I turned my eyes to Damon to see his reaction to the results about to be released.‘This is my victory, there’s nothing he can do now to change that. I’ve crafted this system to perfection, and I know the outcome of everything,’ I thought to myself.“Defeating him turned out to be not much of a challenge for me after all anyway, I guess I overestimated him. I should never have thought that he would be a worthy opponent for me, no one is,” I muttered out."And now," the instructor declared, his voice ringing with authority, "the moment you've all been waiting for. The scores from the third round...I’ll be announcing the top five in ascending order,” he said.“In fifth place, Eleanor Windsor, in fourth place EmilyAnderson, in third place, Mia Rodriguez, in second place, Jake Thompson, and finally, the winner of the corporate assessment gauntlet, Damon Darhk!” The organizer screamed at the top of his voice.An eerie silence descended upon the crowd as the whole room went silent. The prev
"I repeated this process over and over again until finally I was able to accumulate enough points that I was sure would put me in the top seed.Then it was time for me to get everything back from Emily. I knew she might have been stubborn about it; she had no real reason to give them back to me anyway.****I was a bit skeptical about speaking to her.We’d never been on the best of terms, and it was much worse now, as we hardly spoke during the competition.It was so bad that even during the third task of the second challenge, where I was almost going to be eliminated, I explained my situation to her, and she said to me, “the less competition for me, the better.”I was infuriated when I heard this, but thankfully, Kevin was there to step in, and I was able to avoid the difficult situation.Even now, the only reason why she agreed to serve as a bank vault for the information I was receiving was that I promised her a portion of the points I would get. However, I had no intention of shar
“Damon…,” she started.She looked like she’d rehearsed everything she wanted to say earlier, but now that she stood in front of me, she was at a loss for words.I controlled my temper and remained quiet, determined not to get worked up over the situation.We stood there for almost a whole minute and she still hadn’t said anything.‘Is she going to speak? Or not? I’m tired of just standing here waiting,’ I thought to myself.After waiting a short while more I made an attempt to walk past her, since she wasn’t interested in saying anything to me.She grabbed my arm preventing me from doing this, and so I walked back and stood in front of her.“You’re aware you can’t keep us here all day right?” I asked, to remind her about the amount of time she was wasting.She waited for a while before she finally took a deep breath and began."Damon...I wanted to apologize for what happened during the competition," she said, her eyes searching mine for any hint of understanding. "I know that allying
In that instant, everything and everyone began to move so slow.I didn’t know what was going on but one thing was for sure, if I didn’t do something I would receive a vicious blow from Jake.In a few tenths of a second, I stepped out of the way as quickly as possible, I wasn’t prepared for this so I was clumsy and caught his ankle with my foot as I moved.When I was finally out of his reach safely, time went back to normal and everything began moving in real-time again.Jake tripped and fell over, knocking a few chairs to the floor as he did so, attracting the attention of everyone present in the room.He shook his head quickly as if trying to process what just happened.I walked up to him and offered him my hand, “you tripped and fell over, let me help you up.”He took my hand and I pulled him up close to me, and spoke into his ear. “If you ever try that again, I’ll kick your head in,” I said to him.I leaned back, brushed his shoulders with a wide smile on my face, and made my way t
Everyone began shuffling out of the room in a uniform manner.I got up from where I sat and was at the back of the queue. However, I was held back and grabbed on the shoulder by an official, stopping me in my tracks.I turned to face him and asked him what was happening, and he gave me a signal to wait behind till everyone else had left.‘What could this be about? A special reward for me coming out in first place? Or something else…,’ I thought to myself.Either way, I sat back down on my chair and soon the room was empty. No one seemed to notice my departure from the ten candidates, and so I didn’t get any disturbances.Now that they had all left, I spoke. “Care to tell me why I’m the only one left in the room?” I asked.“Mr Damon,” the official began. “Congratulations on coming out in first place in the tournament, if you would please follow me, we have someone who wants to speak to you,” he said.“It’s Anon again isn’t it?” I asked.“As perceptive as ever I see, he would like to co
Dear Damon,I'm writing this letter to let you know that I've decided to return to my hometown. I know it may come as a surprise, but I cannot face you even though you said it was fine. I don't see things going back to normal between us.My illness is starting to hit me harder, and I feel it's best for me to be back home during this time. I apologize for not telling you before leaving, but I didn't know how to face you and explain my situation.I want to thank you for your kindness and understanding throughout the competition. You've been a good friend, and I wish you all the best in your future endeavors. I hope that we can remain in contact and, if I make it through this difficult time, perhaps we can meet again in the future.Once again, I'm sorry for leaving so abruptly, but I believe it's the right decision for me. I wish you success and happiness in your life, and I'll always cherish the memories we made during the competition.Take care,Eleanor‘Her illness…it’s going to be ju
‘Unauthorized access? I shouldn’t pry any further, I’m not prepared to face the consequences or take the risk. If it’s against something that the keepers of the code have set in place, I guess I can’t access it. Still I’m intrigued, I keep discovering that the system has more and more secrets to hide, it remains a mystery to me,’ I thought to myself.I got up from bed, my eyes were clear as day now. “In any case I’ll just have to wait to see what the surprise quest is, I’ve fulfilled the thresholds, now I just have to wait and see what it is,” I said to myself.I couldn’t sleep anymore, so I decided to pack my bags as was instructed by the officials.There wasn’t much to pack anyway, as most of our clothing and essentials were provided to us by the company, and I felt it would be wrong to take what didn’t belong to me.So I only packed a few things, a toothbrush, toiletries and other minor items. Thankfully there was already a bag in the room, where I could store my belongings.As I p
It was at times like this that my skills would come in the most handy.It was an entirely unprecedented situation, but thankfully, I had my emotions and expressions in check.‘Unbreakable and poker face really are useful,’ I thought to myself.They both walked up to the stage and shook the officials hand.“I congratulate you both for making it here, I advise that you don’t take this opportunity for granted, as a lot of people would kill to have this position,” he said.They both nodded in unison.I stared at them both and realized that they hadn’t changed a bit.However I was kind of shocked, this was my first time seeing them both since I got into Columbia, and supposedly they were also students from there.It was surprising, but I didn’t think too much about it.I already had plans to apologize to both of them anyway, this just made everything easier for me.“Now I expect all of you to treat them with the utmost amount of respect and foster good camaraderie between each other. Do no