“They’re the main reason I faint. I didn’t want to tell you in the forest, but they have bad side effects. You got a bar of chocolate in that bag?”
“What?” I almost laugh. “You don’t want water, but you want chocolate?”
“Water is for survival, you’ll need it, and I probably won’t make it,” he says. “Chocolate strikes me as one last thing I would want to taste before—”
“Hey,” I interrupt. “Don’t say that.” I pull out one of the candy bars from the bag. Vern’s favorite: Flame, the burning chocolate. It’s my favorite too.
Leo unwraps it with his teeth and takes a bite.
“I hate chocolate, you know,” he says, chewing painfully on it.
I laugh. “So why did you ask me for one?”
“Because you like it,” he says without even looking at me. I wonder what is wrong with this guy. Is this supposed to be romantic, that he wants to taste something he doesn’t like because I like it? But he is so stiff when he says it. “I thought if I taste it, I’d understand what keeps you ticking. How you just don’t give up.”
I can’t believe Leo is telling me that. So far, he has been Mr. Survival, not me.
“It’s awful.” He spits it out and falls back again. Those electric shocks have messed with his mind. I have one syringe left in the bag. I’ll have to think twice before I use it next time.
I hit him on the chest. “Don’t fall asleep before you talk to the camera.” He has to say ‘I am alive’. I wonder why Timmy hasn’t been pushy about this in the last few minutes.
His eyes flip open suddenly, looking up at the night sky. “Am I alive?” he wonders and his head falls back again.
“That counts.” I look back at Timmy in the iAm. “The rules are to say ‘I am alive’. It never specified it couldn’t be in question form, and never specified that the words had to be in the right order.”
“All right. All right.” Timmy is still yawning. “Don’t get philosophical on me. You sound like my English teacher. See you in the sixth hour… if you make it that far.”
The sixth hour is like when you know you’re getting closer to the dance, having kept your dress neat, having cared less about what people think of you, and having gotten used to the dark. Although you hear every strange sound in the night, you meet a homeless dog, a cute one who doesn’t scare you. It’s obvious that the dog just wants to walk along with you, keeping you company. That’s when you learn that not everything in the dark of the night is so dark. Good creatures live in the shadows sometimes.
Leo keeps wincing while asleep. I tighten my grip on the syringe in my hand, hoping I won’t need to use it to wake him up.
“Bee,” Leo moans. “Bee.”
What is it now? Who is Bee? Is this the part when I discover that he is in love with another girl named Bee?
I can’t help but wonder how things like this interest me when all I have to focus on is staying alive.
“Who is Bee?” I ask, trying to sound uninterested as possible.
The viewer meter spikes a little. Leo is far more interesting to them than I am. I bet those are the bored girls who have nowhere to go to tonight, crashing at home on their beds, watching TV, looking for the next soap opera, the next unbelievable but heart-wrenching love story, the next princess, the next prince charming, ready with their popcorn, ice-cream, and tear-friendly napkins. I bet some of them sit barefoot on the edge of the bed, dressed to kill, with no one to go out with. TV and games: the perfect substitute for real life.
“Who is Bee?” I repeat my question.
Girls comment about how I stupid I am on the iAm network, how I thought Leo could be interested in me, now that it is apparent that he is moaning for a Bee. What’s her name? they ask. Some say Beatrice, Bianca, and so many other names.
“Bee—” Leo moans again. “Honey.”
Okay. Now it’s official. Bee and Honey, the love of Leo’s life.
The girls moan on the network that their boyfriends don’t call them ‘honey’ enough. Boys in Faya, they all have to follow the footsteps of hotshot Leo from now on.
“Honey…”
I grit my teeth. Press harder on the syringe. I could get rid of Leo right now. I don’t want him to die of a heart attack. Should I push him over the edge and get rid of him? It’s a killing game anyway. Another one bites the dust. The audience will be so happy that the game is about to end — but the girls won’t.
Nah. Pushing him over the edge is too harsh. I still like him. I could just give him another electric shock from the syringe, buzzing him a little, not much so he doesn’t die, pretending I am waking him up for the next ‘I am alive’, eye candy myself with him shivering in pain. Muahaha. I think I am starting to hallucinate like him.
Who the hell is Bee?
“Honeybee,” he moans.
Suddenly, I notice that flying bee again, the one that used to sit by the two lonesome flowers at the edge of the cave. It has landed back on his nose. Leo says I can’t wave it away, or it will sting him. Nothing good in that. He will suffer more pain, and the poor bee will die, instead of sucking on the honey in the flowers.
Ah. Honey. Bee. Stupid. Me.
“Should I kill it?” I ask Leo.
“Nah,” he says with closed eyes. “Shake the flowers a little.” He is talking as slow as possible. “Remind her of what’s important to her.”
“Her? How do you know it’s a her?” I ask.
“It’s not like she is naked or anything.” Leo speaks slow, afraid to disturb the bee, so she doesn’t panic and sting him. “They’re queen bees, right? I never met a king bee.” He sounds funny when talks, like Donald Duck, because of the bee on his nose.
I shake the flowers a little. The bee flies back and starts sucking on the flowers.
I look at her and the flowers, being here, so far from her kingdom and other bees, still hanging on, sucking on the flowers restlessly, and not giving up. I remind myself that not everything in the dark is so dark. And that not every girl dies like Eliza said.
“I am alive,” Leo says, trying to smile at me. “How about you?” he asks.
“You know damn well I am,” I hit back.
When I look back at my iAm, there are thousands of comments and questions. One of them intrigues me. I decide to share it with Leo.
“A girl on the iAm has a question for you, Leo.” I read it out and look at him. “Is your nose made of honey?” I stick out my tongue.
Chapter 36
Worth the Fight
The eighth hour is when you and the dog become friends. You start telling it about your unlucky night and it keeps sniffing the pavement as you walk, looking for something to eat. You’re both walking the same direction, different interests, but it will do. It’s called company.
“It’s very cold,” says Leo. “Very cold.” His face is turning a little blue.
I don’t know what to do. “I know,” I say. Just hang on. “Two more hours to go, and we win this.”
“I don’t think so,” he says. “I can’t feel my leg.”
I look at his leg. It’s turning blue. This isn’t working. He will need medication.
“Tell me what you want me to do.”
“Come here.” He stretches out his hand. “We could keep each other warm.”
I stretch out my hand. “Don’t you think this is so clichéd?”
Leo pulls me close to him. I notice how weak he’s gotten. His pull is not like him at all. I sleep in his arms on the landing with stars glittering in the dark sky above us.
“That,” he says, wrapping his arms around me, “feels so good.”
I can hear his heart beating. I wish the little warmth I still have in my body could help, because this does feel so good.
“You know what?” he says, as his voice resonates against my cheek from the inside of his chest. “This is worth it.”
“Worth what?” I ask, enjoying his voice, low, resonant, and musical.
“Worth the fight,” he says.
“You’re worth the fight, Decca.”
As my tears break out on the edges of my eyes, I look at the iAm network. It’s ten in the evening, but the world has exploded awake, commenting on this scene. I look over the landing. There are about ten iSees, broadcasting from all angles.
Comments swarm the internet: Photoshop-made pictures of Leo and me, websites, forums, Zootube videos, Zwitter, and all possible ways to communicate are talking about this scene of me and Leo. Here we are, lying between heaven and hell, him saying that I was worth the fight.
Fourteen million viewers are watching us, and no one is even fighting, no one is dying, no one is killing, just two Monsters on the edge of victory.
“Do you really mean it?” I ask, holding him tighter.
Leo doesn’t reply. I think his heart has stopped. I can’t hear the beating. I look up from his chest. His head has fallen back again.
Leo is dead. That’s what they start writing on the iAm.
I slap him hard again. I have to admit I enjoy it sometimes, especially when he wakes up like now.
“Of course,” he snaps, opening his eyes, looking at me. “Of course I mean it.”
“What about all that talk about me being a princess and you the guardian sent by the Breakfast Club? What happened to that?” I wonder.
“The hell with the Breakfast Club,” he says. “Where is a Breakfast Club when you need one, watching us almost dying without being able to help us?”
I wonder about that again. Why has the Breakfast Club sent for Leo to protect me? How could I be special in any way to them? A Ten? Come on.
“Lovebirds,” says Timmy irritatingly in the iAm. “Are ya alive? I need some confirmation. It’s the eighth hour.”
“So alive,” I say. “I am so alive.”
“And you, Honeybee?” Timmy purses his lips at Leo.
“Hey Timmy,” says Leo, addressing Timmy for the first time ever. “There is something I need to confess to you.”
“And what could that be, Zambo?” Timmy picks his nose intentionally.
“I am afraid you might be sensitive about it.” Leo winks at me.
“Just hit me. I am sensitive-less,” says Timmy.
“I wanted to tell you…” Leo picks up the iAm and looks Timmy in the eyes. “Bzzz. Zzz. Bzzzzz.” Leo glares and blows him a kiss.
About five million girls wish that they could catch that kiss.
Chapter 37
iAm
The ninth hour is the ultimate test. It’s when you feel safe and sound, walking next to your loyal dog. You think about how you will brag in the dance party about what a great night you just had. How you will tell them about how you survived everything and faced your fears, not knowing what was in store for you.
This is when it suddenly starts to rain.
You stop in your tracks, all wet. A car passes by and splashes you with dirt from the street, and you ask yourself: how did this happen? I am only two blocks away from the dance.
It rains heavily on me and Leo, and it gets colder and colder.
Leo is passed out now with a curving smile on his face. The rain washes over his leg. It’s so blue. He is not talking anymore.
The rain lets the mud glide down from above, sticking grossly onto the walls like slow blobby creatures coming to drown you. The mud splashes on us from above. I spit rain and mud out of my mouth and wipe chunks of it off my face.
“It’s almost the ninth hour,” says Timmy. “Let me hear you say I am alive.”
“Leo,” I scream. “Wake up.” I pound on his chest. “Wake up!”
Leo is gone.
I rest my head on his chest. I don’t know if I can hear his heart beating. The sound of rain and mud is distracting.
“Don’t you bail on me now.” I sit on top of him and slap him left and right. He used to wake up this way, but it doesn’t work any more. “Leo.”
I raise my hands high with the syringe and hit it into his neck. He shudders, but he doesn’t wake up.
I wait a little so the syringe’s effect takes place, but it doesn’t work.
Pounding on his chest, I start to cry.
“He is dead,” says Timmy. “Accept it.”
“No,” I insist, and check his wrist for pulse. His heart is still beating. Very slow. “He needs medication,” I scream into the iAm. “Please send us help.”
The iAm is swarmed with comments and requests to send help for Leo.
“I can’t,” says Timmy. “That’s the game. Accept—” I can’t hear the rest from Timmy.
I look at my iAm. It’s turned off.
I am out of batteries.
“No.” I spit against the rain again, trying to push the button on. It doesn’t work. Why? Usually, it works for another minute or so. What’s wrong with this iAm?
Did Timmy disconnect me? But he can’t control the battery of my iAm.
I push the on button again.
It doesn’t work.
Push.
No use.
Push. Push. Push.
No light comes out of the dead iAm.
I raise my hand, wanting to smash the iAm against the rock of the cave. I stop halfway from smashing it when I see the bee again. Still, in all this mud, hiding in the cave.
Although I give up, I don’t smash the iAm.
What am I going to do now?
I look at dying Leo and sit down with my back to the cave’s wall, the rain pouring from above, and I cry.
Chapter 38
The Deal
“Hello!” I scream, standing over Leo on the edge of the ledge. The rain shatters my words into shards of splintering hope, falling from the sky into the river.
I inhale deeper and deeper, filling my diaphragm with all the air I can, and scream “Hello!” again into the void. If I am a bad singer, I am not a bad screamer. The void that once echoed back and forth is now dead, blunt, and too wet to resonate. No word echoes. No scream awakens the fluttering birds hiding in their caves from the rain. No Monster is heard in the rain.
But I scream for help again, staring right into the eyes of the dead iSees hovering around me. The world can watch me and see me, but I can’t communicate back. Saying I am alive in the cameras of the iSees doesn’t count. It has to be in the iAm.
My iAm is dead but I am not.
I am alive.
I scream for help again. There must be someone here who can help me. Maybe the girl I saw has a family that lives here. The battlefields can’t stay abandoned all year. It doesn’t make sense. Like an abandoned building, closed amusement park, and all empty haunted schools in every town and city, there is always someone living inside for some reason. I don’t mind if they are ghosts, let them answer me.
But no one answers me. No one is here but me and Leo.
Only one other creature hears my scream. It’s the only one who could be interested in me. It’s Carnivore.
Looking up, I see it roar at the edge of the cliff, sticking out its head, looking for me. The rain has washed it clean. It is all white again. What kind of creature is it? How genetically manipulated is it? It looks so beautiful — the one eye aside — yet it’s so vicious and lethal.
“You’re a coward, you know that?” I say to it as rain trickles down my throat. “I dare you to come down here. Spend one hour in this cave.”
Carnivore grunts at me. It’s astonishing how it understands. It wants to get wings and fly down here and rip me apart. Who created this creature?
I kneel down beside Leo, begging him to wake up. Leo is gone, but breathing though.
I sit back in the cave with the bee floating heavily in the air around me. Its wings must have caught the rain. I used to be afraid of bees. She won’t sting me though. We’re friends.
“Hang on, Honeybee,” I say to her. “You mind if I call you Honeybee?”
The bee buzzes around and flutters its wings twice.
“I take it that twice is yes, once is no,” I mumble.
The bee flutters its wings twice.
“Do you like the rain?” I ask for experimentation.
The bee flutters once.
“You like Carnivore?”
It flutters its wings once.
“You miss your flowers now that they’re soaked in the rain?”
It flutters twice.
“Okay,” I chuckle. “I guess it’s working.”
It flutters twice.
“You think Leo’s nose is made of honey?”
The bee flutters twice and circles happily.
I laugh, my chest shaking.
So it’s Honeybee and me after all. I wonder how I’d feel if I got transported back in time and my mom crashed into my room reminding me of my homework. How much would I laugh at this?
I look at the iAm lying dead on the cave’s floor. Even the iAm dies. How about that. The machine that decides for us who we become lies dead with its battery empty.
I remember Woo telling me to never give up. Never give up.
What have I got to lose?
I pick the iAm again, hold it tightly between my hands.
“Do you think I’ll make it?” I ask the bee. It flutters twice.
My thumb flirts with the button on the iAm. I swallow. Maybe this is what they call faith. I push the button.
The green light flashes on.
“I am alive,” I shout into the iAm. Timmy is staring at me. “I am alive, Timmy. Hello world. I am alive,” I repeat, holding the iAm tightly in my hands.
“I know. I know,” Timmy replies. “The world is not deaf, you know.”
The world is welcoming me back onto the network. They’re not asking about Leo. They think he is dead. I check Leo’s pulse. He is not.
“And Leo is alive,” I say.
“Leo doesn’t count any more,” says Timmy. “He has to speak. Bzzz. Bzzzz. You know.” Timmy’s sweet revenge.
“But he is alive,” I insist, my thumbs pressing harder on the screen as if wanting to choke Timmy through the iAm.
“If he can’t talk, he is no use,” explains Timmy. “For all I know, only one is still alive in this game. It’s you.”
“What if we trade places?” The words just slip out of my mouth.
Through Your Eyes ( I Am Alive Series Book 1 Episode 3 ) (I Am Alive serial) Page 5