Game of DIcE

Hear Not

It might have been a new feeling that she would never be used to, at least for now, as she had spent her days from the very beginning not until two days ago, sleeping alone on the sturdy branch, waking up alone with only her things still with her, and venture the wild game in solitary, that her life inside was almost peaceful, contented yet most of the times dull and forlorn, but still survive and free from worry that she wouldn't have to think of anyone but herself, and wished to be that way for the rest of the time.

However, it seemed to be impossible now as her eyes found the same people her eyes saw yesterday morning, sleeping in their own space on the tree's root, they decided to sleep there and just continue their venture this day as suggested by Xion, and as much as Riley wanted to finish the level up as soon as possible not minding if she wouldn't sleep for days, having anymore other choice, she decided to just comply to them.

She might try how it feels to have someone around, she just hoped it wouldn't be that bad—they weren't bad.

The four of them woke up one by one. saw Riley exercising and warming up her body as to how Phil had found her yesterday, and conditioning her body. As what Shone said to her about not worrying about their food, Raelle was the one providing them their food, of course, she was from the Rich Class, she had this one huge bag that bears their supply of food and some were even in the other three's bag. Shone had told her to get something, but she refused, maybe she was still shy, or perhaps it was Raelle's squinting and judging eyes that made her reject the offer, or it could also be the thought that she was still not decided if she would be going with them for the rest of the game.

Nonetheless, Raelle's not too bad, to be honest, her eyes were just normally like that and always never been expressing light emotions through it, if not in squinted or glare, they were rolling in annoyance. But she had given her bottled water, though it was through a throw as if it was out of her will, but the fact that no one asked her to do it, she still did and Riley indeed appreciated it.

"I think we should go now. I want to finish the level within this day." Riley said, standing up and let the peeled banana skin fell on the ground that she had been eating for the past few days from one tree she found while venturing into level fourteen and there were a lot of banana trees in there so she grabbed the opportunity of plucking and storing for future purposes like this.

"How many levels had you been through?" Shone asked once they started walking back to the main road to the northward where they will face the Ssiss. They had gotten only enough, a pair for each of them, they didn't know what might happen if they get more than what they needed, and they didn't want to take the risk.

"Seven levels, including this." She answered briefly,

"All alone?" Phil followed up, he was walking behind her with Raelle, Shone was beside her and Xion was leading the way, as always.

"Yes." She unhesitantly replied, "It's not like I haven't had anyone with me in those levels or never converse. It's either they would leave me intentionally for lacking weapon and looking weak or would vanish unintentionally, I tend to wander a lot, perhaps it is my fault that they lost me."

"You're cool." Phil remarked, a boyish smirk plastered on his face, "Xion said the stage one tests the heart, you must have it."

"You are here, I could say the same."

"No." Raelle answered with a scoff, "We fought. There were women lurking around the stage one to see who had pure hearts and would be given the die without any struggle. However, we," She pointed each of them, "fought for our lives to get the dice."

"Considering that you had already been through seven levels within just twenty days says it all, one you're unlucky in tossing dice, two you've made it that fast because someone helped you even though you said you were alone. It's only our fifth toss but twenty days had already passed, and we're exhausted!"

Riley frowned on the first point, it's true that however, she wished to have the die tossed to a higher number, the highest that it could only give her was five, and frustratingly showed once, she never had experienced six dots yet, and mostly it was three or four, or worst, one. It really was a good thing that she didn't much exert strength with those levels, and those women were helping her.

"What do you think the stage two tests?" She asked, "If stage one was heart, then what awaits us here?"

"Probably strength."

They walked more silently, somehow, it always felt like the way out was faster than just the way in because they could already see the way toward the northward where they would finally see the creature, the Ssiss that could possibly break their hearing.

"I'm nervous."

As soon as Phil said those words, the gust of wind swayed the trees and swept the dried leaves for a moment causing them to cover and close their eyes to forbid dirt from striking them. They stopped for a moment while they carefully looked around, it seemed to be a warning, and they were right when as soon as the wind stopped, they heard the faint sound of the people screaming loudly almost on top of their lungs, as they also heard the sharp sound of something like those of the ear-piercing sound when the microphone was malfunctioning and it was on speaker, it was definitely like it. Riley was sure that all of them had every hair raised upon hearing those, the sound of their heartbeats was now loud in nervousness.

"Let's make sure to wear these noise filtering thing once we're about a hundred meters away from the place, that's the scope of the Ssiss' voice, and if we fail to do that, we're deaf." Riley reminded them of what she read in the instruction book.

The thing they caught from the tree was indeed a noise filtering cork-like tool which obviously forbid the ear to hear the simplest noise to the loudest. When they tried it yesterday, they were elated by the fact that they couldn't hear, and Xion had to break it to them that they would be forever wouldn't hear anything if they would not use it properly, which earned simultaneous frowns.

"Wow, that's better than hearing 'we're dead'." Phil jested, a snort coming from his throat but the waver on his voice says that he was also anxious.

"We should hurry," Shone told them, following Xion who was already feet away from them. "Xion will gauge when to plug the tool."

They walked and walked, every step they took northward and thinking of the nearing scare that they would surely experience was already nerve-racking, especially Raelle who admitted that she was scared of snakes, even the skin of the snake, so what more if she sees a huge, disgusting, ever so annoying snake that could potentially break her ear? She just hoped she wouldn't pass out.

Xion suddenly stopped, spreading his one arm to the side without looking back at them as he said, "Time to plug the tool. Firmly."

The air like earlier suddenly came again, the five of them fumbled on the cork-like tool and plugged it in their ears like an earphone, it was fascinating how it adjusted accordingly on the sizes of their ear and the white thing was firmly stuck in their ear, completely blocking out the single noise.

"Let's go," Xion mouthed, gesticulating his hand forward.

Raelle held firm on Phil's arm, and Shone checked up on Riley which the latter just nodded at him. They continue walking a little too fast, they were not sure what was happening, if the Ssiss was already deafening the people's screams, and honestly, the curiosity was alluring them to take out the tool and listens, but they shouldn't.

A gasp came out of their mouths upon seeing the view when they reached the open field, there were a lot of people crying, desperately holding their bleeding ears, crawled on the floor with a pained expression, they were moving their mouth, sating something, but nothing came out... or nothing reached their now deaf ears. The place was bloodier than they expected, they thought they would just witness a light scene with people crying because they lost one sense, but blood being involve with people dying was clearly unexpected.

The cave was there, eyecatching, huge, dark as if an enormous creature's mouth, the Ssiss were nowhere to be seen so they assumed that it went back inside and the scream was done.

Riley took out one piece of her tool, about to say something, the four seeing it copied the gesture, huddling together, "The Ssiss doesn't kill, But make sure to not look to its eyes, if you do, it will enclose you until you popped."

It somehow made Riley a little guilty as she saw how Raelle's eyes became more troubled and scared, but she might do it so they would be aware. The four of them nodded, taking the information.

It seemed that the Ssiss was aware that there were newcomers, the air started blowing again, the land shook a little especially the cave. The five of them wore the tool back, deciding to place their heavy bags on one side near the tree, and started running to both sides of the mouth of the cave.

Their mouth fell as the ten feet high snake came out of the cave and stood straight, a little grossly as its drool dropped on the ground, its skin was glossy, and for Raelle, disgusting, it also had wounds now, probably from the attack of the people. Its eyes were yellow, almost gold, and nothing else, it had no ear, which probably explained why it screamed ao loud because it couldn't hear itself. Its mouth was wide open, probably

Xion motioned them to move in, Phil and Raelle came inside first, then it was Shone who was with Riley on the other side, then Xion walked in. It was supposed to be Riley's turn to come in, however, when the Ssiss suddenly turned to her side, coming face to face with her which certainly froze her on the ground.

"Ri-"

Riley raised her hand to stop Shone from speaking, she then waves her hand to let them proceed on walking. There was certainly only two feet distance on their faces and Riley was looking to the snake's body, never in its eyes.

"You go, I'll wait for her." Sean motioned and mouthed, nodding at them, and pushed the two near him to start their walk, but the shuffle of their shoes that they were unaware of made the Ssiss shot its head to his side and left Riley, now it was Xion who came face to face with it, but again, the information from Riley of not looking on its eyes remained kept.

Riley took it as an opportunity to also move subtly, the three were already carefully moving not too far from her, they were crouching to make sure that to have no noise. Riley looked back to see Xion, but she didn't expect that the snake was also staring at her.

Her heart pounded hard as she ducked, closing her eyes, she had glanced at the eyes of the snake and it turned red, but became back to yellow when she tore her gaze away. She felt a hand on her shoulder and another hand blocking her eyes, by his manly smell, it was Xion who guided her on walking, they were moving from left to right, Xion was controlling their move.

The sudden change of air rather than the warm and misty one that she felt earlier changed into a cool blowing of air, the hand that was wrapped around her and the hand restraining her to open her eyes was gone, she slowly and freely opened her eyes. She had to squint and adjust her vision because of the light that she didn't expect to be there. It was the end of the cave, the place of the Ssiss. The dice were there, inside the transparent eggshells. The three had already got theirs, holding them with both of their hands as they were a little too big than the others.

With a tap on her shoulder, Xion pushed her to the eggs. The man swiped his sword on the top horizontally while Riley stabbed the eggshell shallowly multiple times until it broke. The two took their respective dice, and without any more ado, they ran back inside the dark cave.

Their moves were swift, lips remained pursed for a long time, afraid to even open them, even breathing was controlled, their feet were tiptoed as they run. They managed to come across the Ssiss on their way back outside the cave, but they only remain unmoving until the creature gets passed by them.

They only had managed to breathe when they managed to go out of the cave and ran to their bags, however, there seemed to really have no peaceful scene when around envious people. Riley, Xion, Shone, and Phil managed to come to the tree where they placed their bags peacefully, immediately slipping the bag on their shoulders within a beat before the Ssiss goes out again, mad this time because they just took its eggs.

However, they looked back when Raelle fell, the die rolled on the ground and the noise filtering tool on one of her ear flew out of her ear, a man lying on the floor held Raelle's foot which caused it all, but what made them drop their hearts on their stomach was the fast-approaching Ssiss at the back.

Riley cursed, putting down the die and her bag again as she ran back to Raelle, a kick on the man's face and stomach had loosened his hold on the girl's foot. She looked back, seeing the snake standing straight and ready to scream. She picked Raelle's tool and immediately tucked it in her ear, at the same time as the scream of the snake came.

Riley pulled the dumbfounded Raelle with her, picking up her die, and pushed her to Phil who immediately and worriedly slipped the bag on her as they started running again, now westward. Leaving the snake crying out loud, and the people screaming in pain.

Once they had run a good measure of distance enough away from the northward, Xion stopped and looked behind, but it seemed to be a wrong idea as the Ssiss was following them, No matter how much they wanted to stop and rest how they wanted to give their legs a rest, they shouldn't stop running.

Riley clenched her teeth, and looked ahead of her, she finally saw the end of the westward— the sight of the big black birds at the end. With each other's help in pushing and pulling each other on the west's boundary, in desperation of stopping, they dove down the ground next to a bird and shocked the Berdocks who were peacefully sleeping, and they laid flat on the ground.

Watching as the Ssiss stopped abruptly upon seeing the Berdocks and creep out of the place again, letting the five participants let out loud pants. They took the noise filtering tools out of their ear and the normal shuffles of the trees, the gusts, the heavy breathing, their heartbeats came back to their ears.

They survived the nerve-racking level twenty-one without being deaf/d.