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Before you read the challenge Here are the character numbers.
001: Tulip Olsen
002: Atticus
003: One-One
004: Jesse
005: Lake
006: Alan Dracula
007: Grace
008: Simon
009: Hazel
010: Tuba
011: Amelia
012: Agent Mace
013: Agent Sieve
014: Ryan
015: Min-Gi
016: Kez the Bell
017: The Cat
018: Randall
019: Lucy
020: Todd
021: Lindsay
022: Alex
The remaining survivors were being escorted by the guards to the next car of the train to nowhere and to whatever the next challenge was.
How they got to this point most of them didn't know. They were home and for some reason they were here on the train. What was stranger was that those that were deceased like the gorilla Tuba, Simon the former leader of the anti-denizen group the Apex, and the two reflection police officers Mace and Sieve were somehow resurrected and were present.
Reunions abound with Hazel and Tuba embraced each other as Tulip met Lake again and the latter introduced her to Jesse as well as the former reunited with her friends One-One and the dog Atticus as well as meeting Amelia once again and meeting Grace and Simon for the first time.
Mace and Sieve wanted to attack Lake and Jesse but thankfully Amelia and Grace stood in front of them refusing to let them be harmed.
Grace wanted to talk to Hazel upon seeing her again, but she decided not to as she was worried that she'll try and control her and Simon again, so she chose to leave her and Tuba alone for a while.
As for Simon, he was seconds away from attacking Hazel and Tuba upon seeing them again but thankfully, Grace and his former Apex subordinates managed to hold him back.
Before anyone could ask anything, someone appeared on a holographic screen.
It was a robot known to the redeemed scientist Amelia, Tulip and One-One as a Steward explained that it unleashed something to take over the train and chose to give the passengers a chance to earn their freedom playing a series of games in the cars in front of them. Whoever remains alive by the end will allow them to not only get a chance to get off the train, but the train will instantly regain control of itself once the winner leaves. To show that it was serious, he manifested a bunch of guys in pink clothes and firearms. He also explained that those who were deceased before were time displaced versions of themselves more specifically right before their deaths.
They were still mentally shaken up by the previous challenges they played in the previous cars.
And they were lethal.
In Red Light, Green Light, the only losses were Todd, Lindsay and One-One due to either panicking, carelessness, or have an internal debate.
In Honeycomb, the losses were Atticus, Kez, and Alan Dracula because they didn't have hands.
In the Lights out Brawl, the one that fell were Randall because he wasn't a fighter.
In Tug of War, the ones that fell was Alex and the Cat, due to a lack of physical strength.
In Marbles, the ones that fell due to being outsmarted and getting their marbles taken, getting violent and breaking the rules or wanting to sacrifice themselves for another were Tuba, Jesse, Mace, and Ryan.
Now it was down to the remaining 8 consisting of Tulip, her chrome counterpart Lake, Amelia, Hazel, Grace, Simon, Sieve, and Min-Gi.
Opening the train door, the "contestants" were surprised at what they were seeing.
In front of them, were 2 bridges made up of 18 panels of glass each bridge making it 36 panels in total.
"Welcome to the Glass Bridge, everyone. Congrats on making it this far." said one the guards.
Tulip looked down and her eyes widened in shock. "Is that-"
"Lava?" Amelia said in disbelief. "It appears so."
In a seemingly endless void of utter darkness down below, was a massive body of molten lava that looked so deep that it was seemingly endless in depth.
"The challenge here is where you all must make your way to the end of the bridge." One of the guards explained. "But you must be careful. Some glass panels are different from others. Whoever makes it to the end makes it to the next and final round."
While most the players were rather nervous about having to do this challenge as one misstep can cost them their life, others weren't as they were self-confident.
"Please." Lake said as stepped forward. "I doubt that this glass is that different."
Deciding to test it out first, she jumped towards a panel on the right.
"See. It's easy." Lake called out to the others.
The Mirror denizen then jumped towards another right panel before jumping towards 2 of the left panels before jumping to the right.
Sieve decided to test it out himself and managed to make it just behind his enemy.
"Die Sliver!" He shouted as he lunged at her.
Smirking, Lake quickly threw the law enforcer over her shoulder onto the glass panel which broke on contact.
Sieve screamed as he fell to his doom.
"Contestant 013 Eliminated." said the voice over the speaker.
As everyone was doing their best to avoid the breakable panels, they were being cautious. Grace was keeping her eyes on Simon as she knew that he was going to try and do something to either Hazel or herself or Amelia in particular, so she needed to watch him in case he tries something.
Simon was behind Min-Gi as was trying to decipher two of the glass panels in from as he was trying to remember which one was safe to step on.
Suddenly, he got an idea. "Hey, Min-Gi."
"Yeah?" Min-Gi replied.
"You think you can tell which glass is different? You're kinda wasting time." Simon said as he pointed at the clock, which stated they only had 8 minutes left to complete this challenge.
"You're right." Min-Gi said. "I just got to go for it."
"Allow me to..." Simon said before a gain a sadistic grin on his face as he then shoved Min-Gi roughly. "HELP YOU!"
Min-Gi fell onto a left side glass panel... which cracked before it broke.
Min-Gi screamed as he fell to his doom.
"Contestant 015 has been eliminated." said a voice on the room's speakers.
Everyone was shocked at Simon's ruthlessness aside from Grace, Amelia and Hazel as they knew how far Simon is willing to go to come out on top.
"If I wasn't in front, I would gladly be willing to shove him off this bridge." Lake angrily thought to herself before she took a deep breath to calm down and continuing to jump from the panels of glass.
Simon hopped from one glass panel to another when suddenly...
"Hah!" shouted Hazel as she jumped on the Apex leader's back and quickly covered his eyes.
"Ah!" Simon said as he tried to get the little denizen off him. "Get off me!"
"Not happening!" Hazel said determined to do what she going to do.
"Hazel wait!" Amelia said to her.
"Stop Hazel!" Grace shouted from behind her. "You don't need to do this!"
"It's okay!" Hazel said as she wrestled on Simon's back. "I'm fine with this I've got nothing else left to lose"
"Get off me you worthless Knull." Simon demanded as he stumbled around the panel the two were on.
"You kill everyone who disagrees with you!" Hazel said as she looked down briefly. "You want to know what Tuba told me before she sacrificed herself for me!"
"Why would I care what a pathetic Knull like her had to say!" Simon said as he pulled one of Hazel's arms from his face.
"She told me to make sure that..." Hazel said before she transformed into her turtle form.
"You..." Biting down on Simon's right ear... hard!
"Ow!" Simon cried out in pain.
"don't..." Hazel continued through gritted teeth as she tightened her grip on her enemy's back.
"WIN!" She shouted as she kicked the back of Simon's leg... causing him to stumble and as a result caused them both to fall through a right sided glass panel in front of them that shattered on impact.
"NOOOOO!!!!" Simon shouted at the top of his lungs as he felt himself falling.
"GOOD LUCK!" Hazel shouted as she fell of the bridge with her victim.
"HAZEL! SIMON! NOOOO!!!" Grace shouted as she leapt over the edge of the bridge after them as she managed to grab onto them both.
"Grace, what are you doing?!" Hazel said in shock.
"Saving you! You do have something to lose and that's finding out more about yourself! Goodbye Hazel and I'm sorry for everything that I did!" Grace said as she quickly grabbed a hold of the little girl and used all of her might to throw her back onto the bridge.
"GRACE!" Hazel shouted in despair at seeing her friend fall.
"GOOD LUCK HAZEL!" Grace shouted as she accepted her fate with a smile.
"YOU'RE A TRAITOR, GRAAACCE!" Simon shouted as the two former best friends fell into the lava below.
"Contestants 007 and 008 have been eliminated." said a voice over the speakers of the room.
Hazel couldn't move because she was on her knees crying her eyes out. Grace, another person who the denizen bonded with is now gone.
Just how Tuba was gone by sacrificing herself.
Hazel quickly wiped her tears away and tried her best to safely follow the pattern that Lake made.
After a few seconds, the whole room became dark.
"What' happening?" Tulip said as she looked around.
"Looks like the higher up turn off the lights to make the game more challenging." Amelia said as she looked down at the 2 glass panels in front of her.
Amelia looked at the clock and saw that they only have 4 minutes left.
As for Lake, due to the sudden darkness, it was difficult for her to see the glass panels differently. So, she jumped to the right panel... which ended up breaking beneath her feet once she made contact.
"AAAAAHHHHH!!!!" Lake screamed out as she fell from the bridge.
"Lake, NO!" Tulip shouted as she witnessed her opposite fall as well.
"Contestant 005 has been eliminated!" said a voice over the speaker.
Tulip fell to her knees as she lost another friend that she made while on the Train. When the two were on Earth, they had more time to bond along with Jesse. And when they were forced to do these challenges, they mostly stuck together. When Jesse was eliminated in the Marbles challenge, Tulip did her best to comfort her as she lost both Atticus and One-One. Now that she was eliminated, Tulip almost felt the need to not continue on.
Getting a determined look on her face, she wiped away her tears, she was going to honor Lake, she was going to win these challenges and she was going to get the hell of the Train no matter what.
Taking a deep breath, she concentrated before leaping forward, landing on a safe panel of glass.
"Phew." The young game coder said to herself. "So far, so good."
Looking at the timer, she saw that there was only 3 minutes left so she, Amelia and Hazel were running out of time.
Speaking of the latter two, Tulip passed by them as they busy were trying to pick a glass panel that would be safe to step on but this difficult to achieve because it was dark and the timer was counting down, making it even more difficult to do.
Amelia took Hazel's hand. "Goodbye Hazel and thank you for everything."
Before Hazel could ask what, she meant by that, the Knull was picked up by the engineer and thrown forward.
"AMELIA!" Hazel called out as she was launched to the end of the platform.
Tulip made it to the end before she caught Hazzel in her arms.
"Amelia?" Tulip asked. "What are you doing?"
"It's okay Tulip, I'm okay with this." Amelia said with a saddened smile as she looked and saw the timer was down to its last minute, so she had to make this quick. "Good luck to the both of you, live your lives to the fullest and don't make the same mistakes that I did. It's the reason why I boarded the train to begin with. Don't worry I'll say Hi to Alrick, Jesse, Lake, Grace, and Tuba for you two."
With that, the timer finally reached zero, signaling the end of the game.
The room was silent before something surprising happened.
The glass panels suddenly exploded.
Tulip quickly embraced Hazel to shield her from the shards.
As for Amelia, she fell off the bridge to her fiery demise, but she did it with a smile on her face.
As she fell, various memories flashed through her mind such as her life before the train to her life on it and finally the recent memories of doing these challenges.
"Contestant 011 has been eliminated." said the voice over the speakers. "Our final two contestants are 001 and 009. Congratulations to you both for making it this far."
As a few guards arrived and escorted the finalists to the dinner room. The two were wondering what the next challenge was going to be but all they did know was that only one of them will win while the other will fall.
The question on their minds was do Tulip and Hazel have what it takes to win it all?