The Heart of Stone

Chapter 1: Oka

I darted around the corner - ducking behind a book shelf and un-clipping my crowbar from my belt - getting ready to break into the ventilation shaft. 

This was my favourite time of the day - when I got to do training exercises with my sisters Lia and Eli - because I got to beat their asses at hide and seek. 

Although I was the slowest runner, I could hide in the smallest places and almost could never be found which made me the best hide and seek player. However, Lia was the best fighter and Eli was the best runner and planner, making the three of us combined a very well matched team. 

I looked both ways before pounding across the hallway and swinging myself up to the platform beside the ventilation shaft, digging into my pocket for a stink bomb, just in case one of the others caught me before I broke into the shaft.

Chuckling to myself, I wedged the crow bar through the cracks and jumped onto it, causing the grating to fall to the floor with a crash. 

Grinning now that everything was going to plan, I ran into the shaft and moved as fast as I could through the tunnels, darting around every corner and making it impossible for any pursuers to catch me. 

I eventually arrived at the shaft at the top of the room - nearest to the ceiling - and peered down to see Eli and Lia heading towards the sound of my crash, falling exactly into my trap. 

Both Eli and Lia arrived at the same time and quickly jumped away from each other as they remembered they weren't on the same team. The game was modified so that every man was for themselves and both Eli and Lia liked to avoid each other as much as possible so that they wouldn't have to deal with fighting until the end of the game.

They circled around each other - their thoughts about catching me long gone - and I watched in amusement as Lia lunged at Eli and the two girls began wrestling around the room, trying to pull each other's red flags from their pockets. As soon as the flag was pulled then that person was disqualified. 

I headed back downwards, looking through the different cracks in the old air conditioning shaft and watched as Eli and Lia continued to fight, each unable to grab the others flags. 

Lia managed to jump on top of Eli and crush her against the ground, winning the wrestling match like I expected her to and I watched as she reached over to pull Eli's flag. 

Suddenly - with a burst of energy I didn't know she had - Eli flung Lia off of her and darted off through the book shelves escaping any danger.

"COWARD!" Lia shouted after her, breathing heavily from the fight. Her nostrils were flaring and I knew that she was mad Eli had escaped. She had lost the perfect chance to win the game.

I sighed now that my plan had failed and decided to go with plan B.

"Looking for me?" I mocked and jumped into the isle, landing right in front of Lia. 

She jumped and scrambled backwards, surprised at my sudden appearance before collecting herself and standing up, smoothing her hair down with her hand.

"You shouldn't have done that." Lia said coolly "Because I'm not going to let you escape."

It was actually really funny. When Lia got into the mood of things, she was deadly serious and actually could become the player in the game. Like, whenever we would act out plays for fun, she would actually become the character and sometimes had a hard time snapping out of it.

"Are you sure about that?" I answered, tilting my head coolly to one side.

Lia jumped towards me in response and I quickly darted down a corridor between two more giant book shelves, heading towards my trap. If I could lure Lia into it then I would easily be able to grab her flag and disqualify her.