Savage Run

by E. J. Squires

  “Please enter the booth,” a female voice announces.

  What is this obstacle course about? Cautiously, I walk toward the clear stall, open the door, and step inside. When the door closes behind me, my surroundings change in an instant: I am now in a large rectangular room with light gray walls and white marble floors. In front of me is a floating, square, glass counter with a small red button, and a message. I read it.

  Once you push the red button, two images will appear in front of you. You will have five minutes to eliminate one of them by shooting it.

  The image you eliminate will fade away and be replaced with another image.

  Repeat the cycle.

  There are eight rounds total. If you do not finish each round within five minutes, you will be disqualified.

  Just as soon as I have finished reading, a silver handgun appears in my fist and my stomach roils as if telling me that this is the most dangerous—the most telling—challenge of them all. What images will be there? What will they be able to tell about me from what I choose to eliminate—and keep?

  Reluctantly, I press the button. A red digital clock appears high up on the far wall, displaying ten seconds. Below the clock is a 3D image of my sandals and the quilt my mother made for me. How do they know about my quilt? It doesn’t matter; I have to hurry. I aim for and shoot my sandals; though it would be difficult to live without those, I’m not going to eliminate the only thing I have left from my mother.

  That was easy enough. When my sandals vanish, up pops an image of my father’s trailer. The trailer doesn’t mean nearly as much to me as the quilt does, but if I remove the trailer, where will I live? I can live with Gemma’s mother so I shoot the old, ugly trailer.

  In the trailer’s stead, emerges Gemma’s mother, Ruth. I shoot the blanket, but this is getting harder—more personal. I feel great. Three shots in less than a minute.

  Next appears Arthor. Arthor? What is he doing here? Arthor against Ruth? Who do I choose? How do I choose? Arthor means so much to me, and he’s one of the reason’s I’ve made it this far in Savage Run. Why did it have to be him? And why is this a choice? This is ridiculous; that’s what it is! It’s just a game. It’s just a game. But the rules are clear and I have to choose. Ruth or Arthor. Each time I lift my gun to shoot, I lower my hand again. Several times I do this, until the timer flares up red. Ten second left of five minutes. The five minutes have flown by all too quickly. It’s time to choose. The bottom line is that I can’t let Ruth go; she’s like a mother to me. I’m so sorry Arthor. I look around to see if anyone is here, but I’m all alone. Besides, it’s just a stupid game anyway. Since I have to choose, I point the gun toward Arthor, hoping he’ll never find out that I shot him.

  In Arthor’s stead appears my father. What is the point of this? Whatever it is, I hate it. Why do they need to know this about me—who I choose? This is ridiculous—abusive; that’s what it is! Instead of the physical abuse I’ve gone through the past few days, now it turns mental. I don’t love my father as much as I love Ruth, but he is my father. And though I don’t linger on them a lot, there have been moments where he was caring. Like all those times when he repaired my bike, and the time when he gave me my mother’s locket. I reach for the place on my chest where it used to hang. He could have kept it for himself—the only thing we had of value. My father’s desperate face appears before me “Heidi, don’t do this! I’m sorry I messed up!” He looked so helpless lying there, taking the beating from the Unifers at Culmination Airport. And when Mai asked me if I knew him, I denied him. I hear his voice echo in my ears. “Heidi!” Blood flowing from his nose—the strongest man alive. Now…he might be dead. But there are so many painful memories, too, and it’s his fault I’m not able to fully trust any man. A tear rolls down my cheek. My father or Ruth? Ruth is kinder, milder, like a mother to me. The clock is flashing red now. Five seconds. I hate myself for who I am. I aim the gun at my father and pull the trigger. I would never do that in real life, but just the thought of having chosen Ruth over him makes me feel like a traitor. Again.

  In my father’s place, Nicholas appears. Even before I am able to gasp, every fragment of my being feels like it’s being shocked with electrical agony. How do they know about him? Or maybe they don’t. Maybe the gas I inhaled earlier is interacting with some part of my brain to uncover the things or the people I care most about. But if that’s the case, why did my sandals show up? I study Nicholas, his chestnut hair, his strong nose, his chiseled jawline, his kind, and blue eyes. I hear him saying that a stiff breeze would knock me over. Gemma was dead. And then I remember the magazine incident. I laugh. And he was so sweet when he first danced with me. His fingertips on my collarbone, on my bare back. I hear his deep voice trembling, asking me not to go. His wet lips on mine. His strong, hungry arms. Nicholas makes me feel safe. Ruth makes me feel safe. I’ve known Ruth for much longer, but the love I feel for her is so different than…do I love Nicholas? It’s still so new, and too early to say. Eliminating either of them—I just can’t do it. I can’t betray Gemma all over again by killing her mother! Wait. This is just a stupid game! I kick the walls with everything I’ve got. I can’t decide. I can’t think—the gas must have done something to my brain because my feelings seem exaggerated. The clock lights up red, showing five seconds left. Nicholas or Ruth? Five. I don’t know! Four. I won’t choose! Three. Two. Despising myself, and not understanding exactly why, I point the gun at Ruth and fire. I watch her vanish into a puff of smoke and it makes me feel like I have committed some unpardonable sin.

  As the echo of the gunshot settles, I lean against the counter and swallow again and again to keep the tears from coming. I don’t know why these images are making me so emotional—especially because I know they’re just a figment of my imagination. Without yet having seen the next image, it’s already apparent to me who it will be: Gemma. I lift my eyes, and as expected, there she is in the very yellow floral dress Ruth made for her eleventh birthday. The rosiness in her cheeks is there and she’s smiling as she braids her long, blonde hair. This is in another realm of difficult and I don’t even think I know myself well enough to make these kinds of decisions. Or maybe I do, and my hesitancy comes from knowing that the decision was made the very instant I saw Gemma up there. This entire process feels so wrong…so invasive, like the most tender part of me is being violated and used against me, and never before have I despised this program more than now. But even so, I have to choose, and whether I think about it for a second or an hour, my choice will be the same. By choosing her, I can in my own way repay her for what I did. Guilt is a ruthless ruler, and five minutes is way too short to make these kinds of rulings—even for a mind game. Lifting the gun, I point it toward Nicholas and pull the trigger. My heart is like a rock in my chest.

  Who’s next? There is no one else I care about more than Gemma or Nicholas, is there? Anxiously, I wait for the next person, wondering who it will be. But no person emerges. Only the words ‘your freedom.’ Panic expands like a demon in my chest. The words take me right back to Culmination when I was running toward the Savage Run registration booth and was forced to make a choice between Gemma and myself.

  My gun raised, it vacillates between the words ‘your freedom’ and Gemma. If I don’t have freedom, I have nothing. But Gemma… Instead of making a decision, I want to curl up into a ball and disappear and pass my will over someone else. And perhaps in this rare instance, it is better to let someone choose for me. Sometimes having a choice is a burden—a curse—and requires a hundred times more than having no choice at all. I bring my hand up to my eyes and sob.

  I can’t choose.

  I’m out.

  I withdraw.

  I lose.

  Defeated, I lower the gun and set it on the counter. I don’t understand this inability to choose—especially since I full well recognize that this is the end of it for me. I’ll be sent home. Then it hits me; this is exactly what Nicholas was trying to explain: responsibility is a burden. But I re
fused to listen. Mai’s words come back to me, too, and it’s like everything I have been through these fast few days is all pointing to this one choice. I have to rise to the occasion; be more than who I am. Be braver than ever. Stronger than ever.

  And being braver and stronger means that I have to choose—that’s the cost of freedom: to not give away my power to anyone else. If Gemma were here, she’d tell me to choose freedom, but what I’d tell her in return is that life is nothing without the ones we love.

  Nothing.

  Aiming the gun at the words ‘your freedom,’ I squeeze the trigger, and just as the shot goes off, I’m back in the clear booth and red algae cave along with other participants who are firing away.

  With a heavy heart, I step out of my stall. My foot is still very sore, but having crawled and stood motionless for a while seems to have helped it a bit. As soon as I see others tearing toward the exit sign, I take a deep breath, pull my shoulders back, and shove the entire experience into the back of my mind. There’s no time to second-guess my decision—not if I want to be one of the top three.

  Chapter 27

  I stand in front of the cave’s exit—another narrow, black passageway to wriggle through—and every area of my body feels like it’s made of rock. I try to inhale and exhale deeply, but with each breath, the suffocating sensation in my chest just becomes tighter. Just do it, Heidi! I place my hands on the smooth, warm opening edge, and lean my forehead onto the rock. Why can’t I just climb in when I full well know that wasting my time could cost me my spot in the top three? Still, I am unable to make myself move even an inch. I would think that having crawled through another tunnel just like this one earlier would make it easier this time. However, thinking about how the walls closed in on me before, and how dark it was in there, I just know I won’t be able to stop the panic from rising within me.

  “Heidi!”

  I turn around and see Arthor running toward me. For a moment, seeing a familiar, friendly face helps take the edge off my anxiety, but when the image of him vanishing beyond the shot of my gun returns, the muscles in my face involuntarily twitch.

  “What’s that look?” He stops right next to me and pats me on the back, a patch of sweat darkening the collar of his uniform. He’s panting and he has this worried and wild look in his eyes, like something’s really bothering him.

  “Uh…nothing—just don’t like tight spaces, that’s all. Are you okay, though? You look like you’ve been to hell and back.”

  He blows a couple of times, his face drawing closed. “Still thinking about my choices. Well, best to keep moving. You ready?”

  No. I glance into the dim tunnel again and my shoulders go rigid. “Yes.”

  “Well then, ladies first.”

  I just can’t think about what I’m about to do. If I do, I’ll start to hyperventilate again. With a thumping heart and clammy hands wound into fists, I climb into the cavern. The slick, warm rocks press against my palms, and I notice how the dark, warm tunnel smells even more of sulfur. My heart rate increases the farther in I crawl, and as the darkness envelops me, I can’t breathe and go to pull back. But Arthor is already behind me.

  “I can’t do it!”

  “Yes, you can, Heidi. Just focus on my voice, okay? We’ll be okay. This is the easy part.”

  “For you it is!”

  “Place one hand in front of the other. That’s all you need to do.”

  I feel his hand around my ankle and he squeezes it gently. “You’re doing great, Heidi. One hand in front of the other.”

  Pausing, I remind myself again why I’m doing this. For Gemma. Yet even with her at the forefront of my thoughts, it takes every morsel of willpower to slide my hand forward. I pick up my knee and pull it toward my hands. The next hand. The next knee. One at a time, I inch forward.

  “Good, Heidi. Keep going. A little faster now.”

  I pick up my pace a little, but thoughts of how I might become forever trapped in this tunnel prevent me from committing one hundred percent.

  “The faster you move, the faster we’ll be there.”

  “Okay, okay,” I snap impatiently, moving my hands and knees at a faster pace. Mercifully, the rhythm of my movements starts to take over, and I note that the more I focus on what I’m doing, the less anxious I feel.

  “What did you have to choose between back there?” Arthor asks.

  It takes me a second to recall what I had to choose between. “Things like my sandals and my trailer…Gemma’s mother.” I’m careful to not bring up that I shot him.

  “Really? What was your last one?”

  “It was between Gemma and my freedom.” Squeezing through a particularly tight area, I grunt. “You?”

  “It was between my lover and my freedom.” He grunts, too, just as he crawls through the tight space. “So who did you choose?”

  “Gemma.”

  “Really? Over your own freedom?”

  “Well…yes. If I don’t have those I care about, there’s no use in having my freedom, is there?”

  He doesn’t reply.

  “What did you choose?”

  “I chose my freedom.”

  “Oh.” My voice sounds flat, but my insides are in turmoil. Obviously, I don’t know Arthor as well as I thought I did. All his actions up until now prove that he’d choose his loved ones over freedom or even over his own life.

  “What other choices did you have to make?”

  Quickly, I reply, “Just some people you don’t know.”

  He pauses for a moment. “I chose my freedom over my lover because I found out that he cheated on me shortly before I left.”

  “Oh.” Now I feel like a judgmental bigot.

  “I thought I had been able to forgive him, but being in the booth, I realized that the hurt sits real deep, you know.”

  “That’s fair.”

  “I still felt like a scumbag doing it, though.”

  “Don’t,” I say. “You deserve someone who will cherish you.”

  “Thanks, Heidi.”

  Crawling forward, I notice there is more space between the tunnel’s walls and me. We must be getting closer to the end. I take a deep breath. “But don’t you think that it was done in a quite manipulating way? I mean how they forced us to choose like that?”

  “Certainly.”

  After crawling for few a few more minutes, I see a dim light up ahead and my heart leaps in my chest. “Arthor! I see light!”

  “Finally. I can’t wait to be out of here; you stink.”

  I laugh. “Well, you don’t exactly smell like rose petals.”

  “But I’m downwind to you.”

  “You insisted,” I retort.

  The end came much faster than I had anticipated, and it occurs to me that I haven’t yet discussed with Arthor how we’ll proceed once we get out of here. We should just separate and wish each other well. He’s officially my competitor now—and I must see him as such.

  “Arthor?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m just going to run ahead as fast as I can once we reach the end here in a little bit. Good luck out there.”

  “Okay. Just let me scout out the area first just in case there are any dangerous creatures,” he answers.

  “Trying to get a head start on me?” I ask, jokingly.

  “What?”

  I can almost hear the muscles in his jaw tense up.

  “You’re crazy if that’s what you think! Stop being so paranoid; I’m the only friend you have right now and I’m not out to get you like the rest of them.”

  To say that I’m baffled is an understatement. “I was just joking, Arthor, geez.”

  “Even when I have nothing I want from you, you still think I’m out to get you. Not everyone is like your father, Heidi.”

  I stop dead in my tracks, coiling my fingers into fists. “What’s gotten into you? Of course I realize that everyone isn’t like my father!” From the way he reacts, I almost think he’s hiding something from me. Maybe he had to
shoot me, too, and he’s feeling guilty about it.

  I continue onward until I get to the end of the passageway, and then pause before I step into the shadowy jungle. Looking up, I have a hard time seeing the tops of some of the trees, and I can only make out a few splotches of the blue sky above, the leaves concealing the rest. Some of their trunks are as wide as four or five lengths of me and the smooth, splotchy bark is covered in moss. There’s a constant hum of insects, bird chirps and caws, growling noises, rustling leaves, squeaking, and bushes, vines and plants move as if by themselves.

  A sharp pain goes through my foot when I first step on it. Standing on my good foot, and circling my injured ankle, I try to loosen it up a bit. I think back to the Opening Ceremony when President Volkov announced that Eastern Republic scientists were hired to recreate dangerous, extinct beasts and various mythological creatures for the O-Region. Sitting in my chair back in the Conference Center, it sounded scary. Now, I don’t think there’s even a word for how I feel. There’s just a queasiness that sits in my bones and muscles and blood, screaming for me to crawl back into the hole I came from and quit. Before it’s too late. But I can’t pull back now.

  “Just let me do this for you, Heidi,” Arthor says softly, climbing out of the tunnel, brushing the dust off his hands. “You saved my life, remember?”

  Why is he acting this way all of a sudden? “Friends don’t keep score.”

  Pulling me into his arms, he says, “True, but I would be honored to do this for you.”

  Is there something important that he needs to prove to himself in doing this? He did insist on running first during the latter portion of the marathon, too, so maybe he’s trying to protect me. “Fine. I’ll wait. But if you’re not back by thirty seconds, I’m out of here.”

  “I’m just going to look.” He smiles, the sides of his eyes crinkling. “I’ll holler once I’ve scouted out the area.”