"The Temple Run. To the unaware masses that I see every day on the bus, it's just a silly mobile game to pass time. I shudder every time I think about it. Temple Run had a much different meaning to me.

"My memory here gets a bit hazy. I know that the Big Face, in a rare moment or compassion, warning us of the dangers in his temple. (Now that I think about it, he was never being "compassionate." He was boasting — indulging in some psychopathic soliloquy like a Bond villain in the eleventh hour.)

"My partner went in first — he with the special pendant of protection. I know that he chose to go up at the white laser, lost his protection in the password room, and ultimately succumbed to the spirit of a temple guard in the dark forest.

"I don't remember questioning the phantasmagorical nature of any of it. Of a giant stone face who relished in the anguish of the young. Of a dark forest that grew in a temple only partially obscured. Of a lost trinket whose origins would place it somewhere in the Arctic. At that moment, nothing seemed weird. All I remember now is grabbing the trinket and running. Running fast, past the rubble and blood and sweat that signified failures of my predecessors. I just kept running..."

(Catch up on the story: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday)

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