Andrew Bailey & The Eternal Maze

Chapter - 17

During the nights that her 'characteristic' was changing, the main reason why she felt so much pain was that poison had spilled into her own organs. It wasn't as bad as it sounds, sure it did cause the pain but it was a hallucinating type of poison.

The first night, only a small dose was introduced to her body, thus the nightmare occurred. However, the second night a larger dose made her have a haunting experience, her body tried resisting it but she didn't have the antibodies to fight the poison. The poison spread throughout her body and affected her sight, perception and soon her muscles. Thus explaining the episode of her very eventful evening. It wasn't the fault of her stress at all.

Finally coming to an end was the scene at her classroom. This time something special came out of her body rather than causing chaos inside, it headed out. Poisonous gas, the dose was too little to be deadly though it was odorless and colorless. Even the lecturer who was a full fledged adult did not escape the silent wraith of the gas. Along with the mistake when he touched Snow when her body was going through another type of adjustment with her 'characteristic'. It caused the lecturer to receive a helping of poison that was running through Snow's body and was down for the count and when rushed for emergency treatment, he wasn't heard from again.

From that moment on, Snow was treated as a 'monster', no one dared to be near her, no one would touch her.

Ethena stared as Snow while she saw her gritting her teeth and tried to force a smile. Snow was treated like a ticking time bomb ever since the accident occurred. Friends who were close became distant, she was all alone within the institute and had been alienated till the day the coming of age ceremony arrived.

Snow actually heard rumors of Ethena during the ceremony before the game begun. A lone wolf who was majestic from afar. The daughter of Athena, they had similar circumstances only Ethena apparently chose to be alone. Snow wanted to befriend Ethena no matter what, that's why she wanted to keep her aura a secret. She didn't want Ethena to be frightened of her, she didn't want to be alone again.

"If you're afraid of me, you could leave you know. I won't blame you, many did after all. I'm used to it."

Snow lied through her teeth, she was so sure of rejection that she rather reject herself nicely rather than people giving all sorts of excuses or looks of fear. The looks hurt the most to Snow, worse than words any day.

"As I said earlier to those two, I'm busy taking care of a certain my pace idiot so I'm not leaving you and I'm not afraid of you either." Ethena petted on Snow's head and Snow never felt happier. In fact she had tears running down her cheeks with a grin from ear to ear.

"I certain gained a troublesome friend haven't I."

"Say that again." Snow said with a smile.

"Say what again?"

"That I'm your friend of course."

"Don't you feel embarrassed? Just get your butt moving, we got a game to survive."

At the time no one in the game could know this however among all the participants, already fifty percent of them were out of the game. Thirty percent of that fifty percent were injured severely and the other twenty were out of commission, permanently.

When the day turned to night, they both couldn't find the next stage. The entire day the area was filled with screams and all sorts of animal sounds. Navigating around those led them to avoid the predators but this was seriously getting more and more dangerous for them. The night was so peaceful that not a sound was made around them. Silence meant either the others became smarter and kept quiet or only the decent ones were left and the not so decent ones well, you know what I mean.

The night was growing darker and Snow started to grumble how not getting enough rest is going to damage her skin. It wasn't ideal to rest in a jungle that was crawling with beasts however it was so dark that they probably wouldn't have made much progress so they stopped and set up camp. They both ended up staying awake in shifts, Snow started snoring right away, Ethena wondered to herself how could Snow snore away in a jungle full of danger with a person she just met. Naïve? Perhaps but also sweet.

When it was Ethena's turn to sleep, she was a little hesitant but didn't take long before she nodded off. Sleeping outside when the wind was blowing was relaxing. The rustle of the leaves was relaxing yet it kept her on the bother line of sleep and consciousness. That was the very reason why when something fast was aimed at her, she could hear something was passing through the leaves and it was going really fast. Ethena woke up and found a sleeping Snow beside her. Grabbing Snow and getting out of the way, only to find a loud thud on the tree that they were just resting on. A large sharp object which was entirely made out of stone.

"Snow, just why were you snoring away without a care in the world when you were supposed to be up watching for danger. Just look at that thing stuck in the tree. It could have been one of us there."

"But you just looked so cosy under that tree. I couldn't help it, I feel bad about it, sorry. I really am."

"Well look what we have here, the rude little twerp who rejected Atlas's invitation." a voice from behind the trees said.

This voice, sounds like the annoying one from earlier on, Ethena remembered his name was... Ben?

"Are you trying to get payback from earlier Mr. Ben?" Ethena said.

As a figure appeared out from the bushes, with a cheeky smile and his hands up in the air.

"Just what could you be talking about I wonder?"