One Life

Prologue

. . . 

. . . AS BLOOD CRAWLED up her throat and painted her lips red, she forced herself to focus on the single thing that kept her from passing out: the light.

The sky had been impossibly dark since she'd gotten to this place—a sort of darkness the girl had never seen before, akin only to nightmares. It embraced the frozen city around her cruelly and shrouded her in loneliness. This place was no haven; it was a purgatory.

But she had her light.

It danced on her fingertips in a brilliant spark, her only familiar entity while she lay to waste in this shadow city. A small warmth in endless darkness. Home. She thanked the sun she'd gotten her third Holopass, which restored her abilities as a Singe almost completely, so even as defeat crept up she could at least stay warm. 

She wouldn't get her fourth Holopass. She wasn't going to win. 

Everything the girl had worked for ended when that Whisp boy trapped her. He was her final competitor, and all it took was an instant of being caught in his shadow for her to be taken down in one slash. He'd made it to the Auragate, the final obstacle to reaching the fourth Holopass, and left her here in this darkened wasteland to die. Years of training. Years of harnessing her firepower, years of sacrifice to reach the top and make it into the competition, and it was over. 

She hated the Vale.

Her throat bubbled and she coughed more crimson. A camera hung above, waiting for the rise and fall of her chest to subside and the winner to be declared. At first, she'd not wanted to give the Whisp satisfaction of putting no effort in; if she tapped out before he reached the capital, he wouldn't have to complete the final leg—no way was she allowing that. But the more her adrenaline subsided, making room for the blinding ache...

It was hard to remember that she'd wake up in the OLC Headquarters the moment she stopped breathing. She whispered it to herself over and over. This was the game. Nothing that happened here would really kill her. Yet she was foolishly afraid as she felt her pulse slowing.

She felt the frosty grass beneath her and lit it ablaze. Let her go out memorably. 

She thought of her mother. She was failing her. this was all they'd wanted, all they'd needed, to survive. And now she was ripping that away from her. 

Second place. Second. Place.

That thought seemed to strip the last of her fight. But just as she finally closed her eyes, head lolling back onto the charred ground, she heard it. 

"Contestant 3-7, eliminated."

For an instant the girl thought she'd heard her own elimination be announced, and realized with crushing weight she'd open her eyes and find herself in the Aura to receive her shame publicly, but it hit her that 3-7 wasn't her number. 

It was the Whisp's. 

She felt her energy return in a nauseating wave and lurched up to dry heave. Her body felt as if it was on fire, but not in the way it usually was with her Singe powers—it crescendoed in her chest, closing her stab wound and restoring her vitality. She stopped breathing. Somehow that Whisp boy had gotten himself killed. 

That meant...

"The winner of the One Life Competition: Contestant 2-3. Commencing transport..."

Suddenly, all she could see was light.

. . .