Chapter Fifteen
1162 Words
“Great,” Milton said, and a wide smile spread across his face.
I cast another tentative glance over my shoulder. “Yeah,” I said softly.
His gaze followed mine, and the smile immediately vanished from his face. “I know your decision must’ve been tough.”
I shook my head. “Andi made it easy on me…she already had a partner.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.
An awkward moment of silence hung in the air around us.
Milton looked at me through pitiful eyes, and I scowled back. I didn’t want to be pitied…it wasn’t the attention I needed to draw in the arena. If people thought I was weak, they would surely try and kill me off first. I needed to look strong- I needed to look like a challenge.
He gave me another hesitant look before I felt him grasp my hand gently. He started pulling me towards the building and my feelings of resentment vanished.
“Where are we going?” I asked him.
He glanced over his shoulder. “We still need to sign in.”
“Right,” I said, following silently the rest of the way.
I didn’t recognize the girl that ran the sign in table. After I wrote my name down, she smiled at me, and I knew that I never hated someone more than in that moment.
When she whispered, “You’re at Gate C, good luck,” it took everything in me to not curse my rage at her.
Milton must’ve sensed the rage that was building in me. After he scrawled his name on the paper, he grabbed my hand and led me to the other side of the building.
“Are you alright?” he asked me carefully.
I took a deep breath through my nose as I glared at the girl across the room again. “Look at her…she’s so happy. She helps run this competition knowing that at least half of us are going to die. That smile of hers makes me sick.”
“You’re shaking,” Milton said observantly.
“I’m angry,” I shot back.
“I know you’re upset about Andi,” he said softly.
My glare instantly shot to him. “What?”
He sighed. “Come on, Alexis. I know you’re not really mad at that girl…you’re mad at Andi.”
I went to glare at the girl again as if to prove him wrong, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that he was right. I had nothing against the girl. Her resemblance to my old friend was uncanny when she smiled.
I sighed. “You’re right…I know.”
“You need to be level headed in the arena. I know Andi hurt you, but you have to be sharp if you’re gonna survive.”
“You came here by yourself. You don’t understand how hard this is going to be for me,” I said quietly.
“I can imagine.”
I shook my head. “Andi’s been my best friend for as long as I remember, and I have a bad feeling in my gut that she isn’t going to live through this competition.”
“You don’t think you’re overreacting?” Milton asked.
I shook my head as I looked at him. “Look at what we’re about to walk into. Statistics show that at least half of us are leaving in body bags.”
“I know, and this probably isn’t what you want to hear right now, but it’s the truth…you need to focus on us. Forget Andi, forget the other competitors…focus only on survival from here on out…can you do that?”
I looked at him for a long moment. His eyes gleamed at me with a hint of illness…it was the same kind of look I was used to getting from my sister. The thought of Krista broke my anger down to raw sorrow. He was right. Andi wasn’t what was important…in reality, Milton wasn’t either.
All of this was for my sister.
My precious baby sister who could only be saved if I survived. Mentally, I kicked myself. How could I focus on anything else besides survival knowing her life depended on it?
“All contestants report to their gates! All contestants to their gates!” a voice announced over the intercom.
Milton looked at me. “It’s time,” he said softly.
I nodded and walked beside him without a word as we walked down a long hallway. It opened up into a room with a luxurious ceiling and a room that stretched right and left for yards. Along it were gates, a letter glowing above each one. A solid black wall stood beneath them. Each gate was separated with a thin rope partition. I kept my head down as we made our way to gate C. We could see Andi and Melanie at B and Bruno at D. I shivered, thinking how drastically our game would change if we ran into either of them once inside the arena.
Milton leaned over to whisper in my ear, “Don’t worry about a thing, Alexis. All the gates come out in different places in the arena. The chances of us running into them are slim.”
I glanced at Andi and Melanie again and noticed that Andi was making a careful effort not to look back. On the other side, Bruno was looking at us with a bloodthirsty expression on his face as if we were pieces of meat. The look made chills run down my spine. I took in a breath to calm my nerves and glanced at Milton. His eyes were studying the letter C that hung above us. I wondered what he was really thinking about…would it benefit us later on?
“Gates open in five…four…three…two…one…” the voice announced over the intercom.
A loud rumbling filled the building as suddenly the wall before us began to lift revealing a dark hallway. I stared into its depth wondering just how long it went. It was impossible to see the other side, and I knew that the arena lurked somewhere in that darkness.
“Contestants into their gates! Good luck and happy games!” the voice announced.
Milton took a step into the darkness and after a careful glance at gates B and D again, I followed him, all the time hoping he was right.
- Writer
