We might have missed the clearing, were it not for the sun being low in the sky. Behind dark trunks and a tangle of branches, golden rays illuminated a field of grass and weeds.

Part of me didn't want to ever leave the forest. We had walked among the trees for hours without incident. Given the day we were having, it was very possible that bad things would start happening the moment we left our leafy cover.

But we had to try. We had talked about it as a group. Survival, potential plans, how our enemy might find us. Keeping our heads down would always be necessary, but we couldn't hide forever.

Surprisingly enough, there hadn't been much discussion concerning the cards. Neither the competition nor the mystery was as important as discussing safety and future plans. Addy had even given us a verbal crash-course in self-defense. I wasn't sure how reliable his tips were and I didn't like the idea of being attacked or being involved in a fight. If it came down to it, I would duck and run. Always.

The four of us emerged in a public park. A large grassy clearing spanned the area to our left, full of weeds, some trash, and a few holes. To our right, a freshly painted playground, sporting every color of the rainbow in some fashion. Separating them was an empty parking lot. The cement had been unevenly poured, and it divided the dull wasteland and the bright playground in an ugly sort of way.

Addy walked at the head of the group, leading us towards the barren field.

"As a general rule, always take the path less traveled," he said, "We'll be less predictable that way."

"Shouldn't we stay close to the tree-line?" I suggested. It was sound advice, but I also didn't like walking through the nest of tall grass. Survival would become tougher if any of us contracted lymes disease.

Brad suddenly broke away from the group, making for the playground.

“Brad!” Addy barked, "What are you doing?"

“I need to sit down! My legs are killing me!” Brad reasoned, not stopping his retreat.

“No! No stopping!” Addy growled, “You can sit when we’re somewhere secluded. Not out in the open like this!”

“Sun's about to set,” Brad shouted, transitioning into a joking tone, “Shit's gonna get dark. Then nobody’ll see us. It’s fine!”

“No, it’s not!” Addy shouted, before giving up on words and chasing after him.

"Guys. Please," I spoke, knowing the words would be futile. Whatever happened next was going to happen. Both parties were enormously stubborn.

Brad trotted onto the mulch of the playground and climbed up a plastic rock wall using one hand. The arm with the injured wrist dangled at his side.

Addy caught up, charged the wall, and attempted to run up the rocks without using his hands in an epic feat of parkour. In doing so, one of his knees smacked against a rock, and he hopped back down to the ground, grumbling something incoherent.

Brad ran across bridges of plastic and colored metal, climbing flights of tiny stairs. When he reached the highest point of the structure, he was standing next to a purple slide.

“You wanna ride the swirly slide you fucking dumbass?” Addy beckoned from beneath him, his voice raw.

“Hey, leave me alone, prick,” Brad called down to him, "What don't you get about 'legs' and 'tired.' And also 'dark!'"

Blaine and I watched from the other side of the clearing.

“Should we do something?” Blaine asked me.

I had been about to say ‘Yes, we probably should’ when my front pocket began to shimmer with yellow light. All at once, like a firework going off close to my face.

Some of the panic from earlier returned, and I plucked the card from my pocket and chucked it away from me. It fluttered in the air and landed on my shoe. A swift jerk of my leg shook it into the grass.

The entire card, front and back, was glowing yellow. Pure yellow, like the conceptual idea of 'yellow' had been imbued into the light.

A second later, Blaine was holding his card, which glowed in an array of blues.

Addy stood at the foot of the slide. Red light was spilling from the top of his backpack, but he didn't seem to notice. His attention was locked on something else.

"This stupid fucking excursion is going to get us all killed!" Addy shouted up to Brad, "But honestly, that doesn't surprise me in the least. That things would end this way, all because you thought playing on the jungle gym was a fun idea."

"Yeah? Do you think so little of me?" Brad hollered back, "I'm not playing, I'm taking a break to rest my legs. Five minutes tops. But you don't understand because it's always your way or the highway!"

"It's always my way because I have good instincts! What you're doing right now is a fucking catastrophe!"

"Exaggerate much?"

"Act retarded much?"

I winced. The tension had broken.

Brad slid down half of the spiral slide, then leaped at Addy for a full-body attack. Addy staggered backward across the wood chips, dodging the assault. He used Brad's imperfect landing as an opportunity to charge.

Brad wheeled backward and then stopped suddenly, dead in his tracks. Addy continued running at him and landed a punch against Brad’s chest. Then another. Then one to his side.

“Fight me, pussy!” Addy raged, spittle spraying Brad’s face, "Let's have it out!"

Brad didn't try to block the assault. His guard was open and every punch landed with brutal accuracy. He should have been knocked backward several times, but he held his ground.

“Stop!” Brad begged, and the tone was wrong. He sounded alarmed, and there was a hint of terror in it.

Addy reluctantly stopped and gave him a disappointed glare. His body was still moving in subtle ways, itching to continue the one-sided battle.

I picked up the glowing yellow card and began waving it, my lips forming words-

“I can’t move!” Brad shrieked, horror spreading from cheek to cheek, “I can’t move my arms or legs!”

“Addy, you paralyzed him!” Blaine accused, running towards the scene. I followed.

“No... No, I don’t think that’s it!” Brad said, still able to shake his head, his voice a shudder, “I can still feel my arms and legs. And they feel like they’re being held in place! By- by something hot!”

A chill washed over the hairs of my arms, giving me goosebumps. I shivered but continued to run towards him.

I stopped when Brad cocked his head all the way back. His mouth cranked open and unleashed a terrible, hollow scream. A scream that tore across the evening sky, upsetting the peace and balance of the surrounding forest. A moment ago, there had been the sound of birds, wind, and a growing chorus of crickets. Now, there was only the unrestrained screaming.

It kept going and going.

I was sprinting towards him, but I didn’t know what to do or what was wrong. Was he experiencing pain? Would knocking him out release him from that experience? What was this?

Addy took two steps toward him, reaching for his shoulder.

"Brad, I'm going to touch you," he said, warily.

He didn't have to. A second later, the screaming stopped. Brad’s body went slack, his knees almost buckling, and he let his chin drop against his chest. The sudden silence was deafening.

Brad let himself fall into a sitting position and then slid his arms backward until he was lying on his back, against a bed of wood chips. Even from a couple of meters away, I could see that his teeth were chattering.

Blaine pushed past Addy and got to his knees beside Brad.

“Hey Brad,” he said, his voice soothing, “What happened to you, man?”

Brad spoke in a whisper too silent for anyone to hear. Then, he repeated his words, with a marginally more audible cadence, “I saw... a Cyclops.”

All of my resonant concern dispersed, hearing that.

A Cyclops. What?

“What do you mean?” asked a Blaine who was apparently still taking him seriously.

I couldn't.

Brad always resorted to jokes when things got rough. It was an annoying feature, most times. I tuned the conversation out, no longer interested, and looked again at the card in my hand.

The glow was gone, as well as the seven lines of text. Filling the entire card was a yellow 53. My total score as I had previously calculated. It felt good to at least get that right, no matter how inconsequential.

I walked over to Addy and patted him on the shoulder, “Hey, let me see your card.”

Addy looked at me, eyes wide, “Just wait a fucking second, Alec. Do you think Brad saw God?”

“No, of course not. I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that,” I told him, “Come on, show me your card.”

Addy shrugged, then dug into his backpack and withdrew a red and white card. Displayed in large text was the number 58.

I got Blaine to hand me his, which was showing: 23.

At this point, Brad was standing up, no longer weary from whatever had caused the screaming. He looked at me and his expression was sad. Then, he removed his wallet from his pocket, unfolded it, and pulled out a similar card with a green border.

“I’m sorry,” he said, handing me the card, “I can’t remember why I was hiding this from you.”

I raised my eyebrows, taking the card from him.

“Brad, you dick,” Blaine said.

I ignored the ensuing debacle and looked at the score on the card. 22. Then, I fanned the four cards out in my hand plucking them and replacing them until they were in numerical order. 22-23-53-58. Brad-Blaine-Alec-Addy. Green-Blue-Yellow-Red. Brad had the lowest number and something bad had happened to him. If these cards had any connection to whatever had made him scream...

“Brad, what did you feel while you were screaming?” I asked, “Don’t tell me about the Cyclops; tell me about the sensations. You mentioned feeling warm?”

“Yeah, I felt hot all across my body,” he started, “And it felt like my head was on fire. And my vision went black - I thought I blacked out. And I saw these colors and then the Cyclops! Shit, sorry man. I did see it, though. When I could see you guys again, I was lying in the grass. And now my whole body feels heavier. I don’t remember much of the screaming, actually.”

“Dude, you were screaming for a straight minute,” Blaine commented, forcing a chuckle.

“No, more like thirty seconds,” I corrected, “Were you feeling off before this happened? Stressed? Panicking? Could this have been a seizure?”

“Nah, man, I know seizures,” Blaine said, “This wasn’t one.”

Brad was also shaking his head, “I wasn’t feeling anything different. Just the impulse to hit Addy.”

“Yeah, like that was ever gonna happen,” Addy remarked sarcastically, “You were retreating!”

“No,” I interjected, “Come on, we’re not doing this again. Look, I have a theory about the cards. Look at these and tell me who had the lowest score.”

I showed them the fan of cards and Addy snatched the green one into his own hand.

“22 points?” he laughed, “Brad, what did you have to do? ‘Stop having angsty thoughts for five minutes?’”

“‘Tell an obvious lie and be believed,’” Brad recited, “I told Blaine and Alec that I didn’t get a card like they had. I’m sorry about that. I don’t get why I didn’t just tell you afterward.”

“You’re fine,” I said, surprised at the repeated apology. It wasn't like him.

“You lie all the fucking time!” Addy said, “Not much of an accomplishment. What were the other challenges? ‘Take your dog on a walk?’ ‘Put money in a savings account?’ ‘Go 20 hours without moping about your ex?’”

Instead of his usual anger, Brad looked hurt, “Why are you being like this? Why are you trying to put me down?”

That caught Addy off guard, and he stumbled in his speech before half-heartedly answering, “I just don’t expect much from you. That’s all.”

Brad gazed down at the grass, “I can’t remember the order of the other challenges. But they were to give up my dog, lose my job, go 20 hours without seeing a meme, and to be productive for 10 hours. I was actually working on that last one before I got shot.”

Addy was hiding his face behind a hand, waving the other one in a ‘stop’ motion, and giggling hysterically, “You had to not see a meme for 20 hours? Why is that worse than anything I listed? And you failed!”

“I forgot...,” Brad mumbled.

The details were starting to come together. We had received the cards just after midnight. Or maybe at midnight. It was 8:06 PM now. Roughly 20 hours later, and the competition was over, just as anticipated. All of our cards had mentioned not doing something for 20 hours, and at the end of that time frame, the cards had glowed and tallied our results. Brad had seemingly lost the contest and experienced some form of trauma. And now...

We still had the cards, but there was no longer any perceivable use for them. Nothing dangerous had happened to us since the moment the steering wheel had locked up. The events and stress of the day were winding down as the orb in the sky turned orange and began to set.

We still didn’t have many answers, but there seemed to be some order to what had happened to us. Parameters and consequences. Everything had been set up and then executed.

We weren't in control, even now. Despite hiding in the forest for hours, our enemy could still reach us remotely. They were still controlling the cards and they had hurt Brad. How?

Of all of the questions fluttering around in my head, I clutched at the most immediate one and brought it to the forefront. It was something that I had to know more than anything else, for the sake of my own sanity.

I already knew the answer, before asking myself.

Was it over?