“SAMUEL BENNET.”
The moment I hear my name, I step forward, a fuzzy feeling in my head as I wave to the crowd, keeping my facial expression stoic. Flashing lights illuminate parts of the crowd, turning the sea of dark silhouettes into a group of bodies wildly jumping up and down, all wearing different hats and shirts to support their favorite players. Just as I step back onto the red LED square in front of the glass portal I’ll be competing in, my eyes notice a row of a dozen people sitting in the front row, all dressed in suits and wearing designer sunglasses.
My stomach drops. Without even seeing their eyes, I know their stares are directed at me. Without even thinking about how odd it is for a group of people to show up wearing suits to a Deadwave Tournament when they will be surrounded by teenagers and twenty-somethings, I know they are here for me.
It is them. Whoever them is. The same people who kidnapped me. The same people I’m convinced hacked the game of Deadwave Jake and I played. The same people who are here now, likely shelling out thousands of dollars to buy tickets to see the headline game, consisting of three potential future finalists in the World Championship—to see me.
I can’t even think about why they would be here to see me. I can’t let my mind dive back into the craziness of the last week, and the insecurity, the fragileness of my life, that I now finally feel and understand. The worst feeling is knowing everything can be taken away from you at any moment.
I didn’t realize it until now, but that fact always remains true. I can’t think about it now.
I need to get into the killer mind-set because soon I will become one.
Soon, I will win. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.
The announcer blabbers on for a few minutes, the crowd cheering sporadically as he passes points in his scripted speech. The inevitable moment is coming soon. In fact, the large countdown timer is being displayed on the hundreds of feet of screens that blanket the back of the stage.
Everything is moving too quickly.
The screams of the crowd grow louder and louder until my eardrums threaten to rupture. My mind spins, and my body loses its sense of kinesthesia. I try putting my helmet on as I step onto the large circular treadmill inside the glass container, which most people call “the portal”—the portal to another world. However, I fumble, dropping my helmet as I lift it up, and if it weren’t for me catching it, there could have been shattered glass everywhere. My fiberglass helmet is fragile and very expensive, but good thing I didn’t have to pay for it. I have to deal with it having a rainbow design on it (which I think is super cool, but Jake makes fun of me for it all the time), the same design for the logo of a gaming energy drink company that I have had a sponsorship deal with for a little over a year.
Man, I could use one of those energy drinks right about now. I need something, some sort of rush of adrenaline or massive amounts of caffeine to distract me from my surroundings. For once, I feel self-conscious. I can sense the eyes of the audience staring at me, their glares drilling into my skintight bodysuit. I bet some people think I’m drunk, because that’s exactly how I’m acting. But I don’t care what they think.
Tune it all out. Get into the zone.
I take a deep breath as I slip the helmet on once more, this time without appearing as if I am having a mental breakdown, which I can’t say I’m not, but in these kinds of moments it’s better to be in denial about those kinds of things. I can deal with my emotions later. I can figure out how I’m going to survive another day.
For now, I have to kill.
For now, I have to win, and maybe then I can finally be happy.
Silence envelops my ears, the helmet doing a great job at shutting out my environment. It is me and my mind now. Just me and the game I love. The electrodes in the cap all Deadwave players have to wear are able to send signals to the brain that cause it to feel pain and even feel the temperature of certain objects; however, the ability to manipulate what smells the brain senses has not been achieved yet. But practically every other sense that would be useful is fully immersed into the game: sense of touch through the microscopic electrodes sitting on the full bodysuit all players have to wear, sight through the 360-degree viewing helmet we all have to wear, the weight and force of certain objects through the bodysuit interacting with nerve endings in the skin, and kinesthesia and movement with the motion sensor cameras and circular treadmill in the middle of the glass ring that automatically adjusts to the gradient and direction my body moves.
The countdown timer inside the helmet reaches the number one, and immediately the blackness around me morphs into a new world. From first glance, I can tell the world that was generated is unlike anything I have played in before, as it always is.
The sky is dotted in dark cirrus clouds that cover the evening sky. I sense the devastation with the heavy feel of the air against my skin. I spawned in what appears to be a large cornfield, the dead, yellow corn stalks, which have the rotting, half-eaten corn husks still atop them, stretching on for miles.
There is no end in sight to what is a sea of dead of plants, the top of their stalks above my head, rendering it impossible to see what is around.
This is gonna be intense.
I shove through the dense forest of corn stalks, one of them seeming to have sprouted from every square inch of the coarse dirt. I can’t tell where I’m going, who or what is around me, or if there are any openings in what seems to be a never-ending mass of dead corn that looks alien-like due to their extremely skinny stalks and large heads.
I have to be as quiet as possible. I tiptoe through the corn maze from hell, trying to be nearly silent as I focus most of my mental energy on my hearing. My sight is useless amidst this mess anyway.
In the distance, the echo of a few gunshots sounds, yet in the right corner of my vision it is apparent that all fifteen players are still living. The zombies are coming. I switch my direction, hoping that there is some sort of weapon—a knife, a pistol, even a baseball bat—to try and ward off the first wave of zombies that are beginning to spawn.
This is the part about the game I love the most—the part about it that makes it one of the hardest things to compete in in the world. At the beginning of each game, the chaos that transpires as you have to develop a completely new strategy and take in the surroundings of a completely new world is one of the greatest rushes—especially when you know your life is on the line. Normally I would say my digital life, but this time, it could be my actual life.
I hear the low grumble of a zombie about twenty feet away from me. The hairs on my arms go up as I jerk my head in its direction, my killer instinct kicking in. I suppress the desire to run away, knowing that me running will only attract more zombies to the noise and possibly other players. It will be safest for me to stay put and try to fight the thing with my bare hands.
Come here, you little shit. I somehow find trash-talking digital entities in my own head useful in giving me the extra bit of raw strength to overcome their power. The last time I managed to fight a zombie with no weapons in a tournament game resulted in my health practically going down to 0. But that can’t happen today.
The disgusting growling sound of the zombie comes closer, and it appears to be coming from low to the ground. Then I finally realize that it isn’t a zombie, or at least not a human zombie. It is a zombified chicken, a freaking zombie with talons, wings, and one vicious man-eating beak.
I don’t know if this is better or worse than a human. The thing waddles, or more like stumbles, towards me, and as it gets within five feet, I lunge forward, trying to grab a hold of its neck before it can make a move to try and attack me.
The animal in its zombified state barely resembles a chicken. One of its wings is half torn off, blotches of white feathers completely missing, revealing green, scaly skin, and it has pure black eyes.
All of that makes me feel good about choking it to death, or at least trying to. The moment my hand moves forward to try and grasp around its skinny, yet long nec
k, the thing squawks. My ears hurt from the decibel at which the horrific sound erupts from its tiny throat, but I remain unphased, focusing on squeezing the life out of it before it can make any more noises and attract a whole army of its zombie chicken comrades.
I manage to grab a hold of its neck quite easily, but before I can pin its body against the ground, the chicken manages to dig both its talons deep into my chest, knocking my health down by 150 points and sending a coursing pain through my body.
“You bastard.” I cough, my voice barely audible due to my entire upper body being strained. I successfully pin the thing against the ground, keeping my body high enough above it to be out of reach of its flailing talons and wings as I constrict my grip around its neck.
The veins in my avatar’s arms pop out, and my arms in real life tire out as I feel the zombie slowly start to give up. Its flailing slows as the frantic energy in its body dissipates. The life is beginning to flee from its all-black, evil eyes as a high-pitched wheeze escapes from its sharp, pink beak.
I win. I let go of my grip around the chicken’s neck, thankfully not having any of its zombie chicken blood to wipe off me as I return back to a standing position and try to formulate my next move.
I know I can’t stay alive for long without a weapon, or at least some armor or health aid at a minimum. But with the evening sun beginning to dip below the horizon, causing a black tinge to coat the sky, my time to find something before total blackness and a deadly chill envelops the landscape is running out.
I have to make my move fast.
Except the sounds of multiple figures shuffling through the corn stalks send chills down my spine. There are no audible grumbles; these figures that are rapidly closing in on me from three directions are not zombies.
They are people.
And they have come to kill me.
Chapter 10
I run.
Dirt flings against my ankles as my brain suppresses any urge to fight the three figures, who are clearly fellow Deadwave players. Good thing the adrenaline inside me is at its maximum level, or else my mind would be drifting back to darker memories, the scene of the two people being shot in front of me likely playing in my head for the thousandth time.
The initial rustling of my body through the corn stalks awakens a commotion of sounds from the death pit of corn. Two gunshots sound behind me, and luckily I have no idea where the bullets land, which means that I am still safe. Beyond the sharp, painful echo of the gunfire, I listen to the grumbles of zombies and screams of other players. Shit is starting to get real now, and I can’t let it hit the fan and splatter all over my face.
At the recognition of the once-silent world erupting to life around me, my flight instinct kicks into gear, causing my legs to feel weightless and my body to frantically dart in between the areas where I hear the sounds emanating from.
I clench my jaw, my face naturally scrunching up as I become hyper focused, allowing the insane amounts of adrenaline to control my every movement. I hate when players team up on the ones they know are weak first and kill them in seconds. Always when factions are formed in the middle of games of Deadwave, it ends in an ugly, bloody betrayal.
No one will betray me. I only play for myself.
A bullet connects with my shoulder, and then another one with my left leg within a matter of seconds, causing my health to go down by another 100 points. I block out the searing pain, my avatar still having enough health to not seriously impair any of my in-game movements.
I keep running, forcing my legs forward through the overgrown weeds on the ground and pushing my lungs through the pain that accompanies my every breath.
I cough, my right oblique spasming wildly as black covers the edges of my vision, my body getting closer and closer to pushing itself over the edge. For everyone who says that Deadwave is not an athletic endeavor, they have never tried running away from three armed assailants, one of which has a machine gun, while weaving your way through a never-ending maze of zombie farm animals.
My thoughts quickly dissolve into madness. I have no idea what to do anymore. I figure at some point this endless corn maze will come to an end or at least have an ending, but there is still no break in the stalks of corn that sway with the increasing wind. The gunfire behind me only grows louder and louder, my attempts at zigzagging failing as three more bullets connect with my back.
I can’t go on like this much longer.
I cough, scanning the horizon to see if I can somehow manage a way out. There are still ten of us living, and unless I can find a rocket launcher or some other deadly weapon within the next thirty seconds, I may forever be buried with the corn.
The darkness that has almost fully set in upon the landscape makes it impossible to see farther than one hundred feet in front of me, and although the accuracy of the gunfire directed at me is beginning to diminish, there is certainly at least someone in this map that has night vision googles.
Stay calm. I tell myself to not overanalyze the situation, to keep bounding forward, because I know if I do think about it, only two words will come to mind: I’m screwed.
Just as the gunfire becomes more sporadic, a horse appears out of nowhere. It gallops through the corn stalks, its legs practically as tall as the stalks, and tramples me within a second of coming into my vision. The feeling of being run over by a horse, as expected, is one of the pains that one does not need to experience to know how awful it is.
It sucks.
Actually, that’s an understatement. But if I said all the curses I blurted out, that would go on forever. Deadwave is such an asshole sometimes. I curse the developers of the game in my head a million times over, wishing that they hadn’t made the pain of that stampeding horse so raw and powerful.
Now I only have 100 health points left, so for all intents and purposes I am dying. Great. I die in this game from a large horse steamrolling me, only to soon eventually die in real life. Did I forget to mention this is my dream job?
“Hey! I have some rations for you.”
I sit straight up, the adrenaline in my body causing the pain to subside more quickly than the programmers of the game probably intended brutally stimulating my nerves for. The voice is affirmative, yet melodic in a way, and I can’t help but think it is my own mother coming back from the dead to reassure me that everything is going to be okay—to reassure me that I will live to see another day.
It isn’t my mom, though. It’s Riva.
Her avatar looks gorgeous—after all, it is modeled after her own self. Her straight black hair and dark brown eyes look so perfect in the darkness of the night that it is hard to believe that she is real.
“C’mon, get up.” She yanks on my arm, forcing my winded body up into a standing position. “Yeah, I could kill you if I wanted right now, stop making me question myself.”
She begins running forward, urging me to follow her as she hands me several ration packs. The whole interaction, from the moment of her appearing above me like an angel from the night, and then to the moment that we are up and running again, lasts seconds.
This must be a trap.
I contemplate tackling her, trying to knock the gun from her hands and finally getting the weapon I have been searching for all game. But I know Riva is too good of a match to try and test her like that; me versus her, she would win a good bit of the time normally. But her with a gun and me without one is a recipe for disaster.
“What is happening?” I swallow the ration packs, which are essentially large energy tablets that add 100 energy points to the health of any Deadwave player who consumes them. Instantly my health goes back up to 500 points, alleviating the threat of one stray gunfire or zombie killing me with ease.
“I can’t let Maken win.” Riva keeps running, my tired and sore self struggling to keep up with her as she weaves her way through the corn. “He teamed up with Jessie and Astor, and I know he did that so he could kill me. I can’t let that happen. So, when I saw that zombie stallion run you over, I knew
you were the guy to help me.”
“Wow, you’re maybe the first person to look at someone who got run over by a horse and pick them as the perfect fit for an athletic endeavor seconds later.”
“Hmm, someone doesn’t sound too thankful.” She has a serious, cold look on her face, but I can sense a smile forming beneath her lips.
“Oh, sorry, I mean thank you for saving my life. Like, seriously, I can’t afford to let Maken win either. He’s not gonna be this year’s champ, I’ll make sure of that.” I smile, but to everyone watching in the audience, my face probably looks like I am constipated because my face is stuck in between expressing my newfound excitement and the sharp pain in my lungs. I have always been fast, but distance running has never been my thing, and my body certainly has its ways of letting me know (like sweating an alarming amount, general pain, and the desire to poop almost immediately upon beginning).
“Don’t worry, the only price we will pay is blowing his ass to smithereens.” This time she smiles, even looking back at me from the corner of her eyes. At this point even she seems to struggle a bit as we both dash through the grass in between the grumbles of zombies and overgrown dead corn that litter every inch of space.
“Why should I be so confident you won’t kill me first?” I pose the question, confused why she even needs my help. There are now only seven players left living, and if we both continue to survive, it will inevitably come to the moment when one of us has to die too. And if it’s my choice, I’d choose her in a heartbeat.
“I never said I wouldn’t.”
The way she responds so confidently and matter-of-factly makes it hard not to respect her. She knows what she is doing, and she’s using me. But for right now she’s my only hope at winning.
Both our mouths fall silent after her words, the cacophony of the surrounding world filling our ears instead. Behind us, multiple rounds of gunshots can be heard echoing, along with the low whisper of the wind that is gradually beginning to pick up pace.
“See that farmhouse up there?”
Deadwave Page 7
