Vault

Fifty-Four

"Welcome to the final challenge of this series!" Jimmy exclaimed to the camera, "we've filmed four other videos so if you haven't seen them go watch those and then come back to watch this video! Today is going to be crazy, as I'm sure you know we have four teams who are competing for five million dollars! Like in other videos, the coach receives 10% of the prize money while the competitor keeps the rest. So far Ava and Karl, team red, is in first place with fifteen points. Ty and Chris for team yellow are in second place with nine points. Nolan and Tyler for team blue and Chandler and Taggs for team white are tied for third place with eight points. Here's how today is going to work, we've set up basically a triathlon across Raleigh and we've placed flags for in each teams colors along the way. The challenge is simple, they have to make their way to the finish line, collecting as many of their flags as they can find. Everyone is starting outside of our warehouse where we set up a hike. The hike is three miles long. When they reach the end, they'll receive an envelope for where to go next. Once they've all finished the three main tasks, collecting a gold flags marks they've finished the race," Jimmy explained before he lifted his shirt to speak directly into his mic, "like in other challenges, you get more points for finishing first, but really they want to do their best to collect as many flags as possible. Each flag is worth one point. So even if Ava finishes first but doesn't grab a single flag, she could come in last place because the guys gets points for the flags they find."

We all stood around while Jimmy got ready to let us begin. It was early, which to me only meant that this is likely going to be one hell of a long day. But this is it, this is what all of the other challenges were meant to prepare us for in a way. Well, not really because I can't imagine that balancing the word subscribe or hopscotching for a mile could actually do anything to prepare me for something else. And Karl wasn't really allowed to tell me anything about this challenge, just that I had to wear a bathing suit under my clothes and I should be prepared for a long race, so I have no idea what's going to happen.

Jimmy gave us all the signal and we each took off on the hike. There wasn't a real path in the woods, just the small one that Karl and I walked down to get to our super romantic fairytale dinner on our first "real" date. But, there were markers on trees as everyone hiked through the woods to tell us we were going in the right direction. This hike is three miles, so the real question is how to pace ourselves. I know my endurance, and I know that I can jog this hike and still be fine to do whatever challenge comes next, but can Karl?

"Don't worry about me beautiful, I will keep up with you," Karl assured me, reading my thoughts, "don't let me slow you down."

I smiled as I caught a glance at a red flag. I left the path we were on and climbed a tree to collect my first flag of the day. I don't know how many flags there are to find, but hopefully I can at least find most of them.

"Do you know how many flags there are?" I asked Karl as I got back to the path so we could keep hiking.

"Jimmy wouldn't tell us the final number, but I know there's at least ten," Karl explained.

I nodded as I picked up my pace slightly to make my way through the hike. I kept my eye out for flags, doing my best to find as many of them as I could along the way.

"Is that a flag?" I asked, pointing high up on a tree off of the path.

"Unfortunately, I think it is," Karl sighed, "why Jimmy? Why do you have to do things like this?"

I made my way over to the tree and carefully climbed up, making my way to one of the tallest branches of the tree to grab our flag. If I hadn't been looking around up high, expecting Jimmy to pull something like putting the treasure chest in a tree on the island, I never would've seen this flag. Knowing my best friend as much as I do could actually be more of an advantage in the challenge than I thought it would be.