by Cameron Jace
I check the caller’s ID. It’s Ariadna.
“Ariadna?” I pick up before cautious Leo stops me.
“Hey.” Ariadna sounds worried, but she sounds happy to talk to me to too. “How are you, girlie?”
“Ariadna?” I say. “Where have you been?”
“Celebrating, you know. Being a Nine is such a responsibility.” She sounds like she’s mocking herself. “My family is truly happy. We’re moving to a new house in the Boulevard. My sister is getting a schoolship for a ballet school — and a new boyfriend. Everyone rises and shines.”
I shrug, not knowing if I should be happy for her, being in the situation I am in. But come on. She is super lovely. I am happy for her. None of this is her fault.
“So listen,” says Ariadna. “I know I have not been there for you for the last two days. They threatened me to revoke my rank if I did something stupid—”
“Like calling me now?” I cut in. “That’s very stupid of you, Ariadna. They’ll track you.”
“I know,” she sighs. “I am calling through something called an iCoder, sold by the Monsters-to-be in the poorer neighborhoods. A new device the Breakfast Club is trying to spread out to people. I was told I had only a minute before the Summit can track me. But I had to hear your voice, Decca.”
“Oh. Ariadna. That’s so—”
“I had to hear your voice before—”
“Before what, Ariadna?”
“Listen,” she says. I wonder how much is left of the minute. “My sister’s new boyfriend turned out to be from Eliza Day’s family. He told her an hour ago that Prophet Xitler announced in a secret meeting that this year’s games were the most profitable, but they also spent ridiculous amounts of money, like on Artificial Sky. They can’t spend more money on the games. Besides, a lot of viewers are starting to have a sweet spot for you guys. This never happened during the game before. The Summit won’t let that affect the show.”
“Ouch,” I say. “I guess that means that the banned song we uploaded now is going to get them madder and madder.”
“Definitely.”
“So?”
“So tomorrow…” Ariadna pauses. “They’re planning to finish you off. Literally. The game will be brutal and unfair. They won’t abide by the rules. They don’t want anyone to win. It just can’t happen. If someone wins, the system will be compromised. Tomorrow, Carnivore and two other genetically manipulated tigers will be out to kill you. I have to go, Decca. Take care.”
“I understand,” I say, letting my hand freefall with the iAm in it, exchanging looks with the others. I remember that I want to say good-bye to Ariadna, so I pull the iAm up again. “Thank you, Ariadna,” I say, but she is already gone. None of them heard the phone call yet. How am I going to pass on the ugly news?
“Don’t tell me,” says Leo. “There is free ice-cream tomorrow before the game.” Leo looks like he was expecting this. What else do you know, Leo?
I stick out my tongue at Leo. How can he be so calm? Anyone seeing the horror on my face knows I have bad news.
“Ice cream?” Vern asks Leo. “All of us?”
Chapter 27
Dream a Little Dream
In my dream, I am looking through Woo’s eyes. I see him fighting for his life in the ninth Monster Show. It feels like I am wearing his body, like a tight dress, making it harder for me to breathe inside of him.
He is fighting a one-eyed, white tiger on white sands underneath white skies. He is fighting Carnivore in the Monsterium.
I see Woo’s hands swinging as if they were mine. But how can this be? They are a boy’s hands, tough, muscular, and full of hardened veins. I can’t control them, but they are swinging with a sword at the white tiger.
Is this a dream or a nightmare? Have you ever dreamt your hands weren’t yours, doing things without your control.
Woo slashes at the tiger while I am inside him trying to control his hands. He does it all wrong. I have better ideas and tactics than his, but I don’t know how to control his hands, or how to tell him. I scream inside of him, telling him I know how to win, that he doesn’t have to die. Woo doesn’t listen, and my hands are tight because they are not mine. They are his.
Woo is strong. He is counting on his strength. I would rather rely on my mind, on my intuition. I wish I could talk to him, maybe insinuate my thoughts, so he follows my advice. Although I am inside his body, seeing with his eyes, I am still so far away from him. So far.
“I am seeing through your eyes,” I whisper to him, but he doesn’t hear me. I feel like I’m talking to myself in a narrow closet I can’t get out of. I want to remind him that he wished he could see through my eyes, and now I am the one who sees through his eyes.
The only way for Woo to differentiate between sand and sky is by observing the curves in the sands, the tops of the sand dunes. They only show when they change slope or direction. They have a darker shade, but they are so hard to see. There is also the sun, blistering onto the sands. Other than this, everything else is white. It’s so blinding. Woo needs to find the tiger hiding in the white sands and stay alive before the tiger finds him.
Helping me stay alive as well.
Helping us.
Woo and I used to never be apart.
I don’t care what happens to me if the tiger kills Woo. Woo and I are one. If he lives, I live. If he dies, I die with him.
“You and I am one. It’s not ‘are’. It’s ‘am’,” Woo used to say.
Although Woo doesn’t talk to me, I can hear his thoughts occasionally. He is thinking about me, calling me Tender. He says he loves the ‘ten’ in Tender. He thinks that if he dies, I will be able to kill Carnivore, because I am a Ten. In a world where Ten is a myth, he thinks I am a Ten.
Foolish you, Woo. Thinking about me will get you killed. I am far from a Ten. I am just a girl, and maybe I don’t want to be a Ten.
“No matter what they rank you, you are my Ten,” he thinks.
Woo once told me about his mother. She was mute when she had him. She had left his father who was a vicious man. Woo’s mother gave birth to him at sea, having escaped from the Faya because she found out he had some deficiency in his genes too. She didn’t want him to be ranked, afraid he could be a Five, or worse, a Monster.
When the sailors found him, they asked her about his name. She said, “Woo—” and didn’t complete the sentence. And even if she did, only vowels would have come out. When I think of it now, I think that Woo might not have even been his name. For some unknown reason his mother uttered two vowels that sound like someone in pain to me.
The sailors didn’t argue. Woo he was.
His mother went into a ten-day coma. For ten days the sailors called him Woo, wondering what she meant by calling him such a strange name. He told me that when he asked her about the incident later, she claimed she didn’t remember. She was lying, Woo said. What did she mean? What was his real name?
Then she died, and he did what she would have not allowed him to do. He sailed back to Faya.
It didn’t matter that he never found out his real name or the meaning of it. That was the best thing about him. He was here to enjoy life with no big premise, as long as he did what he felt was right. He was a mess like all of us.
The tiger roars at Woo again. Woo roars back with the swinging of his sword. He can’t see the tiger. I can’t see the tiger. I am thinking we should see tigers with one big blue eye staring at us from the sands, but the tiger can turn its blue eye all white, like chameleons change the color of their skin.
So maybe we can see its mouth when it roars. Its mouth is definitely not white. But seeing its open mouth would be too late. The tiger will be too close by then.
“If the Carnivore’s fangs are visible to you, don’t ever think he is laughing,” Woo used to say, staring at Carnivore’s picture in his tree house.
A gust of wind blows. Woo loses balance but regains it fast.
Suddenly, the tiger knocks Woo down then disappears. It hurts me wh
en I fall with him, inside of him. However, we gain back power, pick up the sword and stand up again.
Listen to me, Woo. I wish he could hear me. Don’t look for the tiger. Listen to its breathing. Feel it. If I could only swing instead of you, maybe I could save you.
But Woo doesn’t listen to me. He never listens to me, and I will have to go. I will have to leave Woo because I can’t help him, just the way I can’t find him in the battlefields.
I leave Woo’s body, and watch him from afar, as the tiger attacks him. I look away. I am ready to wake up from this horrible dream.
As I surface back from the dream world to the real world, I hear Woo’s faint voice: “If I could only see with your eyes.”
Chapter 28
Who’s that Boy?
The first thing I see when I wake up is a pair of beautiful green eyes. It’s Leo.
He is holding a bar of chocolate in his hand, and he doesn’t have a sleeping bag. I crawl sleepily out of mine.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“I had a bad dream,” I yawn.
“Really? I thought I heard you cry out.”
“So? Can’t a girl have some privacy in a bad dream? Why are you awake?” The rest are asleep.
“Just checking on you.” He smirks, a little better than usual, with a smile hidden somewhere. “I brought you chocolate,” he offers.
I take it abruptly. “You found my weak spot.” I bite hard. The chocolate tastes funny. “So what’s yours?”
“Mine?”
“Your weak spot.”
“I don’t have one,” he says bluntly.
“Not even me?”
“That, we have to talk about when we get out of here alive.”
“What if we don’t? What if you die tomorrow and you find yourself in hell with all those badass gunfighters and discover you never told me that you love me?” I bite again, feeling confident like Ariadna.
“What if I die and go to heaven, and we have eternity to continue this conversation?” he offers.
“Doesn’t sound romantic enough,” I tease. “Don’t promise me big stuff forever. Promise me anything right now.”
“I am sure they have chocolate in heaven.”
“Nah. I don’t want to wait that long.”
“Wait that long?” He raises an eyebrow. “We could die tomorrow. That’s not that long.”
“Tomorrow is too far away.” I chew. What’s gotten into me? Since when do I not let the chocolate melt in my mouth? Am I nervous because he is so close, leaning forward? “I mean look at us now. Everyone is asleep, the light from the fireflies. We are alone in a forest—”
One of those flying iSees roams nearby. Leo throws a big stone at it. The eye takes the hit and spirals down into the fire, making a sound like crickets clapping their wings in the middle of the night.
“Could you please stop killing those things?” Vern moans out of his sleep. “I have a game tomorrow.” He is actually throwing punches at the grass while dreaming.
“See,” says Leo. “Chocolates in heaven are a better idea than here.”
“Don’t change the subject.” I lean forward and grab him by his shirt. He gives, wanting to. I feel powerful. What has happened to me, waking up from this dream with a dose of confidence?
I close in, an inch away from his lips.
“Are you taking advantage of me?” says Leo. “I am just a shy boy, you know.” I can feel his warm breath on my face. “This is illegal, even by Monsters’ standards.”
If he keeps teasing me and doesn’t kiss me I will scream in frustration. I already feel the electricity between our lips and a chill in my spine — horror and romance are eternal friends, I guess.
“Why are you always avoiding me?” I don’t want to be the one coming closer, adding the final touch. I want him to do it, so I stall by talking.
“There is something I have to tell you, Decca.” I don’t like his serious tone. Not now.
“I like it when you say my name,” I whisper.
Then silence. I should be aware that he wants to tell me something, but I am just in the mood for something else, less serious.
“I am here because—”
I lift my fingers to our lips, so he stops babbling. My hand almost connects the electricity between our lips, between our souls.
“What are you waiting for?” I whisper, smoothing my voice the best way I can, and lowering my hand.
“Just for one of those things to come flying by,” he says. “I want to make sure the whole world sees this on camera.”
Our lips meet. I shudder. He kisses me as if his life depends on it. I think I am momentarily deaf and blind. All my senses turn into one sweet anticipated feeling like twilights of energy rushing through my body. My heart races and I don’t mind. Let it beat the hell out of me.
We part slowly with our lips still sticking a bit. I bite his lips as we part.
I laugh.
I am shocked, in a good way.
I catch him with his eyes closed for a tenth of a second. If I tell him he closed his eyes while we were kissing, he will deny it, so I stay silent.
To my left, I see about four of the one-eyed iSees, hovering around and buzzing like flying squirrels. This is going to look crazy tomorrow on TV. At least if we die, this will make a memory indeed.
But suddenly I feel dizzy. What’s with that guy? Does he have hypnotizing lips or what?
I fall back on my back and sink back into my dream, like drowning in water. The grass feels fluffy and spongy underneath me.
Is this what’s supposed to happen after a first kiss?
Lights out.
The chocolate!
Leo sedated me.
But why?
End of I AM ALIVE Episode 2
Episode 3 is called Through Your Eyes.
Available now.
The song, ‘Sometimes’ mentioned in the episode is available on my blog. Contact me to get your copy if you like itJ
You can contact me at
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List of other books by Cameron Jace available so far:
1 Snow White Blood Red
narrated by Snow White Queen
available HERE
2 Cinder to Cinder & Ashes to Ashes
narrated by Alice Grimm
available HERE
3 Beauty Never Dies
narrated by Peter Pan
available HERE
4 Ladle Rotten Rat Hut
narrated by Little Red Riding Hood
available HERE
5 Mary Mary Quite Contrary
as told by the devil
available HERE
6 Blood Apples
narrated by Prince Charming
coming out in mid October
7 Jawigi
narrated by Sandman Grimm
coming by the end of October
