Are You The Complete Player?

1/2 IS KISSING CONSIDERED LEWD?

CHAPTER FIVE: IS KISSING CONSIDERED LEWD?

People all over the world gasped in absolute shudder as Romanian tennis player, Rodica Baciu, lay dead on the floor on their television screen. It was hard to believe that Baciu, a tennis icon, who had won more than 50 titles on tour, was dead.

Yesterday was supposed to be the commencement of the French Open tennis tournament which was to be held in Paris, France, but a lot of strange incidents started happening days before the tournament’s projected start.

Levi Keller allegedly died of heart failure, so did other tennis players all over the world that were coincidentally supposed to compete in the tournament. The manner of deaths was eerily similar to one another, based on the statements made by their family and friends who were with them at the time of their deaths. They were apparently checking their e-mails and talking about the tournament when they suddenly just dropped dead without a warning. Autopsies performed on the deceased showed no other possible causes of death except for heart-related complications. Strangely, it appeared as if their hearts simply just stopped beating.

Jonas Pavlis, a nine-year-old Lithuanian boy, nephew to professional tennis player Krystupas Pavlis, said in his statement that his uncle Krystupas talked to Egor Milevskiy over the phone on the same day Milevskiy was reported dead.

Authorities would have interrogated his tennis player uncle, if not for the fact that he and 135 other players simply vanished out of thin air on the day of their supposed flight to Paris to play in the prestigious Grand Slam tournament. Team members of all 136 players claimed the players insisted to take the flight on their own and were acting really strange a day before the flight.

Alien ab.duction theories had begun circulating all over the world following the disappearances. It was simply impossible for 136 people to vanish without a trace. Some eyewitnesses claimed they saw some players at Frankfurt Airport, and there was indeed a record of the players being there. However, no one could tell which flight they boarded on, as their names were not listed in any of the Frankfurt to Paris flights that was scheduled that day.

Just when people thought it couldn’t get any more sinister than that, they realised they were wrong. Twenty-four hours after the disappearances, a new television network with a WIC logo in it appeared on televisions all over the world. It was like Netflix, except it was a free TV network, a subscription was not needed to watch.

In the beginning, the show being broadcasted on the channel appeared to be that of a flight scene. The setting clearly showed people boarded on an aeroplane. When the scene showed a passenger making his way to the center of the aisle to make a speech, TV viewers who recognised his face felt fear they have never felt before. The passenger looked exactly like Zhizhen Chang, the Chinese player who was among the missing 136. He was talking about an e-mail and how the players weren’t permitted to take their team members with them on the flight.

When he dropped to the floor mid-speech and seemed to have stopped breathing despite attempts to revive him by the other passengers, things started getting freakier. One of the passengers trying to revive the Chinese player resembled Miroslav Petrovic, the top-ranked tennis player in the world, very much. Another appeared to have very similar physical features with Marek Cerny, a player from Czech Republic.

Suspicions of it being a live broadcast instead of an old, strange film instantly arose. Numerous attempts to uncover where the transmission of the mysterious WIC TV network was coming from proved futile. Even with the help of top organisations with expertise in broadcasting and technology all over the world, no one could figure out the mystery. The broadcast couldn’t be stopped because nobody knew how to stop it.

People watched helplessly as Anna Makarova seemed to have jumped to her death. It was horrifying. Anna’s grandmother wailed in agony for her beloved granddaughter. She knew something evil must be going on. Anna wouldn’t ever commit suicide.

A creepy, manufactured voice was heard from the broadcast, explaining to the players that WIC had granted Anna’s wish to be taken out of the flight.

The voice also eventually asked Ellen Sanders, a player from Australia, a question about the number of players left in the competition. When Ellen couldn’t answer, an unknown force seemed to have hauled her straight to the plane window to fall to her death.

Thus began the most unexplained mystery that has ever happened in the world. WIC TV had kept broadcasting since then. People had watched in absolute horror as players who refused to follow the rules or play a game, along with those who lost in particular games, died horribly on the spot. Sometimes the transmission would be cut off for a minute or two as if it lost satellite signal. The screen would show a stylised “WIC’s Are You The Complete Player?” logo instead. But the broadcast was mostly on 24 hours a day.

Over in Romania, Baciu’s most loyal fans started a vigil in honour of her short but memorable life. She had been an inspiration most especially to tennis-loving Romanian fans. They also started a protest against the Romanian government for the disturbing WIC broadcast to be taken down. But the government couldn’t do anything about it. It was a global phenomenon and not just in Romania. Nobody could even trace the location of the broadcast for them to rescue the players. The only way any of the players could survive the ordeal seemed to be winning the tournament. And that could only mean one thing: only one player would make it out alive…

***

Lucija Babic hugged Nika Ivanec’s lifeless body, weeping uncontrollably. “I’m so sorry, Nika. It’s my fault you’re dead.” Selene Argyros couldn’t help but agree, but she didn’t have the energy to voice it out. Nika was one of her best friends. She couldn’t believe Nika was dead now. It was Lucija’s fault for wanting Carmella Cortez to be on their team so badly. They could have easily found one another between the four of them and Krystupas Pavlis. They didn’t need Carmella at all.

She fought the urge to tell Lucija to her face how much she wished she had died instead of Nika. But she realised it wasn’t worth it. Lucija was grieving, too, and blaming her wouldn’t bring Nika back to life.

“Mi amore, you have to let her go. Her body will disappear in less than three minutes like the others. I don’t want you to disappear with her. Please stay with me. I can’t make it without you,” Pietro pleaded to the grieving Lucija.

Lucija took a deep breath and accepted Pietro’s hand to help her get back on her feet. She backed away from Nika’s body, and so did Selene.

Meanwhile, Mira Ivanova was silently weeping in a corner for the demise of Rodica Baciu. She felt guilty for not choosing her to be a part of her team. But how the hell would she know Rodica would not survive the next game? They weren’t really good friends like she and Grace Brown were. Rodica was competitive and not too friendly with other players she considered a serious threat to her in winning titles. But still, Rodica was one of the players on tour she could actually stand. Most of them were just spoiled brats to her. Rodica was one of the decent ones and now she was dead.

Grace stood beside Mira, petrified over Rodica’s death. If this was a tennis tournament, Rodica would have had a big chance in making it to the top eight. But this was a tournament in hell, and maybe Rodica wasn’t the complete player after all.

The five dead bodies vanished before everyone’s eyes. But they had no time to mourn as they were instructed by the disembodied voice to go to the dining area to eat their breakfast. The single table which contained the bagels and breadsticks provided for them in the first game was no longer there. Instead, various round tables with nutritious food awaited everyone.

Everyone ate as silently as they could. They were a mess emotionally, but they were certainly hungry.

Krystupas was seated across Carmella and was just watching her eat. When she finally looked up and noticed, she gave him a quizzical look.

“You’re left-handed,” Krystupas observed. She didn’t respond to it and just waited for him to say more. “I always have a hard time reading a left-hander’s game. I guess it’s also why I can’t seem to read your mind all the time.” He smiled at her shyly. “I have a good intuition on people and that’s why I try to keep to myself most of the time.”

“You mean people suck?” Carmella asked. “I agree, 100%.”

“I guess you could say that. People sometimes fail us. A chimaera is much more helpful,” Krystupas said. Carmella laughed at that.

“Indeed. Anyway, I can’t read your mind most of the time, too. You’re so… random,” she said, chuckling softly.

Borysko joined them shortly at their table. From their small talk while eating, Carmella found out that Borysko was also friends with Will. They were still talking about their fondest memories of Will, when suddenly, a hologram appeared on the walls. It was huge and it contained the scores they got from the disturbing game they had just played. The names were written in various colours. Each group had a designated colour.

Muffled chattering echoed all over the place as players started talking about the results. Carmella’s group got 200 points and received the highest points overall. Borysko looked evidently pleased about it. Krystupas fought the urge to smile, not wanting to appear insensitive. Some players died tragically. There was nothing to smile about. Pietro and Lucija looked gloomy and not in celebratory mode.

Mira’s group got 180 points. Grace, Freja, Liam, and Dragan were on her team. The huge points made her relieved more than happy. She still couldn’t get the image of Rodica Baciu’s lifeless body out of her head.

The twins Tereza and Adela Horackova got 150 points, as well as their teammates, Jules Bernard and Francois Laurent from France, and Luis Rojaz Navarro from Spain.

The group that included players with different nationalities finished fourth with 130 points. It consisted of Daniela Perez of Venezuela, Basil Andino of Greece, Michalis Ioannou of Cyprus, Keavy Filan of Ireland, and Chloe Lavigne of France.

Trailing not so far behind was Emerson’s group with 100 points. In his team were Lev, Maxim, Aksel Olsen, and Eliyaz Gruber from Austria.

Hana and Joanna won 95 points, together with groupmates Mia Ricci from Italy, Olga Smirnova from Kazakhstan and Charlotte Adams from Canada.

Miroslav’s group, on the other hand, got 90 points. Marek, Artem, Galyna and Miroslav’s friend and compatriot, Gavro Nikolic were on his team.

Akira Tanaka, Aimilie Tamm, Marco Torres, Estere Kavace, and Crina Aldea from Romania finished with 85 points.

Astro’s team, which included Adam, Selene, Drew Martin of Canada and Jihan Jung from South Korea finished last with a measly 70 points.

It was a huge relief for the members of his team to have won 70 points despite being the team with the lowest points because it took them almost to the end of the song before Astro finally managed to find where Adam was hiding. Adam never attempted to find his teammates. If Astro didn’t hear his audible sobbing and sniffling, all five of them would have easily joined the other group who didn’t make it in time.