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MCC 25: Meltdown. The Green Geckos were hoping to take the lead and were expected to do well. The first round, they worked perfectly in sync with each other, watching their corners and letting loose arrows as soon as someone was in sight. Each team went down, one by one, crumbling to ice at their feet, until it was only them left. Even with those points happily squared away, they had to keep it up.
“Remember guys,” Jojo said amidst their cheering. “Same thing as last time. Just follow my lead.”
The buzzer echoed through the building, and they all readied their bows. The pressure was on as soon as soon as they stepped out into the first room. With Scar watching their back and Jojo at the front, they moved as a group to sweep across the area. Seapeekay swiped the pickaxe to grab a few coin crates, and the group paused momentarily.
“Let’s hurry up,” Joel said, angling his bow towards the direction of the exit. “The other team might be there already.”
“Just one more crate, I promise,” Seapeekay insisted, breaking off from the group to quickly nab the last one.
The lights flickered.
“What?” Scar said, looking up to the ceiling. “What was that?”
“Probably just a small power surge,” Jojo reassured. “We ready to go?”
The fluorescent bulbs above buzzed with energy, almost distractingly so.
There was a sound of a crate breaking, and Seapeekay made an affirming noise in the distance. The remaining three nodded between each other and began making their way to the next room, with Seapeekay straggling behind.
“Now remember, the next team could be in there, so we need to-” Jojo began, but the buzzing became unbearable, drowning her out. Everyone pulled their hands up to their ears, wincing. Joel said something inaudible with a grimace.
Suddenly, there was a deafening shatter, and the room went dark.
The group felt a shower of glass rain down on them, and Scar stumbled backwards blindly, slamming his back into a wall. “Wh-What in the world?!”
“Hold on- hold on!” Jojo said, raising her arms up. One of them grazed what she assumed to be Joel. “Seapeekay! Are you still there?”
The three paused with bated breath, before there was a faint shuffling noise back from where they came.
“Yeah.” Seapeekay’s sounded unsure. “I’m okay. I think I hit my head on something.”
Jojo breathed a sigh of relief. “You think you could make your way over to us?”
There was another pause. “I… I think so? I’m just going to feel my way around here, hope that’s okay with you guys.”
“Please, take your time,” Scar said, his voice trailing down as he slid to the floor with his back against the wall. Jojo and Joel ended up following suit, leaning against the wall opposite to Scar.
Joel fiddled with his bow, switching between it and what he assumed to be the map in his other hand. The hard metal frame did nothing to soothe his worries. “Do we just… wait?” he asked.
Jojo mulled on it, and the three heard Seapeekay trip over his feet in the distance. She adjusted her grip on her bow. “I mean, the alternative would be making the most of this, and trying to take out the other teams.”
Joel raised a brow, though the expression could only be heard in his words. “Is that allowed?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Scar gripped his bow tighter. “Do you think that’s what the other teams are doing?”
The three fell silent, suddenly all the more aware of just how quiet it was. They were in the first room still, but the next room was just ahead of them. Surely, if there was another team, they would’ve heard them already… right?
There was a simultaneous clatter from all three of them, and arrows were quickly nocked in place. Silence, yet again shrouded them. Jojo tried to remember what the map looked like in her head, tried to imagine where all of the blind spots were, where the other teams could come from, but it was all jumbled up like scattered static. She grimaced, once again straining her ears to hear something.
She jumped when Scar screamed. There was another noise from behind him, and he let loose an arrow on pure instinct. It lodged into a wall about fifteen feet from their position.
“Sorry, tripped again,” Seapeekay called out. It almost sounded like he was further away now. Or maybe Jojo’s mind was playing tricks on her.
Scar had a hand over his heart, letting out a nervous chuckle. “This is not good for my health.”
“It won’t be forever,” Jojo reassured. “They’re probably fixing it right now.”
“Hopefully,” Scar wheezed.
They saw it before they heard it, the blinking, rotating light on the door which bathed them in red. For the first time in minutes, they could see, even if it was just the faintest shapes. The alarm came next, booming and loud. It pierced through the quiet, usurping all semblance of control from them.
“But I thought the power wasn’t workin-” Scar began, but was cut off.
“Why is it on-?” said Jojo.
“The door’s going to close!” Joel barked out.
Scar pushed himself up to his feet after a moment of struggle before he rushed past Joel to the other side of the door. Joel followed suit.
“Seapeekay!” Jojo called out, reaching into the darkness beyond the red glow as though she could pull him from it.
“I’m coming! Wait!” Seapeekay called out, his gait starting off uneven before he finally began to run, about as confidently as he could while being unable to see.
Jojo bounced on her feet, backing up through the doorway like a runner waiting for the baton pass, beckoning Seapeekay forward with her hand.
There was a frustrated yell. “Dead end!” Seapeekay called frantically. There was a skidding noise before he was back to running.
Scar straightened, hit with a sudden realization. “He’s not going to make it.”
“Not if I can’t help it,” Jojo grit through her teeth, quickly clipping her bow and arrows back at her waist before she stepped back across the boundary and took off.
Joel and Scar sputtered out protests, but the darkness once again swallowed her, leaving no room for argument. Her hands slapped painfully against a wall, a stinging pain shocking through her arms, though it was welcome alternative to slamming full-bodied into the concrete. Once again, she conjured in her mind snapshots of her memory, trying to orient herself with what few reference points she had. She dragged one of her hands across the wall, brushing past the arrow Scar had buried into the concrete earlier.
It was hard to concentrate on locating Seapeekay with the sirens wailing from all around her, but there was a unmistakable noise of footsteps on her right. Jojo quickly followed along the wall, dragging her hand in front of her until she reached the edge.
“Seapeekay!” she called out. “Over here!”
The footsteps stopped before they then began again in earnest, this time in her direction.
“Here!” she yelled again, her face breaking into a relieved smile. However, the longer she waited - the longer she listened - the more her smile fell. All she could hear was the thundering sound of footsteps running towards her.
Suddenly, a voice. “I’m trying!” Seapeekay shouted… from the other side of the room. Something grazed by Jojo’s face and embedded itself in the wall behind her.
She scrambled backwards, grabbing blindly at her side for her bow and arrows. As she nocked the arrow into its slot, the footsteps were practically right in front of her. Suddenly, the sirens were both too loud yet too quiet.
Jojo slowly drew her bow, wincing at the stretched noise the string gave out at the tension. She heard the same sound echoed in front of her, and her eyes widened.
She rolled to her right, and the arrow embedded itself deep into the floor beside her. She had no time to think - the other player was already drawing another arrow back - only raising her bow and letting loose an arrow as soon as she was able. A crystalline crunch that reminded her of compressing snow let her know that she could once again breathe.
“Jojo?” Seapeekay’s voice called from behind her.
“Over here! Someone just tried to jump me,” she said, letting out a long, slow breath. She got to her feet and ran back the other way, this time not so scared of the footsteps running to meet her.
She stopped at Scar’s arrow, and the red light shone like a beacon.
“Oh thank god -” Seepeakay groaned, reaching the arrow a few moments later. He placed his hands on his knees. There was a sound of screeching metal, and Joel was pressing his hands against the gap. The gap, which was slowly closing.
“Hurry!” Joel grunted.
No one needed to tell either of them twice.
The four of them convened against the wall next to the door, which had since shut closed. Once again, they were plunged into complete and utter darkness, with nothing to hear except their own breath.
Scar was on watch, now that he had better control over his nerves. His bow was loaded, and he surveyed the black beyond with careful consideration. Joel shook out his arms, pressing a breath between closed lips. “Bloody hell,” he muttered. “I never want to do that again.”
“That… was far too many close calls,” Jojo said between breaths. She pulled her helmet off and wiped the sweat off her brow.
“Shh,” Scar hushed, lifting his bow a bit higher. At first, there was nothing to be heard, but soon there was a voice that grew in volume, followed by something Jojo almost couldn’t believe.
A flashlight.
“Hey! Anyone still in here?” someone called out. It didn’t sound like any of the other contestants.
Scar lowered his bow, breathing a sigh of relief. “Yup!” he said, and the flashlight fell on their group.
“Ah, there you are. You’re the last group we needed to find,” they replied. “So sorry about the blackout. There were some technical difficulties with our wiring.”
The Green Geckos stood up together, and followed the moderator through the maze of corridors to the outside.