Timeless

Chapter Seven

I apologize for any mistakes in this one. It was late when I was writing, so some words may sound out of place, while others are just wrong. Just giving a heads up in advance.

Shuhua checked her shoelaces for what felt like the hundredth time in the past 30 minutes. The events were about to start, and she was sweating profusely, so much so that she could taste the salty liquid entering the corner of her lips. After wiping her sweaty hands on her track pants for the seventh time in the past two minutes, the announcer got on the mic.

"Welcome to Drafryce's 324th annual sports festival! Are you students excited?" the female announcer asked, her tone much happier than Shuhua liked. But, it did help to ease her nerves a little bit. As did the comforting hand that Miyeon had offered her a little while ago.

A ripple of both male and female voices came from the crowd, Yuqi and Minnie being some of the loudest. So, it was only natural that Shuhua and the other's cheeks had turned bright red in embarrassment.

"That's great! Now, you all want to know what events you will be competing in today, right?"

Another wave of excitement roared from the crowd, making the announcer smile only brighter. Shuhua has to admit, the woman did have a way of hyping people up.

The announcer cleared her throat, stepping aside as an elderly man stepped onto stage. He gave a bow and everyone gave one of gratitude back. Shuhua wouldn't have as she didn't understand what was going on, but that oh so helpful hand of Miyeon shoved her head down. Then, the man took out a small gadget, putting it to his temple before pulling a trigger. And, instead of gasping in horror like Shuhua thought she was about to, a large projection came out on the other side, showing something similar to a lottery machine's screen. And after a drumroll that all of Shuhua's peers did on whatever surface they could, whether it be panted legs or on the heads of their friends, it began spinning.

"And..." the announcer drawled, a wide smile appearing on her face as the roulette came to a stop, "our first event is the free-for-all relay race! In this event, you will all be running a full mile each. So, the race will be six miles long. Anything goes—sabotages, abilities, and helping your teammates. The only thing off-limits is killing your peers!"

Shuhua blinked, wondering if she heard that right from the cheers that just erupted from the crowd. This woman just said that they could do practically anything except kill each other. Because that's not worrying at all.

"What the hell are these events?" Shuhua asked, baffled when she got looks of confusion from everyone else.

"This isn't the bad one, Shuhua," Minnie mumbled, scratching at the back of her head. "Tomorrow and the day after is what you have to worry about. These are at least supervised with healers on hand."

Shuhua gulped, struggling to grasp the fact that she could nearly die today, or get completely wiped off of surface of the Earth tomorrow. Are these people insane? Why are they happy that they could get seriously injured? Even her teammates aren't sane. Yuqi is already plotting, and by the thirty-yard-stare Soyeon is giving some poor guy, she probably is too.

"You'll be fine, Shuhua. In fact, you'll be able to help!" Miyeon chirped in a sing-song voice that made Shuhua recoil slightly. "I've heard about your abilities from Yuqi. You'll be great at sabotage."

Okay, so Shuhua would be great at sabotage. But what if she wasn't ready to sabotage someone? The only time she had ever burned someone was my younger sister, and it was an accident. It had happened when Shuhua was nine and her parents trusted her to look after her little sister for ten minutes as she was quite the responsible child. She was just playing with the small girl when she had manifested her ability and burned her fingerprint into the girl's skin. Shuhua had never cried and apologized for three hours straight until then, but it was safe to say that the cries of her favorite little companion had traumatized her. Shuhua even asked her parents to give her a punishment for it, but they denied and just sent her to therapy because of her trauma.