Authors: Cameron Jace
Dizny Battlefieldz looks safer from this high up. I can’t imagine how vast it is. I’m unable to see the real world from here. It is so huge. I see a cowboy-themed neighborhood, which looks like a Western movie set. Last year, I saw
The Nine, the Five, and the Monster
, a classic movie in Faya, and the last movie ever made before they had stopped making them. This is the kind of neighborhood they would shoot such movies in.
Right after the second curve in the rail, we see a vast desert, never-ending white sands that turn into canyons after a while.
The sunrays fall into the Monorail and onto our faces. I remind myself that it’s a beautiful day. Stay positive.
The Monorail stops over what looks like an artificial lake. The doors open and Leo gets anxious. Although the game itself hasn’t begun yet, we are prepared for anything.
Nothing happens. The doors close again. A female voice announces the next station: CARNIVORE.
My heart pounds again. This is where the last game will take place, if we ever survive.
“As if we will make it this far.” Pepper’s pessimistic voice is troubling.
The Monorail doesn’t stop at Carnivore, but we can see it from above. It’s scary. It’s a huge colosseum, a large theatre for open-air sports and entertainment. It’s oval and has tiers of seats rising from the central open arena where the deadly games are held. The Summit calls it the
Monsterium
. What’s crazy about the Monsterium is that it’s covered in white sand. All of it. The arena is like a huge waving carpet of white sands and dunes. The seats and the structures are all white. There’s no way a contestant can hide in it, unless he is as white as the sands. The rule of the game is that they send the contestant wearing red into the fields, while somewhere, hidden beyond all of that white, awaits Carnivore, a white tiger with one eye. How can you ever survive that?
This is where Woo fooled everyone, letting them think he was killed by the paws of Carnivore. Maybe Woo didn’t fool anyone. Maybe he died, and I am only chasing my shadow.
Carnivore. Where are you hiding? I wonder, staring into the white.
The female voice announces the next station: the Rabbit Hole.
I exchange alarmed gazes with Leo and Bellona. It’s a weird coincidence. It doesn’t seem right. It could not have been that Timmy overheard us yesterday.
But of course, I remind myself that we have a traitor among us. It might be that Timmy doesn’t know what the Rabbit Hole is — or where it is. He just got the name from the traitor. He is only fooling with us so we turn against each other.
Who is the traitor among us? There is no time to waste on that right now.
The Monorail speeds up, then it stops, almost ten stories above the ground. I don’t feel like looking down now.
In front of us, we see a dark tunnel that looks like a huge hole in the air.
We are back to life. Connected. Screens, iAms, and Timmy’s voice are back online.
“Welcome back, Monsters,” says Timmy, now dressed casually, sitting on a couch, playing a video game, pushing buttons with his hands. “Or should I say, welcome back, Timmy.” He points at himself. The audience applauds. What did he tell them while we were offline? “Hey, Roger This. I beat your top score.” Timmy presses a button on his joystick, making fun of Vern, letting us know that he overheard every word yesterday.
Two million and seven hundred thousand viewers are watching.
“I just had a little chat with the audience. Believe me. This is going to be fuuuuuuuuun.” He leans back in the couch, his legs pedaling in the air.
SPONSORED BY ZNEABOCK SNEAKERS is written on the screen, which is the brand of the sneakers Timmy is showing off with.
Timmy is holding his gaming device in his hand. He looks sharply into the screen, at us, his thumb caressing a button. “Welcum to ze Rabit Hawl.” He imitates a German accent. “Isn’t zis wut you arre looking vor?”
Leo is making a strange low noise, like an engine about to explode, holding tight to the metal edge of his seat. I think Leo’s ancestors might be German or something. He looks offended.
“Traitor,” Leo grunts.
There is no time to deal with that. Someone sold us out to Timmy. Why? For what price? Is it Orin? Vern? The skater boy? Is it Pepper?
It could not be Bellona, or could it?
“I had a little conversation with one of you yesterday while you were asleep.” Timmy is talking straight to us. “We made a deal. He or she told me about your conversation, and I gave them something back in return.”
“Who is it?” demands Pepper. It’s not like her, with her negative attitude, to be curious.
“Later, Monsters,” says Timmy. “Now I welcome you to the Rabbit Hole. Not the one you’re looking for, but the one I made for you. Hold on tight. Once you finish the ride into the Rabbit Hole and reach the other side, the game instructions will be given in real-time while you are playing.”
“This can’t be,” Bellona protests. “You are supposed to tell us the rules of the game before we start playing. This is unfair.”
“Shoulda. Woulda. Coulda,” says Timmy. “Stop whining. Here is my first hint: It is all about choices. The faster you reach a decision, the longer you stay alive. And the word to keep in mind is: ADAPT.”
“Five,” Leo says aloud.
“Four,” Bellona follows.
“Haha.” Timmy rubs his chin. “Take in the fear. You Monsters and your mind games.”
“Three,” I say, holding tighter to my seat.
“Two,” one of the skaters joins in.
“Push the damn button,” Pepper screams at Timmy. I guess that is her way of saying, “One.”
The Monorail speeds into the tunnel. My heart is plastered to the back of my seat. My spine hurts. The flesh in the back of my neck is burning. If I ever wanted to say stop, the muscles in my jaw wouldn’t allow me to open my mouth. My face is crumbling like a paper-bag in front of a vacuum cleaner. I hold on tight.
First, the journey into the dark tunnel goes up, and then the monorail leans to the left, then down, gaining speed.
Down. Down. Down.
Like riding a rollercoaster all the way down, afraid it won’t stop and will drive into the earth instead.
Finally, it slows down in the dark and maintains the speed for a while, like a train drawing into the station. I see tiny dots of light at the end of the tunnel, like small light bulbs, shimmering in the distance. They get bigger as we come closer. The sun starts shining through.
We get out of the tunnel and the Monorail stops under the sunny spot. It feels like we have entered an alternate reality.
One door opens to the left. We hurry to it as if this crazy Monorail is about to explode.
Above us, the sunny sky is a little different, as if missing its heart and soul. It looks as if it’s not real.
“I present to you, Artificial Sky,” says Timmy. “The latest invention, exclusively designed for Faya, on the other side of the Rabbit Hole.”
Beyond the door, there is a metal ledge in front of us with star-shaped holes drilled in it. I can see the endless air underneath us, leading to oblivion. It’s hard to tell how high we are. I am afraid we are so high we can’t see the ground through the holes.
“Please walk forward,” a female voice says from the microphones.
Leo starts walking in front of us. I cut in, wanting to be the first.
“Not this time, sweetie,” Timmy interrupts. “In fact, you will be the last in line.”
“No. She walks next to me,” says Leo, holding my hand.
“Oh. So the cat didn’t eat your tongue like I was told,” says Timmy. The crowd laughs and starts hissing.
The crowd favors Leo. Is it because he is a Nine? Or because he is just tediously hot – and dumb sometimes?
“Not this time, Zambo,” says Timmy. Zambo is a famous character from an old movie where Zambo is outrageously brave, and rebels against the Bad Kidz. “I promise you, in the presence of over two million viewers, nothing is going to happen to her walking last in line.”
Reluctantly, Leo lets go of my hand and keeps walking.
“Stop,” says Timmy.
Leo stops in front of a huge vertical circle made of iron. I can’t see what it is exactly but it looks like a ring-shaped hole, surrounded by an iron structure.
Farther, beyond the circle, there is another metal ledge leading to a huge round clock made of wood. It looks rusty and old with all kinds of swampy plants covering it. The clock is numbered from one to ten.
An old woman in a red cloak stands before the huge clock. Her long silver hair shows from under the veil, fluttering in the light wind passing through. She is using a wooden cane to help her walk as she arches her back forward. Her eyes have a silver shade to them. When I look closer, I discover that she is blind.
“Please say hi to Dame Fortuna,” says Timmy. No one says anything. “It’s true that Dame Fortuna is blind but she is the goddess of fate,” Timmy laughs happily. “And fate needs to be on the Monsters’ side today.”
“That’s the gypsy woman who foresaw the Year of the Ten,” Pepper says.
“So?” I ask.
“So she is a liar,” Pepper says. “Can’t you see? We’ve all been already ranked and there is no Ten this year. All this Year of the Ten thing was a lie. God knows what this creepy woman has in store for us now.”
“Please step carefully into the circle, and take your seats,” Timmy says to us. “What you see there, and what looks like a clock, is a Wheel of Fortune, although it rarely makes one fortunate.” Timmy smirks at the camera. “The horizontal metal ring in front of you has seats attached to its edges, circling around the huge void in the middle. Take your seats in the ring. You’ll find a blue box in front of you. Lay your palm flat on it and Dame Fortuna will rotate the wheel. When the wheel finally stops, it will show your number.”
“Why are they giving us numbers?” I ask.
“It’s better we give you numbers than you give them to yourself,” Timmy responds bluntly.
Leo takes a step down into the ring, and we follow.
The ring itself has a metal floor, wide enough to walk upon without panicking about falling into the hole in the middle. I can’t see the bottom of the hole. It is infinitely deep. When I squint, trying to look harder, I see only fog and smoke. What is this place?
I see the metallic seats attached to the ring. Haphazardly, we pick seats.
Every seat is the shape of a vertical cylinder. It’s like a barrel. I stand in it, waist deep. It barely fits one person, and it’s like my own private balcony, allowing me to look over at the others sitting in similar balconies attached to a ring.
Everyone takes a place. We are all standing in a circle so we can see each other. Tight metallic belts buckle around our waists and shoulders. None of us can leave the balcony now.
On the right, I see the box Timmy told us about. It has a blue substance inside that looks like jelly. This is where we are going to place our palms so the Wheel of Fortune rolls and gives us a number.
“What are the numbers for?” asks Pepper again, as if I haven’t already asked.
“I will explain later,” says Timmy. “After each one of you places their palms on the blue jelly.”
“So cool,” says Vern. I am glad that’s all he says. He can be distracting at times.
I am dying to know what happened between Timmy and the audience when we were offline. It’s starting to bother me.