Chapter 37: Observe
1339 Words
Tristan was sitting blankmindledly.
Laying his back on a concrete pillar, his knees are tucked which serves support to his hand and elbow while hugging himself. He stared at the space as if his thoughts were being drifted away.
They have finally come back to the starting point. It was the place where they they came earlier which the giant gate—going to the first quiz—was found. It was the starting point of their quiz game.
The gate was still there, standing, but it was now closed. When they get out from the exit of the room of fake mirrors, they traveled towards a dark alley. And then, when they found the end of the tunnel, they ran towards it. Finally free. But this was the end of the alley: the starting point.
The other of his group members were resting too. They grouped themselves near him and tried to lie on the ground so that they could remove the fatigue that they have acquired from the first quiz of the game.
It was traumatizing. The way their quiz was made is something that Tristan never have expected in any quiz bee competition that he had joined. The rules and mechanics, the stakes, and even the quiz itself. All were totally new and terrifying.
“Tristan.”
From her left part, Rain had appeared. She u nhesitatingly sat beside him and followed what Tristan was doing. She tucked her knees and hugged it too.
“Are you okay?” Tristan asked as she look at Rain.
“Yes,” she said, and nodded. “How about you. Why was your thoughts drifting away?”
“Thinking.”
“Of course, you are thinking. But about what?” Rain asked. When Tristan looked at her, he saw her looking at the other group members who are taking their time removing the fatigue out of their body.
Tristan sighed. Then, he answered, “about the message from the ciphertext.”
Because of that, Rain quickly looked at him. “You’re thinking about it too?” she asked.
“Of course. It would be useless if we just decode the message and not even think what does it mean.”
Rain nodded. “I was thinking about it too. What, why, or how was it related to our quiz.”
“Do you think it could be highly related to the next quiz that will be given to us?” Tristan asked.
Still looking at the rest of their group, Rain nodded as a way to answer Tristan’s question. “It could be a clue for the next coming quiz.”
“It will be tomorrow, right? We should quickly find answer or any connection to this clue that we have.”
“I doubt we’ll find something, Tristan,” said Rain.
“Huh? What do you mean?”
She looked at him. “If that message was a clue for the next quiz, we wouldn’t be able to concretely identify what’s the real sense that it has. Not unless if the quiz was right on our front already.”
Hearing that, Tristan realized that he might have been wasting his time thinking about how to resolve that message. Wherein, in fact, he could not get anything about it, not unless if they found what was the quiz by tomorrow.
Tristan made another sigh. “Then maybe we’ll know what’s the real sense of that message by tomorrow.”
“That’s another thing I want to tell you,” Rain said, interrupting the about to rest momentum of Tristan. He was about to close his eyes when she muttered something.
“What is it?” Tristan asked Rain. Despite the extreme desire to sleep, and rest, he looked at Rain fully awake, and with unbreakable attention.
“The ‘tomorrow’ you keep on telling,” she answered.
“The quiz tomorrow?”
“It’s not tomorrow.”
Tristan’s forehead scrunched. “Will it be held today?”
“No, not,” she answered again. “You see, Professor Buenavista said that the quiz she was doing will be held for three days. But that does not mean it should be consecutive.”
“Which means…”
“Tomorrow’s not a quiz day. But just an ordinary, usual school day. After all, we’re still students.”
Tristan looked back into the unknown void. “If that’s true, then it was a relief.”
Rain nodded and smiled. “We’ll be able to rest and not to think about the quiz for a day. Not unless if there’s one or two of our classmates would think about killing us.”
“Ah, right. Killing is allowed.” Then silence. “Why would the admins of this school do that? I mean, let us rest.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps because they are also gathering data from our brain about how are we thinking or moving when we feel safe or relaxed. Or when we’re thinking of nothing.”
“How do you think they were gathering data from us? Did they install some chip inside our brain so that they could get the data they want?”
For a minute, Rain does not answer. He waited for a few more minutes of silence before she could hear her answering him. “I don’t know, Tristan. Really.”
Hearing that, Tristan nodded. “It’s fine.”
“Sorry,” Rain said.
Then another silence came in between them.
“I know you are itching to know the truth about me. But … I could not tell you yet about it.”
Tristan pursed his lips for a smile. He then followed it with a nod.
“I would tell you soon. But not now.”
“But still, you’re asking me to trust you, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I know you can help me find and learn something about this place.”
“Huh?”
Rain looked at him intently. She surprisingly neared her face towards him. Still, her eyes were fixed towards his own gazes. For Rain, it could have been just meaning nothing. But for Tristan, the thought of their faces nearing each other; their lips a few centimeters away, was making him gravely distracted.
From the small pathway that they have taken to exit the room of the mirrors, another group of students were coming out. They must have finished the quiz too. But peculiarly, Tristan heard one of them wailing in despair. He was curious about the wailing student, but he could not avert his eyes away of Rain. Especially if this was a rare opportunity for him to look at her ashen-hued eyes.
“Tristan,” she called. “The quiz is about to be finished. After this, the remaining hours of the day until curfew would be our free time.”
“What… what do you want us to do?”
Rain’s smile widened, while Tristan’s cheeks flushed. He was undeniably thinking some weird and embarrassing thoughts.
“It’s the perfect time to observe the whole place, Tristan.”
There was a big unknown punch that had thrust at Tristan’s chest. Realizing what Rain wanted to do, he became serious.
He was serious not because he did not hear what he subconsciously wanted to hear from Rain, but because of the fact the woman had muttered.
Observe the whole place.
How many days since he came here when he was just focused on the events inside this hellish school, but not observe the place? How many days since he last saw the real non-synthetic rays of the warm sun?
And… how many days since he last bothered thinking of possible ways… to escape?
He swallowed the lump on his throat.
Thinking of the word escape, he suddenly had a wild craving for that.
His stare back to Rain was now taunting. With a serious tone, he said, “Tell me more details. I want to join you.”
- Writer
