When Jonathan turned around he saw the person in question. Surprisingly the person in first was actually someone that they both know, "Tom!" Jonathan shouted when he saw the familiar face. The last time Jonathan saw Tom was at the beginning of the second game when they walked to the entrance together from the cabin.
Tom was also the one that won the race for the last 2 spots in the cabin. It seems that being able to run has been very good for him. Tom looked a lot different than the last time and that was because sweat was pouring all over his body, dripping with each step that he took. It was obvious that coming in first was no cakewalk.
"Ah...hahh...ahhh" When Tom finally made it to the finish line he was panting for every ounce of air he could get while Jonathan and Angela just stood waiting on him to catch his breath. Eventually, Tom caught his breath and was able to formulate a sentence once more, "How did you guys get here so fast?!" Tom said in confusion as he glanced at both Jonathan and Angela wondering why they weren't pouring with sweat like himself.
Jonathan had obviously been sweating but it looked older than Tom's which was still continuously flowing down his face.
"We found an easier path." Jonathan said admitting to Tom that they had found a shortcut that he wouldn't have told any random person who made it to the finish line. The only reason Jonathan told Tom this is because it made more sense than him lying and he trusted Tom a decent amount since they had spent a moderate amount of time together.
"Why didn't you tell anyone else about it?" Tom said suddenly releasing some of the annoyance that came from him being so tired. He had fought for his life trying to get there and to see that Jonathan and Angela had it easy bothered him greatly.
Jonathan felt the rising tension from Tom and aimed to get rid of it, "The only way we got access to it was by staying 5 feet in front of the bulls for the entirety of the game. We had no idea it was there until it happened." Jonathan said making Tom go silent immediately.
Tom understood the stress and willpower associated with staying right in front of the bulls when at any moment you could trip or falter making you get impaled before you even realize what happened. If it would have been a less sensible or smart person that wasn't Tom then there may have been more arguing but Tom went silent only giving one reply.
"I see." Tom said as he began sitting on the ground relaxing to catch his breath. Jonathan felt that Tom no longer saw the situation in a bad light and sat down beside him relaxing as they began waiting for more people to arrive.
Soon enough more and more people began arriving at the finish line each of them utterly exhausted by the time they get to the finish. The first few people looked at Jonathan and Angela in confusion wondering how they were already there but after a decent amount of people arrived people didn't take the time to look at each individual and ask which one got there faster.
As time went on more people that Jonathan recognized began showing up including people such as Sam and Kylie. The only other person missing that Jonathan knew well was Derek and he was still nowhere in sight. The longer they waited for Derek to arrive the more nervous Jonathan got.
Jonathan had begun counting every single person that passed the finish line while also peeking at the current amount of players alive in the game. Currently, there were 82 people left in the game meaning that while Angela and Jonathan were in the tunnel more than 10 people had died.
While the bulls had a high possibility of killing most of the people, Jonathan thought that the baboons definitely had a hand in it. Time went on and Jonathan counted 78 people present and there were still 82 people alive.
The only problem was that the timer that had been placed in the sky showed how much time was left in the game and there were only 10 minutes left meaning that the people either had to hurry it up or they would get killed by something that wasn't the animals.
"Where do you think the rest are?" Jonathan asked Kylie while walking over to her. The two had talked while they were waiting for the final people to arrive since Jonathan wanted to ask questions about why she didn't come to the cabin the night before.
She had explained that she had originally intended to cross the line when no one was looking and go back into the cabin. She was in the process of doing so when the lights went out but when everyone began getting in their sleeping bags she was unable to go without anyone seeing her and she didn't want to risk that.
Once it was all explained to Jonathan he thought it made a lot of sense and was glad that he finally knew the reason why.
"Derek was with me for most of the race but after a while, he started getting slower and fell behind. He didn't look like he was doing bad enough to end up this far back so I'm kind of worried." Kylie said as she looked down the road looking for any type of sign or indication of Derek's whereabouts.
Jonathan nodded his head remembering that he saw him at the beginning of the race but afterward he became too busy to keep up with everyone's location. As they were talking two more people arrived on the horizon looking like they were walking corpses.
When Jonathan looked closely at the faces he realized that neither of them were Derek meaning Derek was one of two people left on the path.
"What should we do?" Jonathan said nervously looking toward Kylie.