"I hope to claim all the remaining truths."
Grade 10 student. 16 years old. Girl. My favorite color is blue. My favorite subject is the arts. My hobbies are drawing, painting, and writing. I'm making a comic book and it doesn't have a title yet. I attend the public school of Vosejo High School in the city. I have three best friends at school.
I have a mother, a father, and an older brother. My parents separated so my mother, brother, and I were living together. My mother was ill, which caused intense suffering. They have both been my support in times of need. I study hard, I write a story, I draw that story into a comic, so I can help them. I also try to participate in art contests. My brother taught me basic self-defense because he belonged to that club in high school. I got angry with my father and blamed him for the hardship we are going through. In an instant, I was surprised that our lives suddenly improved, we were able to have our own house, buy and own a lot, and establish a business.
But when I woke up... when I opened my eyes... I wondered where I was. I am floating in the middle of the galaxy
"I'll protect you"
"Will be always there for you"
"You don't have to worry"
"Ah!"
Simultaneously with my small scream is the rapid opening of my eyes. I twitched sitting up from lying down and rubbed my head while shaking.
"She's up! Are you okay? We woke up earlier. We're all fine and safe." I heard Aeith's voice.
My breathing deepens and I am sweating from the cold. Some parts of my body are numb.
Someone is supporting me that helping keep my body warm.
"Are you alright? I'm sorry." There is remorse and deep concern in his voice. I turned to my left and it is First.
I turned my eyes and saw my teammates. Tired of all that is obvious in our looks. We are still wearing our swimming or diving clothes but with no glass bubble anymore. I'm not sure if our glass bubble popped or it means that the game has ended.
I checked myself. This is the second time that I fainted. I sighed. I smiled at First sparingly. His left arm is still bleeding.
Ninth had his right hands and arms wounded. Fourth sobs again in Aeith's arms. Third and Fifth have scratches. We all hugged as a team led by Fourth as she got emotional. Knowing everyone is safe, that's enough.
Recalling my recent memories of what happened before I fainted, the gold team must have won because I lost consciousness in the middle of the game, and I no longer knew if I had crossed the finish line. I feel bad for not doing my part while my team sacrificed themselves. This has happened because of my incompetence. I clenched my hands because of frustration. I don't deserve my team. I can't look straight into their eyes because of guilt.
My feeling of being ashamed has been interrupted when I hear the voices of the other team—our supposed to be an enemy team. The gold team ran towards us, and they hugged us. I feel really bad for losing but I also feel glad that they won because they earned it after all. We have different strategies but what matters at this stage is to reach the finish line which I failed to achieve.
We might be enemies in the games we play but after that, we still consider each other as friends. I just hope for us to be in this last game that we fight one another. I can't imagine those traumatic experiences when we betray and hurt our friends to win because, for the duration of the game, we're enemies.
"I-I'm sorry for what we did... We didn't really plan to hurt you," Sixzen apologized to our team. The Sixzen I battled a while ago racing to the finish line is really different from the Sixzen I am facing right now. Funny how this game turns people into villains. Even I was a victim of this game that also drove me to hut my friends from the gold team.
I saw Thirtwen behind her. "Well, that was one desperate move from us." He looks dismayed. "We can't expect anything in return, but I hope our friendship doesn't change."
I can see the regret in their faces. I can feel their sincerity. I didn't hesitate to say sorry to the gold team too especially to Sixzen and Sectwen when I hurt them.
Ninezen didn't talk but he gave us a light smile and mouthed "sorry". This is not like him. He is supposed to be a bubbly one but now things got awkward between teams.
Aeizen ignored us like nothing happened that she wasn't sorry while Sectwen avoided us rolling her eyes. Even so, I can still forgive them as long as everything goes back to normal. I will act as if nothing bad has happened just to restore our relationship.
"Where are the three?" I questioned my team. As I look at each one of us, I notice that Sixth, Seventh, and Fifzen weren't here. By the way, where are they? All of us must have been here.
Fourth seems to be unwilling to speak, so Third answered me. "They're dead," he replied weakly.
"What?!" How in the world did the two of our members have died? And one member from the gold team this time. "How-"
Third stepped forward. He coughed several times before starting. "Earlier, Fifzen was poisoned by a stingray when he was in a fight with Fifth." His voice is unusually husky. "It spread all over his body until the end of the game. When we looked for Seventh after his bubble exploded, he didn't make it in time to reach the surface. We tried to revive him but we're too." Third ended his statement.
Fifth continued. "As for Sixth, same as Seventh's bubble that got pierced but by Sectwen. I chased her when she is catching her breath underwater when the octopus ink spread all over beneath. Her body got contaminated by the ink. I rushed to help her get out of the poisonous water but Third stopped me when they arrived. " He explained.
"My bubble exploded too and accidentally drank water with ink. I almost swallowed some of it, but I puked it out." Third touched his throat. "My throat burns because of it. That's how dangerous it can be." He coughed. "It turns out, the bubble on our head can be destroyed by the poisonous ink and needle that the gold team has."
This can't be. We lost 3 of our friends again. And Third barely made it alive. Luckily, he was able to throw up the water with poisoned ink inside him, but it made his throat feel burning inside. I could feel great remorse and sadness. What just happened?