by Shade Owens
Poor woman.
She’d been trapped as her tent went up in flames.
I breathed in a long, calculated breath, wondering if I’d ever get over a sight like this. It was even more disturbing than seeing our Village burn down. I’d never seen so many dead bodies before. The smell was enough to make me want to vomit—it didn’t smell like decay, at least not yet, but it was a smell I’d come to associate with death. Maybe it was the combination of ash, smoke, and blood.
I didn’t remain focused on the destruction for much longer. One by one, women began pointing my way and calling to their friends. Slowly, a crowd formed before me, and women knelt down—even those who weren’t my people.
At the front of the crowd was Snow Face and her women—tall, lanky figures with white dots splashed all over their dark skin. With a spear planted in the dirt by her knee, Snow Face bowed her head.
“We did it,” came Fisher’s voice.
I turned sideways to find her standing next to me. She gave me her walking stick, but I shook my head.
“Take it,” she said, her tone harsh and authoritative. “You need it more than me right now.”
I took it from her, allowing it to absorb some of my body weight. I couldn’t understand how I hadn’t collapsed by now, but I wasn’t about to allow myself to.
“Looks like they’ve chosen their leader,” Fisher said.
Murk appeared to the left of me with gashed arms crossed over her chest. “A solid choice.”
“Murk,” I said, regripping Fisher’s walking stick. “What do we do now?”
She looked up at the cloudy sky, the wrinkles on her face fading as she stretched her chin upward. She breathed in as if breathing for the first time. “That, Brone, is up to you.”
I almost laughed but thought it might be inappropriate considering what we’d gone through.
“Up to me? You’re the leader,” I said.
She shook her head like a parent trying to explain the meaning of death to their child. “Don’t you get it, Brone? The people have chosen.” She leaned into me then, her lips tickling my earlobe. “Besides, I’m too old for this shit.”
Then, she pulled away and with a pained grunt, slowly knelt on one knee.
One by one, everyone raised a solid fist in the air with their thumbs tucked in. Their eyes—expectant, glossy balls filled with anguish—remained glued to me.
What were they waiting for? For me to take charge?
I was about to turn away when an unusual sensation came over me, tightening my chest. As I stared at the grisly scene and the women who, despite having gone through hell and back, still looked to me for guidance, realization hit. I was exactly what they needed.
For the first time, I was confident I could make their lives worth living; I didn’t view myself as unfit to be a leader. I thought of Trim, and rather than feeling inadequate or unworthy of her sacrifice, I imagined her smiling down at me from wherever she was now.
Standing tall, I drew my shoulders back and smiled at my friends beside me, sensing nothing but love and gratitude. Then, turning my attention to my people, I raised Fisher’s walking stick into the air.
“Today,” I shouted, my voice carrying across the wreckage below, “we defeated the enemy!”
Voices erupted so loudly I felt the vibrations underneath the pads of my feet.
Bringing my stick back down, I focused on every face, one at a time. “I know there are many injuries, and I know we’ve all lost people we truly care about.”
The excitement and celebration dissipated, only to be replaced by an inconsolable sadness.
“For years, you have all suffered at the hands of Rainer. You have either been attacked, imprisoned, or abused. I promise you that all the lives we lost today won’t be in vain. Your friends and your loved ones sacrificed themselves so that you could live the best life possible on this island.”
Women nodded while some wept into the arms of others. I knew that pain—it was enough to bring anyone to their knees.
“Today,” I said, my voice growing louder, “your fight has ended!”
A loud uproar shook the entire city and women blasted their fists into the air.
Smiling down at everyone, I raised my chin. “And tomorrow, we live.”
GAME OF DEATH (SEASON 5)
EPISODE 17
PROLOGUE
It’s hard to imagine this happened, but it did.
Two years ago, we went to war with our sworn enemies—the Northers. Despite the losses we suffered, we’ve come out stronger than ever.
Now, I live in a world that can only be described as paradise on Earth. The Village—once a desolate wasteland covered in ash—has been rebuilt from the ground up. A dozen wooden shacks line up the back wall, and hundreds of single tents constructed of finely sanded wood sit flawlessly across the open space. Around the tents, luscious green grass covers the ground like a giant carpet—a result of several days’ work transplanting seeds.
I’m still astonished by the amount of work every single woman put into rebuilding our home after the war. Palm seedlings stand tall around the Village’s perimeter, and an abundance of vibrant colors remind us that even after death, life can flourish.
While we no longer have beautiful green trees towering around the Village, new life has begun to emerge from the ashes—strong sprouts, vivid flowers, and thick green grass. Around the Village, we’ve constructed a wooden wall, similar to the gate the Northers had, to protect us from any exterior threat. Two gates have been added to the entrance of the Village for safety and convenience, and an additional gate remains at the back.
For the first time in as long as I can remember, I smile.
Every day, I smile.
No one fights anymore—at least not the way they used to before the war. It’s as if I live in an alternate reality. I can’t even remember the last time I fantasized about leaving the island.
For the first time since being banished to Kormace Island, I’m happy.
Truly happy.
How is this even possible? Is this the universe’s way of apologizing for all the torturous shit I’ve gone through?
It has to be.
The only question now is, how long will this last?
CHAPTER 1
“Robin, get over here,” Ellie said, chasing after Robin.
She looked exactly like her mother—light blond hair, a petite frame, and eyes as blue as the summer sky. While the sight of her warmed my heart, it also pained me.
Robin giggled, squealed some incomprehensible word, and fell flat on her cotton-covered butt.
Then, the crying started.
When Ellie caught me watching them, she shook her head with a sweet smile and scooped little Robin into her arms.
I thought of BluJay’s face—the fear, the sadness, the hurt. But the moment her baby girl came out, all of that disappeared, and an indescribable joy lit up her face. Every day, I tried to hold onto this image in my mind—her smile and her tears of joy. It was easier to remember BluJay as a mother filled with love rather than as a corpse.
After that brief heavenly moment, everything had gone to hell. It was as if she knew she was dying. She’d grabbed my wrist as tight as she could and made me promise her I’d take care of her little girl.
Robin, I thought, smiling as Ellie bounced her up and down in her arms. It was the name I’d given her in honor of her mother.
“Is she ever getting big,” came Fisher’s voice.
I glanced up to catch Fisher looking down at me.
She appeared much healthier now that she’d stopped using her walking stick. Her leg, although still scarred from the crocodile attack, wasn’t as gruesome looking as it had once been. It resembled an old tree’s bark or a wrinkled blanket. She stretched her back and sat down on the log next to me.
“Still can’t believe this is real,” she said, gazing throughout the Village.
Today marked the two-year-anniversary of both our losses and our victory. Fisher had held onto a smal
l booklet made of leather and parchment paper. I’d never known her to be an artist, but it turned out she was. She drew faces, mostly using sticks of charcoal and, occasionally, flowers to rub in some color. It was incredible to see how many tools we’d come up with as a mixed society. Our people as a whole were now a combination of the original Village dwellers, Norther slaves, and even a Norther—Iskra, who’d proven herself to be an invaluable part of our society.
Fisher ran her finger along one of the back pages of her book and across countless little drawn sticks that signified a day passed. She’d bundled them in groups of fives, with one mark running horizontally across her sticks. The entire page was full. At the very bottom, she scraped her charcoal stick one more time across the last remaining four, and underneath that wrote 365, 2, which I knew meant Day 365, year 2 following the war.
We’d started officially counting days after the war as a way of embracing our new start.
She flipped through her pages to return to the front, and as she did that, I saw text written throughout the book.
“What’s that?” I asked, craning my neck. “Poetry? Are you a writer?”
Smirking, she shook her head. “I wish. I don’t have that talent. I’m documentin’ everything, so one day, if they ever come back for us, they’ll know our story, you know?” She looked saddened, her head pulled forward and her shoulders curved inward.
“So, our history,” I said.
The corner of her lip pulled up and she glanced sideways at me. “Exactly. I’ve been goin’ around collecting women’s stories. All of them. The slaves, everything. It’s pretty damn amazing, Brone, to hear everything they’ve gone through. And to hear about Rainer, about the Northers when they were kids, all of it. If I could write a book, I’d write about Rainer’s story. Man, if I ever get off this island, maybe I will and I’ll be rich.” She nudged me and laughed, something that never got old.
Fisher never used to laugh, so to see her this way lit up my heart in a way I couldn’t describe. Aside from Ellie, Fisher was my best friend. During the last two years, I’d told her things I’d never told anyone, like how my mom’s boyfriend, Gary, had also hit me a few times when Mom wasn’t around.
I’d never voiced that aloud to anyone because I didn’t want anyone thinking I’d killed him out of anger or revenge. I’d only hit him with the pan to save my mom—it hadn’t been about me. Fisher understood that.
Side by side, Fisher and I watched as the toddlers played together, giggling and throwing sticks. Some were well-balanced on their feet, while a few others stumbled over their chubby thighs before crashing into the grass.
Fisher placed her book on her lap and ran a hand across a clean white sheet. Glaring intently toward the children, she held her charcoal stick in her left hand and started drawing lines.
I didn’t dare say anything. When Fisher drew, she disappeared from reality. While she looked pissed off, she was concentrating and loving every second of it. I knew precisely what she was thinking and why she was drawing the children playing—we’d become a big family. Smiling, I watched them play, and every few seconds, I glanced down at Fisher’s drawing coming to life.
Eliot came running out from behind one of the tents with a goofy grin on his face and his arms waving like an octopus’s tentacles. Beside the mothers, he looked huge, but everyone knew he was as friendly as a golden retriever.
He reached down, and with his tanned, muscular arms, scooped up a boy and a girl, then kissed each one on their foreheads. What I loved most about Eliot was that he treated every child like his own, even though some of them were the biological children of his dead brother, Isaac.
He grinned and his molars made an appearance, resembling white pieces of gum inside his cheeks. I couldn’t even imagine what it was like being the father to twenty-three children.
Iliza, the Egyptian beauty he’d fallen in love with, walked to his side with a hand over her round belly and leaned her head on his shoulder.
Fisher brushed the tips of her fingers across her drawing and laughed through her nose.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“It’s crazy,” she said.
She didn’t have to respond to me to know what she was talking about. Every day, I felt this way. How had we, hundreds of convicted murderers, managed to create such a peaceful society? Occasionally, women got on each other’s nerves, but in comparison to how things used to be, this was remarkable.
Fisher rubbed her thumb beside one of her drawn child’s feet to create a shadow. “Honestly, I don’t even want to get off this island. Everyone’s happy. I don’t know how you made this happen, Brone, but you did.”
In the distance, I caught a glimpse of Murk frying a fish over the Village’s open fire. After the war, she hadn’t even tried to reclaim her position as leader. It was as if she’d known her time was up. Now, she enjoyed her freedom—she wasn’t burdened by responsibility anymore, and she deserved that. It was a bit like watching someone retire after a lifetime of service.
Every day, her spirits were elevated, and I no longer viewed Murk as some cold, powerful woman—instead, I saw an older woman who wanted nothing more than to live the remainder of her life in serenity.
Some days, I even caught her playing with the children, her grin so wide I barely recognized her.
I turned to Fisher. “I didn’t do all of this. Everyone took part.”
She nudged me in the shoulder. “You know what I mean.”
Our attention turned toward Biggie, Rocket, and Elektra, who came through the Village gates dragging a dead boar. Elektra, now lankier than ever but almost as tall as Biggie, smiled smugly as she tugged on the rope. What she didn’t realize was that behind her, Biggie was doing most of the heavy lifting.
It was extraordinary to see my Hunters come back from each hunt with food for our people. We were still surrounded by the Dead Zone, after all. They were no doubt traveling incredible distances to find food. Slowly, life had begun to return following the burning of our Village and a large portion of the jungle.
What blew my mind most of all was the fine work of two women in particular—Clarisse and Matilde. Having once been slaves, both of these two beautiful souls were part of the group I’d initially rescued from the Northers. Clarisse, a former nutritionist from Colorado, knew absolutely everything about the importance of a healthy, balanced diet full of plant-based protein. Matilde, on the other hand, had grown up in Portugal before migrating to the United States, where she studied hydroponics and marine biology.
With her mind-blowing knowledge, we’d managed to repopulate the Working Ground’s bay of water with an array of fish to be consumed. Every day, she went diving into the water to care for the bay, her slick black hair combed back on her head when she resurfaced.
The rule was simple: women could use the bay to bathe, but urinating was to occur on land. I’d found this to be a bit silly at first, seeing as the bay was so big. But then, Matilde explained to me that human urine is essentially full of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus—nutrients that help plants grow. She’d said something about fertilizer containing those three ingredients and that our pee was basically fertilizer. Long story short, she said that if everyone were to urinate in the bay—and realistically, we were several hundred women—we would be filling it with fertilizer, in a sense, which would feed the algae. Algae was a big oxygen sucker, so the more algae there was, the less oxygen remained for the fish underwater.
She’d explained all of this to the people of the Village during one of our weekly classes, something I’d initiated to help promote constant learning and growth. Anyone who’d once held a specialty was asked to give educational sessions to help share some of their knowledge. Proxy, with that encyclopedia-like brain of hers, had volunteered each week and had even asked if I could implement daily sessions. While her knowledge was invaluable, I didn’t want to stress the women out by forcing them into anything. Instead, I’d decided to take it slow until the women began to show mo
re interest.
It was important to establish some sort of educational program because as the children started growing older, they would need some form of education. Unlike Rainer, these kids weren’t going to become mindless soldiers; they were going to have a life worth living.
“Real meat tonight!” one woman shouted, pointing at the dead boar.
At once, several women came running toward the Hunters to help carry the animal. One woman patted Elektra on the back—a gesture that meant something along the lines of, Well done—and Elektra stiffened her posture pridefully.
Walking toward Fisher and me, Rocket wrapped an arm around Elektra. “Her first kill.”
“You shoulda seen it,” Elektra said, her long orange hair swaying behind her back as she jumped up and down. She crouched, whipped out an arrow from her quiver, and loaded her bow.
“Whoa,” Rocket said, pushing her weapon down. “We talked about this.”
Elektra cleared her throat. “Sorry.” She put her arrow away, and with an invisible one, started reenacting the hunting scene.
Behind her, Rocket smiled like a tired mother, rolled her eyes, and threw a thumb out at Elektra. “It was all her.”
Biggie stomped her way toward us, her legs jiggling with every step. “Girl did damn good.” She slapped Elektra on the back, causing her to drop her bow.
Elektra swung around with a scowl, and I couldn’t help but laugh. “Get used to it, Elektra. Biggie here once had me hanging inches away from a school of piranhas.”
Elektra wrinkled her nose. “School?”
“Girl, you got a lot to learn,” Biggie said. “It means a bunch o’ fish that swim together.”
Elektra paused, then without warning, burst out laughing. “You did that to Brone?”
Biggie smacked a hand over her belly, her deep laugh spreading across the city. “She din’t think it was funny then.”
I smirked, remembering how angry I’d been. How could I have reacted any other way? She’d scared the crap out of me and I was also still processing the fact that I was never going to see home again. I remembered jumping on top of her, prepared to bash her face in.
