6
The opening in the ground leads to a tube-like tunnel. It's made of corrugated metal. I am sliding all the way down. I grit my teeth, opposing the pain in my back. Even though I asked for this, I am still in shock. There is no going back now. Watching a nightmare on TV is one thing; living and breathing it is something else entirely. Especially as bitter and real as this one is. I guess that’s why everyone in Faya likes to sit on their fat asses and watch people dying on TV. Finally, I am dumped into a container, splashing into thick mud-like garbage.
I pick myself up, wipe the mud from my eyes, and look around. It’s a square room with a sealed metal door. There are about twenty students, most of them pounding on the door, screaming for help. The rest are standing next to me, paralyzed with shock. They look like they have lost the game already. I try to move, but the mud is thick and up to my knees.
I see a girl with bad yellow teeth and ear-to-ear dental bracing. She calls for me, holding a box in her hands. Although I feel for her, I am reluctant to approach her. As I try to move farther, I notice one of my heels is missing. The other is broken in the mud. I bend over and reach for it, weary of whatever hides underneath. I have no choice. I take off my broken heel and stand barefoot. If I had put on athletic shoes this morning, they'd have suspected my intentions. I know they'll provide us with special shoes for the games. But I can't find them.
The homeless-looking girl insists on offering me the box. I don’t want her to touch me. All I can think about is that she is a Monster. As if I’m not. Some realities, however imminent, take some time to sink in. Think straight, Decca. You can do this. Monsters aren't contagious. Woo was a Monster, and you chose to be one.
“You’ll need these,” the girl insists with sincere eyes. “Once the door opens, we don’t have time.” She opens the box for me. A pair of cheap sneakers lay inside. Just what I have been looking for. The word “Monster” is printed on the side of the shoes, next to a logo of a golden tiger. The same one I saw on Leo’s shoulder.
A boy points at the camera in the upper corner of the room. I want to tiptoe in the mud and wave my hands for help. I want to scream for Ariadna or Dad that I made a horrible mistake. I fist my hand, grit my teeth, and close my eyes.
I'm not going to scream. I'm not a coward. I’ll stand up to the consequences of my choices.
Another girl next to me freaks out and yells at me. She pulls her iAm out. "I want to call my mom," she panics.
“That won’t help,” Shoegirl says. “We’re not allowed to call anyone. The iAm is only used to track our moves."
“We’re in a vehicle! Some kind of a bus,” someone suggests.
We hear someone outside say, “Twenty.” We are twenty students in the room. “You take those, and come back for the next lot,” that same voice says. The bus starts to move.
“I think we should try to break those bars,” a boy says. He has spiky yellow hair, and holds a joystick in his hand. The t-shirt he's wearing reads: Roger This.
“No use,” another boy, crouched in the corner, replies. “What do you think you’ll do if you get out? There is nowhere to run. We’re all Monsters now. We have to play the game. Lose and die, or win and get ranked.”
“That’s so cool,” says the Roger This boy. “It’s like Saw, the movie franchise. ‘I want to play a game,’” he imitates the sick killer in those Old American movies.
“We have to wait and see where they’re taking us,” says Shoegirl.
“They’re taking us to the Playa, baby,” Roger This educates the girl. He says it as it’s a walk in the park.
“—and then we'll eventually die, because no one’s ever survived the three days of the game,” the pessimistic boy in the corner says. I can’t even imagine how Mr. Pessimistic and Roger This ended up in the same bus. “What have I been saying all day? No one ever listens to me.”
“Hey. Be cool,” Roger This says. “We might find extraterrestrials in the Playa. I heard that they exist.” Everyone averts their eyes from Roger This. Who is that boy? Doesn’t he get it? We’re going to die if we don’t do something about it.
“I hate the Playa,” a girl says. “My brother died there five years ago.”
“A lot of my friends did, too.” Shoegirl says. “But this is for the greater good of our nation.”
“What? Are you out of your mind?” I snap. I can’t believe she said that. Her words make me realize the absurdness of my fears. I came here because of this. Because of what Woo taught me about all the nonsense the Summit feeds our minds with. And I thought Shoegirl was some kind of hero.
“Prophet Hannibal Xitler’s plan is to motivate the nation, and create an almost-perfect society,” Shoegirl says. “In a short time, there will be no Bad Kidz like us, and society will be safe. They call it Utopia. A society where everything is perfect.”
“I agree,” the pessimistic boy in the corner says. Why do I think that he and Shoegirl would make a great Romeo and Juliet, who would end up stabbing each other on Valentine’s Day? “The rate of Monsters has notably decreased in only nine years. This is only the tenth year. Six years from now, all Monsters will be gone. I agree with the plan. I just wish I wasn’t one of them. We’ll sacrifice ourselves for the Burning Man.”
“What are you loonies talking about?” another boy yells at them. Finally, some sanity. “This is all wrong. Everyone has the right to live. There is no Utopia. It’s a myth. We’re one nation. We live and rely on each other. This ranking thing is all wrong. We’re not Bad Kidz.”
“Look at me,” a girl says to the boy in the corner. “I’m ill. How can that be my fault? My IQ is 120.” The girl is also good-looking.
The vehicle stops and the door opens. Before I get to gaze outside, I hear Mr. Pessimistic say something that I don’t quite understand. “You know what the Playa was in the past?” he argues with Roger This. “I mean in this same location here, which the Old Americans used to call Lost Angeles, this Playa was originally a place designed as an enormous park for kids to have fun. They had a silly name for it. Disneyland.”