Arena Three

All at once, the platform tips. My grip on it tightens but I can’t hold on forever. My muscles fail me and I let go. I hit the boiling water and scream in time to the gasping crowd of thrill seekers. It feels more like fire than water. I thrash around, screaming at the top of my lungs. But something is changing in the crowd. No one wants to see me die this way; not because it’s vicious and brutal, but because it’s too cheap. Whoever is controlling the game gets the hint, because suddenly the water that had been filling the stadium suddenly begins to drain away, and before the worm creatures even have a chance to bite me, I’m plummeting down, swirling as the water is sucked away.

I hit the metal grid of the arena ground once more. The worm creatures lie all around me, flapping and gasping in the air, drowning in oxygen, no longer a threat.

The crowd bursts into applause.

I look over and see there’s just one other competitor left alive. A boy of roughly eighteen. He’s lying on the floor too, his skin red and scalded like mine.

I realize then that there will be no more creatures to fight. It’s down to the final two. They want us to kill each other.

With a clunking noise, two swords are dropped into the arena. But I can’t even move. I’m exhausted, completely spent. My body feels like it’s on fire, the scalding water making every part of me hurt. It feels like I’m back in the desert again, when my body gave up and I just couldn’t carry on. My limbs are heavy, and my mind whirring.

I can see the boy rising to his feet, picking up his sword, and, for the first time, I admit to myself that no one is coming to save me. My GPS device failed. The bombs weren’t triggered and I will die before anyone realizes too much time has passed. No one was expecting me to be hauled into the arena so soon. As far as they know, I’m still a prisoner within the compound, plotting out my plan of escape. But in reality, I’ve failed in the one thing I had to do. I will die in this place and the world will keep on turning, just as brutal as before. Children will keep being stolen and survivors will keep fighting to the death in arenas until there’s nothing left of the old human race, nothing to show for all our accomplishments. I will die and there will be hell on earth.

The boy’s face appears above me, the sword glinting. He looks mournful, like he doesn’t want to kill me but knows he has to. I lie there, unable to move. But something catches his eye. There’s something coming toward us, floating as lightly as a feather on the wind. It’s coming from the audience. Someone has thrown a piece of white cloth, or a feather, in our direction. We watch it float down. Is it some kind of peace offering? I look up and scan the crowd, trying to see the person who threw it. When I do, my heart stops beating.

There, in the crowd amongst the other spectators, are Ben and Ryan.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more happy to see them in my life. They leap over the barriers and start running for me.

“Intruders!” the commentator cries.

I try to rise to my feet, finding my legs weak beneath me. Then suddenly their arms loop beneath mine and I’m wrenched to my feet.

“What are you doing here?” I cry to Ben and Ryan.

“We’re your plan B,” Ryan says.

“We’re getting you out of here,” Ben says, holding me close.

I wince, my scalded flesh sending bolts of pain through my body where he touches me. I notice Ryan is holding a GPS device and he hits it, turning the blinking red light into a solid one. The army has been mobilized. We have five minutes to get out of here before the whole place blows.

The crowd erupts into pandemonium. Half of them seem to be loving the abrupt change in course; the other half are angry to have been cheated out of seeing me and the boy fight to death.

But the boy doesn’t seem to understand what’s happening. He must think Ben and Ryan have been sent to help me kill him. He charges us, his sword raised.

Ryan snatches up the sword that was dropped for me and turns. Their swords clang together.

Ben gets to the metal disc that delivered me into the stadium and uses some kind of device in his hand, a tool of some sort, to ram the edge of the disc. It opens.

“RYAN!” I scream behind me. “COME ON!”

“GO!” he shouts. “While you still can!”

Ben tugs my arm and all at once we plummet downward, through the hole.

We hit the ground hard, winded. I feel one of my ribs crack on impact and take a sharp breath. The hole above closes over, plunging us into darkness. We’re back underground, and Ryan is trapped up in the arena.

“NO!” I scream, my voice tearing from my lungs.

But Ben keeps on tugging me, pulling me, forcing me to move on. We only have a matter of minutes to get out of the arena before the whole thing blows.