Angel Of Clinia

31. Agility and Fear

Not again!

If it's accuracy he wants, it's accuracy he will receive. Surely they'll run out of tests eventually.

I don't want to waste another year or more taking these moronic tests when I could be out there living my life with Leo, my family, and Jenny.

There's a platform in front of me spinning slowly that sped up every three seconds or so. In front of that platform there was another with the same concept only a little faster. This continued about eight more times down the line.

I steady myself and leap from where I'm standing to the first obstacle. I lift my arms to prevent myself from falling. I'm guessing this is based on fear of heights then. I look down to see only an endless sky and trees that had to be taller than twelve Statue of Liberties stacked on top of each other.

The slowly spinning plate jerked me as it decided to speed up a few turns.

I go around about five times before hopping to the next one. I'm already growing tired simply because the leaps aren't small distances.

I hop about four more and I'm extremely dizzy.

Can this be done yet?

My stomach churns and aches in pain. Probably been what, six years by now?

I laugh a little in my head until a voice plays out into the world.

"You are precisely incorrect. Your assumptions hurt my feelings because you seem to not be taking this seriously. You are helping us make advances and better learn, please prove cooperative. Also it has been two years." His voice spills out like a waterfall of information I didn't need.

I groan.

Really motivational.

"All this is doing is providing you puke samples!" I yell right before I gag and hack.

"That would be lovely." Cosmo spoke out of still who knows where, he could be right beside me for all I know.

I prepare to leap again but my barf has other plans. As I lean forward a rush of puke tumbles and roars out of me.

"Thank you!"

I nod and queasily mutter "mhm..."

I move towards the middle, lay down, and close my eyes.

I feel my stress melt away and the dizziness start to end. I couldn't tell I was spinning now, and I needed time to regain my strength.

"Time is ticking away." His voice sounds close yet also sounds to be nowhere at all, like a voice in my head. I get back up and finish up the spinning obstacles. Ahead of me is a tall ladder with knives going back and forth- left to right.

You have got to be kidding me.

I inch my way to the ladder, a little disoriented still from spinning. I can tell the fear factor here is not getting sliced into bits. Timing is crucial.

How this is a test exactly I'm not sure. Why would he need an entire population to do it?

I suppose he explained but not all that well.

Carefully, I hoist myself up a few pegs on the ladder, and increase the height I'm at with each step up. The blade whizzed by and I nervously dropped my left hand below me in panic. I wait for it to go by once more before I scurry up and above its path.

Above the ladder of doom was a room of lithe ballerinas who gracefully drop into a full splits, but their legs don't stop. They continue to stretch outward and extend. Their bones cracked and crumbled. The grotesque legs are long and narrow like a spider. I'm starting to feel languor.

The high decibels of their hiss burns through my ears. Personally I'm not afraid of spiders, but spider ballerinas are just wrong.

As the leading spiderina thumps its large pointed leg onto the ground to get ready to leap towards me, a large boulder comes crashing down and their bodies turn to juice.

I grimace. I struggle to choke back the vomit that stayed pushing in my mouth.

I swallow back the barf but my face turns green with disgust and horror. I've witnessed a gruesome murder, if you can call it that.

One last platform awaits me, and the spikes that erupted from the ground drop as quickly as they appeared. Have to get the timing right. One two, oh it's up! Wait now it's gone. Okay one- it's up again? One, two, three, four, it's still up, five six, seven, oh and back down!

There is no direct timing.

I guess I'll just have to leap.

Right before the spikes drop I launch myself forward, maybe a little too far forward, because as the spikes drop, the platform they were on folded under and I've gone to the edge.

With one hand clasped around the corner of the block, a gentle laugh approaches me.

"Could it be?"