I had to move again, quickly under the Darkness.
How long had it been now after The First Games?
It really didn’t matter anymore, I thought, while continuing on toward the wasteland’s edge.
I remember it bright as day.
I was informed of The Inclusion via a website dedicated to our sport.
In there, the now Trodden rejoiced of the honor our sport had been given.
If they had only known.
However, joy was not the only opinion represented in The Hole.
The ones who understood.
The ones who saw behind the veil of five, beckoning rings and shining metal prizes.
The group which called themselves The .
Just as the small spots of light were fading, I noticed the text on the van’s door.
Just outside the van, I saw the horrifying sight before me.
A mass grave of escapees.
I could see the faint tattoos overwritten by the Judge’s barcodes - Nipwitz, CASG, SKI-FI…
It saddened me to no end.
He was alive, but barely.
He called out to me and asked me to come closer, obviously wanting to utter his last wisdom.
I kneeled down next to his beaten face.
“Hey, buddy……”, he whimpered.
“Yeah, Chug?”
I waited anxiously for his final words.
I continued down the Steeps until I finally saw my destination.
It was a glorious sight - a shiny pearl in the middle of an ocean of despair.
It was the only place where the Trodden had visited often to meet their guides before The Fall.
The only place left in this world where the Judges' trepid claws could not reach.
The Mecca of the former skiing world.
I had reached The Summer Camps.
I knew this creature by his former name Max - now he was called The Gypsy.
Armed only with a single ski with broken edges, he approached me right before I collapsed.
I was down to my last moments.
I had to deliver the package.
I had to complete my mission.
He grabbed hold of me while I told him the truth.
“…..get me…..get me to B-Dog…”
My mind collapsed and everything went dark.
I couldn’t see out of my left eye and was quickly losing my vision in the right one.
“Si vous l’avez fait.
So you made it”, someone added from the dimly lit room.
I enhanced my blurry vision, struggling, but I made him out.
Decked out with the coolest jacket ever made, he approached me.
It was Casabon, in the flesh.
“So, you have come to tell me the key?
The key to release us from this horror?”
“..yes, Sir… E-Dollo sends his regards.
He listened quietly, nodding his head once in a while and clenching his rugged beard.
When I layed down the final words, his look changed completely.
It seems he had grasped something in the message that I could not.
The world felt heavier than ever and it grew hard to breathe.
He laid his grab glove on my forehead and said:
“Shred freely in Heaven, bro.”
He closed my eyelids and covered my face with my goggles.
