Into the Light (A Splatoon Story)

The Search

When I was five years old, my training instructor almost killed me.

It was an accident, of course. No one meant for it to happen. But, as most accidents are, it was caused by someone – two someones, actually – making a simple mistake when my life was in their hands.

I, along with nine other five-year-olds, was standing at the edge of a snowy path, looking out at an icy sheet. A black path lay underneath, staining the ice in some places. A dark forest lay beyond, giving the whole place a frightening air. The sun has long set, shadows now stretching over the snow. I see the silhouette of Inkopolis in the distance, and shiver. It looks so scary in the darkness...like a giant monster waiting to pounce.

I snapped to attention as my instructor started talking about the weapons used by the Inklings along this path.

"They are giant, impenetrable machines that can kill you upon impact," He said in his lecture voice. Then again, as I thought about it, he didn't really have any other voice. "They seem to be resistant to ink, as well as any other weapons."

One girl raised her hand. "Might we try crushing one?"

"You'd have to get close to one first, and by that point you'd be dead," the instructor snapped.

We all flinched, imagining what it would feel like to have such a colossal thing smash into you.

"Our task is to find the Mini Zapfish that was lost here," the instructor continued. "Find a partner, and you will search together. If I blow the whistle, that means we need to evacuate immediately. The group who finds it first...receives extra rations tonight."

Extra rations...the hunger that had been gnawing at me since this morning began to burn in my stomach. The other kids looked around, clearly wanting the food as much as I did. We only get a small piece of bread, a strip of dry meat, and a glass of water every day. The idea of more...it was enough to turn us against one another.

I glanced at the girl standing next to me, and she shrugged. We took our places next to each other, shivering in the icy winter's wind.

"You may begin."

We split up and frantically began scrabbling in the snow, searching for the trademark glow of the Mini Zapfish. My partner grabbed my hand and dragged me out onto the black path, recklessly charging ahead. I tried to pull her back, knowing how dangerous it was to be walking out onto the path used by a weapon, and she tugged me forward again, desperate for the food. We wrestled for a moment, each wanting to go a different direction.

Finally, she won, yanking me forward onto the ice. I hit the ground with a jarring thud.

I slipped on the ice and slid out onto the path. The ground was shaking underneath me. Stones skittered around the path on their own, along with a few shards of ice. Something was coming - something huge.

I looked up, panic rising in my throat, and was blinded by a bright light. For a moment, it felt like time itself was frozen. And then - impact.

I've been told that the instructor had been distracted by something else. He surely hadn't meant for this to happen. But, nonetheless, I was lying directly in the path of one of the very enemies he'd been telling me to avoid.

A car.

I'd also been told that the person in the cockpit tried to stop the monstrosity. Unfortunately, they did not succeed. The ice sent it forward, slamming it into me. It did just as my instructor said it would – plowed over me and kept going, leaving in its wake a barely conscious child and nine other traumatized five-year-olds.

That's when my world turned upside down.

(Author's note: Thank you for reading! Please remember that this is my first story, so please don't hate on me. I hope you grow to love Rosa as much as I do!)