CHAPTER 3: IMAGINATION AND ENDURANCE

Heart, beating like never. But still my breathing wasn't off. The only noise were the heavy steps of those running with me. From the list, we were a hundred. And from the map, we were all around the same mean position. We were running through that thick forest as though it was our classroom. Everything felt poised till a mate vanished from the radar. He then appeared at the starting point. Immediately a bell rang in my brain. The map of the terrain had changed. So many spots suddenly popped up. With the new spots, several spots began reappearing at the starting point. I didn't understand till I saw my neighbour lose his head and vanish. I didn't distinguish what took off his head, but what I knew was I lost my rhythm on the spot. My legs became heavy and my focus drifted from accomplishing the said task, to finding how my neighbour was exterminated. Though my legs were heavy, I didn't stop running. To be precise, I couldn't stop running. That was because a select few didn't stop despite their neighbours meeting their demise. They just kept moving forward. Their mind was set on accomplishing the task even if the world were to come to an end. One of the unfazed runners took a high leap. It took him around a minute to land back on the floor. And as he landed, several animals fell with him. They were monkeys, with projectiles in their hands. Flat, sharp stones thrown at high speed from an incredible distant position. The result, several participants killed without even knowing how. But some participants had noticed and were dodging them. Clueless guys like me were lucky enough to survive and see the trick revealed by a good Samaritan. But still, revealing it didn't mean we could dodge. All we needed was to be imaginative as stated by KK. But how creative you could be depended on how flexible your mind could be. As I was still cooking up my perfect plan, several participants suddenly upped the gear. One seemed to have splintered, for he suddenly disappeared from my field of vision. Some began leaping on trees. The one who caught my attention was a muscular dude who appeared from nowhere. I don't remember any of the participants being that tall and buffed. His race caused slight tremors. He ran in a straight line, felling all the trees in his path. We, who slowly came behind them had their dust in our faces and their damages to wonder about. What struck me were their creativity. They were able to change their morphology, effectively use the surrounding, and efficiently adapt to incoming and unforeseen situations. I couldn't stay behind for long (well, technically I wasn't far behind. So many had been killed and reappeared at the starting point. So, I was in the first forties). First was to easily distinguish the projectiles. Second to react promptly when the projectile is sensed or noticed. Finally, to keep a steady speed to the arrival. When all was done, my body instinctively implemented my thoughts. My heart rate sky rocketed, sending more blood to my eyes and leg muscles. I could feel my vessels hold more oxygen than before, supplying me with more energy. I began seeing very far ahead of and high above me. There was no explanation, just the application of my imagination. My next foot step sank slightly into that iron ground and I took off too, following closely those who had left a certain gap. One, two, three, four, I counted. Counting the participants I overtook. Projectiles came and I dodged. Some were shot at my blind spot, piercing through trees but still, I was untouchable. The more I progressed, the more the obstacles became difficult. After covering half of the stated distance, the monkeys left their trees and began attacking harder. They threw projectiles but now at a closer distance compared to before. Some pounced on me and orders literally tried blocking my pathway with sticks and crude weapons. That is where endurance entered. I knew boosting my physical abilities would take a toll on my mind. And before I could feel the effects, I had to complete this game. Projectiles came uncountably at me. Dodging wouldn't be enough. Trying to hold them bare handed was suicide but that was the only choice. Increase blood flow to the finger vessels and extreme contraction of biceps and finger connections did the trick. I caught some bare hand and shot them back. Right, left, right, left my legs pulled on. Right, left, right, left I threw punches, knocking down the monkeys who pounced on me. Right, left, I picked some of the knocked monkeys on the ground. Using them as a shield or throwing them back to cause more damage and easily clear the way. I was now among the first twenties, though they were very far ahead of me. Looking ahead, I saw them reducing their speed. There seemed to be a lake, separating us from the point of arrival. For a lake, it looked vast (and I who thought I was almost there). Drawing closer to the lake, my eyes couldn't believe what I saw. I wasn't even creative enough compared to the others. While I had limited myself to the forest (and maybe not well inspected the map), their boosts had taken into account the lake. The dude who splintered was actually going at a speed close to that of light, hence he ran on the lake. The athletic dudes were skipping on water. They exploited the surface tension on the surface of the lake. It was enough to provide them support and the necessary reaction force to support the impact of their skips. I don't know how they modelled or imagined their body but that was beyond genius. The oversized muscular dude, cleared three trees. He stuck two together (I can't really tell how he did that) and threw them afloat on the lake. They third tree, he broke into two and used half as a paddle. The action that left me in awe was what Dazna did. I had completely lost track of her since the beginning of the race. All I could distinguish, were her hands moving and then disappearing at one point. When her hands became visible, she had created a wind tunnel. I don't know of the length but she rode her wind tunnel, flying over the lake. Knowing I couldn't be as resourceful as the others, I had only one option. To cling to the mastodon. I increased my speed and jumped on his boat. He noticed me but seemed to ignore my weight. He paddled for a few minutes and we had already reached the other side of the lake. When we arrived at the tree, the others were still catching their breath. Being imaginative can be indeed exhaustive. The huge dissolved, regaining his original size. I took my time, reducing my cardiac rhythm till normal. After several hours, some of the participants just materialized in front of us and the simulation ended. We woke up to realize that only 30mins had passed. This wasn't right. I am sure of how time was flowing. Knowing how everything felt during the simulation, several hours had passed. Anyhow, it was through. Mr KK was in total bliss so much so that before we left, he gave us some candies to suck. We left the hall, still in pairs wondering about what had happened. We walked, shrouded in a deadly silence, plagued with a heavy ignorance. What was just from happening? I could see that question written on the faces of most participants. Our parents seemed to have been waiting for us. Some had vehicles and others not. I entered my parent's car, slowly enjoying the lights flashing in my eyes as the car advanced. The flashes lulled me during my way home.

"Wake sweety." Was my wake-up call. My steps felt very heavy but to the very least, my bed felt welcoming. I didn't remember at what time my head touched the bed but when I woke up it was past midday. As every child of my age, the first thing I did after opening my eyes was to look for my smartphone. And when we have the phone, we immediately proceed to check our WhatsApp messages. I coursed through the usual distractions till I noticed a new WhatsApp group. The name was 54. I didn't know why it was named like that but I understood the mission of the group after seeing Mr KK and Dazna as group members.

"Now that the last sleeping beauty is up, we can start the discussion." Mr Klein wrote, changing the status of the group from 'Only group admins can send messages' to authorizing everyone to write. Immediately he did that a message popped in;

"I quit 😫"

A flood of messages and discontentment followed. Most of them revolved around the same issue.

"I died in that simulation and it felt real. I can't describe that. 😣😫"

"Me too. It wasn't natural. I don't know for you guys but that disconnection is more than me."

"I can't relive that 😢."

"It was like being sucked somewhere but yet not knowing where and still being conscious of the endless drift 😫😫."

"The feeling was dreary. An amalgam of the worse possible dark feelings served to you at once 🤢🤢🤢." They complained. And when they had had enough of their own complains, they began leaving the group. In the less than 5mins, 41 participants were left (including KK).

"Well, that was expected. The culling phase was a success 🎉🎊." He wrote.

"Culling?" a member wrote.

"Yes. You know the saying 'many are called but few are chosen'. Many were called and during the culling test, few were chosen." He answered. He continued with voice notes. "But don't worry about them, for they won't remember this experience. When they shall go to sleep at any moment of the day, my candy shall kick in."

"Candy?" I wrote.

"Yes. The candies you were given was not a celebration candy. It had two roles. One was to act as a pain inhibitor. Normally after such an intense session, you shouldn't be able to get up from your bed. But that candy solved that. And the second was to act as a memory eater. The substance in the candy would activate following a certain level of the sleep hormone in your brain."

"Wow." Dazna wrote.

"Yeah. Explaining to you guys the depths of such a technology will be resulting in my entire family being erased. And when I say entire, I speak even of my unborn children and relatives." He answered, laughing loudly. "That said, let's march fire. Congratulations to all the 40 chosen ones. From here on, serious things shall commence. The culling phase wasn't even the tip of the iceberg. What shall come shall be literally mind blowing. Yup. Your brains shall be liquified. Transformed in to mush."

He made very lengthy voice notes. Most of which had so many scientific notions. Am fond of science but his level was above mine. He even made a whole review of the history of the world. I don't know of the others, but I didn't see any link with the experiments.

"So, I shall be communicating basic information in this group. Schedule of the simulations. Changes in case there are any and several other opportunities. That said I leave you with a date and a pdf document. Serious things shall begin on the 1st of August. We are giving you guys sometime to enjoy your holidays. During that enjoyment, don't forget to look at this document. That's all for today."

I downloaded the pdf and I put off my internet connection. I was a little restless by the reaction of the others and in particularly the reaction of Mr KK. The feeling of death? Is it even possible to code that? I wondered. What was actually the main objective of these simulations?