CHAPTER 15 - THE ECHO GAME

The girls were not so accustomed to a hard push in the small of their back. Priya weaved them through the square, past secluded buildings. Leading them to their destination. Her fingers thrust in deep. "It's like a knife!" Felicia squealed. But Priya didn't budge. Her countenance beamed in harmony with the thought. The day had a special design. And so, she poked them mercilessly, ushering them forward. At a higher elevation, the clouds were delightful and plump. A day meant for picnics. Their eyes tied in blindfolds; the girls witnessed none of it. They were busy dealing with Priya's antics. Lonely, unsung university buildings lined their path. The windows were smeared gray from weathering. Within those walls stood empty rooms with forgotten pamphlets. But Priya redirected them from that effigy of academia. Along its width a creek caked with mud met a rather anticlimactic end on dry ground. Still, the humble clouds queued in the air. Boundless like spring cotton. From the night before the last raindrop descended onto the handsome earth. Priya had gathered them all regardless of fleeting time. Nadine gasped as her hair and nails were an unmitigated disaster. Dominique stuck out her arms sideways, pretending to be an airplane until the scientist was forced to nudge her away from that misadventure. Still, she led them onward. Pieces of brick tumbled down an incline of a dilapidated building like kids riding down a slide. Another had windows in excess. Its neighbor was wider than usual and drafted in a circular architecture. This was it. Priya quickly untied the three of them. Dominique spun around to face her. "Are you kidding me?" she ridiculed. The auditorium rose above them like a monument to obscurity. It's dark portals begging for light. "This place is old news … is this like, funny or something?" Dominique tossed up her hands, exaggerating her displeasure in graphic detail. Felicia looked Priya up and down, wondering if she actually was a robot and whether there was a glitch in the system. Yet all systems were operating smoothly and the aforementioned android booped Dominique in her nose with an outstretched finger to shut her loudmouth up. Priya had worn a new lab coat just for the occasion, and she wasn't going to give this up. "It's the perfect place for a game. I made it up. It's called the echo game" the lab girl revealed, profuse with inexplicable joy. Nadine pivoted on her heels, "You mean like your name?", she gathered. "Exactly!", Now Priya's cheeks were rounded and filled with wonderful things to share with all of them. But the game was afoot and so she ran inside and waited for their company. As the girls wandered in, they couldn't help but notice the columns at great intervals, arrayed in vague garments of dust. Felicia paused with charming meekness at the scary stuff. Arms close to her chest. Nadine looked up. There was a second floor sporting a balcony. Up ahead was Priya, with a gallant expression on her face. In her presence, the surrounding darkness attained new life. Beautiful like the silence at dawn. Nadine was simultaneously enraptured and at wits end trying to figure her out. "Alright friends, here's the game. This whole auditorium is so big that its walls will let the sound reverberate off of them, making echo's. That's why it's the perfect place for a game of tag" she began. "I think you mean hide and seek," Felicia offered. Priya nodded her head in affirmation and hid the suspicious smile from her face. "It's so funky in here that the game will last an hour" Nadine tended. "Oh, I've got something else up my sleeve," their friend boasted. Sharp reflexes awoke, and the lab girl ran towards the wall, and bounced off of it onto the second floor. "Wow, that was amazing!" hollered Felicia, thinking that it was simply an athletic jump from the wall to the balcony. And with that the game was set in motion. Dominique spent much of the ensuing time daintily prancing over curling shadows and unkempt floorboards from the shipwreck of a floor after Felicia. "Ah!" she whimpered, unforgiving of the former friend who had bested her at tag. In the distance, Nadine's voice trailed behind as she weaved around the columns sowing fine reverberations like bait. It was irresistible. Despite exhaustion, Dominique fed her heart with courage. Her feet barely brushed the ground, except to pursue what had to be acquired. A swift deer, darting behind immemorial columns. The Latina snarled as she neared the heels of her prey. A wily plunge behind a tall column was not enough. Dominique tapped the shoulder. Nadine wept from the sting of injustice. The Latina giggled in her face, knowing she had become her teacher, if only for a second. By that time Priya had arrived on the scene. Dominique grit her teeth. Now there was one. Likewise, the game renewed, invigorated with the lifeblood of the chase. Priya was not so fast as Nadine, the girl thought. Her white lab coat flapped like a sail sprayed with saltwater, its craft advancing towards dancing waves. Then, through some fault of the dimness, she lost her. Behind, Nadine and Felicia huddled for warmth. Draped in black, the auditorium's precedence gripped them. Hushed memories of academia and its endless appraisals swirled around. It's austerity. It's cruel discipline. Nadine looked hazily at the scene. In her dream-state, the bones of academics shook in the foundation of the auditorium, knowing they had studied to their heart's content. But then with furtive glance the Latina spied her. That pleasantly nerdy voice. Dominique leapt into action, seeking her across the breadth of the room. The auditorium was inaugurated long ago, but its dust made shifting what was plain to the eye. Like a plucky runaway Priya zigzagged through the place, escaping her pursuer. The game was going well. The lab-girl began to smile partially when a fit of laughter descended, slowing her down. "Newbie!" Dominique called. Priya ringed around a certain column, and her pursuer knew just what she would do. "Can you hear me!" rung out, multiplying, obscuring the source. "I'm too good for that to work" Dominique insisted under her breath. Greedily she crept forward, the prey within grasp. Undeterred, longing for the body. She ringed the column like the sun in its unearthly station and … NOTHING. Where was she? Another clone of the scientist's words navigated her away, across the stretches of the room to another place. Yet it likewise ended empty handed. The process continued, sending her in vain around columns, dizzying her senses. It would continue like that for an hour. The two others would join in, and they would do their best. They would split and reunite, searching the recesses. They would find only shadow. A smiling Priya alighted on the grass outside, her form materializing. "Not bad for a first round" she surmised, rubbing her hands together in glee. She took a moment to stare at the other derelicts. Squirrels casually skipped along the tops of buildings, like knights of the realm guarding turrets. It was going to be a fun day.