Extraction: Infinite Hunger

Chapter 60: What Happened To You?

"Ash, Alina, and Alexis," a stern steady voice called out to them, killing their laughter entirely. Their shadow engulfed the three of them. It wasn’t large, but it certainly had presence. The silence that followed felt like a held breath. Even the ambient noise of the arena seemed to dim around them.

Ash looked up. Alina turned her head as much as she could without fully lifting it, her cheek still pressed against the arena floor. Alexis looked up from where she was sitting, though she was more concerned about correcting her hair.

The phase officer stood over them, then gave a slow, satisfied nod of assessment at their performance and the wreckage around them.

"You three have advanced to the main bracket," he finally said. The words landed with a weight none of them had quite prepared for.

"Mmm... Professor Harrison?" Alina asked through her blurry vision, not fully certain of the figure she was seeing.

"You were incredible Alina," Professor Harrison said to her student. "As were the two of you," he followed, making sure Ash and Alexis were both properly addressed. "I had four hundred on your team being the last one standing in the faculty betting pool, so thank you." He turned and walked back toward the officiating station

Ash watched him go.

"What did he just say?" Alina asked from the floor.

"He was proud of you," Ash said after processing Harrison’s words. "And that he bet on us to be the last ones standing."

"How much?" She said through heavy groans.

"Four hundred."

Alina herself now needed time to understand what this meant. "I respect it," she finally said.

Alexis was the first one to stand among them. She first adjusted her cape, making sure each part of her outfit looked like it hadn’t just been sat on by two different people. Then, like a magician, she unveiled a sports drink from within her uniform, placing it next to Alina’s hand without comment.

"You had this with you the entire time?" Alina said.

"I believe a thanks is in order before petty mockery."

Alina’s fingers latched onto it. She tried to twist the cap off, but her hands trembled violently, slipping off the plastic. She tried again, failing all the same. Alexis silently reached down, twisted the seal until it snapped, and placed the bottle back in Alina’s palm.

Alina drank it while lying on her back. "I cannot sit up," she said after swallowing the first round of the drink. "And even if I could, I do not want to."

"Your organs are where they were," Alexis said, as if delivering a practical status report.

"Deeply reassuring," Alina said. "Thank you."

Ash meanwhile was looking at the wreckage of the arena. But where he expected students to be medically evacuated, no student seemed seriously harmed or injured. Most teams were back on their feet, or at least closer to it than any of his team were. The eight floating islands which had occupied the arena space just an hour ago had completely dissolved. The only trace that they had ever existed was the chips and cracks left from when he threw the islands at Davos.

A familiar presence made himself known to Ash. "That was truly incredible, Ash," Swetta said.

"Swetta, you’re not injured?" Ash asked.

"The fall was more comforting than a plush mattress. I recommend it."

His eyes found the east edge of the field, where Sheila stood with her arms at her side and a straight posture. Her uniform carried no visible dust or scratches. She looked at her arms, then back down at herself, as if unsatisfied that her punches didn’t cause any visible damage. Her hand made a fist, as she drove it cleanly into the arena’s concrete retaining wall. The stone cracked and webbed. She opened her hand, staring at unbroken skin, and perfectly functioning knuckles with deep, seething resentment.

Then, Ash finally saw him. Davos. The only person who was actually being carried away on the stretcher. The medical team was quick and professional, but it looked like they weren’t in any serious hurry to remove him from the arena.

Alina was finally sitting by the time the announcer’s voice blasted again through the arena.

She had completely downed the sports drink. Her eyes had sharpened. They still carried the look of exhaustion, but they were finally present. Her sitting up did require Ash and Alexis to drag her body back up to a seated position. The color was slowly returning to her face.

A large display dropped from the upper area of the arena where the floating islands had been. A bracket finally appeared. A loud shuffling noise played through the speakers, as seeded students were placed into their bracket.

"Let’s begin with the left bracket!" The announcer’s energy had clearly been saved for this moment, not the phase round that had just ended. "Their captain, from the three-person team who just demonstrated..." their voice stopped as they cleared their throat with a faint cough. "—significant structural creativity in Phase Three. Their captain will be on the... left side."

Alexis’s name filled the sole vacant slot on the left. She stared at it, but everyone knew exactly the name her eyes locked onto.

Evelyn.

Alexis, if she wanted to advance past the quarterfinals, would have to face the academy’s number one ranked student.

Her hand found Ash’s forearm, the only thing in close range she could latch onto. Her grip was tighter than she likely intended. "The gods wrote this very clearly," she said, mostly to herself. "The strongest student in the academy, all to myself in this event."

"You have one round before you get there," Alina said.

"I am aware." Alexis released her grip on Ash. The eye not hidden by her large bang scanned the arena, searching for her future opponent in the stands. She had gone quieter than her usual register, which meant she was thinking instead of performing.

"Their two teammates will be placed on the opposite side!"

Ash’s name immediately appeared, and his stomach dropped when he saw who he was fighting in the first round.

[ Seth (5) vs Ash (UNRANKED) ]

His own hand found Alexis’s forearm and gripped it, as he traced his own path to the finals.

Phoebe.

Then, in the semifinals—

Vivian.

"Ash," Alina said.

"Yeah?"

"Can you tell me who I’ll face in the second round? I can’t see that well."

Ash swallowed hard. "You would be facing Vivian," he said through narrow breaths.

"Hm," she said.

"You can beat her," Ash said.

"You don’t know that." She didn’t sound rattled, her tone was flat.

"Neither do you, it seems."

She looked at him sideways, then back at the bracket. "That’s a fair point," she said after a moment.

"We have made enemies of all the correct people," Alexis said.

"That’s one way to describe it," Alina said.

"There is no other way. Evelyn on my bracket. Vivian and Phoebe between you two and the final." She gestured at the display with a sweep of her arm. "This is not adversity. This is a curated experience."

"Harrison must have built this bracket," Ash said.

"Harrison," Alexis said immediately, "is truly a visionary. I shall register for his class next semester."

Alina looked at the display a moment longer, then looked down at her own hands. Both forearms had been wrapped at some point during the aftermath, bandaging from wrist to elbow. She flexed her fingers; they responded slightly later than she intended.

"I want real food," Alina said. "Not the gray bands of meat in the school cafeteria, or the mud from that island. I want something hot. And absolutely no talk about this bracket for the rest of the day."

"Agreed," Ash said.

"Seconded," Alexis said. "With vigor."

Alina stood. Not easily, but she stood shakily, not fully trusting her legs. She took one step, found that her leg held, and nodded.

Alexis and Alina were already moving toward the academy gate, Alexis talking about the kinds of food that awaited them just outside the campus area.

Ash told them he would catch up.

While walking back from the arena alone, he saw her.

Phoebe.

She was moving through the corridor in the opposite direction of him, cutting across on a path that would have taken her within a few feet of Ash.

"Hey, Phoebe—"

She didn’t so much as spare him a glance. Her eyes were kept level, her stride taking equally measured distances.

Then, when she was no more than a shoulder’s width away, she continued walking past him.

He was left standing by himself in the corridor, watching her back until she turned at the far end, each step she took confirming she knew he was there, disappearing into the academy’s structure.

Ash looked down at his right hand. The knuckles had split open sometime during the landing and scabbed over on their own, never dressed. He turned the hand over. His rib shifted with each breath and step he took.

"What happened to you, Phoebe?"