Authors: Cameron Jace
“None of your business,” I threaten her by pushing the electric cattle prod closer to her.
After she finishes, I snatch the magnetic card that opens the door away from her, and tuck it in my pockets, along with the two iAms.
“I wanted to cry,” Mrs. Delacroix mumbles. “When I killed my children. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t.” An unborn teardrop seems to argue its way out of her eyes. “You know why I couldn’t? Because the iAm would pick up on it, and I didn’t want that to happen. In our nation, we have to accept these sacrifices, right? It’s for the best interest of us all. It’s our fate that we can’t control.”
I throw her one last disgusted look, and I don’t hesitate to buzz her to sleep. “I guess I’ll have to sacrifice you now. I’ve decided that this is
your
fate, child-killer.” I walk to the door with the only magnetic card that opens the door from the outside. Mrs. Delacroix won’t wake up for hours to ask for help, and no one will know she is hurt. They will think she is working inside.
The first thing I do when I get out is plaster a naïve and innocent smile on my face again, before I stumble intentionally over another boy’s shoes. I’ve managed to fool them all, but that’s only the start.
The students in the bus celebrate like crazy. We’re entering Faya’s capital, Sol, the most beautiful city in the world. Sol is a half hour drive from my town, Eve. Everyone is excited as we enter underneath the beautiful palm trees and hills surrounding it. The drones of celebration are euphoric. This year is going to be special. Not just because it’s Ranking Day, but because it’s the tenth year of the Monster Show, which was invented when I was six years old. We pass by a huge effigy of a Burning Man on our way. The Burning Man is no joke. We have to lower our voices and heads, and pay our respects to the symbol of Faya. The Burning Man is a representation of our God Almighty.
The bus enters the neighborhood where Grand School is located. This is where the graduation will take place. Fireworks will blast against the night sky during the ceremony later, and I see white zeppelins floating and watching us. Teachers and senior students are waving at us from the zeppelins’ balconies, wishing us a happy Ranking Day.
In front of us, dozens of other buses drive slowly toward the Grand School’s dome. Booming speakers are pumping music that sounds like restless heartbeats on a dance floor. To the left and right, girls are dressed in bright yellow latex trousers, dancing with colorful pink scarves in their hands. Beautiful, muscular boys are playing the big drums that are strapped on their broad shoulders. Senior boys tease and take pictures of us. Ariadna poses for the camera instantly. I shy away, but she pulls me into the frame. I plaster my fake smile on, and let the flashes hit me. I blink like always, and mess up the photo shoot.
Hundreds of girls, younger than sixteen, jog next to the bus and throw purple and orange flowers at us. Ariadna catches one and sticks it in my hair. It smells surprisingly pleasant. Faustina, sitting with her legs crossed, is blowing kisses from her hand to the crowd outside, as if she is the queen.
Not far away from Grand School, there is the place no one gazes at. They pretend it doesn’t exist—at least until the games begin. It’s called The Playa, an almost endless city dug twenty-feet under ground-level. It’s where the battles and games take place. It’s surrounded by military troops for now. Even I pretend I haven’t seen it, although I know that in only a few hours, I’ll be fighting for my life down there.
Looking away from the Playa, I see Eva. She is dancing on her own, but she is smiling. I admire her enjoying herself, even when she thinks she is going to die a couple of hours from now. She doesn’t know she is going to become a Seven. I would love to see the look on her face when she gets ranked.
Timmy isn’t celebrating like others. He is educating a couple of his nerd followers, telling them about the history of the Monster Show. He is showing them recaps of older games on his iAm. How could he stomach watching all that killing of young people? I hear the Monsters screaming from his iAm’s speaker. They’re shouting from the top of their lungs: “I Am Alive.”
“The one and only rule in the Monster Games is that you have to report you’re alive on your iAm,” Timmy brags to his awkward friends. “Even when the games aren’t on, a Monster has to scream ‘I AM ALIVE!’ every six hours, or he’s considered dead. The Monster has to shout to the world aloud, so the Summit knows he means it.”
“We know that, Timmy,” a nerdy boy rolls his eyes. “They all die in the end anyways.”
“What you probably never thought of is what happens if a Monster doesn’t report he is alive, on purpose.” Timmy winked at the boy, showing him he is smarter.
“Why would anyone do that?” the boy wonders.
“Isn’t obvious? To escape the games.” Timmy says.
“And then what? Everyone knows that no one can survive the Playa after the games.” The boy says. “There is no food, water, or means to live in this place after the games. It’s like trying to survive a deadly jungle or desert.”
“You’re probably right,” Timmy shrugs his shoulders. “We’d have definitely known if anyone had survived.”
In the middle of this fest around me, I try not to let Timmy’s conversation distract me. But I can’t. All this talk about a Monster escaping the games reminds me of Woo.
A day before attending the Monster Show, Woo told me he was thinking of escaping the games and surviving in the Playa on his own. It’s never been done, but Woo thought he could pull it off. I never heard from Woo after, and the Summit never brought it up. In fact, they announced that all Monsters in the games died last year.
Still, my heart tells me no. I have been trying to live in this stupid world without him for a whole year. It didn’t work. I miss him in ways I can’t explain. After Woo’s death, I played naïve to get under the Summit’s radar. It worked. They think I am a Monster now. I can enter the deadly Monster Show that every teenager in our nation avoids at all costs. It’s my choice. I’m attending the games to find Woo. If I fail, then living didn’t mean much without him anyways.
Faya’s symbol is the Burning Man, but our national flag is white with a decagon in the middle. A decagon is a closed shape of ten sides and ten angles, representing Faya’s geographical design. We have ten major cities located between the angles that encompass our land. The ten cities are called Noo, Aft, Eve, Sun, Twi, Dus, Mor, Nig, Mid, Daw, and of course Sol, the capital, in the middle.
The buses slow down. We get out and enter a huge circular park-like space in front of Grand School. Thousands of students throng everywhere. Two huge screens made of flexible fiber, roll down from two zeppelins.
“What’s going on?” I ask Ariadna.
“We have to listen to some boring speech from Prophet Hannibal Xitler,” a boy tells us.
Prophet Hannibal Xitler is the sole ruler of Faya. The Prophet holds the holy word of The Burning Man, and only he has the power to commune with our God. The Prophet shall never be seen with the human eye for reasons beyond us. That’s why he only speaks to us through speakers, or messages on our iAms.
The floating screens show another picture of The Burning Man effigy. We have to bow our heads again. Woo used to laugh at this part. No wonder he was a Monster. I don’t bow my head, and smile at the hordes of sheep with lowered heads. Sue me, I am only minutes away from becoming a Monster.
I hear someone clap in the crowd. Slowly, someone else joins in, and then someone else, hailing the Prophet. Dictatorship is like a disease. It doesn’t hit you in the face. It spreads slowly, until it grows bigger than you think it ever could. Woo’s words.
Prophet Xitler resonates in the speakers. He has a raw and deep voice, and talks annoyingly slow. He tell us the same boring story of how The Burning Man saved us from extinction after the crimes and horrors The McDonalds committed. The McDonalds, Woo claimed they were called Americans, were stupid enough to destroy their lands with their foolish decisions.
“What’s wrong with you?” Ariadna pulls me down to bow with her. I wish I could tell her what’s wrong with her, or the place we live in, but I don’t really know. Neither did Woo. We just always felt something was terribly wrong with it.
“The Ranking system has made us a great nation that the world looks up to,” Xitler rants. “The growth in economy, quality of living, and our place in the world is at its zenith. When we first invented the iAm, no one understood its purpose. The world wondered and questioned our sanity. They questioned how we could possibly benefit from tracking every teenager’s behavior, everyday life, health, food, thoughts, and mood swings.” Xitler stresses on “mood swings.” His tone is on the verge of mockery. “It seemed like an irrational idea; a waste of energy and money in a nation that rose up from the ashes after the Great Disease. But here we were. Stronger than ever, with a ranking system that the rest of world is copying from us. But like always, they are too late,” Xitler laughs. “I am proud to announce that the percentage of Monsters—”
The crowd starts protesting in a low and scary tone. “The Monsters Must Die!” Ariadna tilts her head and raises and eyebrow, wondering why I am not cursing the Monsters. I pretend I don’t see her.
“The percentage of Monsters this year is estimated to be only ten percent of our teens. The first year we started the Ranking system, the Monsters were about sixty-five percent.” Prophet Xitler continues. “We plan to have no Monsters in Faya in the coming years. Then we shall live in a world of peace, devoid of rebels and terrorists.”
The crowd hails the Burning Man.
“And who knows,” Xitler says. “Many years from now, Faya could be a nation of only Eights and Nines.”
This drives everyone crazy. Ariadna is jumping. Timmy too. Everyone around me does. I wonder what Woo would have done. I can’t do anything but listen to the rest of the speech, and walk among the sheep as we enter Grand School. I walk among the enthusiastic students in the hallways, looking at the steel doors lined next to each other. Each of us will be called to enter one of these doors soon. I’ve been told the door leads to an elevator-like room, where a machine informs us of our rank. All ranked students get to access a further door onward. Monsters get to slip through a hole in the ground. Woo used to call it the Rabbit Hole.
It’s the last point of no return. My heart beats so fast, it almost chokes me. I could still change my mind and confess forging the results. But the more I look around me, the more I know I can’t tolerate this world. Either I find Woo, or I die like him, which ironically will lead to wherever he is now, too.
Suddenly, everything goes quiet in the hallway, as if the world behind me has disappeared. Everyone stops talking for no reason. I stop walking and look at all the students with appalled eyes. They’re looking at me.
It take me a moment to realize it’s not me who caught her attention. It’s something behind me. A living and breathing thing. I turn around. It’s Leo again.
Since Woo’s death, I’ve never felt as curious about someone as I am about Leo. His lips seem relaxed now, and slightly parted. The tension in his face is gone. His hands are cuffed behind his back, but his legs are now free. Everyone is looking at him. It seems like no one in the hallway can breathe properly. Leo is scary, and attractive. A wild and unreal combination. One of the tough boys stops him, trying to pick a fight, like usual. Leo ignores him, and keeps on walking toward me. If I had doubts he was looking at me the first time, I was wrong.
Leo stops before me, and all I see is his face. Everything in the world around him is just gone. I feel as if there is a magnet pulling me from my belly toward him. The features in his face disappear and all I see are his intense eyes, as if we’re both connected through some kind of an invisible tube filled with golden light, the color of the tint in his eyes. I feel dizzy. My eyes shift from his eyes to his lips, and back again. It’s too tense in here. Too hot. I feel like I need to break free from a spell.
“Are you Decca?” Leo inquires. There isn’t one inch of hesitation in his voice. It’s almost inhuman in the way he demands an answer. I wonder how he’d ever been a musician. He sounds like he wants to punch me, like today is the last day in the world, and we have to do something about it.
“How”— I clear my throat and crane my neck back — “do you know my name?” My voice is so weak, it might be only in my head. I have never met him before. I haven’t even been a fan of his song. Who is he?
“Don’t do this.” He says without flinching. For all his beauty, he is so rigid; as if he’s in pain, but trying not to show it.
“Do what?” I say back to him. I hate beautiful boys. They are mostly dumb. But my body betrays me, and I find myself wanting to get closer to him.
“Don’t enter the games,” he lets the words seep painfully from between his pressed teeth. “It’s a dumb thing to do.” His eyes move sideways, as if he doesn’t want anyone to hear him.
My mouth is hanging open, but I am speechless. How does he know about me? I feel as if I am in a dream, and someone is calling to me from the waking world. I start surfacing to the real world, reminding myself that other teens exist here with us. We’re not alone, and I am not supposed to feel attracted to him. Hell, I’m not supposed to feel attracted to anything. I need to focus. I am going to fight for my life in a short while.
It all ends abruptly when the soldiers arrive. It seems like he’d escaped them to come and talk to me. Me? Why?
“Stay away from me.” Leo grits his teeth unexpectedly. “You hear me?”
Okay, I got it. Leo belongs in an asylum, just like my mother. I am shocked and confused. The blood returns to my once-numb hands. It’s like waking up from a beautiful dream with a twist. Or even worse, a bad ending.
One of the soldiers storms in from behind Leo, and presses a button on a remote control in his hand. Leo snaps, and something happens to his mouth. His lips are sealed again. His cheeks tense, he get angrier. I can’t do anything about it. All I notice is that he was lying when he said he wanted me to stay away from him. His pleading eyes still don’t want me to enter the games.