Blue Night

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

I shivered as I saw the examination area. It looked like Halloween themed Olympics courses. There were people swimming in pools with sharks chasing them, running on tracks with tigers chasing them, bicycle riding with monster trucks chasing them and the worse of all; wrestling penguins. The penguins you know are nice and cute but these penguins were fifty feet tall, had sharp carnivorous teeth in its beak and razor wings.

“I miss fighting with bears,” I told Rio.

“I miss saving you from bears,” he replied.

The guard brought us to the track first and released a hungry mutant cheetah to run after us. The cheetah pounced on me and slashed my face with her claws but I kicked her off and ran as quick as I could before she could slash my brain with her teeth. Did they expect me to out run an animal known for its impossible speed?

“Run faster you idiots!” the coach barked. Rio was far ahead already and I was just struggling to maintain a centimetre distance between me and the killer. The cheetah roared and prepared itself to jump again. I picked up more speed to prevent it from doing so. It was hard running when you knew that your face was losing blood. I felt really light headed.

It snapped at my shirt, pulled me back and threw me to the side of the track. I stumbled away but she pulled me back again. Was I really going to die hungry because of a hungry animal?

“You useless Hax! Fight!” I could not get past the sharp teeth that were heading to rip my neck apart.  The cheetah roared again. I screamed and used my own human claws to slap it across its face. She tried to bite my hand while I tried to push her off. “Fight!” the man screamed again.

I closed my eyes and accepted my fate. I could feel the cheetah’s warm breath on my and could almost feel its teeth penetrating my face. The cheetah was removed from me and I was helped up. “Run,” Rio yelled to me. Thanks for saving me again Rio!

“No helping! Stop running! Stop!” the coach shouted out. No! I was not going to stop running until he told the cheetah to do the same. He pressed a button on the whistle that was dangling from his neck and the cheetah stopped running and froze so we stopped running. “Get over here!” I could see his veins popping out from his neck. I liked the cheetah better than him!!! He looked like he had puppies for breakfast.

“What do you foolish animals think you are doing?” he yelled. “You don’t win the war by helping. You win the war by being an individual! If Spain helped England then half the islands in the Caribbean would have been French. Why? Because helping slows down people! You don’t help.” He had stopped listening to his long speech by time he said ‘foolish animal’. I was not an animal. Scientifically, humans are mammals which are animals but it was still demining to be called an animal! He continued going on and on about the cons of helping and I continued ignoring him. “Do I make myself clear?” He finally ended. “I SAID DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR!” he yelled right after without giving us a chance to reply.  We nodded. He pushed us down hard.

“The answer is yes or no! Have respect for me!” he shouted again. We did not say anything.  He pulled out a long metal stick and put it to my ribs. It instantly sent electrical shocks through my body. Rio kicked his foot causing him to fall too. I just lay flat on the ground. I felt defeated. The coach forced us to run ten laps around the 800 metre track. That’s twice as long as the one in the Olympics. I was dead tired after doing that and the guard still had the unmitigated audacity to push us in the pool to swim away from a shark!

No! I was not going to swim away from a shark when I could simply climb out of the pool. I did just that but unfortunately they pushed me back in and the shark was too close to me for me to attempt to climb out. I was not a quick swimmer but I tried. Again, Rio was ahead of me and the shark was near killing me.

You hear about sharks on television but have you ever looked one in the eye or even tried swimming away from one. Sharks did not earn their title of being dangerous by sitting around and ordering fish and humans to just swim into their mouths. They were fast. To make it worse, this shark was a Shortfin Mako- one of the fastest species of sharks.  I could tell by its demon looking eyes, its angry expression and its hundreds of teeth that were pointed in many directions.  

Another shark came from in front of us and was coming towards Rio. Now two sharks were heading for us on both sides. We plunged deeper into the water and under the sharks to head for the finish line. The sharks were angrier and chased us even quicker than before. We were almost eaten but a miracle happened once again. 

The shark was frozen, just like the cheetah, when we reached the finish line. I climbed out and pathetically grabbed the grass. LAND!!! No more. No more. Please. No more. I begged in my mind.

“Ready to wrestle the penguin?”  the coach asked and laughed viciously. I was ready to pull out his mouth with my bare hands. I could not take any more of this unnecessary pain. The guards threw us in a hot closed up room to dry us off and then brought us to the cage where the penguin was trying to escape. I just stood there, not moving, not breathing, not blinking. I just stood there watching that penguin trying to break out of that metal cage. I just stood there trying to command my feet to run away but they would not obey me.

“Who’s first?” the guard asked. “If you don’t survive, you would be known as a Makron for the rest of your life. You would be a failure to mankind.”  I rathered to be a living failure than a dead hero right now. What about you?

“You can’t make us fight that penguin,” Rio finally said. Gasp! He spoke! The guard laughed.

“Yes. I can. The girl goes first,” he answered and pushed me to the little door at the bottom of the big cage.

“No,” Rio said and stepped in front of me. “What’s the point anyway?”

“Hax are not allowed to answer questions. Why don’t you both go in and die together?” I wanted to say something but I did not even have the energy to speak. My brain was ignoring me today. It had ran away from me by the first sight of the shark. If you see a brain running past you, catch it for me, please.

The wicked guard pushed us into the cage and closed the door quickly. We looked down to the penguins foot and slowly looked up to its head which was far up. It looked down at us and growled. It sounded like the screams of a million banshees all in one ‘animal’.

No time for thinking. Now was action.