chapter 51-Outplayed

That dark knight wasn't dead. Maybe the wraith was a ploy, a deceit, that the wraith was controlling the knight at all. Maybe it was the other way around.

I was too stunned to get up. My back was in pain, agony spread throughout my body.

I was truly foolish. The water was getting closer above my head. I was going to drown before that thing would beat the life out of me.

But as it got closer, I refocused, channeling my energy not to counter-attack but to run away.

There's no shame in living, only shame in how you live. So, I can't die just yet. I need to survive. I have too many regrets and bad choices I made in life. I haven't fixed them all yet. I haven't repented for my sins yet. I haven't taken accountability for my actions. I ran, yet the water was up to my chest, so I decided to swim and use my feet to propel my body across the room.

The dark knight was getting closer yet moving at a slow pace.

But then, what seemed to be a shadow loomed above our heads. It was a giant spiked coffin.

I ducked my head under the water as the dark knight had to confront the coffin but was smashed, slaying the creature.

What was that? I turned my head to see two figures on top of a steel surfboard. I was confused about how it was staying afloat, but I was happier to see them alive. It seems they dealt with the other dark knight.

I swam closer, and they picked me onto their board.

"How did you guys do that?" I asked, generally confused.

"Easily. I blessed Tommy with the Holy Spirit of David the Great Slayer. He just flung it using a chain."

"You know that could have hit me."

"Well, it didn't. Now, I thought we killed the bosses. Why is it still filling the room with water?" Max said.

But then, at those words, the water source of it all seemed to increase as water quickly started to flood the whole arena.

At this point, we'd drown.

Wisdom and wit, I was still confused, not just at the quest mission but at all of this, why it happened and how it happened. This wasn't the plan. I don't even know what the others are doing.

We are truly in deep shit.

"Max, can you bless us with Moses or Noah to get us out of this?"

"I'll try."

I felt the same energy again as a phantom of Moses rose behind my back. I then did a sign of the cross, then spread my arms apart. The water started to ripple in a line across the room, yet that was it.

I looked behind to see the phantom only to disappear.

"James, my mystic units are dried up. I'm sorry."

I tried to hold my anger, yet I just couldn't. I was mad at it all, and let out a loud,

"FUCK!" Nothing was going our way. We felt like fate can't even decide our fate yet, either good or bad, make up your mind.

The water kept rising, but as the water rose, our hope and belief of a way out sunk deep within our chests. Was this really it? C'mon, it can't be. There must be a way. Maybe good our luck kicks in.

Yet it didn't seem that way. I looked upward, only to see the ceiling. We were close enough to touch it, to feel its smooth surface.

I reached my hand out, grasping at its smooth surface.

Our faces gasping for the little air we had left, making sure there must be a chance of survival, yet the water rose and rose, creeping ever so slowly to the ceiling, to our last air supply.

Then the water engulfed us all. The breath we took wasn't enough to survive at all.

I watched with my closed mouth to see my friends around me. If anything, my last vision should be with them, to watch them and be there for each other at least. The thought of dying was scary, the thought of losing everything was scary. I remembered the time when I thought death would be a solution, would be an answer to rid others of my cursed life. I sought to escape it all, but the problem with that logic was, where will I escape to? Where will a coward like me go?

Dumb thoughts to be thinking at the brink of death. If only I had more time, more opportunities, less mistakes. I only needed to separate myself from my bad habits of drugs and overdosing myself in wild fantasies. I needed to create space between those things.

I floated helplessly in the water, my eyes shouting closed, my vision turning black, my heartbeat that was fast a couple of moments ago now started to slow down.

But then the thought, "Space, I need to create space," that thought lingered, it crept back into my consciousness at the front of my brain. Maybe that was it.