Rewind

Beep Beep Beep I turn off my alarm clock and slowly get up, stretching. Getting out of bed, I change into a white T-shirt, black jeans, dark green sneakers, and a navy blue running sweater, then slip on a black belt with two types of holsters: one for my g*n and the other for my dagger. I stick flint and ammunition in the inner pocket of my sweater and strap my claymore onto my back, then pull on a black hiking backpack on top of the claymore, which contains food and other necessities to fuel me for the day. I step out of the small cabin that sits between dozens of other cabins, where other people are doing the same. Everyone has basically the same pair of clothes, except that the sweater colors vary for each person. "Head to the circle to start your next advancement!" Calls an unseen voice through a megaphone. Everyone starts walking forward through the wet green grass littered with pine leaves from the pine trees that surround the area and step onto the cement pathway rimmed with dim white lights that lead to the "circle", which is an open meeting area where all the announcements are made. "Congrats on surviving through yesterday's challenges!" Says the voice chipperly. "You'll be facing new ones today. Hope you survive! Now head to your designated gates!" The voice cuts off and people murmur to each other as they each head to an archway that has a number above it. The way the system works is that everyone has a specific number tattooed on the underside of their forearm. That way, you're only put with a group of people who all have the same goal: fight mobs, reach the other side, and survive the day. Don't survive, and, well, you're dead, end of story. If you do manage to survive, then you go to a cabin with your name on it and rest for the night, then prepare for the next challenge. I step through the gate with the number thirty one above it and try to walk past the clump of people next to the path that is now gravel, but they call me back. "Listen up, you!" A kid shorter than me with a brown sweater stomps in front of me and makes a face like he's gonna spit. "We always say we should work together! So hurry up and join the group! Today's gonna be a might harder, so working together is better than goin' on our lonesome and endin' up dying!" "Mmmm, I don't think so." I try walking away again but he just steps in front of me as his group sighs. "Are you askin' for the reaper?" He pokes me. "I'm tryna save your skin!" I roll my eyes. "I know that, but I don't need you to. My priority is surviving, not teaming up and trying to save everyone else from dying, ending up in my own demise." I step around him and continue down the gravel pathway. I can hear the guy's breathing get shorter and louder, and I can picture his nostrils flaring. "Come on, don't be such a pain!" Calls out a girl who looks older than me. "No thanks," I reply over my shoulder. I can hear their whining but it slowly subsides as I get farther away. I've never liked working with others. Groups take forever discussing plans, and someone always dies right off the bat because they'd been goofing off, feeling perfectly safe with a group who'll "protect" them. And if a person that someone knows well dies, they get all upset and makes the group halt so they can mourn. A waste of time, if you ask me. It's been a few hours since I entered the archway, and I've only sliced a few different monsters here and there. Usually you encounter more as either a boss or some sort of trick comes up, but there seem to be fewer as I go. Finally, I reach a twelve-foot high wooden wall that had a single entrance. As soon as I stepped through it, I saw other pathways branching off from the original: it's a maze. "Oh, great," I mutter. I could be stuck in here forever, depending on the difficulty of this maze. And since this is the 42nd challenge I've been through, it's gonna be pretty hard. Well, no time to waste. I walk corridor after corridor, pretty much guessing as to which way I should go. Sometimes I would find a clue or trap such as a little puzzle that points me to the next direction, and other times I would have to rely on my hearing and sense of smell. If I heard some sort of a mob screech or something, I would go in the opposite direction I heard the noise. If I smelt something sickly-sweet or putrid, I would head in the opposite direction the smell was coming from. Of course, whatever's in the certain direction, it could be something dangerous enough to kill me, but I need to take risks. There isn't much else I could do, since it's impossible for me to scale a smooth wooden wall. Sadly, I can't always rely on my five senses because there are such things as mobs that are odorless and that don't constantly make noises. I just so happen to run into one that is almost as tall as the wooden walls around it and I can feel death at my heels. This thing has an aura around it that just screams powerful, and I know I need to get out of there. "Okay, I'm gone," I spin around as the thing lets out a roar and the ground shakes as it charges forward. I start running too, but it's hopeless. It's already gained ground. I pull out my g*n and aim at the foot-hand, paw, whatever you want to call it-that's about to trample me when I hear battle cries and a small surge of people appear, some shooting spears, other shooting bullets or boomerangs. The cavalry I've been trying to avoid has appeared. "I told you! You were gonna die!" The short kid from before actually spat this time and cackled, firing a few shots at the monster, everyone making it retract and howl in pain. "Yeah, whatever," I mumble. I'm in no position to object, but still. After all, if it weren't for them, I'd be dead. We all battle the monster, and a few of us-including me-clamber onto it's scaley-blue back and thrust our swords in between it's rough hide and shoot it. The thing finally collapses and everyone else cheers as the body glitters away. "You're welcome!" Says the short kid, slapping me in the back. "Th-thanks, now I need to get going." His face gets all hot again. "You're leaving again?! After we so generously helped you and proved to you that working as a team is better?!" Oh boy. "You've gotta be jokin'. Guess you really do have a death wish." The others yell at me angrily as I walk past them, and I see that their numbers have significantly dwindled. I guess they took a few wrong turns on the way and ended up losing some members. I start jogging just to get away from them and continue down the path, trying to reach the end of the maze. I wonder if I'm really going the right way. Unfortunately, I don't find out. Since I was jogging, I wasn't paying attention to the walls and didn't notice a hook protruding from it, a thin wire attached that lead to the other wall. I tripped over it and saw the floor open up and I fell through it, gravel bits falling with me. "I don't want to die!" I shout as I fall deeper and deeper. Guess this is it. My body eventually hits the bottom and I glitter away. Beep Beep Beep I turn off my alarm clock and slowly get up, stretching. Getting out of bed, I change into a white T-shirt, black jeans, dark green sneakers, and a navy blue running sweater, then slip on a black belt with two types of holsters: one for my g*n and the other for my dagger. I stick flint and ammunition in the inner pocket of my sweater and strap my claymore onto my back, then pull on a black hiking backpack on top of the claymore, which contains food and other necessities to fuel me for the day...