I'd like to tell a story, a story of twenty-one days.

Twenty-one days ago there would have been no way I could have known what would come. Twenty-one days ago, I slept well, ate well, drank well. When I woke up twenty-one days ago, I felt tired, as one should be after a good night's rest interrupted by the alarm of school, of life, of a normal life. Twenty-one days ago, I read the posted image, thought for a few moments - maybe it was a few minutes - and, carefully, pressed six, followed by enter. Twenty-one days ago, I was correct. Correct once. But twenty-one times?

The first week went by quickly. I remember the relative carefreeness and joy I had upon seeing the message that would come each night at 10 p.m., a time I would soon grow very familiar with, a time I would soon dread. I remember excitement as I pressed enter on each of those seven days. I remember spending four hours typing numbers into a spreadsheet on the seventh day, four precious hours that I could have spent with my family, family I would not see again for a month. On that seventh day, I remember seeing that only five of us, five of us that had decided to attempt these twenty-one days, were standing together at the top, and that was when it changed.

As I entered the second week, I realized what being at the top meant, a fact that would change how I would view the fourteen days that lay ahead of me. Through the first few days of the second week, I faced relatively little trouble, yet when I would come to press the enter key, the key that, despite its name, felt more like leaving a world, a life of freedom, than entering one, I would feel fear instead of the excitement that had brought me into these twenty-one days. And this was for good reason, for over these few days, the few others fell from the top, one by one, out of carelessness which I had managed to barely avoid.

Everything changed again during the thirteenth day, when as one last competitor fell, I was alone, there, at the top. Sure, we were competing, but it felt like all of us, we were just friends, working, having fun together. And so, my joy from being here, at the top, slowly vanished, as a strange feeling, almost loneliness, grew. These feelings took another turn, as I now carried the responsibility of being the lone survivor, the last chance. Nevertheless, I completed that day, still on top.

On the fourteenth day, after spending just about the entire night working, I slept at midnight. My body longed for some well-needed sleep, which I had been neglecting all week. Yet, that morning, I woke up at seven, fully an hour earlier than I had set my alarm for, and rather than try to sleep, I decided to keep working, to immediately return to my work from the day before. I finished at ten, feeling like the past three hours had been a major success, but had they really?

The final week. By then, all I could think about is what would await if I succeeded, and what would happen if I didn't. However, I pushed on, working through the first few days, as cautious as ever, and I stayed on top. As I did, however, I noticed a feeling inside me, a feeling that this week would be harder than anything before, a feeling that I could fail, after I've spent so many hours, given up so many minutes of valuable time, time I could have been sleeping, resting, relaxing, to work on this task, this task that had felt like everything in the moment. But I kept going, kept working, kept spending these valuable hours.

Day twenty came, the penultimate day. At ten p.m. on the twentieth day I had been playing ping-pong with friends, yet rather than have fun, I decided to work, and I did, spending three hours of my night, drawing, writing on a scrap of paper in a dark room save for the bright, artificial glow of a desk lamp. I slept that night, or that morning, at one, my body aching for sleep, my brain refusing. The next morning, I typed my answer, pressed that enter button, and felt the fear in myself. For that one moment, I felt the fear of not knowing whether it was the last time I would feel that fear, or if I would have to experience this fear, this pain again the next day, on a much greater scale. Neither option seemed desirable. One second later, the screen flashed, and displayed the message. Correct. One to go.

One to go. Just one. How bad could it be? These were the questions that haunted me for the next fourteen hours, the time until the clock struck ten and the final message would be sent. These fourteen hours should have been spent enjoying my weekend, hanging out with friends, working on another math problem, but they were all spent worrying. Worrying for what? What did it mean if I were to fail, to lose twenty days' worth of progress? Would I actually lose anything? I asked these questions to myself as well, and yet I found no answers, only doubt and more worry.

It was the final day. The twenty-first of these twenty-one days. I was alone atop this mountain, far ahead of anyone else, and I felt alone. I felt scared. I felt pain. I did not feel joy, I did not feel excitement. I did not feel what I felt those first few days, that first week. I felt tired, I felt fatigued. And yet, as I braced myself for the final message, I pulled out my notebook, created a new spreadsheet, one final time, hoping that these twenty-one days would come to an end the way I wanted it to. I didn't want to think about what would happen if it didn't. Maybe it should have gone down differently, but here's what happened.

That night, I felt the distinct fear of failure, so much more present this night than it had ever been. And through my hour of work, that fear only strengthened, as I made no progress and the problem seemed increasingly distant, unreachable. That night, I felt almost as though I had given up. I thought about what this blog post would have been if I had. But inside, I knew that no matter what, I would keep trying the next day, no matter how difficult, no matter how futile, no matter how painful.

The next day, the final morning, I woke feeling tired, as I should have felt. However, this was the tire of fatigue, and that morning I felt as though I was sick. I had a runny nose, chills, and it felt like I had a fever. But I know that nothing could have actually made me sick, except for what I had been doing to myself these past few weeks. And despite these, I felt determined. When I woke, I immediately got to work and tried different approaches. One hour passed with limited progress. Another passed with slightly more progress, and my classes for the day started. I took my Spanish test, not at all worried about my grade, yet completely worried about something else. I returned to working as soon as I finished, and in that short thirty-minute period, I realized what I had to do. I set it up, but the thirty minutes had ended by then.

I went to my math class after spending my whole morning on math without even doing the homework for the class. As I waited for the teacher outside the door for ten minutes, all I could think about was how close I was, whether it would work, whether it would be right, whether I would succeed or fail, whether these twenty-one days had meant anything. As we entered, I zoned out of the details of the test the next day, and instead I worked to finish what I had started an hour prior. I finished quickly, and arrived at an answer: 1061440. All that I had to do now was type it in, and hit the enter key, a key so small, so light, yet one that felt so heavy, so big.

One. I felt the touch of my computer's keyboard heavier than I had remembered. Zero. I glanced at the walls around me, filled with solutions to the homework I was supposed to do. Six. I felt a shiver, even though I still had my jacket on. One. I heard my teacher explain what calculators would be allowed for the test. Four. I felt the twitch of my fingers, a tiny gesture filled with fear of the upcoming. Four again. My finger hit the key harder than I expected, harder than I would normally. Zero. The number, with all its digits, appeared there, on the bar. All that was left was that key, the enter, an entrance into the unknown. I hit it. Enter.

Correct.