Chapter 107: The Countdown
Ember's POV
We left a little around midnight for the maze. Hunter and Forest led the way with torches while Scar brought up the rear, his deliberate positioning at the back sending the message that he wouldn't allow anyone to run without his intervention. He carried an intimidating and daunting presence, but weirdly, it also put me at ease. It was as if he was like… our guardian to outside threats as we traveled through the dark of night.
Inside my beefed-up backpack is a fresh change of clothes that I wrapped all of my food inside of (I took way more food than I was supposed to, but a girl gotta eat), two radio transceivers, a pair of goggles, a gas mask, a spare watch, and my rolled-up sleeping bag.
My canteen was also nestled into the side pocket, filled to the top with water from the stream. In my left hand is a bright torch, and clutched in my right is a sword, one of the bad ones, though. Additionally, an electronic watch is wrapped around my right wrist, displaying some handy tidbits of information.
There was limited space and material that each person could fill inside their bag, but I feel like I did a pretty good job of using up the room. It was up to each person to decide their preferences and where their priorities lay… for instance, some people opted to bring more weapons instead of their sleeping bags.
Before we departed, the eight of us got together and read over the instruction manual that corresponded to the watches. The watches had a dark grey band, an electronic square screen, and a long thin button on each of the four sides of the screen. Surprisingly, the manual said that the watch ran on a solar battery, which is convenient if we remain careful with battery usage at night.
To set up the watch correctly, the manual instructed us to first put our thumbs in the dead center of the screen. As I did so, a meek blue light enveloped my fingerprint, and a moment later, the screen read 'Welcome Ember', before the words faded into a black abyss. The same thing happened to everyone else, as each watch welcomed the given person by their specified name.
The bottom button is the 'power' button, and by clicking it, you can turn the watch 'on' or 'off'. When turned on, the manual refers to this initial display as 'the home screen'. The home screen is divided into three different applications, and the small emblem beside each 'app' informs you about what each one means. The top half of the screen is allocated to a timer, with a small clock emblem in the top left corner. The bottom left quadrant displays our vitals with a heart symbol. In contrast, the bottom right quadrant shows the number of people still alive with a silhouette of a person beside it. Currently, that figure resembles the number '10'.
While the bottom button correlates to the watch's power, the other three buttons correspond to their closest directional app. For instance, if you click the top button, the timer app will expand, or 'open', to being full screen while your 'vitals' and 'people' apps shrink. After opening a specified app, you can utilize the 'left', 'right', and 'top' buttons to further edit within them.
By following the instructions in the manual, we all matched our timers to the countdown at camp. Something really convenient is that if at any point we power down our watches, our timer, as well as our other apps, will still be at work and ticking down on schedule. The only case where our countdowns would be messed up is if our watches died from lack of battery.
When utilizing a specified selected app, if I double-click the corresponding button… the expanded app will minimize, and I’ll return to looking at the home screen. So, if I’m utilizing the timer app and double-click the top button, I’ll return to the home screen. The 'vitals app' is connected to the left button, while the 'people app' is connected to the right button. Pretty straightforward stuff.
On the home screen, the Vitals app only displays your heart rate and body temperature. But when you open the app, you can also see your respiratory rate and blood pressure, and there's even a section that informs you if you are dehydrated or malnourished. I'm not an expert on vitals or health, but thankfully, the manual clarified that if your numbers are colored green, you're good in that department. Yellow means caution, and if you see red, you're in trouble. While my nourishment appeared yellow, all my other vitals appeared green, which put me at ease.
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When you open the People app, the left half of the screen displays an opaque black silhouette over a white background. This silhouette corresponds to your specific body figure. The right half exhibits a list of information about the specified individual, such as their name, age, gender, height, weight, and eye color. Mine appeared as:
Name: Ember*
Age: 18
Gender: F
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 156 lbs
Eye color: Brown
We were all eighteen years old, and while everybody had their own data… something that wasn't consistent between all of us was the tiny asterisk next to my name. Only me, Scar, and Code had an asterisk. The rest did not. The manual didn't have anything about the asterisk, and during our brief discussion about what it could mean, nobody could figure it out. Personally, I saw nothing good about it… considering that my name was mixed with Scar's, I assumed we were Zeris’s targets.
Like the map model and beacons, this watch will be incredibly useful. Luckily, there's one for all of us. Another thing that caught my eye was the figure '10' on the home screen for the People app. This means ten people are still alive, but only eight of us are here. Hunter suggested that it could be the number of people using the watches, but, for one, that isn't what the manual said. And two, I was one of the first to activate their watch... and the People app initially displayed '10' on the home screen. It retained that figure while other people set up their own devices.
I wondered who the other two people could be on the trek to the maze. There was a very high likelihood that one of them was Ace, but the other was a complete mystery. From what I know, it could only be Hazel, Violet, or Blue, as the rest are confirmed to be dead. While Sky left Hazel and Violet behind, assuming they would die, she never saw them actually die.
In Blue's case, Cliff's mouth was reeking of lies from the moment he stepped into camp all the way up until Scar killed him. However, one of the few constants he repeatedly stressed was that Ace killed Blue. He even swore to kill Scar in his final moments because he blamed him for Blue’s death… and it's hard to overlook that. My money is on it being either Hazel or Violet, but if they haven't returned to camp in over a day… it's tough not to consider the possibility that they may be physically injured or disabled. If that were the case, they are probably stuck in one spot without food or water, waiting to die. Or it might be Zeris, considering he's been here from the beginning, too.
Thinking about it too much won't do me any good, and it won't change the fact that two other people besides ourselves are also mysteriously alive.
As Forest informed us that we were about thirty minutes from the cave, I turned on my watch for a quick look at the countdown: 55:46:23… 22… 21. Hearing what Forest had said, Scar added that once we arrive, we'll turn in for the night and enter the maze at daybreak.
Up to this point, we had been walking for several hours, almost entirely in silence, the only light available to us coming from the torches that me, Sky, Hunter, and Delta were carrying. Some words were exchanged occasionally between Hunter and Forest at the front, and Delta and Scar at the back, but the middle was a wasteland to human conversation. Even Sky, who almost always wore a smile, looked down in the dumps and frightened.
Code didn't appear to be scared… he was characteristically acting much more frantically than everybody else, constantly twisting his neck around to check our surroundings at all times. His creased, stressed face also conveyed that he was simultaneously deep in thought, similar to how I was for most of the walk. Faith's shriveled-up body language signified that she was tense and on edge, but her eyes didn't match that vibe. They had a subtle fire in them, and when I noticed that, I smiled.
Scar is currently holding on to the map model and beacons, but he informed us that he would divvy the beacons before we entered the maze. He also handed the steel sword over to Forest while offering the bow and quiver to Hunter, just in case they needed to defend themselves on the walk there. Fortunately for them and us, they haven't had to use their weapons yet.
As we arrived, we all set ourselves down inside the cave. Scar created some glass placeholders and attached them to the walls to hold up the four torches we brought so we didn't have to put out their flames. I decided to eat some of the food I brought, breaking off some bread and nibbling at it while Scar assured us that he'd keep watch all night, telling us not to worry about anything. His saying this only made me worry more, but it's whatever.
Sky then asked Scar how he could stay awake and even offered to take a shift herself, but before Scar could answer, Code butt in and told Sky that Scar doesn't get tired, to which Scar only nodded. I was skeptical about that, considering they both apparently fell asleep just the other day in broad daylight. Still, it could've just been Zeris or something that caused that.
Who even knows what's going on anymore? Not me, heh. Definitely not me.
After checking my watch one last time before bed to check the countdown (55:17:50... 49... 48...), I took out my sleeping bag. Some others shot me surprised looks, which I shrugged off.
I'm going to bed. If I die, at least I made it this far. If I wake up, woohoo, another day of hellish fun awaits.
And with that thought, I instantly gave in to exhaustion.