Video Games

Chapter Eleven

Nysan sits at his table, facing his bowl of rice and chicken. His face is stained with his tears and his food is getting colder by the minute; the boy just lost his brother, of course he's going to be distraught. "Nysan, please eat something. Just a bite, I beg of you. Not eating isn't going to bring Kynos back." He looks up at me from across the table, his chocolate eyes filled with tears as he remembers the way his brother was killed. That necklace was a strong device and I never expected it to have the power that it did.

It turns out that all of the necklaces were fitted with eight blades that formed a circle when they closed. The acceleration of the blades was swift, resulting in the top of the spinal cord breaking under the pressure of the metal blades fitted inside of the necklace. As soon as a second person was detected stepping over the line, the necklaces activated for the three unlucky competitors on the course still. Kynos was so close to making it; his bird even hit the pig after his head fell off of his bloody body. None of this is fair. It sounds horrible, but I almost wish that Keltain had fallen victim to the blades.

Either way though, one of them had to die at some point, and it's just unfortunate that Kynos, Keltain and myself were all thrown together to form a team. Those other two girls have no support; most people wished for them to die. The tears spilled were the tears for Kynos, not the other girls. They did nothing to help the team and they are partially the reason that we didn't make it to the end. Then again, if Tynoco's team had fallem victim to the individual courses, I think the mortification of the other people's deaths would've been higher; having my team up for elimination probably did a good thing. Or it did a totally bad thing by giving me more time to bond with the other kids.

Nysan finally places a forkful of rice into his mouth; he cries as if I'm force feeding the poor boy. The two of us went to the market together and just put the money into the bank, nothing much more. Usually, I browse and see if I can salvage any bargains, but today, all I bought was bread and Tynoco bought more potatoes. It's not like the two of us are eating much; we're sharing one bowl of rice and chicken between the two of us, and we're only halfway through the bowl. We've been here for a few days and I'm already struggling to finish half a bowl of rice.

Taking a forkful for myself, I let the smell of chicken overtake my nostrils for a few seconds before shoving the delicious food into my mouth. Just because I'm full, it doesn't mean that I can't appreciate the flavours of good food. The chicken and rice roll around on my tongue, enhancing my taste buds as I chew the food until it is small enough to be swallowed with ease. "Look, I'm so sorry about today." That's all I can say as Nysan silently cries; I almost wish that I had died so that Kynos and Nysan could be together.

"Kynos was a good guy," Nysan exclaims with a look of agony in his eyes and a look of pain on his face. "We used to play video games together as kids, and our mutual interest never died out. My first memory is us two playing that old Monster's Inc. game, y'know that one with the big slide: Scare Island? Yeah, the one based off of the first film." I let my mind wonder to when we watched the fourth one. Off of the top of my head, I can't remember the name of the film, but it wasn't as good as the original. "We played that game so many times that we decided to speed run it without knowing the definition of speed running."

His words hang in the air. I can just imagine the scenario: the two blondes sit there with their little digital watch and press the play button as the game starts. They make little mistakes that cost time; to them, it was trivial, but nowadays it would be considered a catastrophe to lose time on such a simple game. When I first played that old Mickey Mouse game, I was exactly the same; my timer would sit in front of me as I button mashed and made my way through the games with a terrible time. At the time, I remember how proud I was of my time. My parents didn't believe that I had actually played it that fast until I got them to time me with a watch. That's when the addiction really began.