Rejuvenation

Chapter 5

The air was thick with tension as the contestants lined up, someone was going to eliminated. The gods had stayed up the night before having countless arguments about who should go home but it was finally decided. Falos waited for the tension to get so thick you could cut it with a knife before stepping forward. "Yesterday, some of you put up some amazing effort in fighting me. You really gave it your all and for that I applaud you," he said smiling at Xola and Atlas before continuing with "for those of you that did not, I am severely disappointed," he said glaring daggers at everyone who did nothing yesterday. He then continued with "the person we chose to eliminate is up for elimination because she did not try her best, she gave little to no effort. Zelus, you have been eliminated." With that, he stepped back and let Lilith lighten the load.

"You have been eliminated, but you will not leave here a loser. You will leave with two hundred galleons" she said giving a warm smile as mouths dropped open. That was a lot of money considering she was the first one out, the gods would up the amount by fifty coins every time someone was eliminated, call it a way of giving back to the people, and for saying yes. "Come, I will walk you to the door" she said leading the girl away from the rest of the group.

When Lilith returned she was accompanied by trays of food and drinks that she miraculously held steady, in a scarily confident way. Xola stood up to grab a sandwich but decided against it when she saw the glares on her peers faces, she would not like to kiss the ground once again. Once everyone had eaten Lilith grinned devilishly, "alright, now if you'll follow me it's time for traininnngg," she said in a sing-song voice skipping her way back to the castle. Everyone gulped and reluctantly got up to follow. Falos couldn't hold back a grin as he followed them, this was bound to be entertaining.

Golden rays of light slowly disappeared as contestants lay on the floor panting. At some point, there was tears and a lot of hurling but training for the day was finally over. Lilith was in the corner doing her last reps of push ups, as Falos watched amusement sparkling in his eyes. "Alright everyone training's over, tomorrow you will be tested on how well you handle pain. Get a good nights sleep and ya know, clean up you guys stink" Lilith said laughing and turning to walk away. Xola was astounded this woman just did everything they did and wasn't even breaking a sweat, she had to have superpowers, ones that she didn't already have. Xolas legs had given out on the run and there was no way in hell she was getting off the floor for at least the next five minutes. She closed her eyes and savored the feeling of the cold wood on her face, as feet shuffled out of the door she felt a kick to her back and then there was one pair of feet coming towards her. "Come on, let's get you to bed" giggled a voice picking her up and taking her to her room. Xola recognized this voice as Liliths. She was very awake but she didn't want to walk after running so she let the goddess drop her on her bed and watched as she left. She pondered the last few days, when she stepped into the room the other contestants would glare at her and ignore her as if she didn't exist. The gods had assigned everyone a role and for the moment Xola was number one, it was the source and cause of all of the envy and hate in the house. She heard the whispers when she wasn't looking, she also had to watch out for feet because people would often try to trip her in front of the gods to make her look useless and clumsy.

It was some time past midnight and Xola was still up, she had frequent nightmares so she was accustomed to being a night owl. They were always blurry and confused her immensely to the

point where she had to take a pepper up potion. Xola decided that she was just going to take a hot bath and try to relax for the trial later in the day. She ran the water and slowly slipped off her clothes as the mirror began to steam, it was a shame she didn't notice the shadow at the edge of the mirror creeping closer to her from the darkness of the bedroom. She slipped herself into the bath and leaned her head back submerging herself in the large tub. She felt as if she was floating, completely free of responsibility; it was like the stress of today melted off of her body. Just as the need for air arised, a hand gripped her hair preventing her from lifting her head. The attacker was violent, slamming her head into the bottom of the tub repeatedly, pulling her up occasionally just to slam her back down again. Xola was panicking, her arms and legs thrashed violently as flashbacks played in her mind. The burn of water in her eyes, the searing pain of the sea salt burning her lungs, and the thoughts of never seeing her family again. When she finally snapped out of it, it was too late. Her lungs were on fire, and her body began going numb, she stopped flailing around wildly. Black dots began to fill her vision when her attacker was finally thrown off. She heard a loud slam and a whimper of pain before the static took over.