I gritted my teeth during my moments of silence, which were many and long. I was very concentrated watching the departures of the two people who, up to that moment, I liked.

Next to me, suddenly, a sort of glowing pillar of smoke rose up and solidified into the guide Izan. “You should have played, practice and endurance are the first things to master here. It's necessary to get used to the pain.”

“Pain?” I asked with my eyes widened to the limit.

I had forgotten that we would suffer damage while playing, but what kind of damage? In the midst of my musing, a piercing scream caused me to unfocus my gaze from Abigail's departure. I searched for the source of such an agonizing noise.

Henry, the young man wearing glasses, was hugging his abdomen. We had a scroll on each dais that functioned as a screen. On this one we saw that the protector of Henry's rival transformed into a horrible looking beast that attacked him with its claws; the cut was deep.

Usually protectors were animal-like beings. Ours appeared in the classroom. The teacher Susana had explained that they would take the shape of animals that were related or similar to us. My protector was a wolf, although I had assumed it would be a dog because of my deceased pet.

During our visit to the library, before the chess games, Valentina had named her protective cat Fabulous, Abigail's protective dog Fortune, and my wolf Cute. They seemed ridiculous names to me; more so, considering that Abigail wasn't exactly fortunate in the bathrooms and my wolf looked aggressively serious.

The teacher reminded everyone that they were to continue playing until her body was unable to continue the game. Henry held one hand over his wound and with the other continued to play.

Behind us Izan's voice came as a whisper. “That is why you must gain endurance and strength. No one will die, for now, but the pain and wounds you suffer will be real, will take time to heal and will make it difficult for you to play again the following days. You need to play and improve your skill, otherwise the pain endured will be in vain.”

“Defeats are painful, but if we endure and improve, then will we start winning?” inquired one of Gabriela's minions.

“Probably.” Izan replied.

In front of us the screen showed us a message in red. Henry had fallen, his hands loosened on his legs as his head hit the back of the chair. Blood gushed from the wound on the side of his abdomen.

“Henry, of the sixteenth piece, has lost!” Announced the bearded old man accompanying Master Susanna.

In an instant, Henry dissolved into a cinder on the chair, it faded to the floor and his opponent struggled to his feet. He coughed a couple of times, had bruises on his face and a slight cut on his chest, after that he collapsed on the floor.

After our colleague's rival disappeared as well, Izan mentioned that both of them would be in the infirmary. Wishing Henry was well, I wanted to go back to watching Valentina and Abigail's games, but not before taking a look at Henry's game. The position of the chess pieces was too difficult.

“Mr. Izan, excuse me, did Henry lose because of his wound? I don't see checkmate, and it looks like the position is too close.”

“Gabriel, you are perceptive. But it wasn't because of that. The young gentleman Henry thought about agreeing to draw, however, just considering that option in the mind intensifies the pain and hurt in the body. Henry lost by wanting to draw, and his body did not withstand the consequences.”

“Consequences? Then it is forbidden to tie.” Intervened a companion in my piece.

“No, you can always draw if you want to... but you will have to resist what comes with the draw. Henry didn't reach to offer the draw to his opponent before collapsing, which gave him the loss.”

Izan glanced at all of us, as if assessing which of our expressions of terror was more pathetic. Possibly mine was not because, despite being very empathetic and sensitive, I had become very cold and expressionless over the years.

“I recommend that you always play with determined intentions to win.” Izan concluded.

After getting over the impression that Henry's case had made on me, I went back to concentrating on my teammates' games. Valentina's game was not progressing, my little companion was being too slow in every move while her opponent was playing fast and determined. In Abigail's game I saw a pitiful position for Gabriela.

I focused so much on my mute partner's game that I forgot to check Valentina's from time to time, perhaps because of the surprise that Abigail was destroying Gabriela. But, despite that victory, the situation became too painful.

Abigail won with great ease, which left her with a couple of scratches and cuts on her arms that did not receive attention in the infirmary. Immediately, the winner was returned to our elevated platform and the brutally tortured Gabriela was taken to the infirmary.

“I admit I wasn't expecting that.” I said to Abigail, as the companions let out faint babbles and whispers commenting on the games.

Abigail sighed, she seemed relieved of a heavy burden, her hands were shaking and for some reason she was drying her eyes with a handkerchief. I refused to believe it, but, Abigail had cried. I thought of some kind phrase to congratulate her, but I didn't have time. A heart-rending announcement echoed through the library.

“Valentina, from piece sixteen, has lost!”

My eyes immediately focused on Valentina's table, red liquid could be seen dripping continuously from her chair. Her small hands rested on the floor and her curls were tousled. The ebony color of her cheeks was gone. One of them, pale in the extreme, brushed against one of the table legs. I looked at the parchment, one move before collapsing, the little girl had dropped her stuffed cat.

“That's too many wounds.” Said someone in front of me.

I turned my head, looked at Abigail with my eyes closed and my head slightly bowed. I spoke to her without thinking “Gotta go!”

I burned with anger when I saw that no one seemed concerned about her. She was taken to the infirmary, but I wanted to accompany her. Without reasoning for a second I went to the edge of the platform to launch myself, it wasn't a dangerous height and I trusted my protector.

“Stop Gabriel!”

“Mr. Izan, I must go see that girl, she's in a very bad way.”

“True, if it wasn't for the magic of this place she would probably die in a few minutes.”

“She's suffering too much, she's alone, she needs someone, monsters, everyone here looks like robots!” I said throwing a menacing glare at my group.

“In your world she had to be taken care of by parents, teachers, governments. She would be dead if it weren't for us. She will not die yet, here she will heal after the game she lost. Tell me who are the real monsters?”

“She'd be dead if it weren't for you, what the hell does that mean!”

“Gabriel, you were playing chess, comfortable in your room before the power of the Challengers brought you. That little girl was about to be killed by a bomb next to the orphanage where she slept with hundreds of children.”

Izan looked at the other members of The Sixteenth Piece as a sword appeared in his hand. “Do not even think of ignoring my orders. One contempt and I will send you to the infirmary without having played, or worse, to your miserable lives.”

I panicked, not so much about returning to my life on The Earth or being seriously injured. I worried that any of the punishments Izan would impose on me would prevent me from helping Valentina.

Abigail took my arm, gently tugged me away from Izan and showed me her journal.

“She'll be fine, she's stronger than you think.” It said the message she had written to me.

I took a deep breath, crossed my arms and pretended to keep looking at the remaining games, my mind running through the biggest failures of my life and remembering the friends I lost because of me. More players, badly wounded, continued to fade away.

Flashes, sounds, wounds, beasts were perceived at every instant and the losers kept falling. Dozens of people, bloodied and even mutilated, were taken to the infirmary where, Izan explained, they would heal to the point of recovering parts of their bodies.

I did not agree with so much pain, but, in a moment of lucidity, I remembered that each of those departures was unleashing pain and death on earth. In spite of that, I stood my ground, the people who were there did not seem concerned about the chaos they were causing on The Earth.

One hand showed me her diary “On The Earth they must be having a very hard time.”

Abigail had been thinking the same thing I was. As I looked at her, her face denoted terror and a strong desire to cry. At that moment I remembered seeing a similar expression on her face seconds after defeating Gabriela. It wasn't her rival that worried Abigail, nor was she terrified just because of what happened to Valentina. Abigail knew that, because of these games, many people were being killed on Earth.

I thought we would not be so affected by the game and its magic. According to Master Susana, humanity was doing stupid things and any dispute that was caused was going to end badly; it didn't matter if we solved it in a game or if it was solved by mortals in a peaceful conversation on Earth. There would always be painful consequences.

It became clear to me that we could not take sides either, that is, we would not know who we were saving or who we were killing in the human world. Our intentions during the game had to be to win, no matter who we were benefiting.

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The hours passed, I didn't know exactly how many. We had been told that we would not age, but we did have to respect the hours as we did in our world. When the games were over, Abigail and I ran to the infirmary. We were disappointed when we arrived.

Indeed, the infirmary was a magical place, with very bright people. Literally those who worked there were glowing, emitting intense, radiant light. They had white clothes, of different designs, but white; so were Izan's and the teachers' clothes.

Our disappointment came because we believed that the healing would be instantaneous, painless, magical or at least easier than in our world. However, upon arrival we heard moans and cries of pain. We located Valentina's room and almost cried at the sight of her. She was still badly injured, if it hadn't been for the magic of that place she would have surely died.

“Not a sound, understood?” said the woman who had taken us there.

Abigail sat by Valentina's bedside while a caretaker asked her if she wanted something to eat. I thought it was strange, seeing her wounds I thought she was going to do some stitches. Instead, he left as soon as she refused the offer.

“There are no doctors here.” Valentina said as she looked at us with a smile.

The little girl had woken up. Abigail took her by the hand and brought her the stuffed cat that had been left lying on the library floor when Valentina lost. For my part I feigned calm, or thought I did, as I held back fleeting tears of joy.

“Why do you say there are no doctors?” I asked taking a chair to sit next to the bed.

“Because I'm healing myself.”

Abigail looked at me, held Valentina's hand and wrinkled her brow. Seeing our reaction the girl continued to explain.

“I magically appeared here, just like when I appeared this morning in our room. There was a woman dressed in white standing at the entrance to the room when I opened my eyes. She told me I would be fine, said my body would be better and that the speed of my healing would depend on my power.”

“You say they didn't give you medicine?” I asked.

“No, they only brought me dinner and a treat I asked for.” She replied, speaking with a heartwarming smile as she hugged her stuffed cat.

I didn't quite understand what was going on, but I was pleased that, despite the wincing Valentina often made, she didn't seem to be scared at all.

“But if I move, even a little bit, it will hurt a lot.”

“I understand, your wounds are still exactly the same.”

“No, I'm much better. I had a bump on my head, I think I fell off the chair when I lost, but I don't have it anymore.”

Abigail let out a soft chuckle, turned to look at me and nodded her head. She looked down at her journal, wrote in it and handed it to me.

“I told you I was a very strong girl.”

I handed the journal back, took a deep breath as I raised my gaze to the ceiling, leaned my back in the chair and stretched out my legs.

The evening came, the caregiver brought us a tray with the dinners we had recently ordered, for Abigail and me. Despite having had dinner earlier, Valentina was saying how good our dinner smelled, only to ask for us to give her a bite of this and a bite of that. She ate all of my dessert.

Soon after, after being taken to the bathroom by the caregiver, little Valentina fell asleep. Her eyes looked better. I was relieved as, in my mind, I still had the image of her tear-stained cheeks and reddened eyes, when the scroll showed the video of the moment she lost.

“Did you notice that he endured to the end?” Abigail said in her journal.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Her leaving. Valentina didn't give up, she wasn't looking for a draw either. She was taking a lethal beating and yet she kept playing until her opponent checkmated.”

“That's why you told me she was a strong girl. So she didn't fall for the suffering any more than Henry did.”

Abigail nodded her head. Then, with delicate movements, she stood up and motioned for me to help her bring a table closer. Seconds later her protector glowed brightly and on the table appeared a chessboard with its pieces ready for a game.

“How did that board get there?” I said forcing myself to whisper so as not to wake Valentina.

“I learned it in the library books, they have a lot of amazing information about protectors.”

I felt like a fool. When we were there, before the chess games, I was flipping through a couple of chess books, but I didn't notice what Abigail had been reading.

My partner wrote in her journal for me again, she wanted us to review Valentina's game. She moved the pieces, got ready to write another message for me in her journal and I stopped her hand.

I sighed, I felt some guilt, “No need, I know sign language, you understand her right?”

She frowned and stared at me as she waved her hands. “Of course I know sign language why didn't you say so before?”

“I know, forgive me. You didn't seem friendly at first. I didn't think you wanted to talk... I mean, communicate much with me.”

We continued to analyze the game, she explained Valentina's every move to me, as if she knew the girl's every thought during the game. I paid attention, I was too angry during the competition that I completely forgot to review the game Valentina had lost.

As we finished discussing the game, Abigail looked me straight in the eye, as if searching for something I had missed, and after a brief moment, she stood up and asked the caretaker to bring us drinks. Instantly these appeared on the table and Abigail thanked the woman in white.

“How do you do the protector thing? I mean, how did you get your protector to create a chessboard?”

“They don't create anything, Gabriel. I only asked her to bring me a chessboard from the library. Besides, according to what I read, you can get a lot of information by asking them directly.”

“I don't understand, are they like an online encyclopedia?”

“More than that, they can tell you a lot of things about everyone, in this world and the other.” He answered, took a long drink and continued, “Thanks to my protector I understood the workings of the infirmary, among other things.”

“What other things?”

“I already know what our Focus score is... and that of our rivals.”

“You say that like it's a bad thing... Is it a bad thing?”

“We're the worst piece in the school. If piece two loses its last member in the next interschool match, then the new piece that would come in might have a worse level than us.”

“Might? It will surely be worse than us, they will be new.”

“You have not understood. Our playing ability and the power of our protectors do not only depend on how long we have been here. Gabriel, the new piece two that would appear, could be made up of complete novices or chess professionals. Add to that the training they would do here, and they would be invincible.”

“That would be bad, then we'll be at risk if strong players arrive.”

“All of us are simple amateurs. On the other hand, to take an example, the girl who defeated Valentina was a professional master on earth.”

“I don't think so! I don't remember that girl in what I saw of professional chess on the internet, what category did she play in.”

“Gabriel, you should pay more attention to what the masters and guides say. Remember what the guide Izan said. Nobody gets old here.”

It took me a while to process the information Abigail had gathered. I fell silent for a few seconds, stood up and drank some water. I looked at Abigail and sat back down. Denying reality.

“You saw Valentina's game, she really doesn't play bad. But, that little girl on piece five who beat her, that little girl who looks the same seven years old as Valentina, she's over a hundred years old.” Abigail concluded.

It was hard to believe what was going on in that place. Her magic was not like the tricks of the illusionists on television or the hustlers on the street. That girl who had bludgeoned Valentina played better than Abigail and me.

The atmosphere became quiet, most of the patients in the infirmary had fallen asleep and our conversation had become stagnant. I asked Abigail no more questions and began to investigate through my protector. Cute, as Valentina had named him, informed me of everything we were allowed to know at that school. Yes, only what we were allowed to know. The protector also had limits.

I left Abigail to visit Henry, he still looked very bad, but I felt less worried, after all I had learned. I was very reassured when I understood how we were recovering in the infirmary, which was still frightening, for if the injured man moved, all the pain would be unleashed.

Henry's caregiver allowed me into his room, as he was still awake and allowed my entrance. Beside the head of his bed, sitting up and awake, was his protector.

“What do you want?” he asked casually as I entered.

“We just want to know how you are, keep you some company if possible.”

“We want, who?”

“Well, me and Abigail, one of our roommates. You know, the one who doesn't talk.”

“Ah her, she scares me, I haven't heard her until now. But whatever.”

“Well, I understand yeah, whatever, you want to talk?”

“What about?”

I was running out of ideas and Henry's attitude made me uncomfortable. “About you leaving, about what's happening to us, maybe together we can survive.”

“Do you expect to survive? We are destined to agonize and die here, you saw my game, didn't you? It doesn't matter if we try hard, we'll get our asses kicked in some game or all of them. And if we manage to endure in this school, we'll still get killed when we face The Black School.” He looked at me with his empty, mournful, lifeless eyes.

“I think so much pain affected you. But we can get stronger, train and win matches.”

“I tried to fight, it didn't work. Then I wanted to avoid defeat.”

“You wanted to draw.”

“No, I wanted to win, but we are far from the level of the others. Looking for draws ended up being worse. I don't understand what purpose we're here for, I should let them kill me soon.”

I felt disgusted by what I was about to say, but something good I had learned from Gabriela that day. “You know, an immature, arrogant woman said something to me today. This is going to be our destiny, and it sounds like fun. She said it because she's an idiot, really, but there's something cute about the phrase.”

“Cute?”

“Yeah, call me dumb, but, I think it will be fun to have something to fight for. I don't know your story, I could have found out if I had asked my protector, but I didn't and don't want to. I'm just inviting you to try to play for your life... and have breakfast with us and Valentina, the little one who is hurt too.”

“Can we ask things to the protectors?”

“Find out from your protector. See you tomorrow.”

I walked away feeling like a hypocrite. I had told him to play for his life, but I wasn't sure I wanted to win a game myself. Not only that, but I was still worried about seriously hurting someone, so much so that it would sink their spirit, just like they had done to Henry. Besides, I didn't want to unleash chaos on The Land. I didn't know what to do.

When I got to Valentina's room, the caretaker was still standing in the doorway, those people never sleep. Inside, the little girl slept peacefully while Abigail read another book that her protector had brought her from the library. The mute young girl had no wounds anymore.

“You should sleep, tomorrow we have to play.” I said.

“I won't play, I don't plan to declare, and I can't be summoned either. Remember, we victors have that privilege.”

“And what about today's losers?”

“You should read more books about the rules of this place.” He said in sign language. “But, well, they can also avoid the games as long as they are really hurt still.”

Silence reigned for a good while. He rose from his seat, set the book gently on the table and walked over to the caretaker. Instantly, two blankets and a pillow appeared in my lap.

“Sleep, you will be summoned for sure tomorrow.” Abigail said.

“I'm not sleepy, I don't know, I don't want to sleep.” Actually, even if I wanted to, my mind was cluttered with thoughts, one more negative and complicated than the last.

“Your data is bad. You have no experience in professional competitions, you have no good results in local competitions and on the internet you have almost no wins. Tomorrow you will be eaten alive and you know it.”

“I'll be fine.”

Abigail lunged at me, with a speed that surprised me, snatched the blankets and pillow from me. She rearranged the chessboard her protector had brought and sat down with a menacing face. “Prove it, defeat me.”

Next to the chessboard appeared a chess clock. I remembered the words of master Susana, “Friendly games will do no harm.” And I accepted the challenge.

“Last recommendation. Show me no mercy.” Abigail said.

The game started, I felt uncomfortable playing in that place, however, I managed to concentrate with strange ease. She had let me play with the white pieces, a courtesy, but also a possible advantage for her. She was very good playing with the black pieces, as I saw when she beat Gabriela.

During the game I found many advantages, they were small, but they were so easy for me to see that I began to worry that Abigail was playing badly on purpose. I went through a very comfortable, closed and complicated opening for my opponent.

Usually, when starting a game, the white pieces play first and take advantage of their initiative advantage. But, in that infirmary room, my closed, unaggressive style of play was working very well for me.

After leaving Abigail without comfortable moves, forced to use many moves to move her pieces from one end of the board to the other, I began to take advantage of subtle tactical combinations that eventually caused my opponent to lose a pawn. These combinations were procedures I envisioned, calculating the moves Abigail would make after mine.

After several minutes of analysis, with a confused look and a blurred face, Abigail offered me a handshake and surrendered.