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“Ten…”
The countdown reverberated in my ears, the cold reality of what was to come hitting me hard.
Glancing over, my heart leapt as I saw Aurora’s silhouette forming inside her pod.
She was returning, resetting herself for the next round.
But with her return, new dangers were also manifesting.
A grotesque alien creature appeared beside her, and yet another alien male took form nearby.
The next game was about to commence.
I paused for a moment in my hammering on my pod’s ceiling.
I had to check Aurora was okay.
She stirred slowly from the floor and began to get to her feet.
I glanced up at the lights adorning the other males’ pods and was relieved to see none of them had been lit.
She was still untouched by anyone but me.
I glanced at my pod’s ceiling, the damage evident.
In my desperation to break free, I’d made a considerable dent.
The implications started to sink in.
“Nine.”
Once the countdown ended, the pod would launch.
Or would it?
If the structural integrity was compromised, the pod might malfunction during its trip through space or, worse, implode instantly in the vacuum, taking me with it.
Panic set in.
Aurora was so tantalizingly close, and the idea of leaving her to fend for herself was unthinkable.
Evaluating the damage I’d done to my pod, I noted an opening — torn up a few inches but not enough for me to squeeze through.
I returned to slamming the plasma cannon into my pod’s ceiling, ripping it up one inch at a time.
The rhythmic pounding that resonated from my own desperate attempts was met with a similar noise from a neighboring pod.
I paused to see another alien male — a hulking beast with gray, tough skin, looking like it was molded from concrete — relentlessly beating at the ceiling of its own chamber.
It’d managed to find some purchase in jamming itself between the glass walls and slammed at the pod with its huge fists.
From the corner of my eye, I could see large cracks already forming, a testament to its raw power.
The countdown continued its relentless march.“Nine…”
Despite the bleak scenario, the sight of another creature, equally desperate to break free, spurred me on.
It became a race, a battle as to who could escape their pod first.
