V2Ch29-What Doesn't Kill Us

DaSilva led the group from the back of the cave to its mouth in relative silence.

Their faces were all set with the same look of grim, sweaty determination.

As they reached the landing that connected the cave to the bridge, DaSilva took another look at his team. People were nervous, and hiding it poorly. Despite the heat, DaSilva heard at least one set of teeth chattering out of sheer anxiety.

He didn’t try to identify the person. There was no way to single them out for a one on one chat discreetly here, and what would he say anyway?

Don’t worry, follow Joan of Arc’s commands, and God will see us through this? What if they didn’t believe in God?

“Well, there’s no use in waiting around here,” he said quietly. “Who was going first?”

Before he spoke, Yulia had bent down to look at the text DaSilva had told them about earlier, which was inscribed at the place on the ground where the bridge met their small strip of land.

Cara and Frank almost ran past her, as if competing to be first across. Given the rule the System had set for this challenge, DaSilva couldn’t entirely blame them.

But he was glad when he saw Frank pull back a bit, to let Cara go first. The girl had been an avowed atheist pre-System, so even Frank’s doubtful religious faith was surely stronger than hers. It was after them that the conflict and doubt would begin.

Cara vanished over the arch of the bridge, and then she became visible again as she walked a bit further away and emerged onto a landing attached to the other end of the bridge. Then Frank.

Paulo followed after, looking like his heart was in his throat. Nothing happened to him. Like the other two, he reached the landing on the other side. The trio high fived and turned to look back at the remaining group members.

Team member after team member crossed the bridge, and it didn’t budge. No hint of collapse this time.

Was it all in my head? DaSilva wondered. Are those collapsed bridges just an illusion? Something to test our faith?

Finally, only he and Yulia were left on the cave side of the bridge. They could see the others standing on the landing across the river, staring back at them.

“You ready to go?” he asked, looking down at her.

“I’m not going first,” Yulia said quietly, not meeting his eyes.

“We already discussed this—”

“No, you decided!” She crossed her arms as she spoke. “We didn’t discuss anything. I never agreed to go first. And you can’t make me, unless you’re going to push me the whole way across. Which would probably kill us both if the bridge collapsed.”

DaSilva sighed. He was tempted for a moment to raise his voice, but then he saw his own Carrie’s face in Yulia’s expression. She was just as stubborn at that age, wasn’t she?

He went with a different tack. “Are you really going to waste all the faith our teammates demonstrated? You were the one who wanted to go across the bridge in the first place. Everyone else risked their lives to do what you wanted. But if you don’t cross, you know I’m not going to. And maybe the group doesn’t get anything. I might have a hard time pushing you across in front of me, but at least it’s possible. I’m two hundred eighty pounds. How are you going to get your way?”

There was a long silence from Yulia. She still wasn’t looking at him. It looked like she was staring down into the lava. Her cheeks were puffed out and red, and for a second, DaSilva thought she might be holding her breath in annoyance. But that gesture was too young for her, and finally she spoke.

“I can’t get my way. You’re right.”

“Well then—”

Yulia sat down cross-legged.

“What are you doing?” DaSilva asked, frowning.

“Trying to figure out what to do. I don’t know how to make you cross in front of me, but I couldn’t just let the bridge collapse under you.” She replied so quickly that DaSilva’s eyes widened.

Is she really that sure of herself?

He stared at the arc of the bridge once more. He hadn’t wanted to cross it in the first place. Now that Yulia had gotten them to this point, maybe it was worth taking her demand to be last more seriously. Part of it was undoubtedly that he was covered in sweat, standing next to a river of lava.

But I can’t… There was a line in his heart that he couldn’t cross. He couldn’t live with himself if he let someone so young and innocent die to save him. Maybe the System would agree with her that her faith was stronger than his, but maybe it wouldn’t. That was a possibility he couldn’t accept.

Then he noticed something.

“I have an idea,” DaSilva said.

“Oh? A way you’re going to force me to cross in front of you?” Yulia didn’t even look up at him. She was fiddling with her shoelaces or something. DaSilva thought she had never seemed more like a moody teenager than she did at that moment. It brought a smile to his face.

“No, not a way to make you cross in front of me. A compromise.”

“Compromise? What kind of compromise?” She perked up immediately, and DaSilva knew this would work.

“We cross together. I was just staring at the bridge, and I realized there’s enough room for us to walk side by side. We’ll have to walk pretty close, or one of us might tumble over, but it beats one of us sending the other to their deaths.”

“Would that work?” she asked, looking up at him finally. She seemed to be studying his expression as she spoke—for any sign of deception, he imagined. “It wouldn’t kill both of us?”

“The instruction is: ‘Let no one with less faith cross after one who has more,’” DaSilva replied. “Nothing saying people have to line up single file. At least this way, we’re taking the same risk. Normally, I’d never put you in this position. But the reality is that we need to cross to get this food. So I’ll let you cross with me. But this is my best, final offer.”

He stared down at Yulia for a few seconds, and at long last, she nodded, almost to herself.

Then she rose to her feet, brushed herself off, and smiled up at him.

“Let’s do this.”

Yulia and DaSilva walked over to the threshold of the bridge, arms linked, as they took their first steps. They walked slowly, carefully, trying to remain in sync and not pass each other or put a foot in the wrong place.

DaSilva muttered quietly: “Left, right, left, right.” It was partially for himself, partially trying to keep Yulia in step with him. There was over a foot of difference in height that they needed to work around.

There was barely enough room for both of them on this bridge, and as DaSilva set his foot down particularly close to the edge, he felt and heard a little piece of rock break away. He looked down and saw it sink into the liquid below them, hissing as it touched the molten lava.

Remind me to lose weight after this, he thought. This would feel much less stressful if he didn’t know he could fall at any moment. Being thinner would help with that.

As they passed the midpoint of the bridge, it happened.

DaSilva felt a pressure on his ankle.

No! He looked down, and he saw it. A disembodied gray hand that seemed almost to come from the bridge itself gripped his ankle and pulled him toward the edge. Just like earlier, when he’d triggered the trap that shot him full of arrows. At the time, he’d thought he felt something push his foot, but he convinced himself it was in his head. This time, he could actually see it.

An insubstantial gray hand. He could see through it slightly, but it felt completely solid grabbing him. Pulling him toward the river of death. He couldn’t let it pull him over while he was linking arms with Yulia.

He tried to let go of her, but she gripped his arm tightly with both of hers. He looked at her and realized she could see what was happening too.

The two of them pulled together. After almost a minute, the hand gradually weakened and finally lost its grip.

DaSilva stumbled when it suddenly released his ankle, but Yulia was there to help him steady himself. It was good to have four legs instead of just two to balance with.

If she wasn’t here, he thought, that thing would’ve gotten me. I’d be dead.

There was a sound far off to DaSilva’s right, in one of the areas belonging to another team. He and Yulia turned their heads to look. They saw another team emerging from a cave. The people in the front of the group started yelling while pointing at Yulia and DaSilva, but they were too far away for DaSilva to make out their specific words.

The first two in the other group started running across their bridge. Once they made it to the middle of the bridge, it suddenly collapsed.

Both men fell into the lava and caught fire instantly. Their dying screams echoed through the vast space for a few seconds.

Then there was silence.

Quietly, both their expressions hollow, DaSilva and Yulia slowly advanced the rest of the way over the bridge.

When they set foot on solid ground again, they unhooked their arms. DaSilva kissed his crucifix. Then he pulled Yulia in for a hug, which she reciprocated. Everyone else around them seemed to let out a breath.

“You had us worried for a second there,” said Frank a little uneasily.

[Congratulations! You are the final team in the first half of those to complete the challenge!  This challenge had a higher than expected attrition rate. Therefore, all survivors will be richly rewarded.]

[Heavy Warrior leveled up!]

[Heavy Warrior leveled up!]

Higher than expected attrition?! What does that even mean in this context? He thought of the people he’d seen fall into the lava, both now and earlier. Apparently enough people had burned to death to justify two level ups instead of one for completing the challenge.

Then he recalled his own experience on the bridge. He looked at his group and opened his mouth to say something about the hand that had grabbed his ankle. Then he shut his mouth again.

Assuming that hand wasn’t part of the challenge, it was almost certainly an attack coming from this team. So I can’t talk openly about it. Not until I have an idea of who it was. But who would try to kill me? He tried to read the faces around him, but no one showed any signs of nerves over his survival. People were hugging, cheering, and high fiving over the System announcement.

Frank and Karen were fanning themselves. They looked about ready to pass out from the heat. DaSilva wanted to offer them some form of comfort, but he couldn’t take his mind away from the fact that someone had definitely just attempted to murder him.

It would have to be the killer he was trying to catch who wanted to get him anyway. No one else would have enough of a motive.

This murderer is on my team, then. It couldn’t be the other team I just saw, because they only arrived just as the hand was disappearing.

As he tried to guess who on his team might be a serial killer, the System teleported the team back outside, to the mountainside setting they’d started in. Mina was there, and when DaSilva turned his head, he saw the cave entrance again.

So this whole challenge is really over.

“Thank goodness you all survived!” Mina exclaimed. She rushed over to her sister, pulled her into a tight embrace, and lifted her into the air.

Wow. Mina must have been very worried. It’s incredible she can lift Yulia at all in her condition.

“I can’t believe I let you go!” Mina was tearful. “Never again! So many people were dying, and I didn’t know if you were okay!”

DaSilva checked the population counter. [2,846/3,397 Survivors]

Whoa. How did this happen?!

He thought back to the individual components of the challenge.

There was the initial door into the mountain. That had only required discerning a verbal password. But after that, there was at least one trap that unleashed a flurry of arrows. A room that seemed to encourage human sacrifice. There were the stairs down into darkness, with a benevolent and almost unavoidable trap of their own. And there was the Bridge of Faith.

I know some people failed the bridge test, but that can’t account for this result, can it? Most of the groups didn’t even complete the challenge. We were in the first half of people to do it…

He thought of various explanations for how so many people had died, but none of them made sense.

Did other people run into more traps than we did? What the hell happened? The System mentioned there might be monsters. Maybe we got lucky and avoided them.

[Winners of the second challenge, we are aware some of you are questioning when you will be returned to your pre-challenge Orientation locations. Unfortunately, the challenge is not over for the other participants yet. Once the last of the participants completes the challenge, we will return everyone to their pre-challenge physical positions. Please enjoy your reunion, and your prizes, while you wait!]

Sacks of food dropped from the air next to each member of the party, including Mina.

DaSilva looked in her direction thoughtfully. I need to talk to her about what happened. Mina and Yulia were the only members of the team he could trust completely. Mina had been completely absent during the attempt on his life, while Yulia had saved him.

As he had these thoughts, other members of the group were gathering around the sisters, talking about how valuable Yulia had been in the dungeon.

“Your girl is intense, in a good way!” Frank said. “She kept us moving forward through the dungeon.”

“She’s a very strong person,” Adelaide agreed. “She has the kind of courage that makes a survivor.”

She’ll have to, thought DaSilva a little glumly. She’ll have to. I think this place is only getting worse and more dangerous with time.