by Kody Boye
But I know it’s a trap, I think. Why wouldn’t it be?
The game wants to end me. It feels cheated that it couldn’t before—that it couldn’t snare me within its clutches when it so obviously wanted to—so why would this be anything but typical for it?
In the dark hallway, the faint light streams through the windows, offering only a bit of respite from the shadows.
It doesn’t matter, though, for as soon as I round the corner, I see a haunting apparition.
The Moth Man—who is thin and gangly and appears to be malnourished—lifts a hand and points at me.
But I don’t turn.
I know there is nothing behind me. There can’t be. I’d just come from that location and heard not a single thing. I—
I don’t hesitate.
I lift the gun and fire.
The sound is enormous in the space—echoing like a clap of thunder in the night.
The monster falls, dead to a perfect shot.
But I know I have awoken the beast, and its number is death.
So I run.
As I make my way into the place, I keep shouting, “Leon! Leon!” over and over without measure for what it might do. I peer into doorways that are bolted over with bars, pass through checkpoints whose wrought-iron gateways have yawned open and rusted, turn down black-and-white-checkered halls and try my hardest not to cry.
I want so badly for this to be over. But it isn’t, and it won’t be. Not yet.
The sound of my pounding feet makes me grimace. I run down the corridor only to find that there is a trail made from some kind of substance.
When I kick a particularly thick piece of it, it cracks, then turns to ash.
Clay?
Am I getting close to something?
I don’t bother to question further.
Instead, I run, as fast as my legs allow.
I have just rounded the corner when someone gasps.
“Help!” the person says. “Please! Help me!”
I turn, gun raised, and pale.
The person, who is so thin I can see the skin stretched over their faces is little but a head inside a cocoon of clay.
“Don’t scream!” I say, holding the gun steady.
“I heard the shot,” the woman says. “Please—help me.”
“I’m not here for you.”
“Please!” she wails. “Help—”
But I don’t listen.
I dart down the hall and yell Leon’s name as loudly as I can.
Leon!
It creates a mountainous sound, reverberating along the tile floor and concrete walls.
I am so close. I know I am. But the further it goes on, the deeper into their trap I fall.
Other people are starting to awaken from their slumber within the cocoons and are watching, attempting to cry out with their haunting eyes and voices.
“Help!” one calls.
“Please!” another begs.
“Help us!” a third intones.
Obviously, I don’t. They are simply NPCs, trapped in this world by the boogeymen in the night.
As I round the corner , I’m about to cry out once more when a shape shifts at my side.
I turn, stumble, and nearly fall to my knees in relief.
Before me is Leon—who, with wide eyes and a gaping mouth, is staring at me from a cocoon that appears not as discolored as the rest within the insane asylum.
“Sophia,” he breathes.
“Leon?” I ask, reaching forward to touch his face. “Is that… is that really you?”
“It’s me,” he says, and he laughs, tears streaming down his face. “It’s me.”
“Thank God.”
“We don’t have time. You have to get me out of here.”
“How?” I ask. I have no idea how I’ll break through the cocoon. A simple tap on the with the flashlight proves that whatever material it is made of is thick and will require more than just a few hits to penetrate.
“You have to break it,” he says, his eyes darting toward the gun.
“I’m not shooting you!”
“You’re not,” he says. “Holster the gun. Take your knife out.”
“But—”
A screech comes from somewhere down the hall.
Leon pales.
Doing as asked, I draw the knife in one quick motion.
“Start hitting it with the hilt.”
I slam the hilt of the knife into the plaster.
Bits of clay come free.
“Again,” he says.
I do it a second time.
“Faster! Faster!”
A third, and a fourth.
The clay is coming loose—slowly but surely—but with each strike the screeching noises are getting closer, threatening to overwhelm me in but a moment’s notice.
“Can you kick?” I ask.
“I’m trying,” he says. “I—”
I don’t hesitate this time.
I bear all my weight down into the hilt of the knife and slam it near Leon’s midsection.
A gaping crack appears.
I kick.
It collapses.
Leon’s hands dart through and begin to pull the plaster away.
“Oh, thank God,” I say as he finally breaks free, taking him into my arms. “I thought—I thought—”
“Give me the gun,” he says. “Now.”
When I inch forward, he swings the gun from the holster.
I turn.
A Moth Man lunges.
Leon fires—so close my eardrum feels like it’s going to explode. A ringing blasts through my ear, causing me to weave forward as I step forward.
The Moth Man stumbles.
He grabs my hand and drags me from the creature’s body.
Then we are rushing down the hall and back toward the entryway.
NPCs scream as they struggle to break free, overshadowing any noise the Moth Men are making, but still, they are coming. Leon fires once, twice, a third time, a fourth, cutting them down as they appear like locusts making their way through the night.
The ground begins to tremble.
“What—” I start.
But I can’t finish.
The foundation of the building starts to shake.
“What is that?” Leon asks. “What the hell is that?”
“An… earthquake,” I say.
“Great! Just great!”
“Keep running! Go! Go!”
We burst around the corner just as a massive crack splits the wall at our side.
A Moth Man appears.
A strip of florescent lighting snaps from the ceiling and comes sailing down.
Leon and I split apart just in time for the strip to strike and then knock the creature away like a pendulum.
We rejoin in the middle, rushing toward the lobby.
“We’re gonna win!” I scream. “We’re gonna win!”
“Sophia,” Leon breathes.
I turn.
The Devil appears before us.
Struck with fear, and nearly frozen in place, I scream, “Leave us alone!”
But it doesn’t.
Flexing its fingers, I watch in horror as something drips from the creature’s fingers—something I soon realize led me directly to this place.
Blood.
“Blood,” I whisper.
It laughs as Leon pushes me aside—as he lifts the gun to fire at its form. Seemingly impervious to damage, it steps forward on one cloven hoof, then blinks to reveal a pair of eyes glowing and red.
“What do we do?” I ask.
“We run,” Leon says.
We split away from one another as if we are water parted by a godly prophet. Me heading one way, he another, we divert the creature’s attention between the two of us and are able to slip around it with little more than a roar of frustration.
Leon breaks out the door just in time for the sky to begin broiling with thunderous clouds and sleet.
“RUN!” Leon cries.
Slashing one of the Moth Men as it draws near, I slice its side, then stab another before letting go of the weapon and bursting out of the building.
I take his hand.
The game announces, Victory!
But the Devil isn’t ready to let go.
No.
It tries to drag me back—back into Mount Mary’s Insane Asylum.
“LEON!” I scream. “HELP ME!”
He takes hold of my arms and drags me close as before me the sky opens and reveals a white, angelic light.
We are bathed in its glory—awash in its comfort.
I cry.
The Devil screams.
As the light begins to expand across my vision, I dig my hands into Leon’s arms, drag myself forward, then bow my head against his chest.
I feel the Devil let go.
I feel something take hold of me.
Then, I realize, we are leaving Dystopia behind.
Forever.
Epilogue
It snows.
And it’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
We have just exited the car I left the hospital in to make my way to Kingsman Online Gaming. Cold and forlorn in a world that is completely my own, I slide my hands into my pockets as I consider the implications that will come as a result of my disobeying my mother’s orders and look on at the Sunset Suites that loom in the distance.
“Sophia?” Leon asks.
I turn my eyes to face him. “Yeah?”
He shifts his feet in the snow beneath us and sighs as he lowers his gaze. “I… I really don’t know what I should say.”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“You could’ve stayed out here. Left me in there. You… you had all the money in the world, and… well…” He closes his eyes. “When I was in there, in the game, I… I thought that I would—”
“Don’t,” I say. “It’s over.”
He trembles in the cold, and though I want to reach out to touch him, I know I shouldn’t.
We’ve only just arrived back in the real world. He still needs time to adjust, to process, to acclimate. And I know for him it’s not going to be easy.
To be in there for so long—to think he was going to die—
There’s no solution to fix that.
His sigh is enough to break me from my thoughts.
I lift my head to face his honey-colored eyes.
I expect to see anger.
Instead, I see relief.
“There’s no way I can ever repay you for what you did,” he says.
“There is one thing you can do.”
He blinks, stunned, then frowns. A short moment later, he asks, “What?”
“Be my friend?”
A smile parts his lips soon after. “I think that’s a guarantee already.”
I reach down. Take his hold. Lock my fingers around his.
“I can’t stay for long,” I say. “I have to get back to the hospital. To make sure my mom and little brother are okay.”
“And your father?” Leon asks. “What about him?”
“I—” I start to say, then stop, unsure what exactly I can offer. I think on this for several long moments, allowing the snow to fall, my thoughts to process. When it finally comes time to speak, I say, “I’ll deal with him later.”
“He could be after your money, Sophia.”
“I know.”
“And if that happens?”
I sigh. “If that happens,” I begin, “I’ll deal with it then. Now isn’t the time.”
“All right.”
I force a smile., because truth be told, I do fear that my father is lying, that he is trying his hardest to make his mark in my life only to run off once more. Given I am now of age, however, and in control of my own assets, I cannot dwell on that.
For that reason, I slip my hand from Leon’s. “I should go. They’ll be expecting me at the hospital.”
“Wait.”
I pause, offering him an unsure look.
“Just… come with me for a moment,” he says. “See my parents. Let me tell them how brave you are.”
That’s the thing. I don’t feel brave. I feel headstrong, overwhelmed, a bit crazy, but not brave.
No.
I simply did what was right.
As we start forward, and as we make our way toward apartment number ten, I wonder, for one brief moment, what they’ll think.
There is a sort of lunacy in what I’ve done—in what I promised I wouldn’t do.
But as Leon opens the door—and as his mother drops the plate in her grasp, then cries out, drawing his father into the doorway—I realize now that it doesn’t matter.
No.
The game tried to beat us, but in the end, we beat it.
As Leon’s parents cry and take their son into their arms, I can only think two words:
We won.
THE END
Did you enjoy ALT CONTROL SAVE?
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About the Author
Though he was born and raised in Southeastern Idaho, Kody Boye has lived in the state of Texas since 2010. His first short story, [A] Prom Queen's Revenge,was published at the age of fourteen. He has since gone on to publish numerous works of fiction, including the young-adult novels When They Cameand The Beautiful Ones, as well as fiction for adults. He currently lives and writes in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas.
You can visit him online at
www.kodyboye.com
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Other YA Novels by Kody Boye
The Kingsman Online Duology
Alt Control Enter
Alt Control Save
The Beautiful Ones Trilogy
The Beautiful Ones
The War Outside
The Secrets of Trinity Springs Series
The Midnight Spell
The When They Came Trilogy
When They Came
When They Saw
When They Fell
Coming Soon
Dagana: The Last Mermaid
The World Upon Their Backs (The Fallen World, #1)
