The Challenge: Fire & Fate

10

T.J.'s voice comes blaring over the speakers before sunrise:

"Players, Challenge Arena. One hour. I hope you stretched!"

Groans echo down the hallways like a haunted dorm.

Marcus throws a pillow across the room. "He's got to stop doing that."
Kam sips her coffee, unbothered. "He won't."
Theresa mutters, "This is abuse."
I grin. "Motivational abuse."

Leroy's already dressed, calm as ever. "Let's move, Team Earth. No whining before breakfast."

"Then when can we whine?" Marcus asks.

"After the win," Kam says.

I laugh, following them out.

🎥 Confessional — Sienna
"I've learned that if you complain before a Challenge, Kam takes it as a personal insult. Leroy just ignores you. Marcus gives you a pep talk that sounds like a TED Talk gone wrong. I'm not saying we're functional, but we're us."

The arena looks like a post-apocalyptic playground — mud pits, rope bridges, and towers built from stacked crates.

T.J. grins at us from his platform. "Welcome to Ground Rules!

Each team must get all your crates from one end of the course to the other — but you can only use what's in front of you. Planks, ropes, barrels — no touching the ground. First team to stack and hit the buzzer wins. Last team heads straight to elimination."

Kam leans toward me. "This is all balance and planning. We've got this."

Theresa smirks. "Until we start arguing."

"Optimism, please."

"Realism, thank you."

🎥 Confessional — Kam (Team Earth)
"I love my team. But if this were a group project, half of them would be 'emotional support participants.'"

ROUND ONE.

Kam takes charge immediately. Leroy and Cory handle the heavy lifting. I coordinate plank placements with Marcus while Jenna and Jasmine bring energy and chaos in equal measure.

Theresa yells something about "angles" that contradicts Kam entirely.

"Kam!" she calls. "You're doing it wrong!"

Kam fires back, "No, you're doing it wrong!"

I sigh, holding a plank between them. "We're all doing great. Except for the part where we're not."

Marcus grins. "A+ leadership, Teach."

Across the field, Team Fire's a machine. Bananas barking orders, Tori and Xavier lifting crates like Olympians, Devin throwing in constant one-liners.

"Look at us! Therapy's working!" Devin shouts.

Team Air's a disaster. Zoe and Tyler are arguing about rhythm ("There is no rhythm, Zoe!" "There could be if you had coordination!"), while CT mutters, "I've got kids at home who'd do this faster."

Team Water's somewhere between chaos and a slow implosion. Laurel's yelling, Jordan's overanalyzing, Kyle's cracking jokes, and Jackson's pulling ropes shirtless like he's auditioning for a fitness ad.

I try not to notice.
Try being the key word.

🎥 Confessional — Sienna
"I'm focused on the game. Totally focused. The fact that Jackson looks like a slow-motion Gatorade commercial is irrelevant."

We keep up with Fire, neck-and-neck through the mud pit.
Kam calls directions. "Sienna, your side! Marcus, anchor left! Leroy, lift!"

It's working — until Jasmine loses balance and face-plants into the mud.