Chapter 19 #4
“Liam, are you alright?” As soon as we were safely back on the ship, Sadie wrapped her arms around my neck and held me tight.
I didn’t need her to elaborate further to know she was referring to my earlier fight with Kyle.
“I’m alright,” I assured her as I returned the embrace. “I’m just sorry you all had to see that, and I’m upset it even had to happen in the first place.”
“He didn’t give you any choice, man,” Tyler said. “He’d been acting out since we first got here, so frankly, I’m surprised this didn’t happen sooner.”
“Yeah,” Parker agreed with a nod. “Plus, technically, you didn’t actually kill him. The viscerid did.”
I chuckled weakly at my friends’ reassurances, but it was no easy thing to take another person’s life, and even though I hadn’t actually done the killing, as Parker so kindly pointed out, I’d still left him to die.
“You saved us,” Sadie murmured as she gave my hand a squeeze. “He continuously put us in horrible positions, and you saved us each time. Don’t blame yourself.”
I smiled warmly at her and then each of my other friends, too. I didn’t know how I’d be able to make it through these trials without their support.
They were right, and I clung to that truth, and it helped me feel less guilty about the situation.
Kyle had definitely brought it on himself.
He’d done it when he purposefully brought the viscerids over to kill Zade and attack Tyler, he did it when he put the group at risk on the campout, all so he could stroke his ego.
He did it when he let Clarisse fall to her death, and he did it when he physically tried to murder Tyler.
I suddenly felt much better after I reminded myself of all of Kyle’s evil doings.
I opened my mouth to say something else, but I was interrupted by the disembodied voice.
“Return to your rooms and await further instructions.” When it spoke, its tone sounded more demanding than before.
“We better do what it says,” I sighed.
Nobody looked pleased that we were still the aliens’ captives, but we were all too tired to fight right now.
I quickly gave both Parker’s and Sadie’s hands a quick squeeze before we all silently and dejectedly moved into our individual rooms. Once I got there, I sat down on my bed.
I was disappointed.
But I wasn’t surprised.
I’d had an idea forming in the back of my mind ever since I saw the weird monitor room at the resort. When I saw all the other people in the world competing in the same games we were, I knew the aliens wouldn’t be done with us for quite some time.
Realistically, all we’d done today by winning was level up to the next round in the alien’s eyes.
No, the games wouldn’t end for us until the aliens either finally achieved whatever they’d come here to do, or if we found a way to kill them. If we survived long enough to do so.
Which reminded me…
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the metal ball and spare piece I’d found in the hedge.
It barely took any time at all to find where the piece fit perfectly into the whole, and when I snapped it into place, the entire ball glowed brighter than it ever had before in my hand, and I felt a strange hum vibrate through me.
It wasn’t as intense as the hum I felt before I got transported each time, but it was certainly strong enough to notice.
“Congratulations on completing the first full round of the games,” the robotic voice suddenly spoke, and it startled me enough that I fumbled and nearly dropped the ball. “Here is your status update.”
A strange, holographic screen popped up in front of me at that moment. It looked like a summary of each trial I’d faced, as well as numbers beside each one. Were the numbers supposed to show how well we did in each round?
I had all fives. Was that good? How high did the grading scale go? If that’s what it really was.
Along with the trial descriptions, there was also a list of all the skill and favor points I’d earned. They were still the same from when I last checked them, except one of my favor points was now gone.
I reached up and touched the empty slot where my fifth favor point had once been, and when my finger brushed against the image, the ball in my hand warmed and glowed even brighter, and then suddenly, that fifth favor point lit up again.
What the hell?
I set the ball on my bed and touched the screen again, but this time, my hand passed right through the holographic image.
I picked up the ball once more, and as it glowed back to life in my hand, I touched one of the empty slots by the word ‘body.’ The ball glowed bright as the dull little mark lit up, and now the screen said I had four points in the body category instead of three.
Holy shit.
Had the weird alien tech I’d put together allowed me to manipulate my points?
What else could it do?
I glanced down at the seemingly harmless ball in my hand with a grin.
The aliens wanted to continue to play with us, and up until this point, they had the advantage, but now I had a secret advantage of my own.
They could mess with us all they wanted.
I was still going to win.
End of Book 1