by P. S. Lurie
“Theia, you know better than anyone else the danger of trying to escape.
“You have two hours to work together with anyone with you at the start of the Third Cull. Ruskin and Jack, I hope that you have been reunited by now, if one of you has not frozen to death. Theia, are you still alone? And Selene, patience is a virtue whilst family is a curious thing.
“Please understand that I have done everything to keep you all alive as proof of my loyalty towards you and that I am impressed with each and every one of you.
“The third and final of the Great Culls is now upon you. It is no longer about killing within your family, nor is it about surviving over strangers in a prison. Tonight you will have to kill your friends. Should more than one of the families be alive at eight o’clock, the guards will terminate all of you. To reiterate – and I apologise that my message is not word perfect because I wanted to speak from the heart – anyone trying to leave their house throughout the night will be shot instantly, and should more than one family be alive at eight my guards will storm the houses and kill you all. Considering history, I am convinced that this won’t be a problem.
“I do apologise that I cannot be with you but I so look forward to greeting one of your families when the victors have been decided. I remember my words from the Great Cull clearly. Let me repeat them here: it will be your choice who dies and how this should happen.
“I am sure you’re eager to begin so let me conclude by paraphrasing other words from that first Surge: I hope you are all pleased with the kindness I extend and the opportunities this affords you. Each and every one of us has a sacrifice to make, and finally you will determine your own fates. I appreciate your mandatory compliance with this process, which will enable us to create Utopia and I wish you all the best of luck for the next two hours. Thank you for your cooperation and I look forward to meeting some of you soon.”
With that, the television channel fuzzes out.
Jack’s alive.
I try to make sense of President Callister’s speech. She thinks that whoever is the last standing will take over her rule. It doesn’t make sense to my muddled head but she’s put us back in the nightmare scenario we’ve experienced twice before: kill or be killed. Only this time she’s put us into groups.
Families. Jack and Ruskin are together, but what does that mean for Selene and me?
I bound upstairs, not knowing who might be waiting for me.
Selene
President Callister wants Ruskin, Jack, Theia and me to fight one another. Her belief that we would continue her leadership seems ludicrous but I don’t doubt her sincerity that we’ll collude with her latest rules. Surely the others won’t buy into the idea of killing one another but she seems to think that we won’t hold back with a deadline looming.
Then I mull over President Callister’s idea of family, that I’ll be joined in here. But I have no one left alive. I watched my mother die and I killed my father.
No...
She told me to be patient but I don’t have to wait too long as the television reverts to static and, before I have time to turn it off, the front door opens. I watch as a man enters, smiling full beam at me. I want to scream but remain immobile as he greets me.
“Honey, I’m home.”
I’m paralysed and have to listen to the same sardonic drawl that has repeated on loop in my head for the last half a year.
“Hi princess.”
6 P.M. – 7 P.M.
Theia
The stairs feel never-ending, the top landing forever away. This moment of not knowing what’s waiting for me drags on but then the spell breaks and I’m along the hallway in front of my bedroom. There’s no one inside.
I move through to the boxed-in room where I find Ronan sitting in the corner with Leda on his lap, my baby sister grown up but placid once more, impossible for her to remember the terror that went on here. “Hi Theia,” my brother says. “Sorry about all of that today.”
I’m too stunned to reply.
Ronan has a sly smile across his face and seems unbothered about our reunion whilst Leda clings to him. She was always a happy baby and she’s as calm as I’ve ever seen her but how can she be happy here where our father tried to smother her and then he was stabbed to death? I remember: he might not have been her father. Then again, what difference when I killed Dr Jefferson this morning with her watching on.
I find my voice. “How much did you see her these past six months?”
“Not often. They trained me hard.” He sweeps his hand out to the room, the house, the Middlelands. “I didn’t know about this. I mean, I was back here this morning but I didn’t come inside.”
“But you heard just now?”
“The announcement. About the cull? I guess we’re a team.”
I think about the others. Ruskin and Jack. Selene and whoever she is with. Melissa? Maddie? “We’re not killing any of them.”
Ronan lifts Leda towards me. “You babysit then.” He laughs, nothing like the brother I remember and I stare at him, an emotionless killing machine that had everyone fooled today. “You know that we don’t have a choice.”
I think back to the great cull, eighteen months ago. It came as a complete surprise to us then but I managed to work around it by saving my siblings. People died, but not everyone. Then there was a second cull across the prison and the Utopia so nothing President Callister says is a shock to me.
“Come on Theia, we die or they do.”
Ronan is no longer in a uniform and I can’t see a weapon; it doesn’t mean he hasn’t concealed one but I guess President Callister wants us on a level playing field. Three families against one another, no advantage, only that I can’t imagine the others will fight but I know it doesn’t matter because in the previous culls it only took one person to start a war.
Ronan sees me inspecting him. “They stripped me of everything. Thought it wouldn’t be a fair fight.”
“How about no one dies?”
“Then they kill us all.”
“There won’t be a fight,” I reply mindlessly, relieved that for now Ronan seems to be going nowhere; I shrug off what he’ll do if time runs out and think about President Callister’s final plan: whoever lives will take over her rule. “This is what she’s wanted? Someone determined? Surely she could have found someone in the Upperlands.”
“The sheep?”
That’s the same word I heard earlier today. Sheep. That conversation this morning feels like a lifetime ago. All of the fighting in the fortress, Zeke, releasing animals, the shopping mall is a distant memory. All we have now is this claustrophobic hell.
“Go talk to your friends. Figure it out.”
“What happened to you?” I know he was brainwashed but Selene and I both managed to break the hold and I’m scared that Ronan has embraced President Callister’s ideology without need for mind tricks.
“I was given a good life. You can have one too. Look at this ruin. We have a chance to be part of something great. All three of us.”
“Mum and dad would despair.”
He shrugs. “They’re dead. I don’t really care.”
“I don’t understand.” I wonder if he knew about our mother’s affair and my father trying to kill us but the truth is more distressing.
“They chose you to live over me,” he says, pained. It’s the most emotive response that I’ve heard from him. “They didn’t love me at all.”
The idea stops me in my tracks. I want to argue back and tell him that it isn’t true. I want to reassure him that our parents were forced to make an unthinkable choice and they can’t be blamed for what happened that night but instead my throat clams up. I turn around to leave. I have to talk to Henry... in that split-second I was back during the first cull; it’s been a long time since I relived the past but now, in the house in which everything in my life first went wrong, the past merges with the present.
“Henry’s dead,” I whisper to myself.
Ronan throws me a cruel smile.
“Clock’s ticking.”
I walk out, concealing my tears when my brother calls after me. “You might think they’re your friends but watch your back.”
Selene
“I thought you were dead.”
“You sound disappointed.”
I’ve struggled with not knowing Nathaniel’s status for so long that I was confused whether I wanted him alive or dead. Now, standing in front of me, I know that I’m displeased to see him. President Callister’s command makes it even more troublesome because apparently we’re supposed to work together to kill the others.
“Selene?”
“I heard you.”
He smiles, that same wickedly charming smile from the first time I saw him from the doorway when he stood outside on the street. “You left me to die.”
“What can I say, I made a mistake.”
He narrows his eyes at me, deciphering what I meant. “I’ve missed you.”
I groan. “How could you miss me? I left you for dead.”
“I loved you and you loved me.”
“No,” I protest. “It was all a lie. Our relationship was a sham.”
“That’s not true.”
“I would have saved you if I loved you. Even if I did you killed my mother.”
“And you killed my father.”
He knows about Dr Penn, only not everything. “He wasn’t your father. He told me he tricked you. How does it feel to be the one lied to?”
The smile again and in that instant I doubt the words I’m saying.
“Is that what he told you? Sorry Selene but I really am your brother. He came for me in the Upperlands.”
I don’t have any interest in arguing this case because if it is true then what the two of them did to me is even more disgusting than I thought. I don’t care whether Dr Penn loved my mother or Nathaniel or not. “He deserved to die.”
“We could have been so happy.”
“On the Utopia?” It’s my turn to laugh.
“Granted, I didn’t expect that. Our father tried to explain but I was too focused on marrying you on board. Then you kicked up a fuss and he wasn’t able to finish telling me. That still wasn’t enough for you because you refused to listen when you went back for his thumb.”
“So why didn’t he tell you sooner?”
“I think he tried but you were insistent on going to the arena. He couldn’t risk you blurting out the truth.”
“It didn’t exactly go well for you, did it, with me seeing my mother?”
“No, that’s something we can agree on. Anyway, it’s in the past. So this is Henry’s house.”
“Don’t make yourself at home. You heard the announcement?”
“Sort of. They told me on the way here. Decided you’d enjoy having an ally on your side before killing the others. You know this means we could rule the new world. I dreamt too small, thinking President Callister would attend our wedding. Now think what she’ll do for us.”
My expression reads ‘never going to happen’ but he doesn’t stop.
“Then we can not only marry but rule together. That’s what President Callister wanted. Theia is one thing to her but you’ve proven yourself. Your determination shines through, Selene. It’s why I love you. We’ll need a new dress of course.”
“You’re vile.” I turn to leave.
“And you’re programmed to live. You know what we have to do in the next two hours. I know you Selene, your drive for survival. You’ll kill if you need to.”
Part of what he says is true. Throughout everything that’s happened I’ve never wanted to give up. But he’s focusing on the wrong target. “I’ll kill you.”
He dismisses my threat. “Then you’ll be at a disadvantage when the others come. I really did miss you when I was up in the fortress recovering. I understand you went through some rehab yourself.”
I walk out without replying, frustrated with myself for not fighting him right now. For one, he looks in good shape and I’m not sure I’d overpower him, especially if I can’t guarantee he wouldn’t fight me back. But the main reason is something I hate admitting to myself: if the others do come to kill me I have no doubt that I’d retaliate. I think back to the last time I was here, with Henry and his parents and the same determination to survive kept me going. Do I have it in me to kill those I trust most of all? Could I live with myself?
I need to figure out my best plan but in the meantime I go to the kitchen to look for a weapon.
Ruskin
We sit in uncomfortable silence, not reassured by the fact that we don’t have to kill one another because all that means is that we are both allowed to live in exchange for our friends’ deaths. Jack is the first to break our lull in conversation or activity.
“Who do you think is in each house?”
I shake my head. The last we saw Maddie and Melissa they were heading into the fortress and I doubt they were successful in breaking through if President Callister is still composed but I also can’t imagine they are here if their names weren’t called.
“Maybe Ronan and Leda,” Jack says.
“Even after he betrayed us.”
“He’s her family. I don’t know why but I trust President Callister this time. This might be a game to her but whoever survives will be free.”
“I’m not killing anyone.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I’m sorry.” I feel my anger bubble up and then filter out, jumping on Jack’s words and twisting them when I know he would never turn on Theia and Selene. “So let’s figure out what we should do.”
“Haven’t given up yet, have we? By the way, Theia’s speech...”
I know that Jack refers to it whenever we’ve had to question what we need to do to survive. Theia told us in the prison that we would had to face awful decisions, including killing others so that we could live. “Doesn’t apply here,” I say, finishing his line, and he nods agreeably. “First things first, we look for an exit route.”
We both know the house well and go upstairs, retracing my path to where I woke up this evening. We cross over to the window that overlooks the street. In the centre of the road between the two rows of burnt out cars is a line of child soldiers, stretching as far as we can see. They wear helmets but as we make our presence known some tilt their heads up to meet our eyes.
I lead Jack to the back of the house and in all of the houses overlooking this one more guards make themselves known, watching on from behind windows. “We’re surrounded. Damn.”
I think about the prison, how its four walls trapped us but also protected us from the outside. Enclosed by children with guns, the prison seems a paradise in comparison.
“What now?” I ask.
“Let’s see how the others are holding up.”
A chill runs along my spine as I consider that we could be heading into an unwanted fight and I have to hope that the others are just as unlikely to fight us as we are them but, not knowing who might be waiting for us, I clench my fists, preparing for a battle just in case.
Melissa
Travis, Claire, Tess and I hurry through the Middlelands, not falling for the illusion that because it’s quiet means it’s safe because somewhere out there an army is being commanded to hold off on an attack. We know this because Tess made the wise decision to strip a dead soldier and take his uniform; even though it didn’t fit, his radio seemed to be playing through a stream of noise and, on the turn of the hour, President Callister spoke to Theia, Selene, Ruskin and Jack. We didn’t understand it at first but that’s all that she said, with no mention of the war down at the sea so there’s no way to know whether everyone is safe or if the soldiers have detected them. Claire is visibly shaken but that might be less about her children and more that her arm is causing her aggravation.
I carry the weighty uniform and dial Cal’s number but there’s no reply.
“You seem to be walking with some purpose,” says Travis.
“I’m certain I know where they are.” Theia
and the others, for whatever twisted reason, were flown back to their houses. The street might not be safe so I know the best way to free them. Only, with that is the very thing I’ve dreaded: returning to my house. I think back to the night that I communicated with Theia, whilst my parents were downstairs, dead before sunrise.
Out of nowhere, a boy’s voice calls to me. “Melissa?”
I hold the device to my mouth. “Cal.”
“You’re ok.”
“You too. The others?”
“You didn’t hear. I think they’re back in the Middlelands. President Callister wants them to kill one another. The victor will take control of the Upperlands.”
“Francine?”
“I don’t know. Is Maddie there?”
“Hey.” Her voice is croaky over the speaker. “We managed to make it into the fortress. Cal has a plan but it’s going to be risky. You need to get this device to Theia.”
“I’ll do my best. I’ll turn this off for now because we’re near the houses.”
“Ok, good luck.”
“You too.” I don’t know what Cal and Maddie had to do to make it into the fortress but perhaps there weren’t that many guards once we all left and they walked through, pretending to be two more on the Upperlands’ side.
Two streets away and I have to bat away thoughts of what happened in my past. I need to let go of it for now and focus on Theia instead.
“Ssh,” Claire says.
I listen to footsteps approaching.
“They must have the place surrounded,” says Tess.
“We’re so close.”
“You all get in there,” Travis says, pushing me towards a dip where a hedge has since decomposed in an unkempt garden. “It’s not completely dark so maybe they won’t be wearing their glasses just yet.”