Chapter 10: Everyone Thought Ava Would Die First
Trial One Begins Now
The Viridis Survival Guide is a YA sci-fi serial about Ava, a people-pleasing 17-year-old who enters a virtual program while she sleeps to save her dying brother, only to discover she may never wake back up.
Previous Chapter | Table of Contents
NEW MESSAGE:
[SOURCE: UNTRACEABLE | 10-04 11:00 PM] Build what will remain.
I’m skimming a book in the library when I receive another unknown message. What I’m supposed to be building right now isn’t exactly clear. It’s as unclear as whoever sent it to me. Probably just some Ruber trying to mess with my head. I cover the words with a pull of my sleeve and turn back to my research.
It’s been a few days since Hugo warned me not to go back to the secret library room. I haven’t—not because I’m listening, but because I’ve been busy.
Planning takes time.
After hours, when no one’s watching, I’ve been tearing through the Academy’s library, devouring maps and trying to figure out if there’s truly an exit down there. Based on what I’ve found, it appears to be a monster-guarded door leading to nowhere, or hopefully out.
But it isn’t my only option anymore.
Rosie managed to track down a technical manual, something closer to programming than magic. I’m frantically skimming the chapters, knowing I’m running out of time. Trial One starts tonight and I want to be nowhere near that horrendous arena.
The second I see the words Log Out Reset Procedure, I practically leap out of my skin.
This could work.
I could log out now and finally see my family, finally figure out what went wrong, finally help Leo. I take the book with me, and bolt for the Viridis common room, passing the tapestry-covered entrance to the secret room. If this reset works, I won’t need to face that monster. And if it doesn’t, then I go back below.
Voices follow me as I push through the cluster of first-years at the common room entrance.
“She’s going to die today.”
“Won’t make it five minutes.”
“Forget the Trial—Did you hear that there’s some pop star enrolled here?”
I spot Izzy and Sebastian talking near the Viridis fireplace but swerve away from them. I don’t want them questioning where I’m going or trying to talk me out of it. Izzy stops me with a cheerful greeting.
“Hey Ava, wait up!”
I smile at her in faux surprise, like I have only just noticed her and Sebastian standing a few feet away, feeling simultaneously guilty for doing so. I walk toward them, about to squeak out some excuse about sensing a simulated period starting when I notice Izzy’s new necklace. It’s pulsing a faint blue light.
“Did you see what Hugo gave me?” She says in one excited breath. “It’s an artifact. Glows red if something dangerous is nearby. It was just a stone before, but I made it into a necklace.”
She holds it up like it’s a prized jewel. As it flickers in the firelight as a sharp sting rises in my chest.
I glance at it, just a glance, already shifting my weight toward the hall. My locker’s on the other side of the room, and every second I stand here feels like a mistake.
“That’s… useful,” I say, distracted. I don’t want to be rude, but I need to figure out how to end the conversation. “He gave you an artifact he found?”
Izzy shakes her head, still glowing. “He created it, I think. After Combat. Said he felt bad the session ended early.”
Of course he did.
Why did Hugo feel the need to apologize to Izzy with such a grand gesture, but not think that I deserved even a crumb of remorse? My combat session ended early too, and no thanks to his coaching. Did he really think I was just some untrustworthy screw-up who didn’t earn my skills or my place here?
I should say something normal or supportive. Instead, I glance past them, measuring distance, timing, how long I can stay without losing my chance.
Sebastian states, “Gio’s Guide for Gentleman says to give with thought, not flair.”
“Right,” I mutter, already half turned away.
Izzy’s still talking. Sebastian too. I catch pieces—Controls, Meiko, last week—but none of it sticks. My mind is somewhere else entirely: the locker, the manual, the reset.
“Well, at least someone got a souvenir,” I say, a little too quickly. “All I got was passive aggressive silence.”
The awkward silence that follows is immediate. I wince internally. That came out wrong.
“He was just being nice. Knows it was an accident. Probably felt like crap about how it ended.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Sebastian adds something else, but I’m not fully there anymore. I should stay. I should care. Izzy’s excited, and I’m barely pretending to pay attention. I should tell them, say goodbye at least, but I know they’ll try to talk me out of it.
Guilt pricks, sharp and inconvenient. But not enough to stop me. Leo needs me.
“I—sorry,” I cut in, forcing a quick, tight smile. “I have to go to my locker before the Trial.”
It’s not a lie. Just not exactly the truth either.
Izzy lowers the necklace. “Oh. Okay.”
I don’t wait for more.
I slip past them, hearing only the steady drum of my pulse and one thought, loud and insistent:
Locker. Now.
I flip open the manual, so distracted that I nearly bump straight into someone.
I almost don’t recognize her leaning casually against the wall with a bejeweled black veil hiding her eyes and a long black cloak draped over her head. It’s only when she speaks that I know it’s her.
“Darling Dud,” Rosie says with a sly grin, lifting the netted veil. Her eyebrows arch with feigned innocence. “Forget something in your locker? Trial One is about to begin.”
I don’t answer. There’s no time for her antics. The other Viridis students exit the common room behind me, eyeing us suspiciously and making their way to the transporter square, excited to watch the first Trial begin.
“Just gotta do something first,” I lie.
I sidestep around Rosie toward a different locker, but she follows, her voice light and teasing. “This is no time for reading. I’m afraid.”
I freeze as she snatches the manual from my hand.
“Rosie, I need that.”
“Oh darling, Darling Dud. You’ll get it back. After the Trial.”
“No, I’m—”
Rosie clutches my wrist and the world shifts. The walls outside the Viridis common room blur and dissolve, replaced by deafening cheers and blinding lights. I’m no longer in front of the lockers. I’m standing on a massive stage in the arena, and a growing crowd looms before me, their faces alight with anticipation.
“Rosie…” I say, my voice trembling with angry realization.
Rosie is smirking beside me.
She shrugs, her grin unapologetic. “Strict orders. All contestants must start at the same time. And, well, I just had a feeling you’d try to give us the slip.”
My chest tightens as the word idiot bubbles up on my tongue. I shouldn’t have stopped to talk to Izzy and Sebastian. I shouldn’t have let Hugo’s gift to Izzy distract me.
Panic grips me as I attempt to run. My legs refuse to move, glued to the glowing square beneath me. All around, the other contestants are similarly trapped, their faces a mix of determination, fear, and resignation. I notice Hugo on the far end, staring blankly at the audience. He doesn’t acknowledge me at all. Figures.
James catches my eye and winks, a grin tugging at the edge of his mouth, like this is all just a warm-up round. He rolls his shoulders like he’s been waiting for the chaos to start. He doesn’t look nervous. He looks excited.
Somehow the knot in my stomach loosens. Just a little. For a ridiculous second, I almost smile and wave at him.
Custos appears on stage, raising a hand for silence. Her voice echoes through the arena, cold and commanding.
“Welcome, contestants, to Trial One. You have been chosen as the best, but now it is time to prove your worth, to carve your place in Senium history with skill, cunning, and the will to survive.”
The crowd roars as she continues.
“Trial One will test your skills in Creation,” she says. “You must construct protection from three waves of attackers. The survivors will move on. The rest…”
Custos tilts her head, a slow smile forming. “Well. You know what happens to the rest.”
The arena erupts into cheers, but I notice Hugo doesn’t even blink. He turns his head in a slow, deliberate arc, scanning the arena like a general surveying a battlefield. Whatever he’s about to make, he’s already built it in his head a hundred times.
Me? I’m picturing not dying in the next five minutes. Fire, claws, teeth, a horde of monsters—none of which I have a real plan for. What if there’s another glitch like with my log out and I can’t regenerate? I don’t want to be stuck here forever. I can’t let myself think about what would happen to Leo if I became a Legacy.
The excitement crackles in the air like a storm about to break. All I can think about is escape. Yelling for help. Insisting that the rumors are true, that I don’t belong here. But the crowd’s excitement is electric, and I know no one will care. They want blood.
“Trial One begins when the horn sounds. Good luck.”
No time to think. No time to plan. Before I can process it, Custos disappears from the central stage, and the whole arena is thrust into darkness.
When the light comes back, the stage is gone and the other contestants and I are dispersed across the sandy arena floor. A semi-transparent dome surrounds us as a protective barrier between whatever is going to eat us alive and the audience. What’s more unnerving is the quiet. I can just make out the movements and applause and what looks like students shouting from the stone steps, but I hear absolutely nothing.
The other contestants are already forming creations. Timothy’s castle tower has narrow slits that shoot out arrows if someone gets too close, nearly nailing another Ruber. The only other female contestant, Elara, creates a tank with a rotating cannon that hums like it’s eager to blast something out of the sky.
James slams a fist to the ground, and the arena floor splits. A sleek black bunker rises up instead of sinking down, covered in flame decals and reinforced spikes, like a flamboyant race car garage. Even in a life-or-death scenario, he somehow looks attractive.
This is what I expected, creations that do something. The kind that can blow a monster to dust. I’ve never managed one that actually worked. Yesterday in Professor Maja’s Creation class, I made a ceramic coffee mug that looked perfect, until I poured hot coffee into it. The bottom dissolved instantly, and I nearly burned myself.
The thought of the whole arena watching me try and fail makes my stomach twist. If I mess up, I’m not just the Viridis girl who doesn’t belong here, I’m the punchline they’ll be retelling over dinner, my mangled corpse left on the arena floor.
“Better get started, Viridis,” a boy named Noah teases.
James stands atop his bunker, scanning the Arena like he’s daring something to come for him. Then he shouts toward me: “Don’t die on me, Trial Girl!”
Now is really not the time for my heart to do that weird little thing it does around him.
Across the sand, Hugo’s creation grows like something from a blueprint —sleek, symmetrical, layers of steel plates sliding into place, the faint blue pulse of an electric energy buzzing at its center. Something tells me that if I was to touch it, the thing would zap me like lightning.
A low hum builds from somewhere in the distance and I’m reminded of the urgency of our task.
I close my eyes, concentrating. Professor Maja’s voice echoes in my ears. Visualize it. Maja would say. Imagine it first. If I can picture it, sense it in my mind, I can make it.
I try to picture weapons (the one time we’re allowed to create them). Cannons. Anything with reach. Nothing sticks. My mind keeps circling the same thought, over and over, useless and insistent: I don’t want to get hurt.
An idea settles before I can stop it.
Light bends around me, coalescing into a translucent shell. A bubble—iridescent, uneven, barely thicker than glass. It doesn’t hum or bristle or threaten. It just encloses me, the air inside warm and still.
A laugh cuts across the sand.
“Bubble girl’s gonna die first,” Elara shouts from her tank.
“Create something else,” James yells before disappearing into his bunker’s hatch.
But I can’t. I try to shift it, imagine brick instead of a transparent wall.
Nothing happens.
A wind blows past, rippling the bubble’s surface, and that’s when I know.
The first attack is coming. The low hum from before builds, growing louder until it’s deafening.
They’re wasps.
Giant. Freaking. Wasps.
Their stingers gleam like finger-length daggers. They flood Timothy’s tower, slipping through slits and openings with ease. Screams pierce the air. Hugo’s steel cube holds, crackling as it fries each attacker like a colossal bug zapper, though even he must be wincing at the relentless pelting and surges.
A swarm dives at me, their pointed stingers aiming for the thin layer of the bubble. I brace for a series of stings, for the flimsy barrier to pop, but nothing happens. The wasps circle me, repelled by the translucent shield. Relief, warm and loose washes over me, but it’s short-lived.
Chaos explodes. Screams bounce off each creation as the wasps dive, wings cutting the air like razors. Arrows descend down from the window slits in Timothy’s fortress; his screams audible from somewhere inside. One arrow pierces a wasp mid-swoop, sending it spiraling into the wreckage below. Then another is harpooned without pause.
Another Ruber named Zeke yells out, swatting at a wasp latched onto his shoulder. Blood stains his shirt as its stinger drives in again and again, and he crumples to his knees.
Then, as quickly as they came, they’re gone.
I barely have time to breathe before the second wave strikes. Lava surges up from a hole in the ground, flowing with deadly precision. It dissolves Kael’s slender scaffold tower entirely, swallowing him with it. He doesn’t even have time to scream. He’s gone in literal seconds.
Elara stands on top of her tank as it slowly sinks with a shriek of metal. She hovers her hands in the air, looking like she’s trying to create something else. Hugo’s steel cube and James’ bunker groan under the pressure, the heat causing fissures to spread.
None of them can change anything. They’re trapped.
My bubble rises off the ground, lifting me just out of reach of an oncoming molten wave. Not because I tell it to. I know somehow, it floats because I made it only to protect me from harm.
Below me, the scene is horrifying. Creations melt, contestants cry. The stench of burning fills the air.
The lava lingers for a moment before dissolving into nothing. Elara still stands on top of her half-dissolved tank. Hugo’s cube still stands and James’ bunker is still miraculously there but melted.
The third wave comes. The rumble is more ominous than thunder and I gasp as I look up.
Massive boulders rain down from the top of the dome. Timothy’s tower collapses inward. The bunker caves. I hear screaming, muffled and desperate as people pound at walls they can’t reshape, can’t escape.
A shadow fills my vision.
I curl instinctively as the boulder slams into my bubble.
I catch a glimpse of my wrist as I try shielding my head with my arms. The glowing white script is still there, peeking out from under my long green sleeve.
Build what will remain.
The surface bows inward, compressing, but it doesn’t shatter. The force disperses, rippling around me instead of through me. The bubble holds.
A sudden wrenching snaps me sideways, light flooding my vision. I’m outside of the dome, standing next to Custos and Bullfred on stage, who look shocked to see me.
An eruption sounds, a mixture of astonished applause and belligerent booing, as I look up. Next to the number one spot, my name appears in those glowing red letters, hovering high above the arena. I watch through the transparent dome at the scene still unfolding with the remaining contestants, some fortified in their creations.
The other contestants begin trickling back onto the stage, those who have managed to avoid getting hit or being damaged from a boulder returning sooner than the others.
James strolls back onto the platform like he’s returning from a jog, a faint scorch mark across one sleeve and soot on his cheek.
“Anyone bring snacks?” He asks the nearest security officer. “Thought we’d be out there longer.”
Then he catches my eye again, and the grin returns. No apology, no fear, just a dare-you-to-keep-up kind of energy.
Hugo makes it back. Then there’s Dash and four surviving Rubers: Zeke, Noah, Orion, and Timothy, all of whom are badly injured. Custos greets them with a warm smile of congratulations. The crowd cheers wildly, but my focus is elsewhere. Two contestants are missing, their squares dark and lifeless. One is Kael from the tower that dissolved in the lava, obviously dead and will (hopefully) regenerate tomorrow. And I assume the other, Elara, was smashed underneath a massive boulder or something.
Whispers ripple throughout the crowd. I glance at Hugo, who seems shaken, but alive. The message that appeared on my wrist, gone now, lingers in my mind. Someone is trying to help me. But why?
Murmurs ebb and flow through the space as Security rushes the stage. I think I hear someone say, “hacked.”
Security officials quickly clear the crowd, and one escorts us off stage.
I ask, “What’s happened?”
The Security member escorting us looks at me with a somber face before responding, “One confirmed dead. One hacked. Can’t say more than that.”
My stomach drops. Hacked. That means someone’s trapped, mind locked in the system, body comatose in the real world. A living ghost.
I look back at the stage and see Rune smiling next to Bullfred, tapping diligently on his slate.