Trident Trials: The Glimmer

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty

I turned around quickly, thinking I had made a grave mistake. I ran over to the body of the soldier I just killed and had my worst suspicion confirmed. It was Maya lying in the snow in front of me. Some of the blood had frozen on her face in small amounts, and the scratches that I put there were even more horrifying now that I knew who it was, but it was absolutely Maya. I couldn't move for the first few seconds. I couldn't move. The scene in front of me was something from the worst nightmare I could have ever had. It all kicked in and I realized I had someone to go after.

"What is happening?!" Jax turned me around slowly and looked at Maya lying dead in my arms. "Answer me! Why would you send my own friends after me, even in a simulation this is just sick! What the fuck, Jax?" He looked down at Maya and then at me again and offered his hand to help me up. I hit it away from me and grabbed him by his armor vest and threw him up against the closest tree. As the snow that had settled on the tree was falling around us, I felt tears well up in my eyes and I tried to push them down and not let it happen. Not only did I just kill my friend in a simulation, but I didn't know if I could trust the person who I grew to trust the most during my time here. The anger, sadness, and nausea all fought their way to be the primary emotion I was feeling.

How could this be a successful part of training? How was this supposed to teach me anything good? I wouldn't carry out the rest of the mission if my aim was to murder all the people that were close to me in the real world. I didn't care that it was fake, or if it was an important part of the training, there wasn't any way that I was going to follow through with the rest of it. In my mind, there wasn't a single reason that he could give me that would make me think this was a good idea. The horror of the situation just refused to leave me alone.

Suddenly, I felt my feet come out from underneath me. Jax had flipped me on my back and started dragging me towards the shelter. I looked around for anything to grab onto and realized why he had dragged me. There were soldiers incoming, and a lot of them. In my rage and torment, I forgot that there were lots of others, and even if they did all look like my friends, they were coming after us. He hadn't said a word yet, which led me to believe that something was wrong. I never yelled at Jax, and the one time that I almost did the glare that he shot me nearly killed me, and then he yelled at me for half an hour and told me that if I ever did that again he would make me regret it, so that he was silent was almost terrifying.

He dragged me into the shelter and pressed three buttons on a control panel on the wall and the shields went up and so did the cloaking device. I assume that this was when he was going to talk, instead; he picked me up off the floor and threw me into a wall. He picked me up again and threw me down onto a chair and then shoved an envelope from the table into my hands and gestured aggressively at me to read it.

James,

If you are reading this, we have little time. I can't give you lots of answers, and what lies ahead of you will not be pleasant, but if you can follow these instructions and do exactly as I say, you may get out of here alive.

I need you to run the rest of this simulation, which means killing the rest of your friends. You need to eliminate all of them and gain access to their main hideout. Once there, you will need to retrieve three documents, each with a key hidden inside. Put those keys in your pocket. As soon as the last key is in your pocket, I need you to kill yourself.

I will bring you out of the simulation and asked for a report. Tell the technician that you don't feel well and immediately come and find me. If you do as I ask, you will have three keys in your pocket, just like in the simulation. We need them to accomplish what needs to be done. I can't speak, I can't help you, and by the time you are done reading this, they will have kicked me out of your simulation and will actively start working on erasing your memory of this letter.