by Buffy Brown
“Definitely.”
“So?”
“So tomorrow…” Ariadna pauses. “They’re planning to finish you off. Literally. The game will be brutal and unfair. They won’t abide by the rules. They don’t want anyone to win. It just can’t happen. If someone wins, the system will be compromised. Tomorrow, Carnivore and two other genetically manipulated tigers will be out to kill you. I have to go, Decca. Take care.”
“I understand,” I say, letting my hand freefall with the iAm in it, exchanging looks with the others. I remember that I want to say good-bye to Ariadna, so I pull the iAm up again. “Thank you, Ariadna,” I say, but she is already gone. None of them heard the phone call yet. How am I going to pass on the ugly news?
“Don’t tell me,” says Leo. “There is free ice-cream tomorrow before the game.” Leo looks like he was expecting this. What else do you know, Leo?
I stick out my tongue at Leo. How can he be so calm? Anyone seeing the horror on my face knows I have bad news.
“Ice cream?” Vern asks Leo. “All of us?”
Chapter 13
In my dream, I am looking through Woo’s eyes. I see him fighting for his life in the ninth Monster Show. It feels like I am wearing his body, like a tight dress, making it harder for me to breathe inside of him.
He is fighting a one-eyed, white tiger on white sands underneath white skies. He is fighting Carnivore in the Monsterium.
I see Woo’s hands swinging as if they were mine. But how can this be? They are a boy’s hands; tough, muscular, and full of hardened veins. I can’t control them, but they are swinging with a sword at the white tiger.
Is this a dream, or a nightmare? Have you ever dreamt your hands weren’t yours, doing things without your control?
Woo slashes at the tiger while I am inside him, trying to control his hands. He does it all wrong. I have better ideas and tactics than his, but I don’t know how to control his hands, or how to tell him. I scream inside of him, telling him I know how to win, that he doesn’t have to die. Woo doesn’t listen, and my hands are tight because they are not mine. They are his.
Woo is strong. He is counting on his strength. I would rather rely on my mind, on my intuition. I wish I could talk to him, maybe insinuate my thoughts, so he follows my advice. Although I am inside his body, seeing with his eyes, I am still so far away from him. So far.
“I am seeing through your eyes,” I whisper to him, but he doesn’t hear me. I feel like I’m talking to myself in a narrow closet I can’t get out of. I want to remind him that he wished he could see through my eyes, and now I am the one who sees through his eyes.
The only way for Woo to differentiate between sand and sky is by observing the curves in the sands, the tops of the sand dunes. They only show when they change slope or direction. They have a darker shade, but they are so hard to see. There is also the sun, blistering onto the sands. Other than this, everything else is white. It’s so blinding. Woo needs to find the tiger hiding in the white sands and stay alive, before the tiger finds him.
Helping me stay alive, as well.
Helping us.
Woo and I used to never be apart.
I don’t care what happens to me if the tiger kills Woo. Woo and I are one. If he lives, I live. If he dies, I die with him.
“You and I am one. It’s not ‘are,’ it’s ‘am,’” Woo used to say.
Although Woo doesn’t talk to me, I can hear his thoughts occasionally. He is thinking about me, calling me Tender. He says he loves the ‘ten’ in Tender. He thinks that if he dies, I will be able to kill Carnivore because I am a Ten. In a world where Tens are a myth, he thinks I am a Ten.
“Foolish Woo. Thinking about me will get you killed. I am far from a Ten. I am just a girl, and maybe I don’t want to be a Ten.”
“No matter what they rank you, you are my Ten,” he thinks.
Woo once told me about his mother. She was mute when she had him. She had left his father, who was a vicious man. Woo’s mother gave birth to him at sea, having escaped from Faya, because she found out he had some deficiency in his genes too. She didn’t want him to be ranked, afraid he could be a Five, or worse, a Monster.
When the sailors found him, they asked her about his name. She said, “Woo—” and didn’t complete the sentence. And even if she did, only vowels would have come out. When I think of it now, I think that Woo might not have even been his name. For some unknown reason, his mother uttered two vowels that sound like someone in pain to me.
The sailors didn’t argue. Woo he was.
His mother went into a ten-day coma. For ten days, the sailors called him Woo, wondering what she meant by calling him such a strange name. He told me that when he asked her about the incident later, she claimed she didn’t remember. She was lying, Woo said. What did she mean? What was his real name?
Then she died, and he did what she would not have allowed him to do. He sailed back to Faya.
It didn’t matter that he never found out his real name or the meaning of it. That was the best thing about him. He was here to enjoy life with no big premise, as long as he did what he felt was right. He was a mess like all of us.
The tiger roars at Woo again. Woo roars back with the swinging of his sword. He can’t see the tiger. I can’t see the tiger. I am thinking we should be able to see a tiger with one big blue eye staring at us from the sands. But this tiger can turn its blue eye all white, like chameleons change the color of their skin.
So maybe we can see its mouth when it roars. Its mouth is definitely not white. But seeing its open mouth would be too late. The tiger will be too close by then.
“If the Carnivore’s fangs are visible to you, don’t ever think he is laughing,” Woo used to say, staring at Carnivore’s picture in his treehouse.
A gust of wind blows. Woo loses balance but regains it fast.
Suddenly, the tiger knocks Woo down, then disappears. It hurts me when I fall with him, inside of him. However, we gain back power, pick up the sword, and stand up again.
“Listen to me, Woo.” I wish he could hear me. “Don’t look for the tiger. Listen to its breathing. Feel it. If I could only swing instead of you, maybe I could save you.”
But Woo doesn’t listen to me. He never listens to me, and I will have to go. I will have to leave Woo because I can’t help him, just the way I can’t find him in the battlefields.
I leave Woo’s body, and watch him from afar, as the tiger attacks him. I look away. I am ready to wake up from this horrible dream.
As I surface back from the dream world to the real world, I hear Woo’s faint voice: “If I could only see with your eyes.”
The first thing I see when I wake up is a pair of beautiful green eyes. It’s Leo.
He is holding a bar of chocolate in his hand, and he doesn’t have a sleeping bag. I crawl sleepily out of mine.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“I had a bad dream,” I yawn.
“Really? I thought I heard you cry out.”
“So? Can’t a girl have some privacy in a bad dream? Why are you awake?” The rest are asleep.
“Just checking on you.” He smirks, a little better than usual, with a smile hidden somewhere. “I brought you chocolate,” he offers.
I take it abruptly. “You found my weak spot.” I bite hard. The chocolate tastes funny. “So, what’s yours?”
“Mine?”
“Your weak spot.”
“I don’t have one,” he says bluntly.
“Not even me?”
“That, we have to talk about when we get out of here alive.”
“What if we don’t? What if you die tomorrow, and you find yourself in Hell with all those badass gunfighters, and you discover you never told me that you love me?” I bite again, feeling confident, like Ariadna.
“What if I die and go to Heaven, and we have eternity to continue this conversation?” he offers.
“Doesn’t sound romantic enough,” I tease. “Don’t promise me big stuff forever.
Promise me anything right now.”
“I am sure they have chocolate in Heaven.”
“Nah. I don’t want to wait that long.”
“Wait that long?” He raises an eyebrow. “We could die tomorrow. That’s not that long.”
“Tomorrow is too far away.” I chew. What’s gotten into me? Since when do I not let the chocolate melt in my mouth? Am I nervous because he is so close, leaning forward? “I mean, look at us now. Everyone is asleep, the light from the fireflies. We are alone in a forest—”
One of those flying iSees roams nearby. Leo throws a big stone at it. The eye takes the hit and spirals down into the fire, making a sound like crickets clapping their wings in the middle of the night.
“Could you please stop killing those things?” Vern moans out of his sleep. “I have a game tomorrow.” He is actually throwing punches at the grass while dreaming.
“See?” says Leo. “Chocolates in Heaven are a better idea than here.”
“Don’t change the subject.” I lean forward and grab him by his shirt. He gives, wanting to. I feel powerful. What has happened to me, waking up from this dream with a dose of confidence?
I close in, an inch away from his lips.
“Are you taking advantage of me?” says Leo. “I am just a shy boy, you know.” I can feel his warm breath on my face. “This is illegal, even by Monsters’ standards.”
If he keeps teasing me and doesn’t kiss me, I will scream in frustration. I already feel the electricity between our lips and a chill in my spine — horror and romance are eternal friends, I guess.
“Why are you always avoiding me?” I don’t want to be the one coming closer, adding the final touch. I want him to do it, so I stall by talking.
“There is something I have to tell you, Decca.” I don’t like his serious tone. Not now.
“I like it when you say my name,” I whisper.
Then silence. I should be aware that he wants to tell me something, but I am just in the mood for something else, less serious.
“I am here because—”
I lift my fingers to our lips, so he stops babbling. My hand almost connects the electricity between our lips, between our souls.
“What are you waiting for?” I whisper, smoothing my voice the best way I can, and lowering my hand.
“Just for one of those things to come flying by,” he says. “I want to make sure the whole world sees this on camera.”
Our lips meet. I shudder. He kisses me as if his life depends on it. I think I am momentarily deaf and blind. All my senses turn into one sweet anticipated feeling, like twilights of energy rushing through my body. My heart races, and I don’t mind. Let it beat the hell out of me.
We part slowly, with our lips still sticking a bit. I bite his lips as we part.
I laugh.
I am shocked, in a good way.
I catch him with his eyes closed for a tenth of a second. If I tell him he closed his eyes while we were kissing, he will deny it, so I stay silent.
To my left, I see about four of the one-eyed iSees hovering around, and buzzing like flying squirrels. This is going to look crazy tomorrow on TV. At least, if we die, this will make a memory indeed.
But suddenly, I feel dizzy. What’s with that guy? Does he have hypnotizing lips, or what?
I fall back on my back, and sink back into my dream, like drowning in water. The grass feels fluffy and spongy underneath me.
Is this what’s supposed to happen after a first kiss?
Lights out.
The chocolate!
Leo sedated me.
But why?
Chapter 14
Flip.
I open my eyes.
The sky is blurry. I think it is blue, with a tint of orange. The sun rays struggle to reach me, blocked by thick brown branches and green leaves. The thinner straight sun rays make it through, looking like a piercing light behind shutters. My head feels heavy. I am still lying on my back. The earth underneath me feels like water; it helps me float and prevents me from falling deep. I realize that I am hallucinating. No. I just woke up from a drug-induced dream.
I gather my strength to sit up, looking at the forest. It’s definitely morning, if not noon already. There is no one with me in the forest. There is an unfinished, melted chocolate bar next to me. Leo’s chocolate bar.
What happened to me? Am I still dreaming?
I don’t think so. The air I breathe feels so alive, and the world doesn’t feel secure, like in dreams. This is the real world, as in-your-face as it gets.
No, I am not dreaming. But I am deaf.
My head feels so heavy. I shake it violently, hoping I can hear anything, but I can’t. The back of my head hurts. I look back at the chocolate bar, trying to resist the conclusions my brain comes up with.
I remember now. The chocolate bar. Leo sedated me.
Why?
Where is everyone?
What time is it?
Maybe all of this is just a bad dream. Maybe the Monster Show is just a constant nightmare, and all I need to do is wake up.
I walk around, lost, not thinking straight, wondering where everybody is.
Why would Leo do this? Is Leo my real enemy? Did he betray me?
No, I don’t believe this. We kissed yesterday. It felt right.
But the chocolate was an ambush. Why sedate me, Leo?
I see Leo’s backpack on the grass, closed and stuffed. As I kneel down to open it, I start to hear again. There is a faint sound coming from afar. The same sentence repeated over and over by different people, something that ends with the word knife.
I am not sure, hitting my head with my hands, looking around. The voices are approaching, but I can’t see anyone around.
I hear screams.
I get up, ready for anything. What is going on? I feel like something just popped out of my ears, like a huge amount of air pressure that blocked the sound from coming in.
I hear them now. They are screaming: “I am alive.”
The voices are coming from my iAm.
It’s Leo, Bellona, Woodsy, and Pepper. They are in the game. Why am I not there?
They look awful. Leo is cursing behind steel bars. There is a dead animal or some creature behind him on the ground. The picture is not clear. It’s phasing. Bad transmission. Why did they do this to me? Why did they leave without me? Anger fills my veins. Not because they left me, but because I am not fighting with them. I hear Timmy make fun of them.
So it’s almost noon, the third day of the games, and they decided to save me from dying? Whose idea was it to leave me behind?
Why didn’t I get an electric shock? No outranked can escape a game. They would be shocked instantly through the iAm.
Although I can hear, my left ear hurts badly. It hurts more in my neck, right under my ear. I reach for it. There is a wound with little traces of some liquid. I look back at my hand. It’s blood.
The first-aid kit! The one Leo and I got from the bus. He removed my receptor. Didn’t he say it was dangerous?
I look at the iAm in my hand. I am not connected to the network or the Summit anymore. They can’t track me. Leo and the others must have told them I died. This must have been their way of saving me, disregarding how I would survive here alone in the battlefields.
This is exactly what Woo would have done. Even though I doubt his survival. I am starting to believe that he couldn’t survive the Playa.
My stubbornness walks me out of the forest. I am not going to live a boring life down here. A life with no meaning. I am going to catch up with the others. I stop and look back at the bag, and go pick it up. I still feel dizzy, and my head still hurts, but I have to fight, and I will give them hell.
The Monorail is not in its place, so I push the button to call it from a station called the Mirage. Why are they in the Mirage? Isn’t this supposed to be the Carnivore game in the Monsterium?
I keep thinking about Leo’s story about the Rabbit Hole. What is it that his mentor
, Wolf, knows that we don’t? Does the Breakfast Club really exist, or is it only built in our minds? I don’t care. No turning back. I remind myself that if I die today, I will not die on my knees. I came here to bury myself in the Playa and hide forever with Woo, but today I will bury someone else.
The Monorail arrives. I jump in, watching the games. Timmy announces that two of the skaters are dead. What does this mean? Who is dead, and who is alive?
Timmy can’t track me now, so the Summit doesn’t know that I am coming. It wouldn’t be a good idea to call Timmy and declare that I am alive. The Monorail arrives at the Rabbit Hole and takes the dive into the tunnel. After the usual crazy ride, it continues to the Mirage station. I can see the Mirage battlefield in my iAm. It’s like a huge desert with too many waterfalls, muddy earth, and… white tigers.
Is this what Timmy was talking about yesterday when the audience said they were bored with the game in the Monsterium? The game is played now in this Mirage desert?
Timmy announces that the game is still on: they have only caged one tiger, and two are left. The game is about catching and caging the tigers, dead or alive.
Brutal and uncreative. That’s the plan. Brutal and raw enough to kill us all. It’s just like Ariadna said. The Summit doesn’t want to spend more money on the games, so they brought us a trio of tigers to chase us to death today. No more Artificial Sky or Breathing Domes.
There are eight million viewers watching today. That’s without me attending. I try to flatter myself. I need to boost my confidence even if my confidence is just imaginary. Belief and faith are the only things that are going to get me there.
I arrive. The Monorail doesn’t stop five stories high. It opens straight in front of the sandy desert, filled with the sound of Humvees and roaring tigers. I don’t have time to catch my breath.
“There she is,” Timmy screams through the iAm. An external camera must have caught me. So I am still connected to the network? At least, they can’t trace me through the iAm anymore. “I know what you want, Decca,” Timmy claims. “I know what you want. You want to take a break since you’re surprised you’re in the game already. But here is my advice to you: take a break when you are dead.”