Cross My Mind

THE FIRST CROSSING 1

Carson’s queen piece who is a large looking man with broad shoulders and thick muscles approached Lucy with a dagger in hand and ready for combat, made a sudden surprise charge and start attacking ferociously like maniac; the player who is Carson’s queen piece is a man of great build and with a single look one can tell the overwhelming gap between the two in strength and raw muscle advantage. As the two queens clash, Mila is already trying her best to think of a move that will put Carson in overwhelming disadvantage irrespective of who among the two queen pieces win.

With expert precision, Lucy deflects and dodge of attack after another, using her speed and flexibility to her advantage, dodging continuously and looking for the perfect chance to attack. On the opposite end of the chess board, Mila looks over and see Carson laughing at the two queens go at it in a battle against time, according to the rules each of them read when their queens started fighting, if Lucy can last seven minutes of fighting Carson’s queen, Mila knows that she would get a chance to move her to safety and as for Carson, he knows perfectly well that unless a miracle happens, His queen which has more strength and stamina would definitely win against Mila given the time to wear her down.

At this point in time, Garba has already initiated the connection between his modified Neuraface and Mila’s own.

“You can initiate voice transmission and communication using texts at this point, the connection for the transfer would still need more time” MEDULLA said.

Garba initiated the communication protocol and sent a text message to Mila in order not to have her freaking out and giving out a cue to the control room that they are up to something.

“This is Garba, MEDULLA has helped me modify my Neuraface and I can now initiate communication with you but cannot let Akihiro and his team to find out that I can do these things otherwise I may be killed instantly. For now, just act like nothing is happening for a few minutes and I will take care of everything” the massage says.

Mila was busy thinking of a way to turn the momentum of the game against Carson when the massage pops up on her field of vision and she turns to Look at Garba at once but turned away immediately she read the massage.

“You can initiate the cross now, I am all plugged in” MEDULLA said to Garba in his head.

Knowing she has received the massage, Garba used the thought to text function and wrote a second massage. After which he proceeded and sat down on the floor of the square he is in, on the chess court.

“You should sit down on your spot, I am about to attempt something that may as end up letting us win this game, it is a dangerous process and may cause the two of us to faint so please sit down”

Mila received the massage and proceeded right after him to sit down. This puzzled the entire remaining players but as a few seconds pass, the rest of Mila’s pieces went on to sit down one after another too, with the exception of Lucy their queen Piece who is still fighting against the other Queen piece player. Having taken time, Lucy can feel the weight of her dagger increasing and her attacks and blocking of the other queen piece attack becoming less and less efficient as lethargy slowly sets in. Within a few seconds, she was covered in small cuts and bruises and her opponent has not shown any sign of slowing down his ferocious attacks.

Mila on the other hand slowly feels her head becoming light as the seconds pass by and in a blink of the eye, all became dark. As if watching the break of dawn, Mila slowly begins to recover her consciousness bit by bit. She remembers sitting down based of the weird connection Garba has managed to establish with her Neuraface even though the control room has blocked all Neuraface to Neuraface communications.

Suddenly, it downed on Mila that she is the queen piece of her side and has to make the next move. “What happened to Lucy? Where is she?” she suddenly thought and quickly turned to her right to where she last members Lucy and Carson’s queen piece fighting, but to her surprise only the dead body of Carson’s queen piece remains in the spot and right on her eyes, the spot opened up and the dead player fell in quickly. When she looked at her left, to her surprise she realised that she was in the far right edge of the court instead of the middle.

Even more confusing, is the fact that she is looking at a scene no one would expect to view if not in a dream and what she is looking at, she could not even begin to comprehend in the slightest bit of reasoning and logic. In the spot she is supposed to be, she is looking at herself standing and holding a blood drenched Lucy.

At first, she didn’t believe it so she rubs her eyes and look again and the person who she is starring at is definitely her. The problem however is that she is standing right at the far right edge of the board so whoever that person is, cannot be her.

At this moment, Mila begins to realize that there is something even more wrong than the very fact that she is looking at herself standing, carrying Lucy’s heavily injured body and shedding tears that she certainly also relates to,

“but why the hell are my hands suddenly dark and …….. oh my God, bigger!!” She shouted in her mind, knowing the rules say no unnecessary talking.

It was at this moment that she begins to realise what is happening. She quickly raised her hands across her face and touched her chest. At this point, she needed no explanation of whose body she is in, the dark skin, the tough android shape, this height and specific position in the chess court. There is only one person this can be, she concluded in her mind.

“but Is this a dream? Am I still passed out?” she murmured to herself and immediately, A familiar robotic voice said

“you are not dreaming Mila, this is still the underground facility and your life depends on what you do next so please pay careful attention to what I am about to what I am about to say” said MEDULLA.

“hold on a minute, this is too much to take in but did you just say my life depends on the next decision I make, this is just a game we are playing and although I understand that the stakes are high, by saying my life depends on it you mean My future where we get the prize money right” Mila quickly interrupted.

“No Mila, your actually life is at risk here, there is no game, not since the second survival started. It has always been reality. Check the injuries you got from fighting those two players in the field, which game leaves scars as negligible as these on a player with such realistic details, this is reality Mila and you need to listen to me carefully.” Explained MEDULLA.

Mila on the other hand, has suddenly become completely perplexed by the new reality she has just been broken into by the information MEDULLA just given her.

“All the dead players, all of the players I killed with my own hands, all the players that I just played recklessly with just now with the mindset that this is just a simulation game, these are all real deaths” Mila responded.

“Sarah, I brought her to join our team, and Fred who died defending me, these players are all dead” she added with tears rolling down her cheeks.

She squatted down and put her face on her lap, coming to terms with her new reality and it suddenly struck her that if this is reality and Lucy has been greatly injured then she needs immediate medical attention otherwise she will die.

“what happened to Lucy, the last time I was watching her was when she was fighting the queen piece from Carson’s team, what exactly happened to her?” She asked.

“Mila, there is something you should know, Lucy is actually already dead” MEDULLA said and immediately, Mila felt a rising rage in her mind.

“She defended herself gallantly and very bravely even though her opponent has the upper hand in the duel, the other player kept attacking her for more than thirty minutes and she was still fighting back, but the player’s goal was to wear her down all along, once she was tired he stabbed her right in the gut, normally this would kill a person without much delay or at least put them out of a fight, but not Lucy. She must have already expected this would happen when she started fighting the player and ok once she was stabbed, she pretended to have been incapacitated until the player let down his guard and she gathered her last ounce of strength and severed his jugular vein with her last s***h and in her last moment, I was able to connect with her and before I told her she was really dying, she told me she already knows. She just want someone to take care of her little brother who is In the hospital, she wished for his medical bills to be settled and I have already taken care of it” MEDULLA said.

Mila gathered enough courage once again to look in the direction of Her own self putting Lucy down in the next square and she can tell more than anyone that from the facial expression on her own face, Garba is lost in his rage and wants revenge for what has happened to Lucy.