Free Gamer (Gamer Trilogy) by Christopher Skliros Page A

that had been overworked,
and so for the moment, it was numb. As numb as the rest of
my body.
As I turned to see if she had caught up, I knew my efforts
were futile.
She effortlessly grabbed me from behind and pushed me up
against one of the trees. With one hand, she haphazardly held
me down – relying on my energy loss to keep me in place,
while with the other, she reached to the ground for
something - I could hardly breathe.
“What are you doing?” I mumbled deliriously.
In her hand there was now a jagged rock …
She then snarled at me, looked me in the eyes and said, “No
more messing around.”
There was a sudden pain in my forearm and for the first
time, I began to bleed. She was actually using a rock to try
and kill me – this was insane!
And then my adrenaline increased one hundred fold.
Out of panic I tried to push away, but couldn’t. And yet, in
my dimmed state of consciousness, I acknowledged my
body’s basal need to survive. Like an automaton, I began to
try and fight back.
In that instant, I broke the barrier of my power.
My body was no longer thinking of the long-term effects of a
strong-burst of power, it was using all the resources at its
disposal… now.
Looking down at my arm, the gash looked deep, and as she
raised the rock up into the air, to go for another slice, I called
on my power - to push her away from me.
“No.”
The only word I managed to utter as I called upon the
effort. It was quiet yet powerful. A wave of energy was roiling
away from me, leaving a faint crackle in the air.
It passed through her and she stumbled, falling sideways
and looking momentarily incapacitated – the wave was much
stronger than I thought it would be. In fact, as she lay on the
ground, her eyes seemed to glaze over – her brain was
temporarily fried. I had felt the energy force its way in one
side of her and out the other. Hopefully she was dead.
But I knew as soon as the surge left me, it would drain me –
and it did. I stumbled myself, deliriously trying to walk away,
but blocked by thick tufts of golden undergrowth.
Feebly I attempted to cut at a particularly stubborn patch,
managing only to rustle a couple of the blades and so I was
forced into the slow progress of wading through the grass,
without a clear path.
More glass trees, a golden grass meadow, one of the many
streams of the river and then – oh. I felt a small bit of energy
pass through me and perking up a little bit, I examined the
land before me.
A huge fissure lay between me and where I wanted to go – it
was big enough to look like an earthquake of some sort had
caused it. It was directly in the way, and going around it
would take time I didn’t have. I was stuck.
The soil was still moist and the site looked freshly ravaged. I
wondered what could’ve caused it…
There hadn’t been any major shakes or quakes since we’d
been here and scanning around for some way to maybe get
around it, I saw something else on the other side of the
clearing – a series of fragmented glass tree-stumps.
Whatever had caused the fissure had smashed the trees as
well, I concluded.
I got down onto my knees to both examine the crack, as well
as rest a little.
I prayed that I was in the clear, that Grace was still laying on
the floor of that clearing and that even if she was up, that she
had lost my trail. I couldn’t afford for her to find me before I
was ready to fight again.
Looking at the ground, a thought flitted across my mind,
Grace could run extremely fast, and I had telekinesis and
Victor could teleport – what if it was someone’s power was to
be able to do this? I mean, it seemed too unreal to be natural
but that meant somebody could…
Preparing myself to maybe search for some more clues, I felt
the ground shake beneath me and walls of rock began to rise
up around me, giving me zero time to react.
As suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. The rock walls
completely surrounded me and I was shrouded in complete
darkness.