"Choose what?" Dagger said, breaking his silence. An unsettled feeling twisted my stomach. Something was wrong here.
"Choose the next level to die," Ardus said, as cool as asking for a drink. "Only then will you complete the Letter Trials. You must prove you can make the necessary decisions needed to save humanity."
We both stared at him. The final letter trial was to kill an entire level?
"No," I said, without needing to think. "We aren't going to kill an entire level."
"The Beast is well past capacity," Ardus said. "If you fail to take a level, then you condemn even more to death."
I opened my mouth to argue, but before I could Dagger cut in, voice soft, "How would it be done?"
I turned to him in disbelief. "You can't be serious?"
But Ardus was already speaking, quiet and cold as the snake in the garden, a story that I suddenly wished I remembered the ending to. "Humanely. Quietly. They wouldn't know what was happening. The same as it was done for Level N."
This time it wasn't Ardus I looked to— it was Dagger. He stared at the screen, as if he was actually thinking about it. Actually thinking about killing an entire level.
"Dag," I whispered. "It's an entire level of people. Souls. Men, women, kids. Gone, forever."
His eyes turned to meet mine. "And if we don't?"
"We change! The Belly doesn't have to be like this. We make things different— "
"Haven't you been listening, Z?" His eyes blazed, his cool demeanor breaking wide open. "Haven't you been watching? Level after level, you've fought to defend yourself. You've fought and killed, I've fought and killed. How many people have stepped in to stop it? How many people have stepped up to help you?" His voice broke, "Who stepped in to save my sister? Who stepped in to save me?"
I took his hand. "I did, Dagger." I wouldn't let him pull away, not now. "And you're right, there were times I lost my way, but I won't let you do this now."
He pulled away from me, beginning to pace, a crazed look on his face. "You don't understand. There's a reason we have to win this, there's an end goal to all of it. We have to win the Letter Trials for our people. At whatever cost. That was what my father was trying to teach me. That's how I find my redemption. That's how I save my people."
You aren't a real doctor. You're not a real engineer. You're a Z: the only person on this entire ship without a real letter. That is your strength, and the only thing that will let you do more than just live and die in the Beast.
I wondered what Yana would say of me now. If this was what she meant, and if any of us could ever do more than live and die on the Beast. "You're right," I said, "maybe I don't understand. I'm only a Z. But not having a letter has taught me people's value isn't based on where they were born. We have a choice here, Dag. This isn't the man you want to be."
His eyes hardened. "It's the man I was born to be."
"Then choose to be something different."
We stared at each other, two lost souls, the silence stretching out.
"Then have you each made your decisions?" Ardus asked.
"What happens if we choose differently?" I whispered, not daring to look away from Dagger, afraid if I did I would lose him forever.
"Once you have made your decision, you can step through the door," he pointed to the metal door at the end of the room. "Only one of you needs to select a level to win."
"And if we choose not to kill the level?" Dagger said.
"Then you fail the Top Letter Trial. And you die in place of the level," Ardus said. "Now, tell me your decision, and step through the door."
Dagger looked at him, and my heart broke for him. So I swallowed, and stepped up to Ardus. "I won't kill a level. That's my decision." Quiet desperation inched up my throat. After all the killing, after all the fighting, it all ended with a handful of words spoken to an old man. A decision that was cold, clinical and detached. Maybe that was why the other levels could choose to live the way they did, because they didn't see the consequence. But I had. And I wouldn't choose it, not even if it cost my life.
I wanted to beg Dagger to do the same, but I couldn't make this decision for him. All I could do was trust him, like I should have done before.
So I turned, each step forward a small infinity, then opened the final door and stepped through it, pulling it shut behind me. The room on the other side was even smaller, with harnesses on the wall. Was that so they could strap us in when they kill us? I didn't have the energy to examine them.
Instead, I stared at the wall, almost numb from it all, like the adrenaline of running a long race had disappeared, and left only exhaustion. I wanted to slump to the floor, close my eyes and never wake up. Instead, I reached for my pinkie finger. Fight. The last word Yana had ever spoken to me. But there was no one left to fight now. I detached the small screwdriver and then stepped up to the wall and bit by bit, scratched metal against metal.
When I was done, I stood back.
There, forever carved into the highest level of the Beast, was my name and my letter. Z. For maybe the first time in my life, I didn't wish it to be different.
Time stretched by, impossible to measure. Finally the door opened, framing Dagger for a moment before he stepped inside and it clicked shut behind him. Dagger's face was pale as he slid down next to me. I stared at him, wondering how I thought I had known him, until he whispered, "I couldn't do it. I wasn't strong enough."
A spark of hope, and then the realization of what his words meant crashed in my chest. He didn't kill a level... And now we're going to die.
"I couldn't choose a level to kill," he whispered. "After all my training. Even with the lives of everyone onboard at stake, I couldn't choose."
I smiled through the tears, forcing myself past the realization that we had only moments left. "It's not a bad thing that you couldn't hurt your people."
"No. I could." He turned to me. "I couldn't hurt you, Z."
He leaned forward, until our foreheads touched, our breath as one. I reached out and touched his cheek, feeling where the smoothness turned to stubble. I once had so many dreams. To see the sky, the sun and the moon and a sky full of stars. Yet here I was, on the very top of the Beast, stuck in a small, metal room. It might have been as if I were back in my hideout in the Belly. I didn't know if the sky was blue. I didn't know what a night sky stretched full of stars looked like.
And yet, my next words were honest. "I would rather lose with you, then win alone."
Dagger stared into my eyes, those storm grey depths a harbor. "Do you think Skull will find a way to share the truth with the Beast?"
"I hope so." I whispered. Stranger things have happened on the Beast. Like an A and Z, sitting side by side, ready to die together.
The metal beneath began to shake and shudder. My heart thundered with it.
"Well, partner, it was a good run." My voice was dry, breathless.
His hand found mine, clenching tight, both our eyes wide and terrified. Would they eject us straight into space? Would I get to see the stars for one brief fleeting moment before the vast cold stole the life from my body? My heart beat a strange rhythm, but my eyes were trapped by Daggers, like a pool of deep, dark water.
He leaned forward, took my face in his, and pressed his lips against mine. I was lost there, against him, a small, sweet death before the final one.
Then the world exploded.
(THE END.
JUST KIDDING, haha ;) Just a couple chapters left so please don't forget to vote, comment, share and come back for the end!!!!)