Mr Wayne, with his eyes glaring sharply, walks close to me who is currently being carried weakly by the young man.
“Hey, pay attention to this spoiled brat! He couldn't even walk on his own, even though this is a competition that might put our lives at risk! You have no idea how many times I had to carry him in the first part because he refused to run! This skinny boy is also very powerless, even if he runs. He's the culprit that slows us down!” Mr Wayne shouted at the bearded man, even though it was aimed at everyone in the tunnel. The bearded man just glared cynically towards me.
I don't deny that I'm a little scrawny now, and fair enough, I don't have too much energy either. But what do all those sayings mean?
The young man casually walks past Mr Wayne, paying no heed to what he said, and stops right in front of my track's gate. He puts me down gently and helps me to stand on my own feet.
"All is well?" He asked me with his caring gaze. That time I could hear his voice clearly, and I didn't assume. Even though my ears are still ringing, this is the first time I hear a human voice again. It's like talking to a human after being exiled on a deserted island for years. I'm so relieved, at least my hearing isn't damaged.
"Still worn out, but I'm good. Thanks for-” I couldn't express my gratitude because a big hand grabbed me. I didn't realize Mr Wayne was approaching us. He then slams me hard enough against the tunnel wall with his hands around my neck.
With all the energy drained out, I can only accept the slam. Actually, if I could lift my hand, I'm sure I could get rid of his hand by force. I feel weak like a baby.
“You little impudent! How dare you still speak as nothing happened? Hey, you really have to pay the price, you know.” Mr Wayne raised his voice, spitting as he spoke to me. I can imagine a slap that will fly right up to my cheek in a few moments.
Mr Wayne then swift his glance to the young man, “I also seem to have to teach you manners from A to Z.”
With his left hand, he pushes the young man down with ease. The young man lowers his head as well as his hat so his face can't be seen, but I think he's a little startled and shaking. Honestly, I'm the same. Mr Wayne turns out to be much stronger than I imagined.
It is the moment that a static sound pops out from nowhere, probably from a speaker somewhere in the tunnel. Not long after that, someone plays bright, upbeat music as if they didn't care about the tension in my tunnel. The music fades away slowly after about 15 seconds, followed by the voice of a female robot. Her voice is a little different from the robot that greeted me in that dark room. She speaks with a distinctly British accent.
Well, it looks like the organizer has many types of female robots. I hope they don't use the robot for nasty purposes.
The announcement I heard afterwards wasn't as sweet as her voice, and that would only make things worse at my place.
“Sorry to interrupt, as I'm excited to announce that we have our 96th place! Let's celebrate Azalea on her victory and dance with the remainder of the music!” That "spirit-uplifter" music is playing again non-stop. They seem like they don't give a damn about our feelings.
Mr Wayne's keen gaze is now directed back to me. His eyebrows were pulled down and close to each other so tightly that I could see them shaking. His face is boiled red, not from exhaustion. I feel immense anger. His hand chokes me tighter, almost taking my breath away, and his right hand is ready to swing up to my face.
It is clear that this music does nothing to calm Mr Wayne. At all. Now I think I understand why they have exclusively announced the participant who specifically finished in 96th place. They want the last group to be shattered into pieces. This music is also meant to make fun of us.
Mr Wayne's hand almost landed on my face when someone labelled 'Farkas' stopped it. This time it's the bearded man's arrival that I didn't notice.
It turns out that the bearded man is quite tall and hefty. From a distance, I couldn't measure how big he was. The bearded man is so tall that the source of light shining on Mr Wayne and me is completely blocked. With a form like that, I don't know what he did to hide the sound of his footsteps.
I have absolutely no idea what the nature of this man with the name 'Farkas' is. He hasn't spoken at all since I got to this section. He just smoked casually and didn't seem to care about what was happening on my track until this very moment. All I could sense from him was an incredibly piercing aura. Just seeing his presence already made me feel oppressed, even though he didn't do anything.
“Mr Wayne, didn't you hear the announcement earlier and the rhythm of this cheerful music? That's enough. We can't do anything about our position anymore, just let it be. We can determine who will be last later on. What's important now is how we continue this game and return home soon to meet our beloved family, right?”
Erm… Maybe he's a friendly guy?
It surprised me that he said it all in a voice that was not only gentle but also calming. From his appearance, it didn't occur to me for a second that he was quite a friendly person. This man also seemed unperturbed by the fact that one of the four of us had to finish last. Perhaps Farkas is the type of person who wants to give a bad impression for no apparent reason. Really, my instincts gave off the image of a 'danger' when I saw the intense look in his eyes on me when I just came to this section.
At last, Mr Wayne removed his hand from my neck after Farkas tapped his shoulder several times while smiling warmly at him. Then Mr Wayne took a deep breath and got up from where I was standing to get back on his track. He then leans against his gate. Even though he looks a bit calmer, it's clear that he's still very disturbed.
Farkas helps the young man to stand up and asks if he's fine. Well, the young man looked better than me, though. After cleaning his pants and fixing his hat, he returns to his track after being cued by Farkas.
By the way, I can't find the young man's label anywhere, so I don't even know what his name is. But that uniform really rings a bell.
Farkas is now focusing his attention on me. He asks a lot of things, my name, my family. It has absolutely nothing to do with what we are doing at the moment. Well, just a chit-chat before moving on to the more important conversation.
"So... How?" Asked him after he finished the pleasantries. I tilt my head because I don't really understand what he means.
Farkas laughs quite loudly though no one is making a joke, "Of course, how do we get through this iron door!"
I explain to him with a little confusion colours my face, because actually the procedure is written in the rules of the game. Moreover, to continue to the second part, shouldn't he have to do the same thing? How could he not know?
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"GHAHAHA! Oh, I see?! So I have to press the button on my little friend TickBit together with my tunnel mates to continue, huh!” He laughs once again, making a long loud uncomfortable echo in our tunnel, “I forgot that there is such a rule! I'm such a fool!” this sentence once again closed with a loud laugh.
Farkas walks back to his track with a bit of dancing and whistling as if he understands the music, a little unpleasant to hear and look at. Meanwhile, Mr Wayne's traces Farkas with an uncomfortable glaze.
“Whenever you are ready, kid! Take it easy, don't be in a hurry!” Farkas shouted as he arrived at his gate.
What Farkas said is true, the struggle for the position is no longer significant for us. What's more important is how we can finish this game. About who should be the last place… Maybe that will be a later discussion.
Now I have to think about what might happen once we open this gate, and lead us all to the finish line. I can't be careless like before, so I'll make good use of my time. In addition, I also have to rest my body.
Time passed with no progress in my head. At least my tunnel partners understand better that I have to rest, which I also used to think. But it's been about 15 minutes, and I haven't got any possibilities. Not that I want to blame what I've been through before, but maybe the wrinkles in my brain disappeared by half because of the noise.
In the span of that quarter of an hour, I don't know how many cigarettes Farkas had burnt. The young man also just sat on his track, facing the ceiling. Maybe he was helping me explore a possibility? Who knows. And I don't know what Mr Wayne was doing, and I don't want to know. They all have their own busyness while I recover.
Many things are too ambiguous for me. What are the two monitors on each of these gates actually for? However, looking for an answer to that question is also useless because it might only be answered when we press the green button.
Why is this gate divided into four? The possibility that occurred to me was that this gate could open at a different time. But it made no sense because we ended up having to open it together, right?
I also have to think about what is written on the larger monitor. It was white blank previously, but the words just appeared when we returned to our respective tracks. Well, we have been a little dispersed since my arrival. It says,
To proceed, all green buttons must be pressed within five minutes
This is a lot different from the previous one. Then, that means we don't have to press the button simultaneously?
Well, after wondering and wandering around in this section, searching for clues for the next five minutes, I found more questions than answers.
Therefore, I decided to just continue rather than linger here. It seems that my energy has also returned a bit. I'm tired, I want to lie down on my bed. Usually, I sleep accompanied by a playlist of five songs, but it feels like my ears have heard too much today. And of course, it's already impossible for me to do Mr Enzo's assignment by night. I don't know if I can keep my promise to game with Johann.
Honestly, I don't even know if I'll ever be able to go back home.
"Ready, kid?" Farkas exclaimed when he saw me standing firmly in front of my gate. I nodded my head even though maybe no one was looking.
I raise my left hand, reveal the TickBit, and prepare to press the green button. All my partners did the same. For the last time, I look all over the place again, hoping for some hints. But I can only shrug.
"Let's go!" I gave the signal.
We pressed the buttons almost simultaneously, maybe only a few seconds apart from each other. After that, my monitor says “Confirmed”, while the small monitor above it shows the number 0.00. I take a few steps back to see the entire display of the monitor on the other gate. No difference unless the small monitor shows different numbers. The small monitor at Mr Wayne's gate shows 1.59, while the young man's 2.25 and 2.57 on Farkas's.
Then, number 10 appears under the word “Confirmed” and continues to decrease as time goes on. In other words, it is a countdown. I don't know what this counts down to, but it seems to give us time to get ready. In fact, during this 'race', I only feel the atmosphere of the race right now.
As the countdown time decreased, I felt my heart beat faster. I gulped down a large amount of saliva.
The entire bigger monitors show zero at the moment. Now it's the turn of the numbers on the small monitor that move toward zero, like a timer. When it reaches zero, the light next to the small monitor glows green, and then the gate starts opening. As I suspected, the four gates did open separately, following their respective timers. The gates opened in succession, starting with mine, Mr Wayne's, the young man's, and ending with the bearded man's gate. Unlike the previous gate, this gate opened rather quickly and did not cause any quake.
The gate isn't fully open yet, but I can already peek at what's behind this gate. I also just remember that the third checkpoint is only five hundred meters away from the second checkpoint, so I can already see it from here even though just a tiny bit. I forgot about it because the young man didn't stop at the second checkpoint. From this gate, maybe the third one is about 450 meters away.
I wonder, why?
At a time like this, I suddenly remember the dark tunnel that lay behind my back when I first woke up in this world.
The small resonation of the sound… Indicates that there is something inside.
A train?
"RUN!!!" I shouted with the hope that all my partners would also run with all they had.
I don't know why my brain just decided to work as fast as lightning just now. Perhaps the human brain will work harder when it is in an urgent situation, or more extreme, a life-death situation. Well, to be honest, nothing seems to be 'crystal clear' in this game. However, I am aware and understand very well that a train with its high speed is chasing us from behind.
This is a real race. We race with the trains.
"Why do we have to be in such a hurry?" Farkas asked with a slight shout because his track was opposite mine.
“There's a train chasing us from behind! We have to run as fast as we can until the third checkpoint! If they are bullet trains, then they will arrive in just two to three minutes! No time for leisurely jogs!” I feel like I didn't explain that well because I was running. I hope they understand what I'm talking about.
“Hmmm… The trains are going one by one, aren't they? My guess is that the trains should run sequentially, starting from the leftmost rail, which is your track, all the way to mine. So don't you just jump to another track while the train is passing on yours, and so on?" Farkas asked me in a very relaxed tone. His hands don't swing like someone running. He put his left hand on his waist and his right hand on his chin as if he was thinking. He has large balls, I guess.
"That can happen if we didn't press the button almost at the same time!" I took a deep breath to explain further. And of course, so that I don't run out of breath in the middle of this fairly intense run.
I explained to Farkas (as well as the others) that the green button we pressed earlier was not only a gate opener but also a button to launch the train. And there is a unique mechanism. The first person to press the green button means their train will be launched first. The moment the first person presses the button, the timer on each partner's gate will increase and stop when they press the button. I noticed this after I pressed the button on my TickBit. The timer indicates the pause before the train on the tracks is launched. The train will be launched as soon as its timer reaches 0. Actually, what makes me believe in this extreme conclusion is that the light bulb turns green when it reaches 0. Green means go, right?
Since (I) didn't understand anything, we pressed the button almost simultaneously, so the train would also slide at almost the same time as well. That's why participants are given five minutes to press all the green buttons. This is intended so that participants can manage the launch. If participants can take advantage of those given minutes and spread out the train launches, there will be a 'delay' between one train and another to slide to this place, so there will be an opportunity for participants to jump and run on other tracks until the train on some track passes through, just like Farkas said earlier. There is no rule that the participants must run specifically on their respective tracks, right? The young man knows that.
So there was no other way for us to survive except by running as hard as we could until the checkpoint before a swarm of trains ran over us. According to my calculations, we should be able to reach the checkpoint within 2 minutes. But is Mr Wayne capable?