I Am Alive

by Cameron Jace

  37

  The Super-V stops sideways at the last minute, with Leo’s window overlooking the cliff. I hear the audience hail in the iAm, which I can hear now in the absence of the roaring of the Super-V, Carnivore, and the wind.

  Leo looks back at me from the window overlooking the cliff. He shrugs.

  “How close are we?” I ask.

  “Right on the edge of the cliff,” he says. “Right on the edge, Decca.”

  “So we made it?” I say, feeling like I’m finally waking up from a nightmare. “So let’s go.” I reach for Leo’s hand.

  He pulls away. “You go first, Decca,” he says.

  “What’s wrong, Leo?”

  “Listen to me carefully,” he says. “There are things that I need to say to you before—”

  “Before what?” I gasp.

  “Just listen.” Leo is panting. Is he hurt? What is it? “You always ask me why I am here. You always say it doesn’t make sense. You’re right.”

  “I don’t want to know now, Leo,” I interrupt. “Just take my hand, and let’s get out of the Super-V.”

  “I can’t,” he says, looking at his left leg. Oh my God. It’s stuck in the bent metal of the side of the vehicle. How did I not notice this? He can’t pull his leg out. If he does, the wound will get bigger and bigger, and cut through his thigh. “Just listen to me,” he insists.

  “Leo—”

  “Just listen. You have to know the truth.” He tries to shift his weight, as he aches from the pain in his leg. The Super-V shakes and slides a little closer to the edge of the cliff. We’re going to fall from the cliff because of the shifting mud if we don’t get out soon. “I was sent here for you. That’s the reason why I am back in the games.”

  “What? Me? Why?”

  “I was sent here to protect you, and keep you alive,” he pants. “My mission was to either get you to survive and win the games, thus stay alive, or if I fail at that, I have been ordered to keep you alive in the battlefields by not saying I am alive.”

  “Mission?” I mutter, my hands falling on my lap. Leo is here to protect me. What about how I felt about him? Was he just acting? “I don’t understand. Who sent you?” I say.

  “Wolf, the leader of the Breakfast Club, sent me,” says Leo, trying to avoid my eyes.

  “The Breakfast Club?” I swallow hard. “Why? Why me?”

  “I don’t know,” says Leo. “I was sent to help you win the games, or find the Rabbit Hole and escape. At all costs, I had to keep you alive until they contact you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I removed the receptor from you yesterday.”

  “Why?”

  “Those were my orders. First of all, to disconnect you from being tracked by the Summit. Second, to make you remember your skills.”

  “My skills?”

  “I don’t know. That was my mission.”

  “So the Breakfast Club sent you to save me when it was my time to enter the games? How did they know that I was going to be outranked?”

  “They didn’t. But it was a possibility. They said you might find a way to enter the games to save a friend of yours who actually taught you all the skills you’re remembering since the removal of the receptor.”

  “You know about that?”

  “Yes. So I convinced Xitler that I wanted to be forgiven by the Summit, and came back.”

  “What if I hadn’t been outranked?”

  “I would have been stuck playing the games alone,” Leo says with that toothache-like smile.

  “It doesn’t look like you could have survived,” I say. “Not without me.”

  “You’re right.” He laughs, then winces, reaching for his leg. ”You made it, Decca. They were right about you.”

  The mud shifts underneath the Super-V again, and Leo’s side slides lower toward the cliff.

  “It’s time for you to get out, Decca,” says Leo.

  “Not without you,” I insist.

  “My leg is stuck in the metal of the Super-V. Besides, our weight is what’s slightly keeping the balance. Once one of us steps outside the weight will shift, and the car will fall from the cliff. Only one can survive this.”

  “We can jump out together.”

  “I can’t, goddamit!” Leo yells at me. He wants me to leave. He believes I am more important than he is. Although I want to ask about this mission thing, I don’t think it’s the right time. Leo has been here for me all through the games. He might be some kind of guardian sent to save me in this crazy and unbelievable story of his, but I can count on what I feel for him to be genuine and true.

  “How about the kiss?” I ask.

  “Not again, Decca,” he says. “Time is running out.”

  “Did you kiss me in the dome?” I want to know.

  “You’re about to die, Decca. And all you want to know is whether I kissed you in the dome?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I know we kissed before you sedated me, so I take it that it was all business on your side, trying to save me. I know we kissed before we were going to die in the Super-V minutes ago, so I might believe it was a last kiss before dying thing. I know that everything you have done for me might have been part of the mission you were sent for, pretty soldier. But when I think about the dome, you had already saved me. You weren’t afraid of anything. You knew that your actions would be caught on live TV. You did it without letting me know. I understand why now. Because you thought you shouldn’t. You believed you were my guardian, sent for me on a mission, following your leader’s orders. So did you kiss me in the dome or not?” I have to admit, I think kissing me in the dome was a little weird on his part — if it actually happened. But it’s the only way I can make sure that what I think he feels for me is true.

  “Why do you need to know, Decca. Really? Why?” Leo’s questions resonates with me for a while. I even lean away from him. His stare is piercing through me. “We both know Woo isn’t just a friend,” he says, aching from the pain in his leg. My sinister mind wishes he aches from the pain of thinking I love Woo. “You don’t risk your life like this for just a friend. Knowing if I kissed you or not, isn’t going to get us anywhere. Your heart is his. Besides, this is a goddamn killing game. We’re not supposed to discuss this.” He let out an aching laugh.

  “This still doesn’t answer my question.” My stubborn brain is annoying, even to myself.

  “Yes,” says Leo, looking right into my eyes, sweating from the pain. “And it’s what makes me not regret dying anymore.”

  I let out a long sigh and lean forward again. This is not a reasonable move. My weight toward the cliff can kill us both. This isn’t a reasonable move. I should be in love with Woo, who I came to find or die with. This isn’t a reasonable move. I only know Leo a day or two ago, and you can’t say we even dated. This is not a reasonable move. This is my unreasonable gut feeling, pulling me toward someone I barely know. But wait. There is nothing left to know about someone you fought for your life with. All I know is I came here to die with Woo, but ended up living with Leo. “So you didn’t admit you did it because of Woo?”

  “Not just that. I am not supposed to. To the Breakfast Club, you’re like a princess, and I am just a guardian. Us? Together? That’s prohibited. And I am on a mission that could be part of saving our world from the Summit.”

  I smile with excitement when he says that. The Super-V shifts again. The audience holds its breath.

  “I won’t leave you,” I cry out. “You hear me. I won’t leave you. Just give me a minute, and I’ll find a way out.” I look up at the Zeppelins. “What’s wrong with you?” I yell at them. “Can’t you send us any of your tech-stuff to pick us up? We won the game already. Please!”

  “No can do,” says Timmy. He sounds different, as if he has been listening to our conversation, and feeling sentimental. Faustina is drying her Teen-Gene tears behind him, but she shies away when the camera closes in on her. “I am sorry, Decca,” says Timmy. Where is all the Bad Kidz, Monsters, and sarca
sm attitude? “Believe me, a lot of the audience voted for you. A lot of them consider you to have won the game, but the Summit believes you have to continue the game. Killing Carnivore isn’t enough, if you can’t pull yourself out of the Super-V.”

  “I won’t do that,” I say.

  “He is not going to make it,” Faustina yells angrily at me. “What kind of Monster are you! Stupid, unreasonable, and weird. That’s why you’re an outranked. Get out of the damn Super-V. He won’t make it.”

  The thought that fills my head is what if I win now. What will happen to me? Will I just follow the system, labeling people and marking them? I won’t get out unless Leo is with me. I need someone with me in this harsh world of Faya. Someone to accompany me and love me.

  “Decca,” Leo says softly. “I changed my mind. I am coming out with you.”

  “Really? How?”

  “There is a metal rod attached to the outer side of the Super-V,” Leo explains. “If you get it for me, I could push away the metal that is trapping my leg. I can do it. Trust me.”

  “Of course,” I say and turn around. “Right next to the door?”

  “Yes. All you have to do is open the door as slow as you can, and reach out for it.”

  I reach for the door and pull it open, then stretch out my hand, slowly looking for the metal rod, with my back to Leo.

  That’s when I know that he has betrayed me.

  He kicks me in the back out of the Super-V. I fall into the mud outside. The mud shifts like lava from a volcano down the cliff, pushing the Super-V to the edge.

  “No!” I scream, reaching out.

  “I love you,” Leo mouths, drawing the words silently with his lips. I see he has freed his wounded leg. I don’t know if he really does love me. I don’t know if he’d seen me since long before the games. I don’t know if the pressure of the games and the fear of dying made him say it. But even if it’s half a lie, I will believe in his words. I need to believe in them, so I have enough strength to survive. I don’t care if it’s a lie. My whole world has been a lie.

  Leo tries to jump down on his own, separated from the Super-V. But will he make it? It happens so fast. The mud feels like a magic carpet sliding away that I can’t pull back, however I try with all my might. Leo is falling over the cliff’s edge.

  38

  I crawl on all fours. But I am too late. The Super-V has fallen off the cliff, and Leo isn’t here anymore.

  Leo is gone.

  I cry so hard, I think tears will burst out of my bones.

  “Congratulations, Decca,” says Timmy flatly. “You’re the first to ever survive the Monster Show.”

  What? I won the games and lost Leo? Lost all of my friends? Lost my family? What kind of a victory is that? How can this be called winning?

  I keep crying on the edge of the cliff, trying to crane my head to look for Leo.

  But suddenly, the audience shrieks behind me. I turn around helplessly, tears on my face, wondering what the fuss is about. Isn’t it enough that Leo died? Didn’t they want a winner of the tenth Monster Show? Here I am, all broken-hearted.

  But that’s not why they shrieked.

  It’s Carnivore.

  It didn’t fall off the cliff like I thought. It’s staring at me with its white eye, breathing heavily, about to roar in my face before it finishes me off.

  Standing helplessly and shocked, I don’t know whether to give in to it or not. I take a cautious step back, while Carnivore stares at its last victim.

  If it kills me now, will I still be considered a winner?

  If he kills me now, will it send me to where Leo and Woo are?

  But it doesn’t kill me. It doesn’t need to. The mud underneath me shifts again and I slide down off the cliff.

  Freefalling sucks.

  I don’t know how far I am falling or what’s going to happen to me, watching the world I know escape me. The blue sky is abandoning me, and Carnivore is looking down at me from the edge of the cliff as I fall backwards, knowing it’s not a long flight down before I am gone. Is this how it ends? Falling? Just like that? Without a fight? Without a scream?

  I feel betrayed, like a strong and brave soldier who slips because of a banana peel all the way down in the middle of war, facing a disgraceful end he doesn’t deserve.

  No. Not like that. Not banana-slip style.

  I can do better than that.

  But how?

  I’m thinking that I still have time, even as my body hits the ground. Isn’t this too fast? I thought the cliff was steep.

  Before I faint, I find myself hanging between Heaven and Earth.

  39

  I wake up to a damn intolerable headache, with the sound of Leo and Woo’s voice saying: ‘If I could only see through your eyes.’

  Leo and Woo are gone. One is dead and the other, well, I hope not.

  I sit up wherever I am. All I see is a waterfall in front of me.

  Heaven?

  I have a headache, which turns out to be a good thing. It means I am still alive.

  Foam-like water is cascading down from the top of an enormous grey mountain in front of me, gliding like silver strings of silk, deep down into a river that runs to my left and right. Black rocks stand bravely against the white foaming current in the middle of the river. Amidst the rocks, I see Leo’s Super-V, turned onto its side, crashed and broken, and stuck between the rocks.

  I can’t see Leo though.

  I cover my eyes with my hands, afraid to get a glimpse of his corpse. A vision I don’t think I can handle.

  Where am I?

  I stand up, and the ground beneath me crackles. Boulders roll from under me and slide over the edge, down, deep down, into the river. My whole body aches. I spare myself from checking out the bruises. As long as I am still alive, it doesn’t matter. My right arm stings from where Carnivore slashed it.

  Taking a minute to get my bearings, I realize I am standing on a narrow ledge sticking out from the side of the mountain, midway between the cliff above me and the river below me. Looking up, I see the cliff’s edge about twenty to thirty feet above me. That’s why I am not dead. I was saved by crashing onto this small cave-like part sticking out of the mountain. How lucky is that?

  The mountain is grey and curvy. To my right and my left, I see a number of other ledges and caves. They are too far away though. I can’t jump that far. There is no way I can climb up either, since there is nothing to hang on to on the side of the mountain. Its surface is too smooth. Besides, with my right arm hurting so bad, I can’t use it for climbing. Even if I could climb, Carnivore is waiting for me up there.

  Looking downward is just as scary. It’s a long way down to the river. If I look long enough, I’ll go into a daze, faint, and fall. Having removed that iAm receptor from under my ear still makes me dizzy occasionally.

  I let out a long sigh, not believing I am actually still alive, but grateful that I am. I could have landed on my neck or on my head, but somehow I’ve landed on the backpack I am wearing, padded with all those things stuffed inside, absorbing some of the impact.

  I can’t believe this. I am standing in the middle of a large mountain, hanging midway between earth and sky. How am I going to get out of here? There’s no way I am going to jump into the river — although it could be done, but I don’t think I can bring myself to do it, and I am afraid I would hit one of those black rocks down there.

  Wow. This is an even better setting than the strangest you could possibly imagine in the games. Speaking of the games, where are the Zeppelins? Where is the damn audience, those who never get enough of the entertainment?

  I feel so alone with only the wind next to me, whispering through what’s left of my messed-up and scraped hair.

  Carnivore roars for me from above.

  “If you want me, come down here, if you dare,” I shout at it.

  “What does it take for you to stop following me?” a voice moans behind me.

  I snap and turn around. It’s Leo, lying o
n his back, his leg bleeding badly.

  He is sprawled back in the small cave behind me, too small and too low. You’d have to crouch or lie on your back like him to get inside.

  “Leo!” I scream with joy, and duck to hug him in the cave. “You’re alive.”

  The cave is too narrow, so I stretch my body on top of him, with the cave’s ceiling only a hand-span above me.

  “Even Hell is too crowded,” he mumbles, feeling my body over his. I think he is hallucinating. His eyes flutter, and his breathing is irregular. He has lost a lot of blood.

  “Leo.” I grab his head with my hands. “It’s me. It’s me.”

  “Who?” He cranes his head a little, and winces when he does. “God?”

  “It’s Decca, Leo. Please wake up.” I shake his head and discover it’s a bad idea, since his eyes slip shut and his head falls back. I wipe the sweat and dirt off his forehead, trying to wake him up again. “Leo,” I moan one more time.

  He wakes, opening his weary eyes again. “Hi, God,” he says, looking at me, but not really seeing me. “It’s me, Leo.” He stares at me, but he looks as if he has forgotten everything.

  “I am not God, Leo,” I yell at him, shaking him. “Decca. I am Decca. D. Pixie. The girl you were sent to protect.”

  “I hear you, God,” he mumbles, and lets his head fall back again. “I hear you. You don’t have to yell at me. I tried my best, you know.”

  “This can’t be happening,” I say to myself, part of me wanting to wake him up, and another part so glad he is still alive. “Please God, help him.”

  “I am not God, God,” says Leo, as if he were drunk. “You’re God. Stay brave, God. We need you.” He is out of this world.

  “I am not God!” I insist, and hit his head accidentally against the boulders on the ground again. This time, my heart aches. “I can prove it to you,” I say, and plaster my lips onto his, tasting him and the blood trickling from his wounded head.

  After I kiss him, his head rests in peace with closed eyes, and a broad smile fills his face. All he needs is a tuxedo and a rose between his hands, and this will officially look like his funeral.