Arena Three

“Where’s Jack?” Ryan asks, peering through the gloom.

“He ran off that way,” Zeke says, pointing down one of the corridors.

We begin to walk down the corridor, our footsteps echoing across the marble tiles.

“Jack!” Ryan calls. “Where are you, boy?”

There’s the sound of barking from far in the distance. We head toward the sound.

“Hey,” I say as we go. “What’s that up ahead?”

Everyone looks, peering through the darkness. There seems to be something glowing in the distance, like some kind of source of light. But it’s too yellow to be daylight. It looks more like a flame.

“A fire!” I gasp, suddenly alerted to the fact that someone else is here.

Immediately we draw our weapons. My mind races. Who could be here? A crazy colony? A group of slaverunners camping out on their way to the cities?

A lone survivor?

Suddenly, Jack emerges from the shadows. He leaps up at Ryan, licking him.

“Whoever it is,” Ryan says, “Jack seems to think it’s safe. He’s usually a good judge of character.”

“Who is there?” a voice calls from the darkness.

We all freeze, our guns poised, ready to fire. Shadows leap across the stone walls as a figure slowly shuffles toward us. As he gets closer, I see that it’s a young Hispanic boy, maybe fifteen. He’s thin with a baby face.

“Don’t come any closer!” I shout, jabbing my gun forward for emphasis.

The boy holds his hands up. “That’s not a very polite way to treat your host,” he says. “You are in my home, after all.”

My eyes dart right and meet Molly’s. She’s pulling a bemused expression.

“You live in this castle?” I say to the boy. “Alone?”

“All alone,” the boy replies. “You’re the first people I’ve seen in four years.” He looks away as though pained. “I’d started to think I was the last.”

“The last what?” I ask.

“The last human on earth.”

My heart aches for him. To have spent all those years alone, thinking he was the only one left. It’s a thought too horrible to bear.

I lower my gun.

“I’m Brooke,” I say, holding my hand out to shake his.

He looks at me, guarded, unsure whether he can trust the girl who moments earlier was pointing a gun in his face. In the end he takes my hand.

“Emmanuel,” he says.

He peers over at the others, their guns still trained on him. The rest of the gang take my lead and lower their weapons.

“You got any food in there?” he asks, eyeing my bag.

“If you’ve got a fire we can dry ourselves by,” I reply.

He nods. “This way.”

We follow him down the corridor and into a large hall that resembles a ballroom. The mold smell is even worse in here. There’s a large marble fireplace in one of the walls with a small fire burning in the middle. We all rush over and begin to warm ourselves.

I notice that Emmanuel is eyeing my satchel.

“Help yourself,” I say, knowing there are enough rations in the boat to last us for weeks.

He opens up the bag and pulls out some dried meat strips, then starts to eat them ravenously. The sight of him gorging reminds me of the hunger that was a constant fixture in my life in the mountains. Thanks to being regularly fed in Fort Noix, I’d let myself forget what it felt like to starve. I feel a sudden pang of empathy for the boy.

“How did you get here, Emmanuel?” I ask him.

His mouth is stuffed with dried meat, but he speaks anyway.

“I’m from Toronto,” he replies. “When the rebels came and took it over, my family and I had to flee the city. There were loads of other people with us, maybe a thousand. Maybe even two.” He pauses, swallows, then takes another huge mouthful of meat. “We had to go on foot. It was a long journey. We were following the river because we didn’t have a map or compass or anything. We’d got as far as the Thousand Islands when the bombs fell. They were killed.”

“Your family?” I ask gently.

“Everyone,” he replies. “I was the only one who didn’t die.”

I gasp, trying to imagine a group of two thousand people obliterated in one bomb strike, leaving just one boy alive.

“I don’t know what made me jump in the water,” he adds. “I guess it was some kind of instinct to just get away from it all, from all that death.” He shudders as he relives the moment. “I just jumped in the water and started swimming. Then I ended up here.”

“And you’ve been here ever since,” I reply.

I’m amazed by his story. If he is indeed fifteen, and has been here for four years, he was Bree’s age when everyone he knew was killed in one second. How he found the strength and resolve to carry on, I don’t know.

Molly whistles. “That quite a story, Emmanuel,” she says.

He glares at her, at her insensitivity. I can almost feel him screaming in his mind that it’s not a story, it’s his life. Molly’s my friend and I have to remind myself that she hasn’t seen the same kind of pain and devastation as we survivors have. It’s harder for her to empathize with someone like Emmanuel than it is for me. In fact, none of them do. Not Molly, Ryan, or Zeke.