I Am Alive

by Cameron Jace

  Why toward me?

  Squinting, I don’t have the guts to open my eyes wider, or close them shut. If it hasn’t seen me so far, I don’t want any changes in its surroundings to alarm it. Maybe it is just walking. I don’t mind if it steps over me, thinking I am just sandy earth, but that will never happen. It will know me.

  The sand starts falling into my mouth. That’s the part I was afraid of.

  Carnivore stops, a couple of strides away from my feet. I want to cough some sand out.

  Carnivore cranes its head down and slashes at something in the ground, a couple of feet away from me. I hold my breath. I don’t even have the luxury of gritting my teeth, or fisting my hands.

  It bites on that something, then roars with its head up to the sky. I see it now, what made it approach me. It isn’t me. It’s one of my red dress pieces.

  Carnivore chews on it then roars again, angrier this time. Not all that’s red is meaty, right?

  The way people panic in my ears when they see Carnivore roar so close with its mouth and fangs visible in front of me is epic, in an annoying way. I am not that scared. Am I?

  But Carnivore seems to trust its genetically manipulated senses that there is meat to be found so close to it. It takes a step forward. Oh my God. It’s so close to my feet now. Please God, let me sink deeper in the sand. I’ll hold my breath.

  Suddenly, something swooshes before my legs. It gets Carnivore crazy. Is that what I think I saw? An animal. A small fast animal with pink ears?

  It swooshes again underneath Carnivore. Some rabbit. Carnivore turns around, and starts running into the dark of the whites after the rabbit.

  What brings a rabbit in here?

  I cough out the sand, and pick myself up fast. I dig out my backpack, strap it on, and start running.

  I make a mental note. A rabbit saved my life… but this is no Wonderland.

  Don’t think and analyze, Decca.

  Run. Decca. Run.

  How long will I be running? I need to organize my thoughts, and complete my plan. First part was successful. Carnivore can’t see me in white.

  I run toward the pole.

  The plan is to run to the pole, dig up the bow gun, climb up and shoot Carnivore from there. I have only one problem. I can’t see the pole. I must have run far away, but that couldn’t be. It’s just that looking into this awful endless white confuses me. The pole is silver and thin. If I am far away, I might not see it.

  I run like crazy. I have to find it.

  Suddenly, my vision gets better, as if I’ve been blind before. I am starting to see thin lines in the sand, lines in the dunes, and the changes in the color of sand. I guess that is what they call adapting. What if the whole world were white like this?

  I see the pole.

  The pole sways to a sudden wind, whirling through the sand. It doesn’t make the long pole with the ladder look reliable at all. And what’s that sudden wind? Didn’t they say they won’t do any more of these effects?

  Digging up the bow gun and arrows, I bring them up with me, climbing up the pole. The wind is still crazy and the pole swings, but I grab it tight and keep climbing, until I can see the Zeppelins hovering around the Monsterium, face to face now.

  If I had some superpower and could jump from the pole to the Zeppelins, that would have been — stop.

  I hold on tight to the pole and get ready to shoot Carnivore. Although I don’t know if a couple of arrows could finish him, this doesn’t seem to be the problem at all.

  The real problem is that I am a failure. I am stupid. I thought I could outsmart that creature, but I am short-sighted. I thought that up here I could see it moving from such a bird’s eye view, and shoot it.

  I don’t see anything. The white stripe-less tiger is somewhere down there, but I can’t see it. I don’t think that I am even seeing the ground with that sudden whirling wind.

  Climbing lower, I see a little better, but not enough to shoot Carnivore. The wind keeps hitting the pole, and I keep struggling for balance. How much lower can I climb, before it can bite me? Shouldn’t it see me by now, with the bow gun and the shaking pole?

  But Carnivore manages to surprise me, bumping against the pole at the bottom. It roars, looking up at me. I am not sure if it sees me, or if it just sensed me being up there as I hold on tighter to the pole. I cross and wrap my legs around the steps sticking out of the pole, as I hold the bow gun with my hands. If I climb lower and focus, I think I can see Carnivore when it bumps against the pole.

  I climb lower. Carnivore gets fiercer. But I can’t shoot it. I don’t get to see it long enough when it bumps against the pole. The only way to shoot it is to get it to roar, looking upward at me. When it roars and shows its fangs, I can shoot it in the throat.

  How can I make it roar when I want it to?

  Carnivore is gone. Where is it? It might be circling around the pole. I don’t know.

  I climb a little lower. The audience holds their breath in my ears, as if Carnivore is going to bite them, not me. I like that. Hold that breath, just don’t scream in my ears. I hit the pole hard with the edge of the bow gun. It produces a cling-cling sound that echoes in the abandoned Monsterium.

  Carnivore bumps into the pole again, and roars. I got its attention, but it is not looking upward.

  “Ding ding,” I shout at it, and hit the pole repeatedly. “Up here!”

  Carnivore looks up and roars. I see its mouth. I aim the cross bow, as I keep shouting at it to provoke it and get its attention.

  “Look at me, pretty boy,” I mumble, as I close one eye and aim at my target. The audience repeats like parrots in my ear, “Look at me, pretty boy.”

  How annoying. “Shut up,” I scream at them.

  Carnivore becomes quiet all of a sudden.

  “Not you!” I yell at it, and start hitting the pole with the bow gun again. Since when does Carnivore follow orders?

  Carnivore roars again, looking upward. It tries to climb up, its nails scratching the bottom of the pole. I point the cross bow at it again. I have to take this shot.

  I shoot.

  I’d like to say “Bull’s eye” or “Tiger’s eye,” but I shoot it in its throat. The arrow plunges into its throat, and it lets out the worst cry I’ve ever heard. It’s so loud and painful, I get goosebumps on the back of my neck.

  The goosebumps make me lose balance. I hang on tighter to the pole, but as I do, the rest of the arrows fall down into the white sands.

  Carnivore keeps moaning and roaring, out of pain and wrath. So I hit it in the throat and lost my arrows. What now?

  Carnivore flees back into the white of the sands. What’s on its mind? The arrow in its throat surely hurt it, but it’s not dead yet. It can survive. I have lost my arrows. Now all it has to do is wait until my muscles give up on me and I fall down from the pole.

  Nice job, Decca.

  Opening my backpack, I rummage through it looking for an extra arrow, which is impossible, but somehow I just cling to the unreasonable hope. I don’t find any. I have clothes, food, a knife, and two buzzing syringes, the kind I used on Leo.

  Even if I have a chance to kill Carnivore with the knife or the buzzers, how will I approach it while I can’t see it?

  The only way to kill Carnivore is to see it. The only way to see it is to mark it or color it. I need some kind of color, something I can paint it with. If I have succeeded in disguising myself with the honey-glued-sand, I can make Carnivore appear. I just need to figure out how.

  Looking at what I still have with me, I don’t know how to make anything colorful with a syringe buzzer, nor with clothes or food. My heart beats faster, as I stare at the knife. A dangerous and crazy thought bleeds in my brain. It’s the only way.

  It’s the hard way.

  It’s what I’d never thought I do.

  It will be either the death of Carnivore, or the death of me.

  48

  The audience is debating about what is going on in my mind after I passed the be
ating of my heart to them. Imagine that: your heart is beating so fast and you’re afraid, not having the slightest idea why. The only reason you know is that because Decca is afraid, you’re afraid too. That ClairVo is really something.

  I put everything back in the backpack and strap it on, then straighten up on the pole. I summon Carnivore with its name, climbing down. Why didn’t I think of that before? It is trained, and somehow it does understand like a human. Summoning it by its name provokes it, and makes it curious.

  It shines through the white, running toward me. I climb up again, having just fooled it for a moment.

  “World,” I address the audience. “Take a deep breath, because right now I will show you how this is done.” I look down at Carnivore. “I don’t think you have ever seen anything like this.” That last sentence goes for Carnivore, as much as it goes for the world.

  I close my eyes as I hold out one bare palm, and don’t hesitate before I cut through it with my knife. The pain in my arm is indescribable. I just cut myself on purpose. I scream all alone to the top of the world, while the world screams with me, feeling my pain. It occurs to me suddenly that if I die, shouldn’t they die too through the ClairVo? Nah, it’s not that fantastic.

  “Carnivore!” I scream, holding a syringe in my unwounded hand, and one tucked between my teeth in my mouth. I climb down fast, as close as possible, and swing my wounded and bleeding hand at him, spattering him with blood from my hand on it big ugly eye. Then when it closes in for a tiny second, I spatter it again with my own blood. Its head and its back are spattered with shiny red blood that belongs to me.

  I climb back up fast, as Carnivore roars behind me.

  Looking from up here, I can see it now, marked with my blood.

  “Now I can see you, you ugly—” I say from above.

  Of course, the audience repeats the words after me.

  I take one last breath with both syringes in my hands, and focus on Carnivore.

  “Every girl dies,” I remind myself. And before I finish the phrase, the audience amazingly, and for the first time, finishes for me. “But not every girl really lives.”

  I jump.

  Yes. I jump from this high onto Carnivore’s back. It’s the only way to do it. If you want to fight a giant, claw onto his back, and never let it go. If you’re an ant, and you want to outlive an elephant, climb up onto its head, and tickle it in the ear.

  I have jumped many times before in the game. I don’t worry about jumping anymore. Let the audience go crazy.

  The first thing that hits my face is its back. I am lucky it didn’t slash at me. I wrap myself around it, holding to its coat so tightly that the veins in my hands pop to the surface of my skin. Carnivore goes crazy, surprised by me being on its back, still looking for me. Before it shakes me off its back by running as fast as it can, I hit it with one syringe as hard as I can and push the red button, while clawing onto its coat with my hands and legs. I don’t let go of the red button like Leo taught me.

  “Buzz to death, Carnivore.” I keep my thumb on the button. Carnivore starts to slow down. At least, it doesn’t try to shake me off its back anymore. Since one syringe doesn’t seem enough, I pull the other syringe from my mouth, and buzz it again.

  I keep my thumb locked on the button. Carnivore stops and falls to its knees, rearing vertically with its paws up to the sky, like a mad horse in pain. I guess it’s an unexpected reflex response to the electrocution. I swing straight with it, digging my feet into its coat and wrapping my arms around its neck, not taking my thumbs off the button until Carnivore gives up, and drops dead on its stomach.

  I didn’t want to do this to an animal. I love animals. A rabbit saved my life, remember? I remind myself it is not an animal. It is just some kind of a man/animal/machine like Xitler.

  Almost fainting, I lay on Carnivore’s back, resting my cheek on its coat. Not the worst of beds, I tell myself. I brush my hand gently over it, and pat it. “It’s all right, Carni,” I whisper to it, as it moans its last breath. “We’ve taken the pain away. You’re better off away from this mad world.”

  The audience sings, dances, and talks. Some are shocked, some are astonished, and some are whatever.

  As my eyelids throb from exhaustion, I shake myself awake, and buzz Carnivore one more time. “Don’t take this personally,” I whisper in its dead ears. “It’s like making sure the door is locked before you go to sleep.” I stand up.

  Looking at the cut in my hand with the blood gushing out, I wonder why it doesn’t hurt as bad now. I use the gushing blood, and smear a big number ten on Carnivore’s back.

  As I do, I smell something like a burning wire. I take it that Carnivore was some kind of machine and now that it’s dead, something is frying inside. I don’t investigate it though.

  The audience goes wild after this.

  A voice sneaks through, and talks to me in my ears. “So the Breakfast Club was right about you,” says Leo. He sounds tired.

  My heart flutters. I can almost imagine myself with wings. “About what exactly?” I ask, wondering why I feel like kissing him right now. “About being a Ten?”

  “About being the Monster I am in love with,” he teases.

  I laugh. “So you’re over the God thing now?” I ask, watching the crowd celebrating like crazy up there in the Zeppelins.

  “What?” Leo asks.

  “Nah.” I wave my hand, panting, unable to comprehend the crowd’s enthusiasm. “Forget about it. You won’t remember,” I say, as I’m showered with flowers from the sky all over again.

  “In the name of the Burning Man, the nation of Faya announces…” Xitler declares in the main microphone. “For the first time in history, boys and girls — we have a Ten!”

  Tears are about to spurt out of my eyes, as the audience hails me. I am a Ten? By whose standards? What about all the other kids who died? As overwhelming and euphoric as the feeling is, there’s something not right here.

  But what should I do? If society declares me a Ten, which might seem close to being a god walking among them, what other options do I have?

  I am just a normal girl — abnormal-looking, being bald and blood-spattered now — who just wanted to graduate and go to the Prom. Not that I didn’t have big dreams after that, but I don’t want to be a Ten. I came here to find my friend Woo, and ended up finding who I really am, what I am capable of.

  The world has thrown me to the lions, and I have won.

  Should I stay here in Dizny Battlefieldz, and never leave? What could I possibly do all alone here?

  It’s either the Playa or the world outside. It would be insane if I don’t choose the world outside, with all that it offers me right now.

  In my iAm, Mom is driven to tears, Dad too. Faustina is waving at me, and Timmy is astonished, but plays happy with everyone else.

  “Leo,” I call him on my iAm.

  “Yes?” he says, still aching.

  “Where are you?” I ask.

  “I am on my way out of the hospital, champ,” he says. “The world is waiting for you outside of the Playa. I’ll meet you there. You want anything?”

  “How did you know about the ‘I wish I could see through your eyes’ phrase?”

  Leo stops. He doesn’t answer me. “What do you mean?” he asks.

  “You know the phrase you said to me when you were falling from the cliff?”

  “I said something when I was dying? I don’t remember.”

  “It’s all right,” I say. It might not be the right time to argue right now. “Maybe I just imagined it. I’ll meet you outside.”

  49

  A Zeppelin picks me up from the Monsterium. The Malikas cover me in a silken robe with golden stripes and a hood. The Malikas want to take care of me and bathe me, but I prefer to go out to the public in my Monster condition. Perhaps if I am a Ten out there, I can help make it a better world.

  We land on top of the slope of Dizny Battlefieldz, back where it all started. When I open the door, the world is
waiting for me: my fans. Young kids under sixteen, reaching out for my autograph behind the red rail, as if I am some celebrity. Kids are waving at me with plastic light sabers in their hands.

  I step out on the red carpet toward them. I accept my fate. I am a Ten. I deserve it, in a world where you have to say your number out loud — and sometimes kill for it. What was the number of the human spirit again? I guess it’s a Ten after all.

  A face from inside the crowd. It’s Leo on a cane. I let out a laugh. Leo, bandaged, and on a cane seems like the Tenth Wonder of the World to me. He waves silently at me. “I am your number one fan,” he mouths with his silent lips from a distance.

  A couple of steps across the carpet, I remember that I forgot something. Something important. I reach out and pick up one of the toy swords from a kid who instantly calls his friends to brag about Decca, the Ten, borrowing his sword.

  The sword is plastic and produces green lights when you shake it. It will do. I raise the sword up in the sky, and shout, “I am alive!”

  The world shouts with me, clapping, screaming, and praising.

  As I have my sword up in the sky, the white ring on my finger pulses in a blue color. It’s the ring the seven-year-old girl left behind in the forest.

  Suddenly, I hear other sounds coming through the iAm. No, they’re not the audience.

  “Silence,” I scream at the audience, trying to listen to the sounds. “Silence,” I repeat. Amazingly, the audience stops making noises. “Listen,” I say, looking at my iAm.

  “I am alive,” a girl says in my iAm. The iAm says she is unidentified. Is that the girl from the forest?

  “I am alive,” another boy says. Also unidentified by the iAm.

  Prophet Xitler stands up as his face knots, and the audience is in awe.

  “I am alive,” a third voice says. This time the iAm identifies it: Monster number 1733, from the eighth Monster Show.

  “I am alive,” a fourth voice announces slowly, as if a little intimidated by confessing she is alive. The iAm identifies her as Monster number 463, from the Monster Show four years ago.