The Extinction Games

Chapter 3

3

I switch on my comms and I’m shocked when Charles doesn’t chastise me.

‘I’m pleasantly surprised,’ he says. ‘You did an admirable thing. For the group. You said the boy survived? Where is he? I’m not picking up his signal near you.’

‘I kinda left him,’ I say, biting my lip. ‘Back there.’

‘You left him?’ His bushy eyebrows meet in the middle.

I spend the next while debating the pros and cons of friendship and survival in group situations with a Charles who can’t believe I saved a guy and left him hanging. It’s not like I ghosted him, I barely knew the kid. What is it with men? Do they really expect all women to be bunny-boiling cling-ons? I’m not quite a woman, in terms of not being quite sixteen yet, but still. Wrong girl, Charles. Any guilt I have over leaving the poor sod is assuaged by the fact I’m still breathing, unlike the poor old dear who was his partner.

At least I tell myself this, trying to convince myself that any soul I might have isn’t—at this very second—burning to a cinder.

I need to remind myself why I’m doing this, so I talk family.

‘What do you know about me?’ I say. ‘What do you know about my family?’

‘I know what you’ve told me,’ says Charles.

‘Here’s the thing, I really don’t remember telling you anything. Space sickness, right? But you don’t suffer from it, do you?’

‘I do not.’

What’s so special about old man Charles that he isn’t affected by space sickness? I’m fed up skirting around the issue but answers are never forthcoming. Maybe I’ll change tact.

‘So why was I chosen?’

Charles hesitates. He never hesitates.

‘It will come back to you. When your mind is ready for it.’

‘Bullshit.’ I’m tempted to disconnect. You do it once, it becomes easy to do it again. But I don’t. I can’t let him see the childish side of me.

‘How about this for a barter?’

Now my eyebrows are raising.

‘You mean a deal?’ I say.

‘Precisely. You get through the game, make it to the Great Hall, and I promise I will tell you everything you want to know. Just trust me, Jersey, there are things you want to know that you don’t need to know right now.’

Here we go again, Charles doing his Miyagi routine. Charles being a condescending adult.

‘Okay, if you can’t, or won’t, tell me anything about myself, then how about you?’ I contradict my earlier worries, and blurt out, ‘Why are you my mentor? Why bother helping me?’

Charles hesitates again, twice in the space of a single conversation. These questions are definitely taxing his grey matter.

He sighs and says, ‘I was assigned to you.’

‘Did you have a choice?’

‘No.’

My heart sinks. I don’t know why, it’s not like I’ve ever met Charles in the flesh. It’s not like he’s saying he hates mentoring me. But something about him being lumped with me against his will, no choice; it doesn’t sit comfortably with me.

‘You probably wish you were mentoring one of the group.’ I emphasise the last word with such childish sarcasm that my cheeks flush red with embarrassment.

‘I wouldn’t take any other assignment if it was offered. When our time together ends, I shall retire from this endeavour.’

‘Oh, so I’m simply an endeavour—’ I cut myself off before I can embarrass myself further. I’ve fallen into a funk of my own making and poor Charles is on the receiving end of it. All because I know I shouldn’t have left Pip the way I did. Why did the kid have to tell me his name? He’s made it personal now.

‘Perhaps we should talk when you’re in a better mood?’ he says, and then he disconnects the comms.

I squeeze my fists into balls and I stifle a scream of frustration. I look back the way I’ve came, and wonder if I can head back and find Pip. I shake the thought. I’ve come too far to turn back now, and even if I did find the spot I left him at, he could be anywhere now. That’s if he’s even alive.

The priority is to find water that I can use to wash off the Deinonychus blood that has caked itself onto my head and shoulders. I’m walking around like a sandwich board that says ‘eat me’. I have drinking water in my bottle—the streams and rainwater are drinkable—but I haven’t seen a stream for a while and it hasn’t rained for longer, so I need to keep my small reserves for quenching my thirst and keeping me alive.

I settle for a dirty puddle. It has enough water to clean off most of the blood and ensure I look like a dirty orphan from Victorian times.

One of the suns drop below the horizon, soon followed by the other, creating an eerie twilight glow over the forest. Fog descends and as I expect, my comms cut out completely. The forest is quiet and I am alone with my thoughts.

I try to understand my aversion to working in groups, working with a partner. I think back to my father. He was close to a friend, a young guy half his age. They were partners, good partners. But like any friendship, it soured. They turned on each other. Friend became enemy, and the worst enemy you can have is someone who knows everything about you. It wasn’t quite the end of my father, but it certainly helped him walk down a path he would never return from.

What am I worrying about? Even if I do partner up with Pip, it’s not like we’ll ever be friends. Certainly not friends close enough that I’ll care about him. He can’t hurt me, because I’ll never let him in.

I’m so deep in thought that I trip over an exposed root and fall to the ground. I push out my hands to break my fall and get handfuls of mud. Ugh. Thank god I’m not a girly girl, or I’d be crying at the mess I am right now.

I push myself to my feet. The fog is so thick I can barely see in front of me, but I need to keep moving forward. If the Deinonychus have any concept of territory, then surely I’m still in theirs.

The Deinonychus incident was the first time I’ve felt terrified here. You’d think the mere reality of being on an alien planet with a game reserve full of dinosaurs would be enough to put the fear into you, but it’s like anything, you get used to it. Until I encountered the Deinonychus, I’d been watching Velociraptors, Protoceratops herds, and small dinosaurs that didn’t overtly threaten my mortality.

I’d become complacent.

With Charles guiding me, I felt in control. But perhaps that was an illusion. Perhaps I’ve never been in control since the moment I woke up on this alien world. Perhaps the illusion of control is just a mental construct to assist me in surviving, to ensure I don’t cry into my non-existent cornflakes every morning, dreading the reality ahead. I deluded myself back home to get through school, so it shouldn’t surprise me that I’m doing it here. We, as humans, do what we need to, in order to survive.

I march on through the fog. Small broken branches snap beneath my feet. I’m making more noise than I usually would, but I’m struggling to see in front of me, never mind keep an eye on the ground. I hear the occasional branch snapping from the side of me. Something is following me, or perhaps my mind is playing tricks. I speed up, mindful of my decreasing visibility. I only have so much twilight left before darkness blankets the forest.

Another branch echoes in the quiet. I pause, the only sound being my heart pounding in its ribcage. With the suns gone, the temperature has dropped considerably, and my breath creates a mist in front of my face. A trickle of sweat drops down my temple, already cool by the time it tickles my cheek.

Another snap, and the hairs are standing on my neck.

I lift my hand at a snail’s pace and try my comms. Nothing.

Snap!

The sound is so close I hear the snap before the echoes.

I hear rasping breaths and I unsheathe my sword without thinking twice.

I swallow hard and hold my breath.

It hops out and gives me a ‘waa’ like it’s a little dinosaur Gollem from Lord of the Rings. The featherless bipedal stands less than a foot in height, making the Velociraptor look like it starred in Honey, I Blew Up the Kid.

I lift my hand to my chest and exhale.

‘Gave me a fright, you little shit.’ I’ve seen this type before. What’s it called? A thingymabob. I click my fingers and it chirps. Got it.

‘You’re a,’ I say its name in chunks, ‘Micro-pachy-cephalo-saurus.’ One of the smallest of dinosaurs with the longest name. Not compensating for anything at all.

Micro P chirps at me, hops to the plants and starts munching.

The universe must have been listening to my thoughts regarding water as the heavens open. A flash of lightning scares Micro P, who looks up and darts into the thicket. Rain falls in droplets the size of grapes and I’m soaked within seconds. At least the blood and muck is washing from my head. I pull out my bottle and top it up.

The thunder claps. It’s unlike thunder on Earth. It’s a continuous clapping, like a band of drummers at a military tattoo. It’s relentless and overwhelms my auditory senses.

I look for any kind of shelter and this is when I realise that maybe it wasn’t the lightning that scared off Micro P.

Something else did.

Another flash of lightning illuminates the forest and that’s when I spot it watching me from the thicket. Something monstrous whose reverberating steps have been masked by the thunder.

I have to crane my neck to make out the two horns that protrude from its large head.

It’s confirmed: my soul has burned and the Devil has come to collect.