity's been slipping away from me from the moment I heard that last love confession on my Nikki's lips. When he died, I died too. That I was still alive was a cosmical farce—or so I thought.
I have another chance. Against all odds, I have another chance to see my love again. And it doesn't matter if this game is just another farcical collection of absurdities. It doesn't matter if I can make sense of it or not. As long as I get him back, I'm willing to do anything.
A gong sound echoes through the entire building, startling me from my musings.
"It's midnight. You have until midnight a week from now to resolve your cases. If not, you will fail. Those who succeed will receive an invitation to the next phase of the game."
"Wait, what happens if we fail?" I ask in a low voice. Had they even mentioned it? They'd only told us what happened if we died in the game.
"You die," Thea states in an empty voice. "If you don't complete the trial, you die."
* * *
"H ow will we find the location?" Thea asks as the three of us leave the club.
The chilly air of the night hits my face. I inhale deeply, glad for the absence of pain in my chest.
"We need a smartphone with GPS," I answer.
Both Thea and Cer stop in their tracks, their brows furrowed as they stare at me.
I raise my brows in question.
"What is a GPS?" Thea asks. "And what is a smartphone?"
"You don't know?"
Both shake their heads.
A smile tugs at my lips. Ah, but it seems that for the first time I am the one with the knowledge—and I'd be lying if I said this doesn't feel good.
"GPS is like an automated map. You plug in the coordinates and it shows you how to get there."
Thea's eyes widen.
"Oh my! That's so exciting! And where do we get this GPS from?"
"We need to buy a smartphone. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring mine with me." I sigh. With the police on my trail, the last thing on my mind was taking my phone with me—though in hindsight, maybe I should have been more careful.
"What is that?" Thea frowns.
As I explain what smartphones are, I notice that her brother is no longer by her side. Just as I'm about to inquire about his whereabouts, he appears from around the corner with a paper bag in his hand, which he thrusts toward me.
A little weirded out, I accept it, peeking inside to find over ten phones, stacked one on top of the other.
"Uhm, where did you get these?" I ask as I look at him.
He stares me down, his mouth closed shut.
"Did you take them from someone?" I rephrase my question. The phones are all without their original packaging, and some exhibit signs of wear.
"Open that GPS," he barks in a low voice.
Shaking my head at him, I mutter a sorry to the people he must have robbed. If I weren't wanted by the police, maybe I would have dropped them off after we're done with them. Unfortunately, the situation at hand precludes me from acting like a Good Samaritan.
"Let me see," Thea interjects, grabbing a handful of phones from the bag and studying them with curiosity. While she's playing with those, I find a phone that is unlocked and access the GPS, plugging in the coordinates.
"It's in the city," I add, surprised. I would have thought it would be some remote destination just to make it harder for us to get there. Alas, maybe this trial won't be too difficult.
When no one speaks, I look up to find Thea taking apart the phones with her overgrown nails—or claws? Cer is behind her, looking over her shoulder and doing a great job of looking uninterested even though his eyes are glued to her hands.
I sigh as I clear my throat to get their attention.
It's only been hours since I found out that there are other species out there— non -human species—just as there are gods. Against all odds, I've ended up participating in some sort of supernatural deadly game that might very well kill me. Now, I'm teamed up with two very odd non-humans who are even more technologically illiterate than me. And somehow I'm very calm.
Maybe I'm still in shock.
"Oh." Thea smiles, dropping the phone parts to the ground. "Where to, then?"
"It's actually very close to here," I say as I show them the screen, pointing at the distance between us and the location we've been given.
New Amsterdam Theatre.
For a haunted place, I would have expected an abandoned building, or at least something out of use. This is, however, very much in use. There's a musical performed there almost every day, which might make our mission a little more difficult.
"I know that place!" Thea exclaims. "I've been there before."
"You have?" Cer echoes.
"I saw a musical there a while back. What was it..." She frowns. "Ah, Alice in Rabbitland."
"Wonderland?"
"Yes, that one! It was so cool."
"And when exactly were you there?" Cer crosses his arms over his chest.
"Oh, a while ago." Thea waves her hand.
"You know you're not allowed to?—"
"If I can have your attention," I interrupt. "You can fight about that later. We need to focus on our assignment."
Thea sticks her tongue out at her brother before she gives me her full attention.
"Since I know where it is, I can lead you there," she offers. "We can tele—Ouch!" she exclaims, slapping her brother's hand aside. He glares at her.
I shake my head, releasing a weary sigh. It's not going to be easy with these two, is it?
"There's a subway station right around the corner. It's one stop away from the location," I tell them. "Once we get off, Thea can lead the way."
We could walk, of course, but I don't want to take any chances that the police might still be in the area. And with the hour growing late and the streets becoming emptier, it would be so easy to spot me...
I rummage through the pockets of the dress, sure I'd felt some money before. Since it had been on the left side, I hadn't noticed until my arm healed. My fingers brush against a few crumpled dollar bills—likely forgotten by Noelle inside the dress at some point. And as I peek to the side, I count a ten and a couple of fives—plenty for a subway ride and maybe for a snack later.
"S-subway?" Thea flutters her lashes, her smile a little forced.
"Don't tell me you've never been on one before."
Even I have, and I've rarely been out and about the city.
"Doesn't matter. It's a new experience." She shrugs. "Let's go."
She grabs both my arm and her brother's as she marches forward to the subway station. For someone who's never used the subway before, she sure is confident. Especially as we go down the stairs and come face to face with the turnstiles. Both Thea and Cer stare at them with a puzzled expression on their faces.
Leaving them alone for a moment, I head to one of the cash ticket machines to grab tickets for the three of us. The process is smooth as the machine feeds me the tickets.
A satisfied smile flickers on my lips—ah, but it feels good to be independent for once. Sadly, looking back, there have been very few instances in which I had any type of freedom. My childhood had been defined by the hacienda and my lowly status. After that, I married Nikki, and despite it being the happiest period of my life, we were both trapped by our circumstances—Nikki caged by his illness, and me, his faithful companion.
But as I walk back to Thea and Cer, I stop in my tracks, my mouth hanging open in shock. Cer is holding the detached turnstile in his hand, out of Thea's reach. She jumps up in an attempt to get it, but she's no match for Cer's height. He seems to derive pleasure from baiting her, chuckling as he moves the turnstile around while Thea chases after it.
"Guys," I call out. "You can't just..." I trail off when I realize that my words will fall on deaf ears. "Here." I stop by their side, handing them each a ticket. "Now put that down and let's go."
It seems that soon I won't be the only one wanted by the police.