Levels

Some Peace

Allessa and Dayl were exhausted, physically as mentally. Every Level seemed to destroy them more and more. And with only 24 hours between each Level, was it even possible to complete all 15 Levels without drowning in despair and debilitation? Every day was now a fight through enervation trying to find the strength that kept their bodies going.

Allessa and Dayl were sleeping. Next to each other. But it didn't bother neither Dayl nor Allessa, the only goal was to rest their bodies, rebuild their energy, to let their brains sort things out so they wouldn't drive themselves to madness or insanity.

After twelve hours of sleep, Dayl got up. He walked to the little sink at the end of the room and splashed water into his dry face. His vision was still blurry and his muscles still soar. After all the pressure of pushing his body through Level 0 and Level 1, he didn't even realise how bad his body was affected by the constant prostration.

Every part of his body felt numb and he realized, that yet he wasn't ready to be up again, so he laid down next Allessa again.

Dayl noticed that even after all they had been through, Allessa still had a nice smell on her and he knew, that it couldn't have been any perfume, it was her natural smell.

 He fell asleep again.

Allessa got up. She heaved her body out of bed and walked straight into the tiny bathroom. She looked back and saw Dayl sleeping, arms and legs stretched in every direction over the whole bed, the blanket curled up between his arms. His black hair was muddled up and all over his face.

He looks like a sloth. Allessa chuckled and for a moment caught herself thinking of Dayl as her boyfriend, but then, went into the shower to let the hot water run over her body and numb her bruises inflicted by the wooden splitters.

Dayl opened his eyes, slowly. His eyelids were heavy and wanted to close themselves every time he forced them to stay open. He could hear the sound of water splashing on the ground coming from the bathroom behind him. He imagined the water surrounding Allessas well-formed body, running down every curve of her figure.

But Dayl flicked the thought away, dismissing it as inappropriate. But because he had to wait until Allessa came out of the shower other thoughts came to his mind and for a moment the way he waited for her to come out of the shower, the way they slept next to each other, felt like another life, a life he would never have, even in the highly unlikely case that they'd win the Levels.

Allessa came out of the shower, her hair still wet and a towel rapped around her body. She eyed him like there was something to figure out.

"Get in the shower, we have to prepare ourselves for the next level." Her expression turned serious.

Without saying a word, Dayl stood up and got under the shower.

Don't let yourself make up things that'll never happened, you'll only be disappointed in the end.

While the water was running down his face, his mind seemed to go other places.

Once he was out of the shower, Allessa was already dressed in a new tunic and was packing a huge backpack with all sorts of things.

"I thought you said a backpack would only slow us down and that we wouldn't need anything, besides the stuff we could carry, because we only have 18 hours for each level to complete anyway?"

"Did I? Well I changed my mind." Allessa suddenly looked angry, or uncertain of something, perhaps the whole thing was just too much for her at the moment, so Dayl didn't mention it.

"Get dressed, we are going to train some close up combat" Allessa said in a serious tone.

"Close up combat? What?" Dayl answered aghast.

Allessa remained silent, which was totally unusual for her. But anyway, Dayl got dressed as quickly as he could and went to Allessa, who was already training her sword moves outside the supply room.

As soon as she saw him, she tucked her sword away and looked at him with a serious face.

"Attack me!" she commanded him.

"Attack you? What? I don't want to hur—"

Before he could even finish his sentence he was laying on his back, his face facing the high roof of the ship, gasping for air.

"This is pathetic" Allessa looked down on him, with a disgusted look on her face.

Dayl expected her face to ease and resolve her earnestness as a mutual joke of hers, but she didn't, this time she was dead serious about it.

He got up and rushed to her, trying to grab her and throw her to the ground. But Allessa merle dogged to her right and while he stumbled, she pushed him with both hands at his back facedown to the ground.

"Attenders, Level 2 starts in five minutes."

Allessa turned away from Dayl, leaving him lying on the ground and stepped on the platform.

Dayl got up, anger rushing through his body he followed Allessa to the platform. He stood beside her, his face hurting.

"What the hell is wrong with you Allessa?! What happened to you ha?! I didn't do anything to you!"

Dayl snarled at her.

"Concentrated on Level 2 and stop moaning." She said in a calm sort of manner.

"You know what, screw you!"