Page 57 of Creatures of Chaos

“Let the trial begin,” the game master says, and then retreats from the circle, melting into the mist.

“This is insane. I’m not doing this,” someone shouts, and then a tall black-haired girl runs for the edge of the circle.

She doesn’t make it far. The moment she tries to pass the ring of torches, the sleeve of her shirt catches fire and instantly spreads up her arm. She screams and tries to douse the flame, but her flailing only makes the fire spread faster. My eyes widen in horror as the flames lick at her face and the girl’s hair catches fire.

“Drop on the ground,” I yell, as I sprint toward her when no one else moves to help.

It only takes me a few seconds to reach her, and when I do I don’t hesitate tackling her to the ground and forcing her to roll. She’s crying hysterically, but the fire finally goes out. When she looks up at me her cheek is black and bubbled and most of thehair has burned away from the right side of her head. Her arm from her wrist to her shoulder is badly burned as well. I can only hope that for her sake this girl is a creature who heals quickly.

“You’re okay,” I say, but my voice wobbles.

She nods as she cries, and as I help her to her feet the warning about not being able to self-eliminate out of Chaos rings in my mind. I’m sure I’m not the only competitor who’s thinking about that right now.

“I can help her with the pain,” a voice says, and when I turn, Mia, a fierce blonde vampire from Nightlark, is standing next to us.

The girl shrinks away from her in fear, but I understand where the vampire is coming from. We’re all about to be compelled anyway, and the magical gag is going to prevent anyone from reporting her for compulsion. What she’s offering the girl is a mercy.

I look back at the burned girl, who’s shaking her head while silent tears stream down her cheeks.

“Are you sure?” I ask the burned girl. “It might be the only way you make it through this trial.”

“No, no compulsion,” she says, and backs away from both me and Mia, finding a tree and then sliding to the ground, slowly rocking herself.

Looking back at Mia, I say, “Thanks for offering.” She just shrugs and moves to the other side of the circle.

I don’t know what to think as I wait for the trial to officially begin, but I move as far away as I can from the cache of weapons sitting in the middle of the ring. I don’t bother sizing up my fellow competitors. They aren’t my enemies tonight. Seconds tick by and then minutes. The only sounds in the ring are the sobs of the burnt girl. And the longer we’re made to wait, the stronger my anxiety grows.

After half an eternity of waiting, something slides into my mind. Like tentacles of darkness seeping in through invisible cracks and latching on to me, an unwanted entity probes the far recesses. It’s as intrusive as it is unsettling, and I immediately try to throw up mental barriers to protect myself.

But how do you protect your own mind from invasion? It’s not like this is something they teach us to ward against at Nightlark, but maybe it should be.

I don’t know what to do, and as the seconds tick by, more and more of me gets dragged under some dark spell until the world has fallen away and the only thing I’m aware of is a whispered voice ringing in my mind, hissing to me to pick up a dagger from the pile and drive it through my own palm.

I do my best to ignore the command, to push the foreign entity out of my mind entirely, but instead I find myself striding forward and reaching for a blade on the ground in front of me. My hand shakes as my fingers wrap around the hilt of a small dagger, my knuckles white with the strength of my grip.

Part of me is completely numb as I lift the weapon, hovering the tip of the blade above my palm, but the other part of me is freaking out, completely drenched in horror. The weapon starts to lower, and no matter what I do I can’t seem to move my hand out of the way or stop myself from piercing my skin.

A bead of blood wells up in the center of my palm, blooming until it spills over the sides of my hand and drips to the ground below.

The blade digs deeper, pain spasming up my arm, and I swear I hear a phantom laugh whisper through my mind.

No. This isn’t how I go out of Chaos. I’m stronger than this.

Pain-filled screams and angry shouts rip through the air as other competitors battle, some losing, to fight their own compulsion, but closing my eyes I block everything out. I grit my teeth as the blade enters my hand, millimeter by millimeter,blood seeping from the wound to puddle on the stones and dirt at my feet, but I push past the pain, focusing on the part of my mind that I’m no longer in control of. The voice is whispering to drive the dagger straight through my palm, so I have until the tip of the dagger pushes through the other side of my hand to break the compulsion.

Imagining the compulsion as an intruder, I search for it, finding shadowy tendrils of the dark magic woven throughout my mind, fogging my inhibitions and manipulating my desires. The compulsion has made something inside mewantto shove the dagger straight through my hand, to see it punch through the other side and blood flow freely. And so as the blade digs a little deeper, I don’t fight the urge to stab, but instead I concentrate on the faceless vampire who is trying to bend my will to theirs.

I redirect my desires and imagine sinking the dagger through their hand instead of mine, and I’m able to pull the blade free from my hand. My hand spasms and I drop the dagger. It clatters to the ground and the spell is broken.

I don’t breathe a sigh of relief, because I know I still have to beat the compulsion two more times, and that was close—too close.

Even though I didn’t cut all the way through my palm, the wound in the center of my hand is still deep and bleeding profusely. I look around for help, not finding it anywhere. Each of the competitors are embroiled in their own battles. Some of them are being compelled to hurt themselves like I was, others are on the ground writhing in agony, and others are standing stock still with hollow gazes. I even catch a competitor climbing one of the thin aspen trees, high enough off the ground they’ll surely hurt themselves if they fall.

There’s nothing to do but stop the bleeding myself, so reaching down I rip off the bottom few inches of my shirt. It’s already speckled with my blood, so it’s no great loss. I’vejust managed to tightly wrap the material around my palm to staunch the flow when I’m hit with the second attack.

Confess, the voice in my mind hisses, and I’m overwhelmed with the urge to spout my secrets about my feelings for Becks and why I entered Chaos.

I slap a hand over my mouth to keep words from emerging, but I can feel them bubbling in the back of my throat, like magma waiting to spill over and destroy everything in its path.

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