Chapter 6
After the recap, the tributes were shuttled to lunch. Peter and Lyv gravitated towards each other and found a table away from the other tributes. Shayna waved at Peter, but sat at a table with a few other people, including a younger boy that looked identical to her albeit his skin was magenta instead of a vivid pink. While Peter slowly chewed on his food due to his single portion and no opportunity for seconds, he talked to Lyv. “Did you meet anyone?”
Lyv sipped on her drink. “No. I don’t like making friends with people that will probably try to kill me.”
“Huh. I was kinda thinking the same thing,” Peter agreed as he swallowed bread. They two ate in silence for the most part while the rest of the tables were chattering and laughing. Peter thought it was odd; in two more days, they’d be thrown into an arena to murder one another, to trick one another, to slowly starve and dehydrate all while people watched screens and enjoyed their demise, yet they were so happy and content talking to one another like they were all normal teenagers and children.
“That’s One and Two,” Lyv sharply said. Peter followed her gaze to two individuals sitting next to one another. They were humanoid, Peter noted, but definitely not humans. The girl had a seafoam-green tint to her skin, and instead of normal hair cascading around her shoulders, Peter noticed it seemed to almost be tentacles of some sort in place of where hair should be. Her eyes were wide set, and if Peter didn’t know any better, he’d almost say that her face looked like a fish if a fish were a person. There was a condescending sneer on her face while the table she was seated at clearly laughed at other tributes and mocked some of the younger, scared children. Next to her was a very similar looking male, only his skin was tinted a light teal color, a perfect mixture of green and blue. His short, cropped hair also consisted of tentacles, though it was much less obvious than the girl’s long, flowing appendages.
“Those are the ones Ingrid warned us about?” Peter said in a quiet voice as they stared at the two. Lyv nodded as she continued to nibble on her food.
“They’re part of the Careers.” Peter turned back to face Lyv as she spoke. “They’re called that because people like them spend their entire childhood training for the Games like it’s their career. They’re the ones who campaign to be voted in from their planets. It’s like, some sick kind of glory for them. There’s usually about five or six careers that team up at the start. Way more often than not, careers usually win the games. They’re not just trained, but they come from planets with incredible powers, and they know how to use them.”
“What powers do One and Two have?”
Lyv furrowed her brows. “I think One, that’s the girl, can turn into water. Two, the boy, he can generate any phase of water – liquid, ice, steam, you name it, he can do it. I forget their names, though. There are a lot of Victors that have the same powers as them. They come from a water planet if that wasn’t obvious,” Lyv explained. Peter frowned. That was certainly going to be difficult to contend with. He didn’t even want to think about the strategies a bloodthirsty competitor would use their ability to turn into water for.
Peter shuddered, thinking about a stream of water climbing into his nose and shredding apart his insides.
“What about the others?” Peter wanted to get his mind away from his body being torn apart by water.
“I’m not sure. I think Three and Four are connected to fire – at least one set of Careers usually are – and I think I remember one set of Careers has something to do with animals. I don’t quite remember. We’ll probably go over that with Ingrid tonight,” Lyv said. Peter nodded. Fire, he could deal with. He’d dealt with lots of fire in his day. Animals, on the other hand, seemed strange. How could a Career make that ability so advantageous? Surely the Gamemakers wouldn’t allow their creations to be manipulated by someone with powers.
After lunch ended, Peter spent the second half of the training day at the climbing wall and on the obstacle course set up closer to the elevated room the Gamemakers occupied. He figured he should do something to impress them today – he was sure that learning about plants and watching some videos wasn’t going to get him a great store. Now that he knew the importance of impressing potential sponsors, he’d pay more heed to this part of the process.
Nobody really seemed to bat an eye at Peter’s agility through the obstacle course, but the speed at which he climbed the wall seemed to draw quite a few stares. In fact, it wasn’t just the speed at which Peter did it — which was absurdly higher than anyone else – it was the way that Peter crawled up it, like, well… a spider. He didn’t have to utilize any of the crevices or protrusions of the walls like the other did. Peter felt proud. That was one thing he could do here that nobody else could.
That he knew of, anyways.
He was disappointed there wasn’t any sort of engineering station or lab. He would’ve loved to get his hands on some extragalactic chemicals and see if they had the materials necessary to build some sort of crude webshooters. If he could get his hand on webs, he could easily wait out the games until the Avengers got there. If not…
When the training day was declared over, just before dinner, the tributes lined up at the door. One by one, they filed out after the power-restraining cuffs were slapped back onto their wrists, much to Peter’s dismay. Lyv and Peter were led back to their quarters in silence. They were both mentally exhausted. Preparing and training for your own death was not considered an easy task for the mind, believe it or not.
Entering back into their quarters, Peter could’ve melted in relief when he saw the extravagant dinner laid out on the table in front of them. He almost jumped on the table, slamming into a seat and immediately loading his plate up with food. He felt as though he’d been starved at lunch. One portion was not enough for his metabolism, not to mention he was a typical teenage boy. “You act like you’ve never seen food before in your life,” a wry voice said. As Peter swallowed a big gulp of a vegetable coated in a delicious blue sauce, he noticed Ingrid slink out of the bar area out of the corner of his eye. Peter hadn’t bothered checking that part out; Dr. Cho told him it would take about five times the amount as someone with normal metabolism to get drunk, so he had never even tried. The idea never appealed to him anyways.
“They only gave us one roll at lunch, and one sandwich, and some kind of fruit. It was awful, really, and then I had to go jump around and do an obstacle course to get a good score, because my friend Shayna told me that I should do that, you know? Cuz I gotta get people to like me so they can send me gifts in the arena when I need it,” Peter rambled, his cheeks stuffed with food as he ravenously continued to chew and swallow. Across from him, Lyv was still only putting her first serving of food on her plate. She ignored the barbaric teenage boy across from her.
“Oh, so you’ve made a friend!” Astrid said, taking a swig from her flask. “I like that one. Though, she may not be the best of help in the arena.”
“Hey! She seems smart,” Peter quickly countered, scooping his second serving onto his plate. Astrid just frowned and watched the boy continue to eat. He was certainly far too sweet to be here. Taking another swig of her drink, she wished she’d never come to this planet.
“Eat up, you two,” she told the teenagers. “We have studying to do tonight.”
After dinner, Lyv had quickly planted herself and Peter on the couch in the common area in front of the TV that Ingrid was controlling. She was getting more intoxicated by the minute, which Lyv kept complaining about under her breath, but Peter felt grateful that she was even helping at all.
“Twenty-four tributes. Only one comes out alive. That means both of you will have to overcome twenty-three to win,” Ingrid said as clips began to flash across the screen. Peter shifted uncomfortably on the couch. He didn’t want to have to think about the fact that he was studying people in order to kill them better. At least during mission briefs with the Avengers, their intent was usually to incapacitate whoever they were going after unless it was a murderous robot or alien on a rampage. Spider-Man didn’t kill people. Peter didn’t kill people.
He also ignored the fact that Ingrid pointed out that in order for Lyv or Peter to win, the other would have to be dead.
Ingrid flipped through clips of tributes. The Careers had sickening promotion videos not dissimilar from the campaign videos for politicians Peter saw on Earth. At one point, during the middle of Two’s promise to win the game and bring honor back to his planet, Peter leaned over to Lyv and murmured “How can these people just let their kids go away to die? Why do they want this to happen?”
Lyv just shrugged, a very concerned look etched onto her face. “I don’t get it either. That’s just the way some societies are, I guess. Value different things than us.”
That answer didn’t please Peter, but he supposed that the fact it didn’t make sense to him made sense. He’d never taken an “Alien Sociology” course after all (though he was a little surprised that Midtown didn’t offer that).
Despite the foreboding circumstances revolving around this lesson, he couldn’t deny that seeing what the other tributes could do was down-right cool and insane .
Lyv was right, the Careers consisted of Fire and Water-powered teenagers as well as a few others. One, Two, Three, and Four. Five and Six boasted impressive powers of being able to manipulate the fabric of space themselves, though Ingrid commented that she thinks their powers were limited and they only had a certain amount of “juice” before they’d have to recharge like a battery, and how that would be the best strategy to go about killing them.
That made Peter’s stomach churn, and he found it much more difficult to pay attention to the rest of the lesson. Here and there, he caught a few powers, but most of it went through one of his ears and out the others as the world around him faded away. Something about shadow manipulation, something about turning into metal, something about turning into rubber, something about hormones.
All he’d been doing was coming home from school — he was going to meet up with the Avengers — how did he end up here? Why hadn’t they found him yet? If they ever did come for him, Peter knew the first thing he’d have to do is apologize to Mr. Stark. He should’ve been able to sense this coming, he should’ve been able to protect himself and Happy. Now they were going to have to come to freaking space to rescue him because he wasn’t good enough. If anyone got hurt, it would be on Peter’s shoulders. He’d have to bear the brunt of the blame.
Maybe they’re not coming from me. Maybe I’m not worth the losses they’d have to take. Maybe… maybe they don’t know what’s happened to me. Maybe I’ll die here.
After Ingrid’s lesson, Peter wasn’t sure if he should feel worse or better. He walked to his room trying to act normal, but the truth was, he could barely stand up straight. How was he supposed to be able to compete with people who could shoot fire from their hands and literally control the space-time continuum?
Peter could stick to walls and hit things hard.
When the door of his room slid shut behind him, Peter nearly collapsed onto the floor in a heap, but he caught himself. He took a few moments of deep breaths and squeezed his eyes shut, the threatening red tinge of a panic attack lingering at the edge of his vision. He couldn’t let that happen to himself again. He had to hold it together. He needed to survive long enough for Mr. Stark to get him out of here. Him and Lyv out of here.
Glancing around the room, Peter knew that under different circumstances, this place would be awesome . The shower was absolutely insane — it put the ones at the Avenger’s compound to shame — with hundreds of different settings regarding water temperature and pressure and soaps and scrubs and bubbles and anything Peter could think of. He didn’t think showers could even be this amazing, but they could be. The technology was to die for, too. Peter wished there was some kind of workshop in the training center — he’d kill to have even just one day with the stuff that was in here.
He picked up a remote from his nightstand as he calmed his breath down. It appeared to be a TV remote of some sort. I could use some Star Wars right now. Clicking the largest button on the remote, the wall across from his bed lit up and revealed itself to be not just a normal wall, but a giant screen. As the bright white light of power faded, the screen opened up to a camera somewhere within the city, panning over a large crowd shimmying and squirming under the flashing lights of fireworks. Frowning, Peter looked at the remote and found an arrow. He didn’t want to watch people celebrate the imminent death of twenty-three teenagers.
The next scene was some sort of planet-scape. Peter wondered if it was live, like the recording of the city. Regardless, he’d never seen anything like it before. There were giant purple and green outcroppings and formations spurting from the grounds, giant mountains full of yellow and pink forests looming in the distance. Peter took a step closer and took in the insanity. He’d never even seen anything like this in movies, even — if he made it out of here, he made a vow to force Thor to take him to places like this.
With death before him, Peter was beginning to realize everything in life he’d miss out on.
Peter clicked the arrow again, and what he saw nearly took his breath away.
It was Queens.
His knees felt weak, and he felt his breath catch in his chest. The remote slipped and fell from Peter’s fingers as they grew limp and numb.
Anyone else glancing at the city before him might’ve mistaken it for any generic city — they might’ve even recognized New York City, but not Queens specifically.
But Peter… Peter knew.
He knew Queens like the back of his hand. He could see his favorite corner store, the outline of Midtown, the curves and paths of the streets that he swung around almost every single night for the past three years. He could see the distance from Queens to Manhattan, he could see his favorite buildings to watch for crime on, he could see the timing of the stoplights in the streets that he knew by heart. He knew the way each and every building poked through the morning fog. Peter knew every crack and crevice of his terrain.
And now… it was so far away.
Stepping forward, Peter slowly and gingerly reached his fingers out to the screen. He lightly set them on the screen, tentative as though if he touched them, it would suck him in and he’d fall through the sky and be right back at home.
When he wasn’t sucked in and only felt the soft thrum of electricity of his fingers, Peter’s heart began to beat again.
They were taunting him.
Whoever put him here wanted to remind him how far away he was from home. They wanted him to think about what he’d have to do to see it again.
Peter furrowed his brows, turned away from the screen, and pressed the power button. He was not going to have his home tainted by the thoughts of blood and murder and—
Collapsing onto his bed, Peter closed his eyes. Damned with the sleeping pill and all. He just wanted to escape .
“Peter!”
Peter lurched forward, reaching his hand out for the super-soldier, but he was too late. With a frantic, frenzied look in his eyes, Captain America plummeted off the edge of the skyscraper towards the ground that was too far away for Peter to even see. He was going to disappear underneath the clouds and never return. Peter pressed his web shooter for a last chance at saving him, but he heard the sickening click that signified an empty webshooter. “NO!” Peter screamed. Steve’s limbs flailed wildly about and grasped for the web that never came. Cap disappeared under the clouds, the last image of him in Peter’s eyes grasping for the safety that Peter couldn’t provide. “Cap,” Peter whispered, his voice full of tears.
“PETER, HELP US!”
Peter’s head whipped around and he watched, horrified, as the alien-hovercraft that Nat and Clint had tag-teamed to hijack was now flaming out of the back, careening out of control towards a nearby building. Their eyes were wide with fear and waving at Peter to save them.
“HOLD ON!” Peter screamed. He tried to let Steve go in his heart as he threw himself across the roof, launching into the air to try and grab the hovercraft to slow it down — gliding through the air, he threw his hands towards the metal, almost there, almost there…
He felt his fingertips skim the metal, but not enough for him to stick, and he began to fall towards the edge of the building. With a frustrated and terrified scream, Peter hit the side of the next building, clinging to safety as he lifted his head and watched the hovercraft crash into the side of the tower in a plume of lethal flames. Through the sound of metal screeching and fire blowing through the sky, Peter could hear the pained screeches of Nat and Clint as the metal ate away at their skin. “No,” Peter whispered as though his breath was punched from his chest.
“Pete, get to Banner! They’re too much!”
Pete’s eyes wildly searched for the giant green Hulk as he swallowed back tears, eyes burning from the fresh loss of three teammates —he spotted him on the roof of a nearby building, almost invisible underneath a wave of alien nanobots overcoming him and pinning him to the roof.
Peter launched himself from the side of the building and landed on a nearby roof, tucking himself into a roll and springing back up. He continued to launch himself from roof to roof, thinking how much quicker he’d be with web shooters.
When he was two rooftops away, Peter watched a missile fly in from overhead and reduce the rooftop Banner was on to nothing but a giant puff of smoke, dust, and debris.
“You weren’t fast enough, Peter!”
“Mr. Stark, I’m sorry, I-I tried!” Peter cried through his headset. Something red and gold flashed through the sky above him.
“You weren’t fast enough for anyone, Peter.” The voice was more familiar. It belonged to someone he’d only just met, someone who had shown her her pride and joy, her soulmate - Lyvernae.
“I didn’t mean it, Lyv, I swear — I tried my best!”
“No, Peter. You didn’t. And they’re all dead because of you. You killed them.”
Peter turned around, looking to see where Lyv was, but all he could see was blood running from every crevice of Thor’s body, his mouth open in a twisted, permanent scream — Iron Man’s suit was mangled, crushed around his limbs, blood and guts and skin oozing out from the cracks —
“Peter.”
“Peter.”
“Peter.”
Peter jolted upwards, his clenched fist blindly swinging outwards as he screamed —
“Great Galactus, Peter, it’s just me!”
Peter’s trembling fist fell to the bed, though his other arm was still braced in front of him, prepared to block a blow. As he blinked away the sleep from his eyes and let his adrenalin die down, he immediately recognized Lyv standing at the edge of his bed. She was already dressed in her training clothes and both hands were in front of her in a protective stand. Shoulders sagging with relief, Peter closed his eyes.
“Sorry, I- I thought you were someone else,” he mumbled.
Lyv, surprisingly, lowered her arms and gave Peter a soft smile. “It’s okay. I get nightmares too.”
Peter didn’t respond, but he was glad she understood.
He opened his eyes, because every time he closed them, he could still see the mangled body of Tony oozing out from the crushed Iron Man suit. “Anyways, I was just — it’s almost time to leave for training, and you weren’t up yet.” Peter was beginning to notice the softer interior of Lyv - her voice sounded soft and sweet and he could hear genuine concern in her. Lyv, having the same realization at the same time, twisted her face and it grew harder, a more serious and logical glaze covering the concern in her eyes. She turned her head to stare at the wall. “I know how much you like your breakfast, and I heard you shouting in here.”
Peter nodded. “Thanks, Lyv.”
Lyv gave a sharp mhm and snapped her head back to Peter. “Better hurry up. We’ll be going down soon.”
Peter, used to quick wake-ups, getting dressed, and snagging some food in a matter of minutes — Steve would always get pissed when Peter would sleep in until the last minute then come racing into the Quinjet — was dressed and stuffing a delicious pastry in his mouth, standing next to Lyv in the kitchen. She just stared at him with a disgusting look on her face.
“The foods not going to disappear. And it’s not like it’s going to taste any better if you eat it faster.”
“I don’t know this place, I’m in space. Maybe there’s disappearing muffins. You don’t know, Lyv,” Peter sarcastically responded as he took the wrapper off his second muffin and began shoving it in his face. Lyv just sighed as the door slid open and their armed escort arrived to take them down to the training center. The second training day was identical to the first — Peter supposed that most of the people here were pretty experienced with their powers, whether it was combative or not, and didn’t need too much time to get acquainted with them. Once the trainer finished her much shorter speech, Peter was surprised to feel Lyv tugging at the sleeve of his shirt. “Come with me to the camouflage and stealth station. Your eyesight is probably better than anyone else’s in here, so if you can’t see me, nobody will be able to.” Peter, glancing around and realizing he had no better ideas, obliged. Plus, he was a little scared of Lyv. That always helped. She reminded him of Nat, and as much as he loved Nat, Nat terrified Peter. “ It’s out of love ,” Nat would always taunt Peter.
He was never quite sure.
Lyv marched her way over to the stealth and camouflage module, much to Peter’s liking. He’d been eyeing it from a distance the day prior, and was already planning on coming here today. It fit in well with his strategy of evasion. Peter was good at stealth, but it never hurt to practice. The station was rather large, as most of the training stations were, and towards the middle, a large array of dense foliage and obstacles took over the room, testing the tributes’ ability to blend in and move silently. There were two training instructors here, arms crossed and eager to assess tributes’ ability to stay hidden. They gave Peter and Lyv curt nods as the two entered the station and at the tributes behind them. Twenty One and Twenty Two, Peter thought to himself. He remembered seeing their faces during the lesson last night, but couldn’t quite but his finger on what their powers were.
Before the dense foliage started, there were a few different tables with paints, suits, weapons, and other things that tributes could take with them through the station. Lyv went to reach for some of the paints to make herself match the foliage more, but Peter grabbed her shoulder and gently held her back. “We don’t know if you’ll have access to these things in the games. Better practice with the bare minimum.”
Lyv pressed her lips into a thin line and nodded.
Stepping forward, Peter glanced at the instructors who did not give them any instructions quite yet. He figured that they’d assess the tributes’ stealth and give them tips and tricks in the future. He glanced at Lyv, who stood nearby, and watched in amazement as her skin turned to a shade of green to match the foliage around them. A light layer of green casing crept over her clothes, entirely hiding the training outfit she was wearing. Once again, Peter was outclassed, and he began to realize why he was tribute number Twenty-Four. He glanced down at his own training clothes and hoped the gray and red wicker material would serve him well enough. They exchanged a determined nod before disappearing into the wilderness.
Moving with utmost care, Peter and Lyv expertly weaved through the vegetation, their steps light and almost imperceptible. Peter could hear Lyv’s footsteps a little louder, her movements a little sloppier, her breathing ragged and choppy. Where Lyv beat him in camouflage, Peter beat her with the agility of a spider and the pure field experience of a tried and true Avenger. Still, she was moving at a pace fit for an in-shape teenager.
Peter looked up and quickly scaled a nearby tree before he began to leap from branch to branch. He melded seamlessly with the shadows, employing his keen reflexes to avoid triggering any tripwires or sound alarms. His spider-like abilities allowed him to cling effortlessly to surfaces, giving him an edge in maintaining silence and remaining unseen.
Lyv, with her natural camouflage, utilized her powers to blend in with the environment. The shell casing her clothes and her skin shifted between different hues of green, blue, purple, and even blacked at times, taking on the hues and textures of the foliage around her. She moved clumsily, but still gracefully, steps managing to leave no trace as she maneuvered through the undergrowth.
The duo communicated through subtle hand signals and glances, their movements sloppy at first but quickly growing seamlessly synchronized. They coordinated their actions, each covering the other’s blind spots, effectively forming a formidable team. As they advanced deeper into the training course, the challenges intensified. Peter watched beams of lights crisscrossing their path, and his senses told him the precise timing and agile maneuvers he’d need to reach angles to avoid detection. While he evaded the lasers in the tops of the trees, Lyv had to deal with pressure-sensitive plates on the ground, testing her ability to distribute her weight and move with caution. For once, Peter was proud of what he could do. At least this was one one-up he might have on the rest of his competition (but was Lyv truly competition?)
The training session continued with the two maneuvering through the complex course, overcoming obstacles and evading detection, but it didn’t last for much longer. As they finally completed the challenge, coming to an end of the foliage with one instructor waiting for them with his arms crossed, Peter swung himself down from a tree branch and landed next to Lyv. He barely felt winded, but the girl beside him was panting. Wiping beads of sweat from his forehead, Peter grinned at the instructor. “How’d we do?”
Leaving the stealth and camouflage section with a good taste in his mouth, Peter felt his shoulders sag a little less and his chin up a little higher. He’d been given almost perfect feedback; Lyv, on the other hand, was given tips to move more quietly and unnoticeably in the undergrowth. She looked unhappy, frowning and her arms crossed. “Maybe if I did it separately from you I wouldn’t have done so bad,” she gruffed under her breath. Peter playfully bumped her shoulder with his fist.
“When we’re not running around you’re better off than me. I can’t change colors!” Peter pointed out. Lyv rolled her eyes, but some of the anxiety seemed to be quelled for the moment. Lyv sighed.
“I’m going to head for the hand-to-hand station. I’m smaller than, well… mostly everyone here, so I should probably get some practice in,” Lyv sighed. She glanced over to the station which was particularly busy. Peter moved to follow, but hesitated. He was already plenty good enough at that. Besides, he didn’t want his strength to show and to make himself a target. He needed to evade, not attract.
“Okay,” Peter nodded. “I, um… I’ll go somewhere else for now.”
Lyv tilted her head slightly, a little confused, but accepted Peter’s decision and walked away.
Peter glanced around. There were certainly a lot of stations he could go to – survival, mock arena simulations, swordsmanship – that one made Peter feel dizzy – an archery range, and a few others. Shying away from anything that involved harming others, Peter finally settled on the intelligence and puzzle challenges. He could use some good brain stimulation at this point.
There weren't any other tributes at this station. Why would there be? At the surface, it didn’t provide practice for any useful skills that pertained to killing others. But Peter knew better. He knew intelligence was one of his greatest strengths, maybe even the greatest strength he possessed. From all of his missions with the Avengers, he’d quickly learned that thinking-on-your-feet and quick problem-solving under pressure were far more valuable than how hard you could hit something.
The station was set up as a labyrinthine room. Peter assumed there were things in the labyrinth to test his intelligence, but he couldn’t see beyond the entrance of the maze. Glancing at the instructor who gave him a permissive nod, Peter walked into the maze.
The first thing Peter noticed was that the walls of the maze were adorned with intricate symbols and enigmatic patterns carved into the smooth, silvery steel. He traversed further into the maze, the light growing dimmer as the entrance quickly disappeared after a series of decisions and turns. Peter’s hand trailed on the right wall, which he followed. No matter how many turns he had to take, he knew that this would take him the right way.
It wasn’t long until Peter was stopped in his tracks by a dead end. The wall in front of him was covered in a series of ancient-looking glyphs. He furrowed his brows as he glanced over the puzzle, trying to figure it out. On the door there was a singular keypad. Carefully reaching forward, Peter touched it, and found he could write anything he wanted with his finger. The careful poke left a single dot, and as it disappeared, the top of the keypad flashed red. So I have to write something here to get through.
He glanced over the glyphs again. Strangely, he didn’t feel any trepidation or anxiety.
The symbols were unfamiliar, seemingly indecipherable, and he didn’t see any kind of key or guide to translating them. Wait… there was something else, though.
Something about the shapes, the strokes, the repetitions of these glyphs was familiar. He’d seen these before.
His eyes scanned the wall, and Peter’s mind raced.
Aha!
He’d studied ancient languages at Midtown. He began to make connections between the glyphs before him and symbols he’d studied in school. Snippets of information rant through his head, fragments of forgotten languages. He wasn’t an expert on this stuff – history was more of MJ’s thing – but he’d listened to enough of her rambles that it was now stuck in his brain.
A glimmer of recognition sparks within his mind. He began to quickly experiment inside of his brain, mentally associating the glyphs with their potential counterparts in the modern alphabet. He began to quickly run through different possibilities in his head, analyzing the shapes and the context of the symbols he remembered to try and formulate a sentence.
He had no idea why ancient languages from Earth were applicable here, but that was a question for later.
“I am the,” Peter mumbled to himself. Frowning as his concentration deepened on the puzzle before him, he continued to try to figure out what the rest of the sentence was.
With each successful letter and words deciphered, the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. His mind works swiftly, recognizing patterns and making connections that were far-fetched but others might overlook.
He could feel warm excitement grow in his chest as coherent words and sentences began to form.
I am the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space. I am essential to creation and surround every place. What am I?
Peter frowned.
“E. It’s E,” he quickly said aloud to himself. Reaching forward, Peter quickly scribbled a capital E on the pad in front of him. The light flashed green, and the steel door slowly slid open to reveal the next part of the training room.
A swell of pride filling his chest, Peter stepped forward. This is what he was made for.
The rest of the labyrinth was long , and it was time-consuming, and for most people, probably mentally exhausting .
But not for Peter.
With every puzzle he solved, he gained a newfound sense of vigor and motivation and hope. The world he was in melted away and he forgot about the twisted games he was going to be sent to, forgot about the imminent death of twenty-three kids.
He used mirrors to use a light beam to unlock a wall of ice, he navigated a cryptic path of stone tiles to open a door, he solved a Tower of Hanoi that shocked him every time he made the wrong move (which only happened once, and Peter did that on purpose because the rings made a weird buzzing noise), he used a room full of paintings to unlock the final section of the maze.
When the wall slid open, Peter found himself back at the front of the puzzle room. Only this time, half of the other tributes were watching screens on the wall in amazement. They all turned to Peter and his stomach immediately twisted; why were they all staring?
Peter glanced to the screens they’d been watching only to see…himself. The instructors must’ve been using screens to assess his abilities. Only, it wasn’t just the instructors watching. It was the Careers and half of the other tributes.
Peter not only failed at evading the rest of the tributes, but he’d just painted a big, red, spider-shaped target on his back.