The First Course

With all the contestants lined up, the announcer counted down. "Three… Two... One… GO!". Everyone rushed forwards, and left me a bit behind. To my surprise, most people chose the easy route, and there were only a few contestants taking the difficult route. 'I should increase my pace', I thought. My intention was to conserve my strength, but it seemed that wasn't possible. The first obstacle was easy. A few hills that we had to run up and down. 'This is nothing, I ran every day thanks to mom's training', I thought and sped past the hills. The next obstacle was the pit with narrow planks. Just as I approached the obstacle, I already saw two people past it. 'Dawn is in my group, and she's doing really well', I thought. Just as I took a few steps on one of the planks, a Lizard turned around and smiled at me. I wasn't sure why, until he then stomped on the plank and broke it. 'Oh no!', I exclaimed in my mind and jumped backwards.

"What are you doing, idiot?!", I shouted at him, but he just left. I had to take another plank, and fortunately no one else tried to break that one. 'I'm falling behind… He did that on purpose', I thought. He could target others, but he targeted me specifically. 'No matter, I have to catch up now', I thought and approached the next obstacle. The next obstacle was a hole filled with mud. There were a few rocks protruding from the mud, which meant I had to jump across the mud puddle. One mistake, and I would have to tread through the mud in order to advance. The rocks were quite far apart and small in size, but that wouldn't stop me "Hap!", I exclaimed while jumping onto the first rock. "Wooah..", I flailed my hands trying to stay on the rock. "Hap!"... "Hap!"... "Hap! Whoa.. that was close". I somehow made it through the pool of mud, and onto the next obstacle. I was already one obstacle behind everyone else, but my problems only began.

This time, the pit had no planks. All of them were broken. 'That brat!', I thought. There was no way I could jump that distance, and the pit was at least a few metres deep. "Wait a minute… I can still use those planks", I said to myself. The planks were broken at the other side, but since the plank fell down at the other end, my end was raised up a bit. 'This should work', I thought and pulled the plank towards me. The plank was really heavy, but I barely managed to drag it out a bit. With the plank repositioned, I stepped back and ran towards it. My plan was simple. Use the plank to whizz across the pit. With as much speed I could muster, I grabbed the plank and pushed it forwards while jumping myself. "Swoosh!", I flew through the air as the plank straightened up, before falling towards the other side of the pit. "Pak!", the plank hit the ground, while I jumped off of it and sped towards the next obstacle.

I made it through somehow, but I had another obstacle left before the large wooden wall. The others were already scaling the wall, I even saw Dawn in the lead. The last obstacle in my way was a rope crossing. Ropes were supposed to be suspended over a large pool of mud. There were no stones in the mud, and one had to cross it using those ropes. There was a problem though, all the ropes were cut at the other side. I was angry, really angry. That guy did everything he could to slow me down. Going out of his way, just to make it harder for me. 'I will remember this, you will regret it!', I exclaimed in my mind.

There was no way I could use a rope to cross the obstacle. I had to either thread through mud, or give up. The time loss would be significant, but there was nothing else I could do. I backed up a bit, then ran at full speed towards the pool of mud. I didn't know how deep it was, but I would find out very soon. "Hah!", I exclaimed and jumped as far as I could. "Pluck!", although I made it past the half point, the mud was really sticky and easily reached my waist. 'I will go through this, and I will make you pay', I thought while treading slowly through the mud.

That obstacle drained a bit of my strength, but I made it to the other side. I only had that wooden wall to scale, and that would be the end of the difficult route. Thanks to that time loss, everyone was already past the wall obstacle. Wasting no more time, I made my way up the wall. Fortunately, no one broke anything and the wall wasn't as scary as I imagined. 'I'm so glad I used to climb trees with Atols as a kid… This is quite easy, as the intended path is clearly laid out in front of me', I thought. There were loads to grab onto, which allowed me to quickly climb up.

When I made it to the top, I could see the whole course. There were some people on the easy path, which meant I had a chance. I looked down, and saw a pool of water just in front of the wall. A smile bloomed on my face, 'It's like they want me to jump'. The wooden wall was designed for climbing down too, but I had no time for that. "Swoosh!", I jumped off of the wall and straight into the pool of water. Fortunately, the pool wasn't shallow, though my legs hurt a bit from the impact. The other contestants on the easy route were getting close, I had to hurry.

A few hills stood between me and the last obstacle. The hills were just a warm up before the real thing. A spider web-like maze hung in front of me. Straight after that maze was the finish line. I saw people inside the maze already, and Dawn was at the front. She was about to finish, and would take the first place. At least in our group. That scheming Lizard was there too. He was at about halfway point in the maze. I also saw a few people tangled in the web like strings. 'So those strings are sticky. No wonder they are taking it so slowly', I thought.

With very slow and careful movements, I avoided the strings and slowly made my way through. That was when that Lizard decided to mess with me once more. Although he didn't finish yet, he grabbed a few rocks and started hurling them at me. A few of them hit, and I almost lost my balance. "What's wrong? Can't keep up?", he asked smugly. I was seething with anger. What gave him the right to do it? Everyone was competing fairly, no one else did that stuff except him. I felt hatred for that Lizard and refused to take it any longer. Since he wanted to play like this, I grabbed a few rocks myself. "You've crossed the line", I said with clear anger in my voice, and hurled the rocks back at him.

For some reason, he seemed frozen in place. Most of my rocks missed, but a few managed to hit him. Thanks to that, he lost balance and fell onto the strings. While trying to pick himself up, a few more rocks arrived and made him stumble once more. "You should've minded your own business", I added and stopped hurling the rocks. He lost, there was no way he would be able to get out of those strings. "You bastard! How dare you!", he shouted but I ignored him. Although still a bit angry, I moved on and finished the course.

In the end, I was the eleventh contestant who finished. That Lizard and others trapped in the strings, all of them failed the course. From the group of twenty-six people, only seventeen people passed the course. The losers were escorted outside, while those who passed were allowed some resting time. No matter what though, I was safe from the elimination. "You did very well for your first time. Even though someone tried to make you fail, you succeeded. That is worthy of respect", Dawn approached me and said. "He really crossed the line, but now he paid for it. What goes around comes around I guess… You were great too. You actually came in first", I replied. She smiled, and just stood next to me. 'I guess she's not the talkative type', I thought. Either way, it was time for the second group to perform. I was hoping Tara would fare much better than me.