The Winners Take It All | Chishiya [English]

The last option

The wind whipped my hair as I hurried down the alley.

I was running away from something that was desperate. They were looking for me, no... for Johanna. I was just the person playing that role - and now I had to see how I could run away from them for the rest of the day. It wouldn't be easy, but what could I do?

The quiet footsteps behind me faded away. Chishiya had stopped. I also slowed down and turned to him while he seemed to be listening. I followed suit and could hear why he hesitated. It sounded strange, like a buzzing...

A whirring... whirring, where had I heard that noise before... It sounded like a propeller. A propeller that carried something through the air...

"Damn, a drone!" I whispered, knowing that he had guessed it long before I did. I didn't understand what was going on in his head, but I knew he was incredibly intelligent.

What I understood even less, however, was our relationship to each other. He was suddenly different, but maybe it was because of the game? Was it just a phase that would pass as soon as the woman's voice announced the end? Or would it last if we were closer to each other now?

I knew it was something I would be thinking about in Beach.

I knew - yes, what did I actually know? When I think about it, I knew absolutely nothing.

"Get down," the young man next to me suddenly hissed and pushed me roughly between the garbage bags that were lying around loosely. The buzzing got louder and suddenly a drone flew over the roofs of the houses. We were lucky it didn't see us.

Option 1: Thank Collin!

Option 2: Say nothing.

Option 3: Start crying.

"Thanks," I murmured and he looked at me before grinning. He didn't say anything and I was pretty sure he too had just chosen an option. Instead, I got up again when the coast was clear and started running.

Where? I didn't know that exactly myself. I still wasn't sure what to do. So many questions were floating around in my head.

Get your freedom back, disappear from sight, stay alive...

Johanna had to fight to her feet to stand alone in life. She should be free, leave her past behind her and not give up. Why did it remind me so much of myself?

I scurried across the intersection and ducked into the next alley. He followed me again as I moved through the shadows.

I couldn't shake the feeling that there was a simple solution, that waiting wasn't the right answer. It was a game of hearts - others would say that it was a game that played on emotions and that there was no logic. But... There had to be logic behind it, otherwise you wouldn't be able to play with other people's hearts. Because only if you had recognized a certain meaning, you could use this knowledge against others.

The developers of this game played with us because they gave us roles. We were puppets controlled with thin ropes. They played us, controlled actions and... therefore our feelings. They made it more complicated than it perhaps was.

Just knowing that it was a 9 of hearts caused a great deal of fear in most people, which caused them to no longer be able to think clearly, even if the solution was in front of them. Some people may have recognized the 'answer', but they deliberately didn't reach for it because they expected a trap.

Perhaps Johanna Brown's freedom was close at hand?

But what could the developers mean? What was the meaning of my goal? It had to have some meaning, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten this far. Freedom -