My heart pounded like it didn't even belong to me. The sound of elephants, their thundering steps, wrapped me in fear. The closer they got, the louder the noise became. The ground shook beneath their steps, and the fear of being trampled made the hairs on my neck stand.
"What is wrong with you? Where these elephants came from?" I screamed as I started to run.
I ran in the opposite direction, hoping to find a safe spot. But it was just a few seconds after I started that I realized the sound was getting closer, not farther. This proved what the text said: They are indeed faster than humans.
When I looked back, I saw the elephants sprinting toward me, trunks flailing with rage, like I'd murdered one of their calves.
I was a little over a kilometer from home. That's how far I'd flown earlier—back when I still had the ability to. But now, I regret every second of it.
"I wish that the wind blew earlier," I said. I can't believe I was saying this, but any human would say this if they were in my shoes.
I was still running nonstop, but the elephants were still getting closer. I already understood that I can't outrun them. Not just because I was slow, but because I had no stamina. I'm just an average 16-year-old with zero gym experience. How far could I really go?
I had to get on higher ground. It was the only place I had a slight chance. My options were trees, which I definitely couldn't climb, or a building with at least two floors.
My lack of knowledge about my city started to hit me. I wouldn't usually go around and hang out with my friends or classmates in the city since I never saw any purpose in walking with no destination in mind.
But I wasn't clueless either. I knew some buildings, and I had eyes and a brain I could use. All I needed was to find anything but apartments. I could not enter an apartment building since most of the time they are locked and can only be opened with a key or a call to one of the residents. Even if I could, there was no way for me to break in through a locked door and get into an apartment.
My only intention was not to find higher ground. I also hoped to find something useful, something to use against elephants.
After running over 100 meters, I saw a familiar building. A place my mom and I had gone to pick a gift for my dad's birthday. It was a 3-story building with each one having a different category of prizes. We bought him a well-designed lighter, and he really liked it. I remember him still using it—
TRRRRRMPHHH!
"Shit!" I said with a sudden fear, realizing that I was in danger and not a place to think of memories.
I sprinted towards the shop to enter. Elephants were already close, and they could catch and kill me at any moment.
I reached the shop and moved my hand to the handle of the door to open it.
Click
The door didn't open.
"No, no, no, no! Why won't you open?!" I said as I continued to force the door open.
It didn't budge. The lights were on, but the door was shut tight.
Only now I checked the paper that was dangling from the door.
"Closed" was the text on it that caught my attention. When I looked under that text, I saw their work hours, which were 10:00 AM - 7:00 PM.
"Why isn't it open?!" I screamed at the door.
I didn't know what time it was, but it didn't matter; it was daylight, every place is supposed to be open.
I had to rush to another place to find higher ground.
When I looked back to check how close they were, my fear grew. They were no more than 20 meters away.
I didn't even think of anything. I just rushed ahead to save myself.
After a few seconds of running, I heard sounds coming closer and closer, as if they were right beside me.
As the sounds grew too close, I turned to glance back—maybe I could cut into another street.
The moment I turned my head, I saw that one of the elephants had closed the distance between us. It swung its trunk and hit me on my lower back as hard as it could, well, at least that is how I felt.
The hit was so strong that at the moment of impact, I felt that my spine had already broken with some of my ribs.
The hit threw me off the ground, and I flew about 4 meters before I hit the ground.
I landed on my back, cracking even more ribs on impact. I also hit my head, but luckily I didn't lose consciousness. I don't know if staying conscious was lucky, especially considering what came next.
I tried to lift myself, but I couldn't because of the pain. Looks like broken ribs didn't stay in their place and tore some of the organs inside. I probably had internal bleeding.
The moment I tried to lift my head, I started to spit blood. I am not even sure about my limbs, but I was sure they were shattered.
My senses were fucked up too. My vision was blurry, and I could only hear a weird, stable noise like white noise. Probably because of that, I couldn't understand that elephants were next to me.
When I turned my head slowly, even though it was painful, I tried my best—I saw all the elephants around me and one of them moving its trunk toward me.
"Aaaaa" I tried to scream and scare them off, but neither I had the strength to do it nor did it work anyway.
That elephant brought its trunk toward me and wrapped it around my stomach.
It lifted me from the ground. It started to squeeze me with force.
"Aghh," I tried to scream, but my voice cut down.
I wanted to move my hands to hit its trunk, but since it was holding my arms together with my body, I could not move them. It was squeezing me harder and harder every second, like I was half-empty toothpaste.
The moment I felt like I couldn't hold anymore, and I accepted death, it stopped squeezing me and lifted me a little more. Then, suddenly smashed me on the ground head-on.
That was the last thing I remember from that moment.
When I opened my eyes, I couldn't believe what I saw.
I was holding the paper I was before, in the middle of the city, the place where I fell after flying.
I didn't understand what happened, and when I moved my hand, I didn't feel any pain. I was fine physically.
But my head was hurting a little.
At that moment, I felt the paper rustle in my hand. When I lifted to look at it, the text made my blood freeze.
"Excuse my mistake. I forgot to mention the punishment for the first game since I didn't think you would fail the easiest one.
Punishment: You will return from death until you complete the game successfully."