3 strikes you're out

Prologue

11th October 2021:

One text.
One text is all it took for her to do this. Do this one thing that could possibly end her life. But she didn't care. Why? She was about to complete a game that no one else was able to beat. This was her only chance to make it out alive. It's not like she had much of a choice anyway. Not many her age were given the choice in anything these days.

That's one thing that's wrong with the world.
Through the shadows, Sienna tightened her jet black jacket around her torso as she fastened her pace towards the turnstile, hastily scanning her Oyster card, causing it to plummet to the ground.

Agitatedly, she knelt two the ground, methodically balancing on her toes, grabbing her card from the glassy white tile.

A cold breeze swept past her as goose bumps rolled out across her skin like wild fire. She spun around at the unforeseen cool feeling, eyes darting at every corner of the station, seeing sedulous people,the majority of their fingers punching words into their keyboard. She could have sworn she felt a soft blow on the back of her neck, whispering against her delicate skin.

She dismissed this as just a hallucination from her lack of sleep from last night. Then leading herself onto the platform. She could hear distant voices of an old married couple on the bench behind her. She smiled at the thought of them finding love that lasted a lifetime.

Sienna stepped on to the yellow strip lining the platform. She glanced up at the screen that displays the time that the train will arrive.

16:23 is the time it will arrive. It's 16:21 now. Her pale hands reach up to tuck a strand of her silky smooth icy blonde hair behind her ear as she looked down to comprehend the distance between her feet and the track. Slowly she bent down to place her slim fingers on the rough concrete, scraping her palms as she comfortably sat on the edge of the platform.

Ding

She pulled her phone out of the pocket of her jeans to read a message from strike.

60 seconds

60 seconds till the train comes. Or 60 seconds until sienna's possible death.

She fought with herself mentally whether she wanted to give up now, or go in front of the train for a chance of beating the game once and for all. She was finally on the 7th task. The final one.

She looked around the fairly quiet station, tugging at the silver bracelet her wrist that her mum got her for her 14th birthday last week. Only now, she is noticing the way the diamonds glimmered mesmerisingly in the light. She admired it for what felt like eternity just to remember that she still has a task to complete.

40 seconds.

Without further thought, she jumped down about a meter and a half on the rough tracks. She stumbled across to the other side, practically tripping over her own feet. Staring at the wall ever so slightly taller than her, she acknowledged that she wasn't tall enough to lift herself on to the platform.

Regardless, she grabbed the platform and jumped unable to get on to the platform as she stammered back.

The sound of the train filled her ears as she desperately tried countless times to get on to the platform with no luck. Continuously attempting to force herself upon the platform in multiple different ways, like digging her trainers on the wall as an attempt to push herself upwards. Then, taking a few steps back and running towards the wall and trying climbing up it with a little more momentum.

Sweat is starting to trickle down her temple as she was growing more and more tired after only 4 attempts.

"Sienna?" A voice spoke. Sienna looked up and saw that it was a classmate of hers - Hannah. Hannah glared at sienna, raising her eye brows and giving her a perplexed look.

She reached down to grab sienna's arm to help her out but Sienna moved her hand away before she got to her arm.

"What the hell sienna? Do you want to die?" Hannah yelled, shaking her head.

"I need to do this myself!" Sienna yelled back, glancing back and seeing that the train is in sight, then making another attempt to get up. Only this time Hannah forced her up by her arm. Sienna avoided the speeding train by millimeters as she barely made it out of the trains path as it zoomed past them, strong wind blowing in her face as she held on to Hannah as they were both panting trying to catch their breath.

Suddenly, sienna got up with tears in her eyes repeating the same phrase over and over again.
"I've lost... I've lost..."

Hannah looked at sienna, wrinkling her nose in confusion as she walked into the cafe on the platform to by sienna a bottle of water, still puzzled to why she was trying to cross the tracks to get onto the platform instead of taking the stairs.

She grabbed the first bottle she saw and handed it over to the cashier.

"Just this?" The cashier asked.

"Yes, please" Hannah responded and gave the cashier a pound as she turned back on her heel, barely catching a glimpse of someone in dark clothes turning a corner. At first, she thought that she left sienna at a different spot, but no. Sienna wasn't even on the platform anymore.

She was just... gone.