The Finals
I breathe hard, my sweat sinking into the pores of my forehead. Inhale; exhale. In, out. This is real, right? I’m a finalist?
Around me, I see I’m in a dome, with a green screen picturing water on all surfaces. Chests to my right and a large, silver computer to my left, I look at everything bored. I sit and wait for instructions, as I was told. Waiting, I feel like I am about to be escorted to my execution.
Imagining the possible scenarios that could go down, a light comes onto the computer. I shove my arm into my eyes, then I uncover.There’s a face on the screen.
“Indis Clare?”
“Yes?”
“Hello, my name is Alexander Kenton. I am the host of, Game On! Please, allow me to start by saying congratulations! You are one of the top five gamers in the United States.
“We are here to who figure out is number one. The way we’ll figure this out is, bring the game to life. Got it? Good. Ready. Set. Go.”
“Wait! What?!” but he was gone. I’m just left here standing alone; as if I were punched in the gut and the culprit ran off.
A thousand questions rush into my mind in that moment. Am I really in the ocean, then? Is this fatal? Do I even have a chance?
I receive two answers as water started caving in. I circle around, splashing in the salty liquid. Quickly I open one of the chests. Nets, hooks? What? Ah, yes. Suction cups, gigantic ones. Swiftly, I put them on the all seven holes, slipping a couple times. Going around again to make sure they’re tight, I jump, fidget in the small space. What kind of horrible gaming industry is this?
Finally I let the carbon dioxide to exit my body. I go to the wooden chest; I have a feeling that was the easiest of the trials. How many are there going to be?
I begin to answer my earlier question; no I don’t have a chance. But I stop, I need to have faith, if I don’t, I won’t make it.
Shoveling past all the nets, trying not to prick myself with the hooks, I stumble upon a remote. I throw it down into the partially wet ground, planning to look at it in a moment, but I wasn’t thinking.
Hearing a clank from the remote colliding to the ground, I distinguish the clicking of a button. I turn swiftly, and then I recognize the sound of a crack.
For the first time, in this dome, I completely freeze. Glancing downwards slightly, I detected a long fracture in the glass floor of the dome.
I steadily move my head upward, my exhale slowing. With my eyes closed, I unsuccessfully try to calm myself. All I can think about is a gigantic canyon I’m about to be pushed down into.
That stupid button. This stupid game. It is all such a nuisance, how did I get myself into this?
The ground breaks, causing me to fall into the darkness. I let myself sit for a moment, breaking my record for breath holding, before I begin swimming up. Above me, I see no dome; nothing to prove it was even there. At least now I know that I was actually in the sea.
Breaking the surface, there is a breeze of cold, delightful air, and a shore. Paddling my way towards land, a rush of anger flies over me. It’s the dome, cameramen, and Alexander Kenton.
“Indis! Indis Clare! Congratulations! You are the number one gamer in the United States, soon to be the world.” Alexander screams at me.
I hesitate for a moment, until I was furious to stay quiet. “How dare you! All of you! You can’t do this to people. Plus, I’m only a fifteen-year-old girl. I didn’t sign up for that, I signed up for video games! Where are the other finalists?” I yell, which was probably a bad idea considering all of the air I lost already.
“Indis, dear,” Alexander starts. “They’re dead. Den, Edmund, Sammy, Alice, they all died. But you, you didn’t. You’re the best, and it’s obviously proven.”
“You’re sick. You’re all sick!” And I leave it at that; I walk away, ignoring their calls. I have no idea where I was heading, all I know is I am leaving that demented game I won, forever.
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140,074 Literary Works • 673,000 Reviews
Hello! This is my review for you!
After reading your story, my first reaction was "Wow." You've got some really great description here. You used the perfect amount of description so that it wasn't too distracting or too messy or too vague. It was really interesting and action-y. Needless to say, it was a good story.
I really liked your Alexander character. He was what would probably the perfect host for that game. He just completely left Indis while she had no clue what was going on. Perfect!
But I am super curious at how your main character got there. I am also curious about how the other gamers died and what their stories were. It seems like that could be an interesting series of backstories. A backstory for Alexander would be cool, too. (In case you haven't noticed, he's my favorite character!) Ok, I admit, I WOULD BE AWESOME!!!!!!!!!! (But more as a reader than some random person reviewing your work!)
On a less chipper note (sorry!), I DID noticed a few grammar errors:
During the start (Alexander's first sentence), he said: "I am the host of, Game On!" I don't think that there should be a comma before Game On.
During the end of that sentence, he said: "Ready. Set. Go." Both ready and set should have a question mark after them (because they're both questions). Go should probably have an exclamation mark after it, too.
'I begin to answer my earlier question; no I don’t have a chance.'
This sentence. Up there. Yes, that one. I don't believe that a semi-colon should be used. A colon would suffice.
I also found myself confused at certain points in the story, particularly the part where she's in the ocean all of the sudden. I had to read over that part a few times in order to figure out what was happening. Maybe you should have a few people you know read over the story a few times and hear what they have to say. Trust me, it helps. Sometimes, if it makes sense to you (because you're creating this world and you know practically everything about it).
Really great story by the way. It was greatly written.
Hope this helps!!!!
Hey BEWriter!
Interesting story you have going on here.
I think at the outset, I am mostly struck by the similarity to Hunger Games, were you inspired by it? This is an interesting take on it though. So, onwards to my comments as I read your story.
1. So right at the beginning, when you're setting the stage, I got a bit confused when you said "with a green screen picturing water on all surfaces", because at first my head's pictureing a green screen and then suddenly, there's photos of water? So how is it a green screen?
2 Now, it moves to what I presume is a sort of virtual reality meshed into the game, right? Here is where I think you can definitely improve - you can add more detail and description to not only show us what the MC is going through but also show us the passage of time, and her demeanor as she is struggling. This would be a great spot to expand upon your narrative. And then, as you build up the story you can show how she ended out of them game, because to me, it seemed a little abrupt and discontinuous that I couldn't make sense of what exactly was happening in the story.
3. The part about the others being dead seemed a little out of the blue. So, this is not VR? I'm not sure what to make of this.
4. I do like the way you ended it. It showed off your character's personality pretty well and added a solid end to your story.
Let me know if you have questions!
Cheers
Lava
Hey BEWriter,
Lopez here for review
I want to start off by saying that I love the imagery used in the story. It painted a clear picture in my head of what was going on. One thing that i think you could work on is the intro. I think you could be a little more specific about what's going on in the beginning of the story because I feel like other readers would be confused on what's going on.
This quote made want to know more about what happened to the other players or if the main character had any relation to them. I think you could go more into detail about the others just a bit more.
I loved the ending where Indis decided to leave the game even though she won, I would've never expected that.
Overall, this was a great story and i really enjoyed reading it. keep up the good work!
Thank you so much for the review! I'm really glad that you had a clear picture.
I love the ending very much, to be honest. Leaving the situation seems very unexpected for me and it's kind of funny in a way. I just have to say that I love it. The story is intriguing with twists and turns. Creating a story based on gamers is very interesting and putting them in a life-and-death situations pretty much spice things up. The characters also seem real, which makes it more likely for readers to get into the mood and to actually feel that they have become that character themselves and that they are really witnessing the scenes. Good work. I guess there's nothing else to say.
Thank you so much. I'm writing this for a contest, the theme is Game On. If I win I get meet James Dashner. I'm really glad you liked it.