Lovers of Babel

by Valerie Walker

Raven began to command her snake to move. It lifted its head slowly and slithered down onto the lawn towards Emily’s creation. Emily was trying to get her snake to move, but it wouldn’t budge. Raven’s was getting closer to her snake and began to open its large mouth exposing vicious fangs.

  Suddenly, Emily kicked the mound of anaconda flesh and it lifted its massive head out from the middle of the coil.

  “Now, attack!” Emily commanded her creation.

  Emily’s snake began to slither toward Raven’s until they were only a few feet away from each other. Raven’s creation began striking at the green snake. Emily’s snake dodged the blows and began striking as well. Then, in an instant, Raven’s snake bit Emily’s right on the neck and held the entire neck in its mouth. The green snake tried to pry itself away, but the snake’s jaw was locked. There was blood gushing from parts where the fangs were impaling the skin. Emily was shouting and stomping her feet trying to get her anaconda to escape the grip of the wooden snake. Then Raven’s snake began to swallow.

  It took nearly ten minutes for Raven’s anaconda to swallow half of Emily’s. The more it swallowed, the bigger it grew. From where I was sitting I could see the outline of Emily’s snake moving inside the other. Raven’s snake was eating it alive.

  After an hour of watching an anaconda eat another of the same size, it was finally over. What remained on the Tourney floor was the largest snake to ever exist and it was too heavy to move. It just laid there with a year’s worth of food in its belly. If snakes could burp this one would’ve caused an earthquake.

  Emily looked utterly defeated and embarrassed. She looked up at the Herald seat to hear the official winner’s announcement, but he wasn’t there. He was deliberating with one of the Tourney game masters on the ground floor. After a few minutes of deliberation, the stout Herald climbed his way up to his seat. The contestants and audience waited silently to hear that Raven had won the hexing competition this year.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, after a game-changing move on the part of Raven, I was forced to consult with a game master to make sure that no rule was broken during this afternoon’s competition. Of course that game-changing move that I am referring to is using a substance of one’s environment to create a thing. This has never been attempted in a Tourney before and we all must understand why. Manipulating one’s environment to create is strictly forbidden and should never be attempted by anyone in the Tourney or outside of it. Because Raven Sissero broke the rules she must forfeit her winnings to Emily who will be crowned the new winner of the hexing competition.”

  The crowd was in an uproar. Some audience members were pleased with the verdict, but most were appalled. Although most of us knew that there were restrictions in place about how we use our powers, hearing it from the Herald made us more aware of how controlled our world really was. However, seeing Raven use her ability in a way that no one else had –or has dared to admit – inspired me to explore the secrets of my power.

  The next game was mimicry. The competitors were Esmeralda Torres who had dyed her hair blue for the competition and Alex Walker who had red hair. Upon second glance I realized who Alex was. He was the victim of the worst bullying that I had ever seen. Maybe it was his small size or red hair, but for some reason he was a huge target for abuse. It was just a week before the Tourney that I remembered seeing him tied to a tree branch from his ankles. I could tell he had been hanging there for a while because his face was fire red when I came to cut him down.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I was beginning to wonder if anybody would come.”

  They each walked to the center of the Tourney and stood looking awkwardly at each other.

  The Herald raised his horn to his lips.

  “It’s time for the transformers to take their rightful places in front of the Tourney. I know your power may not be a crowd favorite, but I hold a special place in my heart for transformers.” He said placing his right hand over his heart.

  “I want to give you two a challenge for this year’s junior high mimicry competition. I hope you’ve been studying about the legendary creatures of the old age. Your performance here will reflect your studies on the subject.” The Herald said.

  The brightness of day was slowly descending and the light of the outside world was laying its sleepy eyes upon the arena lawn. The audience was talking amongst themselves about what the contestants would have to mimic this year. Last year I heard that the Herald was in a patriotic mood and wanted the competitors to transform into the bald eagle which was a symbol of freedom for what was once known as the Americas. The competition turned into a history lesson on the old world, which bored the audience to death. What would the Herald choose this time? A founding father? A fig tree? I wasn’t in the mood for a history lesson. I wanted to see some action.

  The Herald began to speak again and I perked my ears.

  “Mythical creatures have always been an interest of mine. They are so fierce and odd.”

  The audience erupted in murmurs of anticipation.

  “I don’t think Equinoxians spend enough time studying the subject to be honest. There are so many interesting creatures. Like fire-breathing dragons,” the audience roared, “or fairies and giants. There are endless creatures to marvel at, but the one creature that always got my attention, lived in the sea!”

  Some audience members began shouting out names of mythical sea creatures to see if they had it right.

  “No, no, no you’re all wrong. This creature is less popular, because those who have seen it never lived to tell about it.”

  There was a collective gasp from the audience.

  “This year I wanted to give you something more exciting to witness during mimicry. You have all seen some marvelous things on this arena floor, but nothing will be as shocking as this.”

  The Herald looked down at Esmerelda and Alex.

  “This creature comes from Norse legend and was said to have consumed entire ships. It would use its enormous tentacles to drag the ship under the water creating a whirlpool with its body so that no one could escape. At times it would poke its head out of the water so that sailors would think it were an island until the octopus would move in for the kill!”

  Esmerelda and Alex looked at each other with concern.

  “But since we are on land you will have to improvise. Are you ready?” The Herald asked the competitors and they nodded reluctantly.

  “Are you ready!?” The Herald addressed the audience and they cheered in anticipation.

  “Well then, MIMIC THE KRAKEN!”

  The horn sounded loudly over the roar of the audience. For a few seconds the Tourney was in complete uproar and I was unable to hear my own thoughts. Then, all was silent.

  Alex looked around at the massive glass arena and all the spectators waiting for him to transform into a giant octopus. Esmerelda was in such intense concentration that from my seat I could see the vein popping out of her forehead. Then suddenly her legs were gone and had been replaced by four gigantic blue tentacles. The audience was shocked by the size of those things. They were so big that they expanded from one end of the arena to the other.

  Alex was obviously waiting on Esmerelda to make the first transformation so that he could copy her method, because as soon as her legs transformed, he began to concentrate. In just a few minutes Alex’s right arm morphed into a disgusting red tentacle with hundreds of suction cups ranging in size. His was just as big as Esmerelda’s, but he had a ways to go.

  By then, Esmerelda was forty percent human and sixty percent octopus with just her head and torso unchanged. The audience was in hysterics at the spectacle that was Esmerelda. She went from standing five feet four inches tall to ten feet tall because of her enormous tentacles. It looked like she was standing on a heaping pile of gigantic worms.

  Alex was not too far behind. Both of his arms had transformed and his head. All that was left were his legs and torso. This was by far the funniest competition of the night. For what felt like hours the audience sat and
watched a boy with an octopus head and tentacles for arms struggling to complete his transformation. By the time he transformed one leg, Esmerelda had only her head left.

  Esmeralda kraken had nine tentacles that could reach out into the audience and the ceiling. By herself, she took up the majority of space in the arena. There was hardly space to rest her tentacles and so they just hovered around her like worms dangling from hooks. Once Esmerelda and Alex finished transforming the entire Tourney was filled with two massive octopuses. They were squished together unable to move except for their tentacles. At one point we thought the glass dome would break under the pressure.

  An obnoxious audience member who was sitting a row in front of me decided to use his flare stick to burn one of Alex’s tentacles that was hovering above his head. Alex kraken howled in pain and used his tentacle to grab the boy. The audience yelled in protest as the tentacle brought the boy to the kraken’s massive face. The look in the octopus’s eye sent a shiver down my spine. Suddenly, he opened his massive mouth exposing hundreds of tiny sharp teeth that filled up the entire inside of the kraken’s mouth. The boy was trying desperately to escape the grip of Alex’s tentacle, but the suction cups were too strong to escape. The audience’s reaction was a mixture of anger and excitement at what was happening. I wondered when the Herald would stop the tournament.

  The boy came closer and closer to the kraken’s mouth until I could see the boy’s hair blowing from the breath of the octopus. Alex was preparing to eat him alive with not a care that soon he’d be a boy again too. It didn’t matter though; he wanted his power back. But that’s when the Herald spoke.

  “Put him down Alex! You have given us quite a show. Now, please release him,” the Herald demanded.

  Alex hesitated and then clumsily sat him back down in his seat using one of his tentacles. I looked at the obnoxious boy and saw that he had peed himself. Even if Alex didn’t win the tournament, he had won.

  The Herald took a few minutes to deliberate with the game makers then he climbed to his seat at the top of the Herald throne.

  “Now, I think we’ve all seen enough. I should’ve planned this better and considered the space of the arena more, but alas we are an imperfect race!” The Herald looked at Esmerelda and Alex who were still krakens.

  “Please transform back into yourselves. There is simply not enough room and it’s starting to smell like seafood in here,” the Herald demanded.

  The transformation back to normal took much less time than it did to become krakens. Once they were finished, the Herald held up a silver crown with the water symbol carved throughout the entire rim.

  “This crown goes to the transformer who had the most courage in this competition. And the audience loves an underdog. So, because of your strength and ability, Alex, we crown you victor of mimicry!”

  Alex was shocked. He thought he lost his chances of winning since he tried to eat an audience member, but it seemed like that was overlooked. Maybe there was still hope for the power games after all. Alex wore his crown like a true champion. His life as the underdog had changed for good.

  The next competition was Quicktrek and it was already dark out. The overcast sky was now black and the colors of aurora were more striking than ever. The atmosphere was so clear that you could see the craters on the surface of the moon. The bright moonlight shined on the Tourney creating a natural spotlight for the next two competitors.

  Next up was Chad and George, the teleporters. The audience cheered and waved around their star dust glow sticks filling the transparent arena with streaks of fluorescent colors.

  Again, it was time for the Herald to announce the nature of the Quicktrek competition.

  “You both will have to teleport to the Room of Worthless Creations and find the Portal of Antiquity. This portal was accidentally stowed away with all the useless creations that have been made in the school from the beginning. Some of you may have heard of the Portal of Antiquity and its power. You see this creation is not worthless. No, in fact, it is one of our most prized possessions here at the Society. This object appears to be a simple wooden relic but it holds the key to the past. Whosoever possesses it will be able to see however far back into the past they need. This creation was made by Simone Green, one of our dearest sponsors, who unfortunately passed away years ago from a fatal illness. We will honor her by finding this portal in the pile of rubbish that is the Room of Worthless Creations and bring it back to the Tourney. We will be able to watch your every move with the help of our spy cameras. We have a few cameras set up in each room of the school just in case you end up somewhere you’re not supposed to,” the Herald said with a wink.

  The audience burst into hysterics.

  “And don’t think about outsmarting us and hiding from the cameras. They are all hidden and it will be utterly impossible for you to know from which angle you’re being filmed. We will be watching you on this gigantic screen.” The Herald pointed up towards the center of the arena at a large screen that was bent in a circle so that everyone in the audience could see the action no matter where they were sitting.

  “Now, whoever finds it the fastest and brings it to me will win an extra prize. After the trumpet sounds you may depart, gentlemen. Happy trekking!”

  Both boys looked nervous. The Room of Worthless Creations was one of the biggest mysteries on campus. There were rumors that the room was filled with all sorts of failed creations that were made by the most inexperienced creators in the power society. These were the creations that were forced into darkness because of the shear bizarreness of them. No student had ever stepped foot inside the room, but this hadn’t stopped them from talking about it. Some rumors revolved around the weird creatures that lived in the room. Other rumors were about random students who got lost inside, never to return again. Some said the room had no walls and held a vast number of creations. It was a wonder why these creations weren’t just destroyed once they proved useless. For some reason the society members wanted to store these abominations for safe keeping and now two students would be allowed to explore the secret chamber.

  The trumpet sounded serenading the Tourney with one long and eerie B flat. Then, it went silent. The boys were gone in an instant.

  Chad was the first to appear on the screen and it immediately dawned on the audience that he was not in the Room of Worthless Creations, but in the dining hall. The audience was well amused and I, well I was annoyed. I wanted him to win. Chad was also visibly annoyed and slapped his head with his hand.

  Here was the problem: in order for teleporters to travel anywhere using their power, they must know where they are going. It sounds simple enough, but ever-so-often a natural would ask a teleporter why he doesn’t just transport himself to a place called Heaven and be done with it. The teleporter would simply answer: ‘because I have no clue what heaven looks like or where it is or if it is even a place.’ A teleporter must travel with intent. They must not only know where they want to go, but they must believe that it is where they think it is. If a teleporter didn’t have these things, they’d end up like Chad, by himself, in a dark dining hall.

  George was a little closer to reaching the target. He looked even stronger on screen with his spiked hair jetting from his humungous cranium. George appeared to be in the library, but the room was very dark. The only light was a faint moonlight coming from outside the windows. When George finally realized where he was he stood still, preparing for another teleport.

  The screen switched over to Chad who was still in the dining hall. My twelve-year-old mind couldn’t figure out why he was still there. It was obviously not the Room of Worthless Creations. I wanted to jump from my seat and yell at the screen, transport you fool! But I sat containing my composure. Chad was seated in Indian style, eyes half closed, and mumbling to himself. He was saying something like, “where would I be if I was worthless? Away from everyone else of course. But where? The place once called the Bermuda Triangle? Or Massachusetts. Alaska?”

  I didn’t under
stand this then, but now I realize that what Chad was doing was making his imagination more open to the idea of the Room of Useless Creations. Since he had no idea where it was or what it looked like inside, he was trying to create an idea of it in his mind. All he needed was a good idea drawn from his imagination and his power would take him there.

  Suddenly, George materialized inside Mr. Stanley’s classroom. Mr. Stanley was a high school transformer teacher and had all sorts of funny masks propped up on the walls of his room. However, in the dark they looked more menacing than funny. George looked around and shook his head.

  “Where is this place!? I wonder where Blondie is,” he asked himself.

  He appeared to have gotten an idea, because he suddenly perked up. Then a sly smile slid across his acne sprinkled face.

  Chad was still in the dining hall, but this time he was pacing back and forth, stretching his arms as if preparing for a fight. Suddenly, the sound of silverware dropping to the tile floor came from inside the kitchen area. Chad looked toward it waiting to see what happened.

  The audience was in a state of suspense and was quiet for the first time since the Tourney began.

  Chad slowly walked toward the kitchen. It was dark inside the hall, but above his head near the ceiling was the faint light coming from blue flames that the society liked to use in the dining hall at night. Right when Chad was about to push the door open to the kitchen, it swung out and nearly whacked Chad in the head.

  It was George and he started aggressively at Chad. Chad stepped back a few feet in defense.

  “Hey George. Looks like you made the same mistake I did huh? I guess the dining hall is the easiest place to teleport. Food is important after all,” Chad was trying to make light of George’s bad attitude.

  “You know where the Room of Worthless Creations is, don’t you?” George quizzed.

  “No, I’m just as unsure as you are George,” Chad was still backing away.

  “I heard you’re one of the most imaginative teleporters in your grade. I’m sure you’ve been hanging around here thinking about where that room could be.”