No Wings to Fly [ON HOLD]

Chapter 12

WARNING - KIND OF DISTURBING CONTENT AHEAD 

The next thing I knew I was trapped in a glass tube, feeling oddly weak. All the other players were situated in their own little tube, each of them looking for someone. To my right, there was a girl with red hair tied up in a ponytail. She looked really distressed and had her hands up against the glass that encased her. She seemed to be trying to speak but considering I was next to her and nothing could be heard except the quick thudding of my heart, whoever she was trying to talk to couldn’t hear her.

A few seconds later, an image was projected onto the glass, which showed all of the people that were in this arena. I never realised that there were so many people here. Deciding not to bother learning who everyone was, I decided to just look out what I was going to have to contend against. There seemed to be a forest that stretched as far as I could see, and wherever we were was on a hill.

Suddenly, the number 30 appeared on the glass, which gradually started to count down.

“Welcome to the Survival Games everyone!” Ridge’s voice rang out in the small tube. “Now, as you all know, last time’s victor was Martyn Littlewood, but will he remain victorious again this time?” In the distance I could see Martyn shifting around uncomfortably. The timer had reached 20. “As usual, all of the items that are essential to your survival will be lying around the middle, as well as scattered around the map. Also, to those of you that are concerned, magic is allowed this time around. Good luck, and remember, there can be only one winner!” His voice trailed off as I watched the timer reach five.

That last announcement made everyone franticly look around to the people that had now became an even larger threat to them. I felt my energy come back to me and I realised that Ridge had temporarily removed our power.

Four.

Martyn’s uncomfortable shifting had now stopped and was replaced with confidence, and a slightly worrying grin.

Three.

Another person that I’ve never seen before also seemed overjoyed by this new rule. They had a mask around their mouth that was slightly emitting purple mist.

Two.

It suddenly hit me that the people that attacked Toby before were going to be in the arena too. I decided that those three were my main opponents.

One.

I fixed my eyes on a gun that lay slightly into the middle.

The second the clock reached zero, the glass that encased everyone disappeared and nothing was heard except the thundering of shoes against the hard dirt floor. I noticed that someone else was, too, heading towards the gun, so I did the only thing I knew at that moment, lobbing myself at it.

Once my hand had made contact with it, my shoulder followed it, allowing me to roll onto my back and get back up again. I was about to retreat when I noticed a guy with glasses trip over a rouge box, and started falling straight towards something that looked unquestionably like a mine. Stuffing the gun into my belt, I turned around and tried to get away as fast as I could until the anticipated explosion occurred, sending a large blast of heat and shockwaves out. The last thing I was before my vision went black was the conspicuous redness of Martyn’s cape disappear behind a tree.

Opening my eyes, I noticed that everything was quite a bit darker and blurrier than it was behind. I couldn’t feel anything and there was a ridiculously loud ringing in my ears. Thick smoke filled the area around me so I rolled over and pulled the collar of my shirt over my mouth and nose to try and limit the amount of smoke inhalation. With this, I lay as low and as still as I possibly could until there was some sign of movement.

After a few minutes an unnaturally cold gust of wind swept through the arena, clearing some of the smoke that continued to linger. I managed to fully open my eyes and I could suddenly see the havoc that had been created, and how much trouble I was in. Fires were burning all around me and pieces of what used to be weaponry lay on the grass in a mangled and melted heap. In the distance, I saw a figure stumble out of the still thick smoke, which I soon recognised to be the person that presumably set the mine off in the first place. He looked like he was in some sort of daze and had burns all over his body, in some places it burnt through his clothes, which were soaked in blood. His face had been quite severely mutilated, with the muscle quite visibly showing which had also managed to get charred. He staggered out a few feet until he fell to the floor in a heap. His body twitched for a few seconds before coming to an abrupt stop, which was followed by the sound of a loud cannon that echoed across the land.

Seeing this sent a surge of adrenaline through me and my lingering shock suddenly meant nothing to me. I hastily picked myself up, slid the gun that had fallen out back into my belt, and began running. I began to head into the forest that lay behind me, hoping that I would be able to get away from everyone whilst they were all slightly dazed from the explosion, when I saw the familiar bright red hair of the girl that was next to me emerge from the lingering smoke. She seemed overly distressed, yet didn’t fall over and die like the previous one, and simply looked towards me in pain.

I couldn’t leave her. I ran back towards her and offered out my hand which she gladly accepted and we ran into the forest. After we had been running for a few minutes, the sound of another cannon rang out, which made the girl start screaming out someone’s name. I stopped running and turned round to face her.

“Hey, listen. I don’t know who this ‘Rythian’ person is, but I’m sure he’s going to be alright, okay?” I said to her, trying to stay as calm as possible. “I promise you, we will go back and have a look for him, but if we go back now, we run the risk of being caught by the other’s, and if we do that, he’ll be as upset as you. I want to you to be back to him, but right now, you need to stay safe, alright?” She nodded, and we continued further into the depths of the never ending foliage.

~

Hey guys!

It's a bit morbid that I have quite a few pages of my notebook dedicated to how people are going to die lol

Anyways, if you enjoyed this chapter, please comment and vote, it's greatly appreciated and motivates me to carry on with this!

Thanks for reading!