Lockeroom's Pandemonium

Chapter Nine: Lives of the Worthless

“Here.” With a smiling lips, Silver gave a big plastic of chocolate chips towards the woman who saved her earlier.

Alina looked at him with a confused expression. “What's wrong with you?” she asked.

Silver shrugged, acting as if a cool man even though he knew himself, he was embarrassed.

Why is he giving the last piece of chocolate that he's enjoying? Why is he trying to impress the woman beside her? Is it because he received the most needed-help that he could have from, or is it because he was just plainly attracted to the woman?

The answer, however, were unclear for him. The only thing that was clear, is that he likes the way how he's trying his best to impress her.

They were at the top of one huge centennial tree, at the cover of two big branches, designed as if a perfect hidden nest for huge birds or maybe even of snakes. They had ensured that the nest-like structure of the tree were safe, or were not actually a nest for some unknown yet dangerous creatures.

Before coming here, Silver found a cool spring with cleanest water that they've ever saw. They were hesitant at first, knowing that it was too clean to use, but, they did it anyway. They took a bath to wash away of the dried sweat, stinky blood from the beasts, and the dirt and mud that smeared their body.

Luckily, both of them had hygiene kits in their screen, plus a set of self-adjusting clothes that they can wear no matter what sizes they are. When clean and fresh enough, they decided to find a good spot that they can use to hide and rest. Then they found this big and tall tree, with a very complicated sets of branches.

Silver saw Alina biting a whole chunk of neatly-cooked chicken. His mouth dropped open as he followed how Alina slowly ate it, and munched it with delight.

Silver swallowed. For him, that image of Alina looked like as if she was an endorser of a fast food restaurant. But more than that, Alina was eating a chicken while he was just enjoying a bag of chocolate chip for breakfast—and he wished he could have that too.

“Wh-Where did you get that food bag?” Silver asked.

“From the loots the three-headed snake gave. Why?” Alina answered.

Silver looked at his own food bag. It was filled with candies, chocolates, gummy bears, and mint for fresh breath. “I guess I am unlucky.”

He heard Alina chuckled.

“What?”

“Nothing. You look like a child who've found out that his toy was useless.” Then, she grabbed a small capsule out of her bag. When she pressed it, the capsule erupted as a box of pizza.

“Wow!” Silver exclaimed, delight in his face was incredibly shining. “Can I have some?”

Alina laugh as she opened the box. Silver then, waited as if a child whose eyes were twinkling because his mother is about to open his most favorite food.

“Here you go, child,” Alina joked. Silver disregarded it, completely absorbed by the fact that he could eat pizza again. At least, a decent food, beside chocolate and chocolate chips.

They were too hungry as they eat.

Earlier, they decided to go up a big tree, so that they would not become unfortunate again, meeting another wild beast or even players. It was a good thing that Silver had an item that can be used to easily climb high structures such as walls and this tall tree. It was a glove and socks that defies gravity. Once they've stick those items on a flat surface, either it was standing or inverted, the items will treat those surfaces as if it has its own gravity. That is the reason why when they climbed, what they felt is as if they were just crawling on the floor.

“I guess we can talk while we're eating?” Alina told Silver.

“My family members doesn't have that as our custom. They believe that eating food requires silence.” Silver grabbed another slice of pizza. He munched it with smile obviously drawn on his face.

“But it's about this game,” Alina replied back, “Come on, Silver. You know that we don't have much time to waste, right? Time is running, and we need to orient ourselves on what is happening. On how we should not act stupidly while playing this game.”

He then, was forced to stop eating the delicious food he had been enjoying. He sighed. Red sauce was on the edge of his lips, yet he had no idea about it.

“Okay, what do you want us to talk?”

“A lot. But first, wipe the sauce at the edge of your lips,” Alina replied.

Silver then, followed what Alina told. He was surprised that he was this messy as he ate. Afraid to be embarrassed, he just thought that he was just too hungry, that is why he had this red-sauce mess on his face. It was a thing he should not mind.

“Now, we need to talk about the dark clown's words yesterday.”

“About playing the second level with a partner?”

“Yes. If we started this game as a solo player, as someone who needs to kill another player to get into level two, why would we need to get a partner?”

“You don't want me to be your partner?” Silver asked. He felt a little hurt as he told that conclusion.

“No, that's not what I meant. I am just saying, why having partners? Why having to play in tandem? What is the reason why we need to do this if all they want is just to let us kill each other?”

“Because they might have planned a very huge phenomenon that would never be survived when we, the player, is just alone?”

A silence fell through them.

The chirp of the birds were louder and more beautiful when up above. It was more lyrical, more melodious, especially now, as they silently sat on a branch of a giant tree.

“Or maybe because they were thinking that we will be attached to each other, and that it would be very dramatic if by the end, we will be the one to kill each other,” Alina slapped back.

More silence came in between of them. The thought of him ending the life of Alina was punching his heart in pain. He, for sure, cannot do it.

He was not just certain if Alina was thinking the same.

They just met yesterday, yes. But he cannot deny the truth that he was already attached to her. That being with her is such a comfort for him. That if ever there will be a time that he would have to kill her, he would just walk out, and let the fate—or this game's rules—decide what will be happening next.

He then heard Alina’s sigh.

“I guess we should not problem that yet,” she said.

“What do you mean?” His face scrunched in confusion.

“Let’s just have that as our biggest problem when if it was already slapping our face. What we need to do now is to continue struggling to survive.”

Silver sighed as well. He looked at the next huge trees that was in their front.

“I guess so.”

As he looked at the cluster of leaves and branches of the tree, his sense of sight felt like he was being tricked. For a few seconds, he thought he saw a pair of eyes sitting under the hidden part of the leaves and branches. He knew he had a split-second eye contact with it. Yet, as he blinked, trying to get rid of the itchiness felt from the dry air, the pair of eyes were already gone.

“What do you think is the goal of this game?” He heard Alina asked.

“Huh?” Silver snapped back. The sudden eye contact that he made with the illusionary eye made him as if he was hypnotized. His mind flew in the air, unattended to Alina's question.

“I said what do you think is the goal of this game?” Alina asked again.

“Uh? I think . . .” he tried to compose himself. “I think . . . to let us value our lives?”

Alina, for a second, spaced out, thinking what Silver has told. Then she laughed sarcastically.

“We are being taught to value our life by ending another life, and letting ourselves be always in the edge of dying? Wow. That was a perfect way to let us think that ‘The life is valuable. It is worth an impossible amount of gold and diamonds. We need to take care of it. Love, the killer game,’” Alina dramatically spoke.

Silver sighed. “I don't know, actually. I even have no idea why I am here. This, I think . . .” he stopped, fretting to speak, “this were all just useless nightmare that I don't want to f**k anymore. And I don't want to think what was the reason why I was here. Why I was chosen in this nightmarish game. I just want to survive and live my life again.”

Alina nodded, then stared at the cluster of leaves from the next tree at their front, just like what Silver is doing.

“Me too. I guess we just need not to worry about it. The roots, the reason. What's important is that we—I—need to survive.”

“But haven't you heard what the dark clown had told the first time we realized we're on this island?” Silver opened his mouth again, asking question that he think would contradict to what he had said to Alina just a few seconds ago.

“What is it?”

“That in this island, there are thirty worthless lives that will struggle to survive.”

Alina snorted. “Worthless? Is our lives really worthless?”

“I don't know.”

Yet, Silver knew that his life was.

His life was worthless, his life was trash, his life was nothing but a piece of garbage getting ready to be dumped in the trashcan of death. He considered it before his body would unknowingly land in this peculiar island.

And yet, as he knew that he can finally dump himself away of worries, away of pain, away of his dark past that he always wanted to escape to, he finds himself tricky, for he was still struggling to live.

That even though he is ready to die . . . he was still trying to survive.

Then, he was surprised when Alina suddenly stood up. She jolted with pressure and sense of alert.

“What was it?” asked Silver.

Her stare was fixed in the cluster of leaves that they were staring at, when they were speaking to each other, awhile ago.

“Someone is watching us,” Alina answered. Though her answer is in a whispering tone, he felt its pressure and urgency.

When Silver looked at the cluster of leaves coming from the trees in their front, the pair of eyes that he once thought a trick that his sense of sight made, has appeared once again—this time, he knew it was real.

And there were a hundred pairs of them.

The wind began stirring wildly. The rustle of leaves screamed panic and indefinite danger. The eyes staring at them were bright red, bloody, thirsty.

As Alina and Silver slowly grabbed their weapons, they knew—and accepted the fact—that another set of monsters is about to attack them. About to try eating them.