He had to win. There was no choice. He had to be first.

But part of him told him to turn around. It said he was being delusional, that he couldn’t even read Ephrian, that he knew deep down he couldn’t actually beat his own teammates, let alone everyone else in the competition.

It had seemed like a good idea to hop in the canoe on his own. It was a bet that the course was short and he could do what little was left on his own. There were about 20 teams of four, with four teams competing at any one time. The course couldn’t be that long, otherwise the final teams would have a disadvantage from drowsiness.

But with time to think during the canoe ride, he started having doubts that he could take on the rest of the course alone. Many, many doubts. What if he missed crucial instructions in Ephrian? What if no matter how hard he tried, he would finish slower than other teams because he didn’t bring help? What if he couldn’t finish the course at all without help?

Edgar looked back. If he swallowed his pride right now, went back to the other side, and got Stanbury or Raine, he might actually have a better chance of finishing at the top. He stopped paddling.

He hesitated.

Then a few moments later, he turned his head back around. He gritted his teeth. Fuck that.

After rushing ahead on his own, he wasn’t going to go back and beg for help.

He saw the end of the water now. He reached it in a few minutes.

I can do this. I can fucking do this. I’m going to fucking win. Edgar tossed aside his paddle and climbed out of the canoe.

He was in a small room with smooth stone walls and a black door on the wall he was facing. There was a huge lever on the ground at the center of the room. A small rack full of towels was near him.

Beside the door, there was Ephrian writing on the wall. He couldn’t read it, so he ignored it and went to the door. It wasn’t locked.

Huh. He opened the door and saw a pitch-black hallway past it. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and turned on its flashlight. There were lights on the ceiling. He looked back at the lever for a moment before approaching it. It took some effort to pull it, but once he did, he saw light coming from the hallway. He went through the door.

What’s so hard about this? he wondered as he went down the hallway. I was worrying over nothing.

Then his foot hit something, and he stumbled. “Woah!”

He barely managed to stay on his feet. Then he saw an opening in the wall. His eyes widened, and he ducked on instinct. A tennis ball flew right over his head. He heard it bounce off the opposite wall and fall to the ground.

He stared at the ball and took a deep breath. Fuck, that was close.

He continued down the hallway at a much slower pace, keeping an eye out for traps.

. . . .

Max and Arnett got out of the canoe.

Max stuck a finger in the water. It was ice-cold. “Do you think they’ll really be able to swim here?”

“Yeah, why not? Everyone in Stanbury’s team is a freak of an athlete,” Arnett said, striding over to the Ephrian text on the wall. Max was sure that Arnett had absolutely no idea what it said, but he looked like he was reading it anyway. “Hey Max, come see this.”

I know you need me to read it, man. Max nodded and went over to see what it said. He read it slowly, getting stuck on the first word for a while. “‘Light up dangerous paths.’”

“What?” Arnett said. Max shrugged.

Then Arnett went to the door and opened it carefully, revealing a dark hallway. Their eyes went to the lever in the middle of the room.

“I’m going to pull the lever,” Arnett said, striding over to it.

Max got ready to dodge some tennis balls.

Arnett pulled it with a grunt. Light shone in the previously dark hallway.

Max and Arnett looked left and right in nervous silence. They weren’t that concerned about being eliminated, but they didn’t want to get whacked by tennis balls.

Nothing happened.

“I think...I think we’re good,” Max said after a few seconds.

“We’re good. But the lever’s moving back,” Arnett said. “I guess you get light for only so long.”

“That, or someone has to stay here and keep the lights on. Running back and forth would be a pain. And considering how the wall says the path is dangerous, it’ll be risky too.”

“Oh yeah, true.”

They heard the sound of water splashing. Max looked toward the water, and he saw Stanbury’s teammates, Tyson and Willis, swimming over.

“Jesus, they can swim that fast even after competing all day,” Arnett said.

A few minutes later, Willis got out of the water. He nodded to them and grabbed a towel from the rack nearby.

Max grabbed Willis’ phone and jacket from the canoe and passed them to him. Willis thanked him, and once Tyson was out of the water as well, Max explained to them what he and Arnett had just learned about the hallway and the Ephrian writing on the wall.

“I see,” Willis said. That was it. He was a man of few words.

“Do you know what’s dangerous about the hallway?” Tyson asked.

“Nope, we haven’t checked it out yet,” Arnett said.

“Okay. Then I think two of us should go first and learn more about it. One person can stay at the entrance and let those two know if there’s any danger from behind. The last person will keep the lights on.”

“I’m a bit tired,” Willis said. “Lights for me.”

“I have good eyesight,” Arnett said. “I’ll do the spotting.”

“Alright, let’s go take a look,” Tyson said to Max.

The two slowly went down the hallway.

Nothing? Max thought. Then as he was walking, he looked down, and his feet froze.

“Stop, stop,” he said quickly. Tyson halted. “That’s a trap.”

They stared at a small tile poking half an inch out of the ground. There was an Ephrian word on it: ‘danger.’ Tyson stared at the tile. Max told him what the word meant.

“Should we test it?” he asked. He was thinking of pushing it with his foot and running away.

Tyson took a second to respond. “Yeah. I have an idea for that. Arnett! Can you bring a paddle from the canoe?”

He did. Then, standing a good distance away from the tile, Tyson put the paddle on the ground and slid it forward. It hit the tile.

A hole appeared on the left wall, and they backed away immediately. A tennis ball shot out at an angle and hit the opposite wall.

The two of them went back to the room behind them to discuss with Arnett and Willis how to proceed. They decided that Arnett, the one with the best eyesight, would walk in the front. Max and Tyson would be slightly behind and to either side of him. Max watched the left wall, and Tyson the right.

They progressed slowly but without issue, spotting every trap they came across.

. . . .

Cecily ducked. The tennis ball flew so close she felt its wind on her back. She looked back and took a deep breath. That was fucking close.

The end of the hallway was in sight. As she continued walking toward it, the lights on the ceiling slowly dimmed.

Shit. I need to hurry up. She picked up her pace. She didn’t want to waste time on going back to pull the lever again.

The hallway turned left not far ahead. It had been completely straight until then. She kept her eyes open for traps as she reached the turn.

The flooring was different here. It had a bit of give. And she saw the end of the hallway now. A white door stood there.

She couldn’t see any traps. That was strange. She’d taken too many steps with nothing happening for her to not be concerned about an unexpected problem popping up. Irritation flared in her chest. Son of a bitch, now I have to slow down.

She looked up at the lights. They were dim now. She guessed she had about a minute before they went out.

She frowned. Should I throw caution to the wind and run?

After a moment, she shook her head. Screw that. I’m not going to risk losing again just to save a tiny bit of time.

She sprinted back the way she came.

She remembered where every trap was. In one minute, she was back at the entrance.

While she leaned on her knees and tried to catch her breath, she heard water splashing. She knew exactly what that meant.

Fuck. She ran to the lever and practically tackled it. The lights returned to their full brightness.

She strode through the hallway. She wanted to run, but she needed some time to catch her breath.

“Hey, Cecily!” Julia shouted. “How have you been, you bitch? Thanks to you, we got to enjoy a swim in the freezing-cold water!”

Cecily ignored her. Then about a minute later, she heard Julia cry out, “Shit, did you leave our phones behind?”

Cecily made the turn, going at a brisk walk. She kept her eyes peeled for traps. She was tempted to break into a dash and risk taking a hit to reach the end, but she controlled herself.

Not far ahead, there were five buttons on the wall. Two were labeled in Ephrian: ‘Up’ and ‘Down.’

Above the buttons was a sentence in Ephrian: ‘Coordination smooths your path.’

Okay, but what exactly do these fucking buttons do? Deactivate traps? As she was thinking, she heard two people’s distant footsteps from behind. But the lights weren’t dimming. All three of her teammates had probably swum.

Fuck. Hit a button? Rush forward?

A moment later, she hit a button. A few steps ahead, seven pairs of openings appeared on the walls. Tennis balls continuously shot out of the left wall and entered openings on the right wall.

They were arranged in a parabolic pattern: the closest ones were low, the middle ones were high, and the farthest ones were low again.

I can’t do a motherfucking somersault, Hopkins. She hit another button.

Three evenly spaced openings appeared at calf-level. Then three at head level.

Doable. She would have to do a dive-roll.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Hearing Julia and Livia getting closer, she quickly hit the last button.

It was the most undesirable option. Ten evenly spaced openings appeared at knee-level. She would have to crawl.

She pressed the same button, and the holes in the walls closed. What happens if I just go?

She took a careful step forward. Twenty pairs of openings appeared on the walls. Their arrangement would require her to do a somersault and a dive-roll in immediate succession before getting down on the ground to crawl.

Okay, fuck that. She pressed the ‘Up’ button. It wouldn’t stay down, so she had to hold it.

Nothing happened. It probably changes the others.

She hit the second button and then held the ‘Up’ button. Every opening moved two inches higher. She let go of the ‘Up’ button, and the openings moved back down two inches. The ‘Down’ button had similar behavior; it moved the openings down two inches.

It’ll take two people to use these. Fuck it, then.

She got a running start and dove for the gap between the two groups of tennis balls.

Her foot almost hit one of the tennis balls, making her eyes widen in fear and surprise, but it missed by a fraction of an inch.

Relief flooded over her as she landed on the ground. Then six pairs of openings appeared ahead of her—three high, three low like before, but this time the gap between the two groups was smaller, and every opening was an inch higher.

Keeping up the momentum of her first roll, she took steps and dove forward again.

Then the same thing happened. The next six pairs of openings were even higher and closer than the last ones. There was also a pair of openings below the rest, probably to make sure she didn’t just crawl under.

Fuck, how many times do I have to do this? She dove yet again.

When she landed, instead of six pairs of openings, there were now eight in front of her. With a groan of frustration, she dove through the gap between the high and low tennis balls. One of them hit her left ankle. She cringed from the pain. Shit. Shit. Shit. Come on.

Ahead of her, there were even more openings in the walls. Ten tennis balls shot out of the left wall.

“Fuck,” she said. I’m not a fucking Olympic gymnast, Hopkins.

The lights soon returned to their full brightness. She heard the sound of someone running.

“Ow! Goddammit,” Julia said. Cecily heard the sound of a tennis ball bouncing on the floor.

She shot a glance behind her and saw Julia and Livia.

“Oh, hey! How are you doing?” Julia asked. Livia waved.

Fuck. The moment she learns what the buttons do, I’m screwed. Cecily took a deep breath. She hoped this was going to be the last dive-roll she would have to do. Taking three steps to pick up speed, she dove for the gap between the two sets of five tennis balls. Her left ankle hurt like a bitch, making her wince in pain. But she made it through the gap without issue. Then came the landing.

She rolled and got to her feet. Intense pain stabbed her ankle. She held back a yelp.

Are you fucking kidding me? Of all fucking times to get injured, now?

And there was yet another dive roll to go.

“Looks fun,” Julia said. “Tennis ball art. Oh, what does this do?” She hit a button.

The ten pairs of openings ahead of Cecily were replaced by eight pairs arranged in a parabola. Son of a bitch.

Cecily glared at Julia. “Switch it back, bitch. Don’t you want to win?”

“I do. But not if it’s because of you. Anyway, let’s see what this does.” Julia pressed and held the ‘Up’ button. The openings in front of Cecily stretched vertically. Julia held the ‘Down’ button. The openings came closer together.

“I can make that,” Livia said suddenly, staring at the tennis balls shooting out of the walls.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Bullshit. Cecily gritted her teeth. She wanted to go and punch Julia in the gut and hit the second button, but she didn’t think she could do all those rolls again with her injured ankle.

“Switch it back,” Cecily growled.

“Nah,” Julia said. “You get what you give.” Then, speaking to Livia, she said, “Let’s see what this does.” She hit the third button. “Oh that’s going to take a while. Back to somersaults?”

Livia nodded. Julia hit the first button and held down the ‘Down’ button.

Then Livia started running.

Son of a bitch.

Livia did a front flip and went over the first group of tennis balls. Then she took a step and flipped over the next group. And the next. Cecily watched in shock.

Livia then landed next to Cecily but didn’t slow in the least. Two steps. Somersault. The highest yet. Livia made it look easy.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Julia cheered. “Nice!”

Livia was almost at the door now. There were twelve pairs of openings in the walls ahead of her. Livia stopped. “Okay, I can’t make this one.”

Cecily was about to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Not a problem,” Julia said. She hit the third button and held the ‘Up’ button.

This can’t be real. Cecily stared blankly as Livia crawled under the final group of tennis balls and jogged to the door.

Julia applauded. Livia smiled and gave them a peace sign. She turned the handle.

. . . .

What a mediocre team, Ava thought, throwing a biscuit into her mouth.

“I’d say B minus for Caraway,” Wang Wei said.

“She did decently on her own,” Hugh said, “but she would have been so much faster if she’d brought another person on the canoe. C plus.”

“C plus,” Song Hyun-woo said in agreement. Steele agreed as well.

Wang Wei shrugged. “Alright,” he said, typing on his laptop. “C plus it is. How about Johnson?”

“B plus. Good performance early on,” Steele said. “He kept the team together in the first room.”

“B,” Song Hyun-woo said. “He didn't do much afterward.”

The other two agreed with Song Hyun-woo and gave Grant a B.

“Wade and Yang make a good pair,” Hugh said. “They made a similar contribution to the team. B plus for both.”

“Yeah, but they barely worked with Johnson, and Yang hindered Caraway,” Wang Wei said. “B minus for them.”

“B minus for Yang, B plus for Wade,” Song Hyun-woo said. “If not for Yang trying to get back at Caraway, the team would have finished sooner. Wade just followed along.”

After a short discussion, they went with Song Hyun-woo’s suggestion and gave Julia a B minus and Livia a B plus.

“Okay, onto the Williams-Banks team,” Hugh said. “They should be about done now.”

Wang Wei punched some keys on his laptop.

They watched Raine’s team start going through the course on the screen in front of them. They sat in silence for the first ten minutes. Wang Wei scribbled some notes on his notebook, while the rest just watched.

“Wow,” Wang Wei said as they watched Edgar paddle away on his own. “Another solo canoer. This isn’t normal, right? There weren’t any in April.”

Hugh nodded. “I’ve noticed that the solo canoers always ambitious, usually stressed, and often stupid and didn’t place in the top three in the team competition,” he said.

“Sounds about right,” Steele said.

Ava snickered as she stared at the screen.

“He’s hesitating,” she said. “And on he goes.”

Song Hyun-woo sighed. “On paper, he’s great,” he said. “If only he had a better personality.”

“I’m curious to see he does over the next few days,” Steele said, “I expect his ego is in pieces right now. Much like Caraway’s.”

. . . .

Stanbury got off the bike and threw his hands up.

“So what now?” he asked.

The hole in the wall had closed, and Edgar was out of sight, having made a turn. Raine checked the time on his phone; it was 6:16 PM.

“Now we swim,” Marco said. “You and I go to the other side, and one of us comes back on the canoe to get Raine and the phones.”

“That’ll take too long. Let’s just leave the phones here. I’ll swim,” Raine said, taking off his jacket. His injuries would keep him from kicking, but he could still swim without using his legs.

“I’ve got some great memories in here,” Marco said, holding up his phone. “And I didn’t back up most of the data.”

“I’m sure we’ll get them back afterward,” Raine said. “Hopkins will have to reset the course after we’re done.”

Raine put his phone on the ground. Marco reluctantly did the same.

Then Stanbury, being the best swimmer among them, volunteered to tie Raine’s crutch to his leg with his jacket. Although Raine was briefly concerned, Stanbury seemed to swim without a problem.

The three of them started their swim to the other end of the water.

It was the first time Raine had swum in a while, but he was still faster than the exhausted Marco. They reached the end of the water in about ten minutes. Stanbury got out first, then Raine, then Marco.

Raine glanced at the Ephrian on the wall. “‘Light up dangerous paths,’” he read. His eyes went to the half-open black door beside the text.

Stanbury strode to the door and opened it all the way. He squinted. “He’s down the hallway.”

“Jesus, he’s made shit progress,” Marco said. “So much for helping us win.”

Raine went to the door and saw a dimly lit hallway. The lights were further dimming fast.

“Edgar!” Raine shouted. “What’s dangerous about the hallway?”

“Pull the fucking lever!” Edgar shouted.

Wow, thanks for answering the question.

“Why?” Stanbury shouted with a frown. “What does it do?”

“Lights, dumbass!”

Then the hallway went dark.

“Go pull the fucking lever, you morons!” Edgar howled.

Shaking his head, Stanbury went to the lever.

“He needs to calm down,” he said, pulling the lever.

The lights turned back on. Raine watched Edgar continue heading down the hallway.

“How about a ‘thank you?’” Stanbury said, returning to the door. “What an ingrate.”

“Forget it,” Raine said. “Considering what we just saw, we’re going to need someone to stay back and keep the lights on.”

His gaze went right to Marco, the one certain to cause trouble if they caught up to Edgar.

“Hey, I’ll do that gladly,” Marco said. He looked dead tired after the swim.

Raine nodded. He and Stanbury entered the hallway.

At random points in the hallway, there were tennis balls on the ground. When they reached the first one, they stopped and looked around.

“Edgar!” Raine shouted. “Are there traps, or do the walls fire at random once we’re past a certain point?”

Edgar glanced back at them. A few moments later, he said something too quietly for Raine to catch.

“What?” Raine asked.

“Traps, motherfucker! Traps!”

Would it really have been so hard to say it louder the first time? Jeez.

Raine and Stanbury stared at the ground as they walked, searching for traps. Then, about five steps later, Raine stopped.

“There,” he said, pointing at a tile. “It says ‘danger.’”

Stanbury crouched down and stared at it. “Huh. Do you think he was hit?”

“Who knows. Do you want to test out the trap?”

“Yeah.”

They backed up. Stanbury threw a tennis ball at the tile.

A hole opened on the left wall and fired a tennis ball. It bounced off the right wall and hit the ground.

“Not easy to dodge,” Stanbury said. “But doable.”

“You’re screwed if you trip,” Raine said. He looked ahead. “With all those traps he set off, I’m going to guess he’s been hit at least once. Likely twice.”

Stanbury frowned. “Yeah.”

They continued down the hallway. Ahead, Edgar made a turn and left their view.

Stanbury and Raine made slow but steady progress. But about halfway through, Stanbury triggered a trap and tripped.

Raine was about to reach for his arm and pull him aside when, in a display of absurd athleticism, Stanbury pushed off the wall beside him hard enough that he got out of the way of the tennis ball flying at him.

Woah. Raine helped Stanbury get onto his feet.

“That was close,” Stanbury said, taking a deep breath.

Then they heard a howl of rage from ahead.

“How the fuck is someone supposed to do this shit, Hopkins!”

Raine blinked. Then he and Stanbury shrugged and continued down the hallway.

It took them about five minutes to reach the turn, during which neither of them triggered another trap.

Edgar was down on the floor. Ten tennis balls flew over him. He crawled forward, inch by inch, staying as low to the ground as he possibly could. Then more openings appeared right beside him on the walls.

“Fuck!” he cried, shooting to his feet. He jumped. Half a dozen tennis balls flew under him. They were so low he would have been hit if he’d just stopped and tried to lie flat on the ground. The openings closed.

That looks hard.

“That’s pretty cool,” Stanbury said. He looked eager to try it out himself.

Raine read aloud the Ephrian on the wall. Then he looked at the five buttons below it. The third one was down. What do these do?

“Don’t touch the motherfucking buttons,” Edgar growled. He was crawling on the ground again.

“Okay, okay,” Raine said. He was fairly sure he knew what the ‘Up’ and ‘Down’ buttons did, and he was tempted to hit the ‘Down’ button. “Edgar, do you know what the ‘Up’ button does?”

He asked that just to confirm his suspicions.

“What?”

Oh, right. “Nevermind.” Raine thought about it for a moment. Eh, here goes nothing.

He hit the ‘Up’ button. Then, seeing that it didn’t stay down, he held it.

Then the openings on the walls move up two inches. Seeing that, Edgar breathed a sigh of relief and crawled faster. Then once he was past those openings, he stopped to catch his breath. He was halfway to the door.

“So you can make it easier with that button?” Stanbury said. “That’s convenient.”

He took a small step toward Edgar. Ten evenly spaced tennis balls shot out of the left wall and entered the right wall.

“Can you lower them?” he asked. He was patting the wall for some reason.

“Don’t fucking lower them!” Edgar shouted.

“We’re right here. You don’t have to shout.”

“Yeah, I can lower them,” Raine said.

“Great,” Stanbury said.

“You sons of bitches,” Edgar said.

“I think I know a better way to get through,” Stanbury said, ignoring Edgar. “It’s going to be far faster than how Edgar is doing it.”

“Alright then,” Raine said. “Don’t move, Edgar.”

He pressed the ‘Down’ button.

Stanbury strode about 15 feet back. Then he ran forward. He wasn’t running straight down the hallway. He was running at the left wall.

He jumped and stepped once, twice on the wall. Then he landed past the ten pairs of openings.

What the fuck? Raine watched with wide eyes.

Stanbury kept up the momentum. He didn’t have the space to pick up speed again if he stopped or slowed down.

He took three steps and jumped onto the right wall. Again, two steps on the wall, and he was past the next openings. He landed near Edgar but didn’t stop. Stanbury repeated his wall-running several more times before stopping. He was just a few steps from the door at the end of the hallway.

Stanbury took a deep breath. “That was fun,” he said with a grin.

“What the fuck,” Edgar said. To Raine’s surprise, he didn’t even look angry. Edgar rolled onto his back and heaved a long sigh. “Just...what the fuck.”