Opus

12. Fumble

As soon as I cross the threshold, bile rises into my mouth. Breathe. One step. A second. A third. Just another one, I urge myself. That fourth step, to prove to myself that I can do it, is my last before I bend over and hurl my breakfast all over the cobblestones. Poor stones. Years of immobility and then, this.

Mine is not a discreet, ladylike heaving. Repeatedly, endlessly it seems, my stomach contracts, purging itself, and me, until I have nothing left. Five minutes, ten, an hour later, long after the gater stopped staring at me, I spit and sit on the ground, panting, near exhaustion. Even then, my abs aching, mucus and saliva still thicken my mouth. I may have wet myself. Fucking breathe!

Rule 22: Gaters agree to remain posted at their designated gate during sets, and afterward until their designated player has returned, or until cleanup referees retrieve said player, whichever occurs first. Offenders will be kicked out of the competition and/or employment and ban for life. If applicable, offender's name will be removed from Competition's Wall of Fame.

I inched away on all four, away from the gate, away from temptation. Four little steps separate me from the end. No more competition. No more dead player. Did he have a girlfriend? Parents? A kid? Gasping for breath, I can't remember. Why can I remember!

I need to find a hole in which to die. Scrapping both knees and hands, I crawl in my puke, my piss, over moss, stones, putrid rodents too, until at last, I creep into a small opening. Perhaps it used to be a cave vent in a half-demolished bakery? The smell of stale flour triggers another bout of dry heaving.

Curled into a ball, my tears stinging my eyes, I don't dare close my eyelids. I've managed not to think about the last set's events until now. How stupid of me. I thought if I just pretended hard enough nothing had happened, I could change the past. Life doesn't work like that. Obviously. Blurry, black-and-white images now fill my head. As if the fight unfolded in mere second-long fits and starts. This time, I can't overthink my way safely off of the ledge.

I punch the ground until my hands are raw. I bang my forehead until blood trickles down into my mouth, and dizziness engulfs me. My life movie keeps on expanding, my brain rewinding over and over, filling in the blanks until I can recall every excruciating, ghastly, precise detail of the unfortunate meeting with my fellow player.

With the pain comes guilt. I did take a life, after all. Never an easy process for me. Kendrick used to tease me about it. Not that he was any more casual about it than I am. Asshole.

I cannot do this. Kendrick be damned. I cannot do this!

However crushing the guilt, it doesn't stifle my relief. I am alive. Selfish, yes, but there are extenuating circumstances, your honor. My conscience is the worst judge of all, but I argue with it nevertheless.

Exhibit A. The player started it.

He did indeed.

Also, I don't know for a fact that he is thoroughly dead. The Competition reported him out of the play, but he could have resigned, couldn't he? I've researched him in my free time after the set. The man had no next of kin, no friends−now I remember, thank God! He won't be missed. Players are usually loners. We're all somewhat crazy. Otherwise, why would we play this stupid game?

There are no universal strategies in the playground, except gather chips and stay in the game. The observers just observe and remove the corpses. Great job, guys! Hence, by the laws of the playground, I committed no crime. Somehow, that's no consolation.

My nervous breakdown takes a backseat when I wake up with a start sometime later. I stink. I hurt. I'm freezing. I have a pounding headache. My nose is running. My wounds are crusty, thick with dust. What I took for flour scent in my retching feast turns out to be merely rotting rodents. Puke, urine, decaying rat flesh, I smell peachy! Just fucking great!

I clench my fists until my nails dig into my palms. I uncurl my fingers one by one from my left pinkie to my right one. I grope for my knife, a new one, and holding it firmly in my left hand, I stab my right palm. I switch hand. And repeat. My cuts are jerky; they bleed profusely. Thanks to the pain, a cold, dead calm settles over me. I drop the blood-soaked handle and startles when the blade hits the ground with a metallic thud. Another unusable weapon.

The slow, reluctant peek at my time band, its color almost faded, jerks me into motion. It's much, much later. Too late for me to be finicky about which spheres to pick. With less than two hours left, I need all I can find. Sheer pigheadedness propels me out of my hiding hole. I didn't go through all of those sets to be booted out now. They'll have to throw me out kicking and screaming before I quit. Kendrick won twice, damn him. I gave him my word. I want wee on a platter. I want to taste the sweet blood of revenge.

Competitive much? my conscience hisses.

"Fuck you."

My curse turns into a grumble as I wiggle out of my hideout.

I run toward the sphere beckoning a block down. Raw as I am right now, the spheres' vibrations pulse through me from ten blocks away. I pick a chip. Sprint to another one. Snap its chip. Barely stop for a glowing target, and run, run, run. No time to keep track of my score. I'm a mess already; I don't need more cuts to stay focus.

In my frenzy, when I collide into another player steps from my next fifteen-point sphere, I swing my bag out and knock him out. A lucky punch. He doesn't even grunt before dropping to the ground. I check for a pulse, turn him on his side in the recovery position, steal his loot, snatch up the target's chip and move on. What? His chip pile was not that big; he would have been kicked out anyway. At least now, he can blame his failure on someone else.

All players cheat, your honor.

This is nothing. Last time, I cheated death.

Rule 5: Each electronic sphere can only be marked (shut down via skin contact to release sphere's ID chip) once per set. Points are calculated electronically upon return of collected chips to the referee at the player's designated gate and automatically added to the player's scoreboard. Results shall be communicated to the Competition Registration Desk's billboard simultaneously. Chips calculations are final.