Leon glanced at the silvery watch adorning his left wrist only to discover that he had twenty-five seconds left. That wasn’t nearly as much as he’d hoped. It took Leon at least thirty seconds to tie his shoelaces, let alone save the world in five seconds less. He no longer had any choice—curse the consequences.
Leon tugged the metallic chain, cool against his sweaty skin, that was linked around his neck, and the clasp pulled apart with a snap. Time froze, and so did everything around him. His watch read twenty-three seconds now, but it didn’t change.
He couldn’t do anything crucial, but he could think without wasting precious time. Hopefully, that would be enough. Every spare second counted, after all. Leon scanned his surroundings and the rag-tag team behind him. Penny, Adam, Kat, and Maxon were fighting as best they could, but they wouldn’t be able to hold their attackers off for long. Reinforcements were on their way, and when they arrived, the five of them were all done for. Not to mention all of the prisoners. Even if they did manage to hold the soldiers off, the bomb would explode and destroy this entire place, taking them all with it. Unless he could turn it off.
He turned his attention to the dimly-lit hallway in front of him and the rows of cells beyond it, as far as the eye could see. How many people were in here? How many of them would he be able to save before they were all blown to bits? He didn’t know.
He could see many familiar faces, people he knew, and likely family members of the four people behind him, as well as others they’d lost along the way. He wanted to save them all: Henry, Sorren, Namiah, and even Lilith, despite how much he despised her.
However, he could not find the one face he was desperately searching for, the one that belonged to his twin brother, James. Hopefully, Leon would locate him later. He ignored the nagging voice in his ear telling him that James might already be dead and pushed the thought to the back of his mind. There were more pressing matters at hand.
There had to be a switch, a button, a lever, something that would open all of the cells at once and hopefully shut the bomb off. He only had to find it. Twenty-three seconds, Leon reminded himself. That’s all you have. You’ll only get one shot at this.
Then, he spotted something on the wall directly across from him. Could that be it? It would have to be. Nothing else looked like it could be it. The problem was, he had to run past all of the cells to get to it. If he could hit the button, the countdown should stop, and he would be able to free everyone, then fully disable the bomb. Luckily, Leon was a fast runner.
He grasped both ends of the chain and held them around his neck. He took a deep breath and fastened the clasp. The silence disappeared, and movement returned in his peripheral vision as Leon sprung forward and sprinted towards the back wall. Only 90 yards. Then 75. Then 50. Then 20…10…5…4…3… He outstretched his arm, reaching for the button. All he had to do was press it.
“CONNOR!”
The sound of my name jolts me from the trance of my game, and I reflexively look towards the noise. Then, I remember, and swing back towards the screen, spam clicking on the button that Leon’s supposed to have pressed. I hesitated too long. The words “You Lost” crawl across the screen as Leon and his crew explode. I let out a frustrated yell. “No! No, no, no!” I’d been working on Adventures in Adova: The Kidnapping for months, and then I died, I died, on one of the last levels. “You have got to be kidding me,” I moan and flop back onto my bed.
“CONNOR!” My sister shouts again.
I sigh and close the computer. Stretching, I stand up and make my way downstairs to see what was so important that she made me lose my beloved game. “You so owe me, Alya,” I mutter as I exit my room. Leon had been my finest character yet. He would have won me the game if Alya hadn’t distracted me. Honestly, Leon was probably a better person than I ever was. Well, if he was an actual human being, that is. Unfortunately, Adova doesn’t exist. That’s Leon’s world. Not mine. I live in boring old Dewhurst, Idaho, where nothing out of the ordinary happens. Nor would it ever.