49
A Zeppelin picks me up from the Monsterium. The Malikas cover me in a silken robe with golden stripes and a hood. The Malikas want to take care of me and bathe me, but I prefer to go out to the public in my Monster condition. Perhaps if I am a Ten out there, I can help make it a better world.
We land on top of the slope of Dizny Battlefieldz, back where it all started. When I open the door, the world is waiting for me: my fans. Young kids under sixteen, reaching out for my autograph behind the red rail, as if I am some celebrity. Kids are waving at me with plastic light sabers in their hands.
I step out on the red carpet toward them. I accept my fate. I am a Ten. I deserve it, in a world where you have to say your number out loud — and sometimes kill for it. What was the number of the human spirit again? I guess it’s a Ten after all.
A face from inside the crowd. It’s Leo on a cane. I let out a laugh. Leo, bandaged, and on a cane seems like the Tenth Wonder of the World to me. He waves silently at me. “I am your number one fan,” he mouths with his silent lips from a distance.
A couple of steps across the carpet, I remember that I forgot something. Something important. I reach out and pick up one of the toy swords from a kid who instantly calls his friends to brag about Decca, the Ten, borrowing his sword.
The sword is plastic and produces green lights when you shake it. It will do. I raise the sword up in the sky, and shout, “I am alive!”
The world shouts with me, clapping, screaming, and praising.
As I have my sword up in the sky, the white ring on my finger pulses in a blue color. It’s the ring the seven-year-old girl left behind in the forest.
Suddenly, I hear other sounds coming through the iAm. No, they’re not the audience.
“Silence,” I scream at the audience, trying to listen to the sounds. “Silence,” I repeat. Amazingly, the audience stops making noises. “Listen,” I say, looking at my iAm.
“I am alive,” a girl says in my iAm. The iAm says she is unidentified. Is that the girl from the forest?
“I am alive,” another boy says. Also unidentified by the iAm.
Prophet Xitler stands up as his face knots, and the audience is in awe.
“I am alive,” a third voice says. This time the iAm identifies it: Monster number 1733, from the eighth Monster Show.
“I am alive,” a fourth voice announces slowly, as if a little intimidated by confessing she is alive. The iAm identifies her as Monster number 463, from the Monster Show four years ago.
And the hits keep on coming. Tens of teens from previous games, screaming “I am alive” from their iAms. I knew it, there are teens still inhabiting the Dizny Battlefieldz. They have been hiding in previous games, pretending to be dead by not saying “I am alive,” so they can outlive the game. But how did they survive, living inside the Battlefieldz? Does that mean there is no Rabbit Hole?
“How are you alive?” Xitler grunts. “Who are you?”
“They’ve been hiding,” a girl says. Oh my God. It’s Pepper. “They refused to say ‘I am alive,’ fooling you into thinking they were dead, game after game, barely surviving in the hidden forest in the Playa. I did the same thing in the Mirage. I preferred to stay alive by not saying ‘I am alive,’” Pepper explains. “Now that one of us survived, we’re not scared anymore. We are alive.”
I stare at Leo across the distance. His face dims. He shakes his head slightly, as if telling me no, you’re a Ten. Don’t do this.
I turn around and look back down the slope into the battlefields, then turn back to the audience waiting for me. What should I do? Which direction should I go? Who am I? Am I a Ten? Or am I a Monster?
Then I hear another voice.
“Tender?” it says.
A single tear forms in my eye, like thick clay, wanting to burst out and splash against a rock.
“Woo?” I ask.
“What kind of a fool are you, Tender?” he says. “Coming here for me? I devoted my life to saving you from the Playa.”
“Woo. I couldn’t live without you. I had to find you, but then I gave up.”
“I am glad you made it,” the voice says on my iAm. “I wish you just won the games without stirring the hearts of the kids surviving in here. We didn’t want anyone to find us. We have gone through a lot, hiding in the last place anyone would think we are at.”
“Woo?” I say again. I know it’s him. He knows I know it’s him, but he has just become so practical. How is this possible? I can’t believe it myself. “So Wolf, the leader of the Breakfast Club, is actually you Woo? Is that your real name your mother never uttered?”
“The kids in the Breakfast Club saw what you did, and they decided to oppose me and declare that they are alive,” Woo says without acknowledging my words.
“How are you ali—” I ask.
“I sent Leo to save you,” he explains, and I look back at Leo, who tries to avert his eyes away from me. That’s why he didn’t want the Breakfast Club to know about us? The Breakfast Club actually lives in the Playa? Why didn’t they help us? “My plan was to save you and get you out alive. I want you to have a great life, not here in the Playa, preparing for a revolution. The Breakfast Club here believes you have exceptional powers because of some prophecy. Why did you go to fight in the Mirage, Decca? Why? I just wanted you to survive, and then after the games, we would find a way to make you escape.”
“Woo,” I say. “I am so confused. I can’t comprehend what you are saying now. You’re alive. How did that happen? Why didn’t you tell me? You sent Leo to save me?” I look back at Leo. My God. I can’t think anymore. Do I still love Leo? Was it true on his side, or just part of the act? Why is Woo so blunt with me?
“I understand you and Leo—” Woo starts to say. The audience moans now. Leo or Woo. I know they want to see more of this. But I am done with the games. I am done with the TV, and entertaining them. “Anyway. This is not the issue. The road is still long, Decca. You have to make a decision now. Go back to the world and celebrate being a Ten and part of the system, and make them win, or—”
“Or what, Woo?”
“Or come back here with the Breakfast Club, be part of us, and probably lead the revolution. We have built amazing things here. We are stronger. We can oppose the Summit. There are places inside the battlefields they could never enter. This is why I didn’t want to expose myself and sent Leo to save you, so they don’t know about us. Xitler knew you’re my weak spot, and that I would show up to save you. I refused to take the bait.”
“But why didn’t you tell me?” I fall down to my knees. “Why?”
“It’s time, Decca,” he says. “This is just the beginning—” He shrugs. “Or the end. It’s up to you, Decca.”
“Up to me to do what?”
“To decide.”
“To decide what?”
“Who you are. It’s a choice. Are you a Ten or are you one of us, a Monster?”
Did I tell you about when I was seven years old, and my mom wanted to kill me because she thought I was a Monster? Yes. I remember I did. I am sixteen now, and it’s up to me to decide whether she was right or wrong. I have to decide now. One choice that will affect who I really am, who I really love, and who really loves me.
As I decide, I wonder; what’s the number of the human spirit?
TO BE CONTINUED…
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Love all the monsters,
Cameron Jace