TAINTED ROSE

Chapter 6 - Luck

“Target spotted. Commence action, “death trap”.” The jungle became bright as Adolpha opened her eyes. The red ‘eyes’ had belonged to….

A small, metal square, two spikes driven into the tree, was in front of her, its lights now off. Adolpha was unnerved. What did it mean by death trap?

She did not have to wait for long for an answer. A shadow appeared in the corner of her eye. Turning her head swiftly, Adolpha found herself face to face with a rocket, directed straight for her, that was coming out of the arm of a large, green tinted automaton.

“Triggers in 3…2…” Adolpha’s instincts kicked in. As the rocket came hurtling at her brain, she threw the large rock that sat on her lap and shut her eyes tightly.

“Candidate has completed phase one. Begin phase two shortly. Give target 15 minute recess to die from potential injuries, trauma…” As the robot voice trailed down the list of ways that they hoped she would perish, Adolpha smiled to herself weakly. “I’m…. I’m alive!” Shaken, Adolpha inspected herself for injuries. Besides a throbbing arm from tossing the heavy rock, she seemed all right except for the cut she got from the stupid…. Miraculous rock. Maybe Helen wasn’t so stupid after all…

Adolpha hopped down from the tree and popped open the mechanism on the robot’s back. “Wires!” In a frenzy, Adolpha pulled lengths of wire out of the robot. She hadn’t felt so happy in a while. “Phase Two begins in 10… 9… 8…” Adolpha stuffed the wire into her bag then scampered back up the tree. It was going to be a long night.

-

The next 35 hours and 42 phases came and went quickly. Session after session of throwing the rock at the rockets and robots, pulling wire out of their backs…

“This is boring.” Adolpha sat on her tree, knotting the wires into long and thick, ten-string strands of rope. She almost wished it were harder. Almost. The 30 hours hadn’t made her that careless with her thoughts.

Taking a small sip from the ¾ empty bottle, Adolpha’s stomach grumbled painfully. She had learnt early on that eating the bread just made her thirsty and the animal smelling jerky was pretty gross. Helen probably tossed that in just in case. Still, she didn’t want to die of starvation and took another try at biting through the jerky.

Adolpha rubbed her jaw as she rummaged through the bag, bored stiff. “The pill…” Adolpha was still wondering about the effect of it and came up with some hypothesises. Suicide pill? Adolpha honestly didn’t think that Helen, of all people, would help someone die. Sleeping pill? Helen’s not that stupid to risk someone falling asleep and dying, having been unaware of the robot’s rocket arms pointed straight at her. Gastric pill? Adolpha thought hard about this one. It was likely. Helen wasn’t like Rose or Natasha, who thought only of the bare needs to survive the F.A.S.T test. This was the girl who gave Adolpha a rock… A rock!

“Might as well try…” Adolpha popped the pill into her mouth and forced herself to swallow. It tasted foul, but Adolpha was hopeful.

“Ah….” A sudden flood of relief came over her stomach and Adolpha sighed, the beast in her stomach soothed. Now that she could think about something other than her stomach pains, she realised it had been a while since she hear the robot voice or had to go through a “phase”. Suspicious, she sat up and shimmied down the tree. “I guess I’d better keep moving.” Adolpha mused as she stretched her tired limbs.

“Candidate has survived 42/43 of the phases. Begin: DEATH.” Adolpha stopped in her tracks. “No more messing around,” A small voice in her brain told her as she started sprinting. Suddenly, there was a loud roar behind her…

“Oh my… WHAT IS THAT?!” Adolpha’s eyes widened as she turned to stare, mouth gaping, at the monster that towered over her. Two times above her head, the giant dog robot looked ready to eat her alive. Adolpha’s limbs turned to jelly as she realised why there had been such a gap. To make her take the routine for granted. To take the situation for granted. To get a good chance to kill her.

“Ahhhh!” Adolpha hopped away from the robot’s paw in a nick of time as it came crashing down. Its toe could easily crush her, let alone the entire paw. Adolpha scrambled to her feet and began tearing through the undergrowth. “Can’t kill, can’t fight…. Only death…” Adolpha thought as she ran. Thought of her chances, her new friends, and the high possibility of being crushed by a giant robot dog.

“Oof!” Adolpha stumbled over an elevated tree root and rolled on the ground. The giant robot was upon her in a flash. It reared up its leg, ready to smash the girl to bits. As the giant paw went flying at her, Adolpha shut her eyes for the last time…

Nothing. Adolpha opened her eyes to see the giant iron paw frozen in the air and began tearing at the eyes from pure, sheer joy. The F.A.S.T test was over.

“Adolpha! Adolpha!” Adolpha wiped the water streaming down her face away and sat up to see Helen running towards her, stopwatch in her hand. Her eyesight blurred and she entered exhaustion and darkness…