Sintra had no idea where she was.

Her eyes hungrily devoured the medley of verdure, swallowing images containing canopies of green dotted with an assortment of sweet scented wildflowers sprouting in the underwood and extending far beyond her field of vision.

A melange of electric pinks, luminous yellows and raging oranges screamed among the viridescence of the rainforest, springing to life with vibrancy as trees as tall as skyscrapers peered down on her, their leaves cackling in the crisp wind as it carried the sound of flapping wings and animal cries off into the distance.

She could see dust particles in the narrow beams of sunlight that slipped through the trees' foliages, the mossy earth beneath her feet sinking as it glittered from the reflection of water droplets sitting daintily on its surface.

Sintra inhaled sharply as cold air gripped her by the lapels of her pantsuit and shook her violently, goosebumps rising from the depths of her skin as she finally shivered.

"Where the hell are we?" she asked, her voice cracking slightly from fear and awe.

"A rainforest?" she heard Vante say beside her as he too consumed a bountiful meal of greenery and wonder.

"How did we—"  Anna started to say but a voice had begun to spoke, startling all of them.

"Welcome, geniuses to Elevate! You've been chosen to participate in our annual games of intelligence, skills and survival after demonstrating superb intellectual acuity and sense. Please grab the items of your choice that are placed to your left." instructed the automated voice of a female.

Sure enough, a table was standing to their left but only Vante and Anna had begun to approach it with hesitance to see its contents.

They were the only ones to vacate the elevator as the other 3 males had stayed behind, their fear emanating from the compartment.

"What is all this?" Vante asked aloud as Sintra finally headed over to the table, scanning the assortment of ropes, daggers, spears, water bottles and matches that sat on the table.

"Once item selection is complete, we must proceed with the instructions," the voice rang again, startling Sintra a second time.

It was impossible to pinpoint the exact location of the voice since it seemed to come from the rainforest itself.

"What the hell is this?!" One of the men from the elevator shrieked as he finally stepped outside. "How did we get here? What is happening?!"

"Average intelligence detected," the voice announced, just before an arrow shot through the man's forehead.

"Mark!" Anna screamed, her voice echoing through the rainforest as the man's body fell to the ground.

Sintra's mouth hung agape while her knees trembled, her eyes watering at the sudden death of her employee. Turning her attention towards the rainforest once more, she vigorously searched for the shooter but all she could see was frondescence.

The other two men ran from the elevator, their cries louder than the wildlife of the jungle.

"Average intelligence detected," the voice repeated and they too met the same fate, slumping against the damp earth only a few feet away from the elevator.

Sintra slapped a hand over mouth as Anna's knees buckled before she fell to the ground screaming.

Sintra could see Vante step back through the side of her eye, bracing against the table as he too wore a horrified expression.

"Average intelligence eradicated," the voice announced.  "Proceeding to instructions."

"This can't be real," Vante looked around. "Where is it coming from?" 

Sintra failed to speak as shock crippled her. She refused to even turn her head out of fear, thinking that limiting one's movement would delay such a death.

"Instructions are as follows— The trees in the rainforest are numbered randomly and repeatedly from 1 to 20. There are verifications cards stuck to random trees with your faces, names and special skills. Inside your elevator, a facial recognition system as appeared. The cards are needed in order to reactivate your elevators and transport you to the next level. Find your verification card and return to your elevators before sunset. The forest becomes uninhabitable at night. Good luck, geniuses!"

Sintra couldn't believe her ears.  She couldn't understand how an elevator ride to work had turned into a game of survival but then Lee's words marched inside her mind and settled, setting up camp in her thoughts. It was real. It was all real.

Leona had been right all along and she had ignored her. Sintra debated on moving as she thought an arrow would surely reach her brain for being so close minded and asinine.

"They can't be serious!" Vante exclaimed, his voice overpowering Anna's cries.

"Lee was right," Sintra said lowly, her eyes drifting off into space.

"What? Who's Lee? And right about what? So you do know about this?" Vante bombarded her with questions.

"Lee, my friend!" Sintra finally turned to him.

She told him of Lee's conspiracy theory ramblings and her warning this morning. She explained that her friend thought it to be aliens behind it all and that they needed to play the games in order to elevate to a higher society.

"Elevate? Elevate to where?" Vante questioned.

"I don't—" Sintra started to say before she remembered the book Lee had placed in her bag. She had forgotten that it still hung across her shoulder given the day's turn of events.

She quickly opened it, shuffling around her gum wrappers and random receipts as she withdrew the leather book.

Spinning through the pages as harshly as Leona had this morning, Sintra found the sheet Lee was reading before she had interrupted her.

Elevate
"The game of wits and genius. Solve all the riddles, clear all the tasks and sacrifice what you need to gain what you want. Win to elevate.

Each game is specifically designed to test your intelligence, ability to reason, resilience and survival skills. Instructions are given at the beginning of the game. Follow carefully and meet the deadlines. Winners are rewarded with items to aid in their survival for the next level.

The chosen are drafted annually to determine their suitability. Should they succeed, they would reap rewards unknown to that of man."

Flipping the next page, Sintra's face warped in confusion as she realized that's all there was. She thoroughly searched the pages but there were only notes from astronomers, each written about their possible discovery of life on other planets.

"This can't be it!" Sintra complained as she rigorously searched the book.

"Interesting excerpt, Ms. Magnus but just curious, how do I exit this game?" Vante asked.

Sintra turned to him, her eyes as lost as his. She then turned to Anna who had now stopped crying but wore a dazed look on her face while crouching on the ground.

"We have to play," Sintra said as she stooped to her level, though it sounded like she was trying to convince herself rather than Anna.

"Great!" Vante said, catching Sintra's attention as he glanced at his watch before retroverting to the table. He did a double take, his eyebrows furrowing as he squinted at the device.

"What?" Sintra asked him.

"My watch stopped," he answered, tapping the face of his rolex.

"What time did it stop?" Sintra asked.

"9 o' clock."

"Okay," Sintra nodded, "We have time."

She headed for the elevator, holding her breath as she stepped over the man called Mark's dead body. She grabbed Lee's nike shoes, kicking off her heels before putting them on and turning her bag out in the elevator before she headed outside to pack. She stuffed binoculars, water bottles, rope and matches in her bag before grabbing a dagger, squeezing the hilt as she held it in her hand.

"What are you doing?" Vante asked.

"Didn't you hear them? We have to play." Sintra answered.

"Ms. Magnus—"

"We will die here, Mr. Kim!" Sintra shouted, startling him.

Heaving a deep sigh, she adjusted her tone before she spoke again.

"If the sun sets without those cards, we can't move and you heard them, this-this jungle is uninhabitable at night. We have to play so grab what you need and let's go." Sintra told him, turning back to the table to stuff more items inside her bag.

"I'm not coming," Anna said, her voice shakey from crying.

"This is not the time—"

"I'm scared, Ms. Magnus!" Anna said loudly, tears falling from her eyes as her lips quivered.

Sintra sighed. Ofcourse Anna was afraid. So was she. She had no idea what to do nor where she was going. She didn't know how she got here nor why this was happening now but something inside her blazed. She could not die here; not now. Not when there were still thousands of people that needed her; people she had to help.

"So am I," Sintra told her, taking Anna's hands into hers as she pulled her up to stand. "But just like you feel fear now, you can feel safe later. You can't feel anything, however, if you're dead."

They held each other's gaze for a moment, both brown eyes fearful but understanding. Then Anna nodded, turning to the table to fill her bag as well.

Sintra caught Vante staring at her but he quickly diverted his gaze, grabbing items as well to set off on their journey.

He grabbed a dagger, tucking it into his pants and then removed his jacket to reveal his crisp, tight fitted dress shirt. Loosening his tie, he removed it before throwing it to ground and opening his cuffs to roll up his sleeves.

Soon, they were ready to take on the rainforest, Vante using his dagger to mark each tree they passed.

"What are you doing?" Anna asked.

"I'm marking the bark so we can get back to our elevator," He answered.

"What are we looking for?" Anna asked again, this time it was directed to Sintra.

"We're looking for the cards that are in the trees I guess. But I wonder what the numbers are for," Sintra said as she touched an indented number 7 in the bark of a kapok tree.

"Maybe our ages?" Anna asked hopefully.

"According to Ms. Magnus's friend, only people with genius IQs are chosen to play this game. How on earth did you get here?" Vante asked her, striking an 'x' in a tree numbered 14.

"Don't listen to hi—" Sintra froze, the hairs on the back of her neck rising as the shuffling of leaves made them all halt, their heads jolting to the left.

A black figure slowly creeped in the distance, crouching menacingly as its yellow eyes peered back at them, watching for sudden movements.

Something was different about the animal, however. Sintra did not know much about beasts but she was sure that they shouldn't have 2 heads nor 2 tails.

"Is that—"

"A black panther?" Sintra answered Vante, her voice sharp as she sucked in her breath.

"Good God, are those 2 heads?" he asked, finally taking notice of the abnormalities of the monster.

"I think we should run," Vante states but Anna had already took off infront of them.

Before Sintra could follow, Vante grabbed her hand, taking off into a different direction as the two-headed black panther took off after Anna.

"What are you doing?" Sintra huffed, running at top speed.

"Saving your life!" He answered breathlessly as they shot past through the rainforest as fast as they could, Sintra stealing glances behind her ever so often to check if the animal was trailing them.

Running towards the sound of flowing water, they stopped at a river that separated the other half of the rainforest.

Sintra fell over as she caught her breath, dropping her dagger and wincing while crawling towards the river bank.

"Wait!" Vante stopped her. "You shouldn't drink untreated water."

Glaring at him, she dropped her hands before flashing them over the river. Once their breathing had returned to somewhat normal, Sintra finally confronted him.

"Why did you make us leave Anna?"

"Leave her? She left us. And she took that panther with her. Thank God!" He said unabashed.

"You really are an asshole, do you know that?" Sintra asked.

"This asshole just saved your life, twice. You would think I'd get a thank you."

"Never!" Sintra spat.

"I'll hold you to that, Ms. Magnus." He smirked, folding his arms across his chest.

Ignoring him, she turned towards the nearby trees, noticing something strange.

"Mr. Kim," she said, prompting Vante to follow her gaze.

"Why are all the trees nearby even numbers?" Sintra asked.

Vante frowned as walked over to the trees, scanning each of them before responding.

"You're right,"

"Ofcourse I'm ri—Look! A card." Sintra pointed at a tree numbered '10'.

She watched as Vante retrieved it from the wooden holder it sat in, furrowing his eyebrows as he read aloud.

"Leslie Adams, survival skills: knowledge of plants, herbal doctor."

"Huh?" Sintra said.

As she was about to come see for herself, Vante's expression changed to alarm as he shouted her name just before she felt something wrap around her right leg, pulling her off the ground.

Sintra screamed.

Glancing down at her leg, a black tentacle had began to pull her towards the water and her efforts of kicking it with her other leg proved futile as she had already been halfway inside the river.

Just before she submerged, she felt Vante's strong arms hook on to her, anchoring her in place as he tried to pull her back.

The tentacle pulled harder, almost pulling Vante in with them but Sintra could feel his muscles flex as he made a large yank, tossing them backwards to skid away from the river bank.

They watched as the tentacle slipped back into the river, the water stilling peacefully as if nothing had happened.

Sintra's heart raced as she wondered what had just happened. Seated between Vante's legs, she laid against his chest, heaving a deep breath before her eyes widened in realization.

"What the hell was that thing?" She hurriedly got to her feet, dusting off her suit to avoid his eyes.

A tired exhale left his mouth before he responded.

"I don't even know anymore,"

"Uhm, thank you, by the way."  Sintra told him.

"What happened to never?" Vante asked, prodding Sintra to finally look at him just in time to see a slight smile appear across his mouth.

If Sintra had been pale, she would have flushed from embarrassment. Instead, she ignored his question, heading over to the card he dropped to save her life.

"Leslie Adams," she repeated as she picked it up, staring at the number on the tree.

"Ofcourse," she slapped a hand to her forehead. "There are more people in the game. Lee had said that they usually choose around a hundred persons annually. But what do the numbers mean?" She wondered, staring at the number 10 engraved on the tree.

"I don't know yet but we can't stay here," Vante said.

Nodding, Sintra followed him as they took off through the rainforest once more.

They searched for what seemed like forever, watching out for wild animals and traps. They ran into a few violent monkeys but managed to flee with only minor scrapes and scratches.

They found card after card, some trees holding as much as 4 for each member but there was no sign of theirs.

Even though they saw no sign of Anna, they ran into other players, questioning them about the cards they had found but most of them had no idea what was happening or what to do.

Sintra tried to decipher what the numbers could mean and why they had only been seeing even numbers thus far ever since taking off into a different direction than Anna.

Tripping over a tree root, she winced as her knees hit the ground.

"Are you alright?" Vante asked, concern lacing his voice.

"No, I'm not alright!" Sintra exclaimed. "Why did this have to happen huh? Why to us? All I wanted to do was help people and instead I'm stuck in some stupid game with the person trying to control my company searching for verification cards so that aliens can ship us off to some other God forsaken
pla— Wait a minute," Sintra cut herself off.

Her mind flashed to the journey to the rainforest as the elevator zipped through the shaft. She had glanced at the display panel which showed the numbers her employees had hit this morning and they were still alight indicating that they were enroute to each floor. When they had arrived in the rainforest however, the number 5 dimmed.

"Number 19," Sintra said lowly, turning to Vante who just stared at her in confusion.

"Number 19! Our cards are on a tree with the number 19," She cheered.

"How do you know?"

"When the elevator went berserk, the numbers that were pressed were still alight. When we arrived in the rainforest, the number 5 went dim meaning that we arrived at that number floor or whatever this place is. The next number that the elevator would go to would be—"

"Number 19," Vante finished, a dazzling smile spreading across his face. "Brilliant, Ms. Magnus!"

Sintra's insides warmed at the compliment. She returned said smile, looking away as she held her arm shyly.

"We've only been seeing even numbers thus far so that means the odd numbers are probably in the other direction." Vante informed.

"Good thinking," Sintra commended. "Let's go."

As they journeyed off towards the other direction, Sintra tried to work out how much time had past since they arrived. They had taken about 3 minutes in the elevator to get here and another 15 or so when the instructions were being read. Looking for their cards was about 5 hours so if time worked the same way here, it was about 2pm at the moment.

Sintra gave a silent thanks to Vante for marking the trees as they had finally arrived on the path they had been before the black panther appeared.

Heading in the next direction, they started to see odd numbers, even running into a couple of 19s that held verification cards for different people.

"This is impossible! The rainforest is huge. How the hell are we suppose to find the cards with the little time we have left?" Sintra stressed.

"Wait, Ms. Magnus." Vante said as he grabbed her hand. "Listen."

Piercing screams echoed in the distance as Sintra squinted at 3 figures running towards them. Frightened, she turned to Vante just in time as an arrow zipped past her head, hitting the large tree trunk next to her.

Sintra was caught off guard as Vante grabbed her to hide behind the tree, placing her infront of him to allow the people to run past as arrows rained down on them.

Terror sprinted up Sintra's throat as she tried to imagine the source of their fright but as her curiosity battled her fear, it was ultimately defeated by shock as a woman with the height of a basketball post walked past them, a bow and arrow in each hand respectively.

A gasp slipped from Sintra's mouth but Vante quickly covered it. She found herself leaning further into him as her back pressed against his chest, his rough hands holding her while she shook violently.

Sintra held her breath as she watched the woman take aim, the arrow flying shortly after. Her eyes watered as an ear-splitting shrill followed the monstrous woman's attack, terror skating back down her throat as she tried to swallow the lump it had formed.

Only a loin cloth covered the tall woman's abdomen and her breasts were exposed but painted by something resembling that of black tar. Her skin was covered in mud and her hair hung in long black strands with only a head band made of straw to keep it from her falling into her face. Though Sintra could only see her profile, she knew the woman was beautiful and that made her all the more terrifying.

She thanked God that she did not see them as she focused on the targets ahead of her, taking off into a sprint to catch her prey.

As soon as she left, Vante took her hand and started running.

They ran from tree trunk to tree trunk, hiding incase the monstrous woman returned or there were more of her. As they hid behind another large trunk, cries could be heard in the distance once more.

Sure enough, Anna ran past them, crying out for help as she raced through the forest.

Sintra's limbs moved instinctively but Vante held her in place, covering her mouth once again before draping his other arm across her chest and whispering in her ear.

"Don't die a hero, Ms. Magnus." He said, his breath causing goosebumps to emerge from her skin.

As they stayed there like that, another freakishly tall woman ran past them, her skin the color of Sintra's.

Sintra had not even realized that it was raining until it began pelting her face since Vante's hold gripped not only her body but her mind.

"Let's go, I see a 19." He said, letting her go but still holding onto her hand as they hid from tree to tree until they arrived at the one engraved with the number 19.

Plucking the cards from their holder, hope enveloped Sintra as Vante smiled at the pieces of plastic.

"They're ours," he said but Sintra could already tell as he squeezed her hand a little tighter when he saw them.

"Time to head back," he said.

"But Anna—"

"You can't help anyone if you die here, Ms. Magnus."

"Sintra," she corrected, "Call me, Sintra."

"You can't help everyone, Sintra." He said, smiling as he finished her name and at that moment Sintra wondered how it tasted it to him.

The rain was pouring even harder now, beating down roughly against the leaves of the rainforests' plants to form small puddles atop the earth.

Sintra's silk pressed ponytail had reverted into a kinky puff while Vante's hair now laid in wet strands atop his forehead, complimenting his chiseled torso that was now visible by his wet dress shirt that clung to his body for dear life.

"We can't leave her," Sintra argued.

"We have to," Vante replied, nodding his head towards something behind her.

Sintra's mouth hung ajar as she followed his gaze towards the monstrous woman with whom she shared similar complexion with walking towards the direction she had originally come from, pulling Anna's lifeless body by her hair.

Her knees buckled but Vante caught her, holding her up as she rested her head against his chest. She had seen death too many times today and though she tried to be brave, she had reached her limit.

"I'm sorry," he said to her. "Can you stand? We have to go."

Sintra did not know if it was out of instinct but the monstrous woman's eyes suddenly turned in their direction, her fierce gaze igniting her red irises to look even more inhuman.

"Oh no," Vante said, setting Sintra to stand before pulling her away. "Run!"

And just like that Sintra was running again, this time, Vante held on to her hand as he pulled her along with him while they blazed through the forest a second time. Sintra could not see as the rain had begun to obscure her vision, seeping into her eyes to prompt her to only discern foggy blends of green as they zipped through the rainforest.

Sintra thought arrows were flying past them but she was unsure, her mind exhausted from the trials of the day as the heavy rain hammered her skin and trickled into her ears. They ran and ran until Sintra could finally see the blurry outline of gray metal in the distance, pushing her to run a little faster.

An arrow zipped past them again, landing near the elevator but Vante didn't stop. He pulled Sintra straight into the compartment, scanning the cards against facial recognition scanner before repeatedly hitting the number 12.

"Duck, Sintra!" he shouted, pulling her down anyways as a arrow skidded off the metal wall of the compartment. The door finally began to close just before the giant woman neared the entrance and Sintra passed out as soon as the elevator zipped off to God knows where.