The Hunger Games was the inspiration, but other than a dangerous, life-threatening game thrust upon young kids, the similarities pretty much stop there. However, you may find some Hunger Game lines and quotes so keep your eyes peeled!!!
Chapter One
The edge of the snow cliff twisted into view as her sled jerked around the corner. The sudden turn ripped her from her seat, sending her body flying. Panicking, she flailed her arms out, helplessly rolling across a sheen of ice, down towards the drop of a 100 feet. This was it. She was going to die...
Sierra Faye blinked awake.
Through the absolute darkness, she coughed painfully, causing a puff of dust to swirl through the dense obscurity. All around her was a thick and definite black.
“What the...?” Her whisper stuck to her throat; heavy as molasses, the unfinished thought trembling in the air like the thread of an unborn secret.
Suddenly, for a fraction of a moment, broken images of dark brown eyes, reaching hands, and cold snow, flickered into her mind. But that faded out just as soon as they had appeared. Confused, shaking violently, and in the midst of disorientation, Sierra found herself slowly bringing her hands up, moving each finger carefully to see if they were okay. However, they were were perfectly healthy and all there. They were all there.
Wait, what?
Frowning, Sierra shook her head, wondering why such a doubt had crossed her thoughts. Of course her hands were fine; her soft flesh as pink as a dawn. Why wouldn't they be okay? It wasn't like they could have frozen off. Sierra furrowed her brows in confusion. It was most likely the leftover shards of a nightmare, still dimly pulsating in her foggy brain. She probably had been tired and fallen asleep on the couch but was now just waking up from...
The image of chilling snow, freezing her body to ice, flashed into her mind again.
Cold. So cold.
Wincing, she shook the dreams away, wondering what exactly had happened. The darkness moved like pieces of tangible shadow. Was it night already? Sierra furrowed her eyebrows and reached her fingers upwards, still lying flat on her back in flustered, scattered disorientation. Maybe there was a light switch somewhere...
Suddenly, her hands touched something rough. “What?” she murmured. Why was the ceiling so low? Curiously, her fingers traced the calloused texture all the way over her head...down the sides...across hinges...
Wait a second...hinges? Panic began to rise in Sierra's chest as the heavy realization slowly sank her hopes like lead. Frantically, she sat up, only to hit herself against the low covering. Her stomach dropped, and with it, her sanity. In ragged breaths, she began to thrash at the solid blackness, begging, begging, begging... A scream clutched at her throat but never seemed to make its way out. She knew where she was now.
A coffin. Sierra was inside a coffin.
~~~
“You're supposed to help me, Ren,” I smirked, smoothing out the threads of my sweater, “I hate your riddles.”
“But we are in the Games,” Ren grinned, extending his arms out towards the darkness, “Our world is a riddle.”
“And I'm sick of it.”
“I've spent three years in these puzzles. It grows on you, Sierra.”
“Well, I'm going to escape.” I pulled the folds of my sweater on tighter, shivering as my breath fogged the night air.
“You wouldn't be the first to want that,” my friend shrugged, brushing away his wavy dark hair.
“And I won't be the last,” I firmly stated, glaring into his dark eyes, “You're coming with me.”
“Nope,” Ren smiled secretly, the edges of his thin lips curling into a knowing grin, “I'm going to live unpredictably. They WANT you to escape this place, they're counting on your to use your wits and skills for their own twisted purposes. But I'm going to change the rules. You should know better than anyone about rule changing. You taught me how.”
“There you go again,” I rolled my eyes, “You build up the suspense and then leave me hanging. Why do you care so much? Why not just get out? Why is it so important to be unpredictable?”
Ren's eyes dimmed and his lips drew into a tight, serious line.“To show them I'm more then just a part of their Games,” he whispered.
~~~
It had been twenty minutes since Sierra had realized she was in a coffin, probably lying on a metal table in the morgue. Oxygen was just begin to grow thin and she had to force herself to calm down or suffocate to death. Still, her entire body was completely convulsed into shock, her eyes wide and unblinking into the darkness as the rapid beating of her heart thundered like rain.
A thin thread of light had wavered through the cracks of the interior concealed-hinges. It was a pale, luminescent white, which probably meant she was inside a room. Shadows moved from the outside like whispers of doubt, blinking the lines of light from falling into her casket. Still, no matter how hard she pounded, if those constant shapes were people, they never heard her.
Think, she commanded to herself, What is the last thing you remember? Sierra closed her eyes and clenched her fists, breathing as sparingly as she could. But no matter how hard she pushed her brain, nothing came to mind besides shards of snow caps and icy cold. It's the unexpected wake-up; it's temporarily shattered my memories, she thought numbly.
Sierra was determined to get out. Thinking about what had happened in her past was too stressful and lying still doing nothing was deadly. She pressed her fingers against the metal hinges, feeling it's shape and form, a new idea suddenly sparking. The screw seemed loose enough. If she could just pry the rods out...
Working with her nails, Sierra frantically began to claw at the top hinge. At first she found her fingers too large to slip through the small openings. Trembling, she tried and failed multiple times until switching to using only her nails. And while they could just slide through, they soon became bent and cracked from the constant battering.
Sweat lined her forehead as she made achingly slow process. Her breathing was growing hoarse and heavy and she could feel the air grow thinner with each intake of oxygen. Sierra winced as a piece of her nail chipped off and warm blood stained out onto the wood. Shoot. Now the procedure would now be too slow. If she wanted to get out in time, she would have to work faster. And her fingers just wouldn't do it.
Sierra searched her clothes for anything of use, her hands shaking with nervous anxiety. She was trying to stay calm and use her oxygen wisely, but her entire body shook with frightened anticipation. Pockets were empty...shoes had no laces...shirt had no buttons...was there anything?
Sierra reached up to run her fingers through her hair...no pins...no clips...nothing! In petrified anguish, she kicked at the ceiling of her coffin screaming out in trembling shrieks. It was a stupid thing to do, but her entire consciousness was slipping into incoherent insanity.
“LET ME OUT!”
Her coffin shuddered, knocking against the table with loud echoes. Still, if anyone was out there, no one came to inspect. Viciously she kicked at her box, angrily pounding at the strong wood. Her eyes burned with the tears that were not coming and her body shook as she frantically squirmed in her casket.
One last kick.
Suddenly the entire thing flipped over and Sierra could feel herself falling. She held her breath, expecting to really die this time, but the coffin only roughly clunked onto the ground, the hinges popping open. The table must have not been very high up.
In brief elation, Sierra kicked off the top, sitting up to reach fresh air. It was gloriously full and though it slightly rank of metallic, she didn't care. For a moment she just sat with her eyes closed, filling her lungs and breathing incredulously.
When her revived relief subsided, Sierra blinked to take a look at her surroundings.
And her mouth fell open.
She was in a vastly large room made entirely out of white metal. It was blindingly bright with veins of light coursing the entire length of the walls. Gilded tiles lined the low ceiling in patterns, each slab with a specific design and aligned in strange formation.
Other than that, the room was completely vacant. Completely vacant and completely alien.
“Congratulations. Part one of puzzle twelve was completed,” suddenly boomed a monotonous female voice, making Sierra jump, “Initiating part two. Subject 107 – Sierra Faye, sixteen years old, five feet, seven inches tall, 125 pounds, category twenty, specification seven, sector one. Welcome.”
Frightened, Sierra timidly stepped from the covers of her coffin and looked around for any sign of a speaker. She had absolutely no idea what was going on. This was definitely not a morgue.
“Think,” she forced herself, “What happened before all this?” Her brain fought for a memory but everything was bleak and hazy.
Ren.
Wincing, Sierra shuddered as a name flashed into her memory. It was a guy's name, maybe her brother? No...she didn't have a brother. She had a Mother, Father, and an older sister who died six years ago in a vehicle accident. Elsie. That was her sister's name. For an entire six months, no one talked or breathed about Elsie without getting a painful slap from her father. Then, once at the dinner table, Sierra got into a fight with her father. It was about something stupid, probably having to do with school, when suddenly, she blurted, “Elsie would have agreed with me!”
The silence was unbearable. Eyes wide and heart racing, Sierra had quickly covered her mouth once she had realized what she had done. But it was too late because Daddy had already heard and his hand was raised to strike.
“You do not dare speak of her name,” he had growled softly.
She had a red hand-mark on her cheek for two days. No one asked questions. No one seemed to care.
Sierra blinked, wincing as the painful memory seeped back into her brain. Well, it was a start. At least she didn't have complete amnesia or worse. But that still didn't answer any questions. Breathing deeply, she pushed the thoughts of Elsie aside, refusing to let her eyes water again.
Sierra stared at the gilded tiles above her head, studying the detailed patterns. It was such a unique design of criss-crossing lines and swirls. But they didn't seem in the right place; like a jigsaw puzzle waiting to be solved.
Her eyes went wide in realization as her memory suddenly sparked awake.
Puzzle. The Games. This was her year one anniversary of being a contestant in the Paradox Challenges.
A wave of the past began to roll in, pounding down all at once like an ocean current. Ren, Seph, Emilie, Jaylen, her house, her first day, the bombs, the screams, the snowy hill tops with avalanches, the riddles...everything rushed back with heavy intensity, and for a moment, she stood breathlessly, leaning against her coffin.
Sierra shook herself into refocus, the throbbing in her brain still burning like new scars. She was in the Games...she needed to solve the puzzle...
“Keep attentive...do the part...fix the pattern,” she breathed, her thoughts coming together. No more time to slack off, no more time to be confused. The world was a clock and she was a pawn. Everything was already in motion and she was useless as a sitting duck.
There was a puzzle that needed to be solved. And this part, was probably timed.
In frantic movements, Sierra flipped over the cover of her casket, hoping to find the indicator of how much longer she had left – a countdown of some sort. Every timed puzzle had one. She just didn't always know where. However, the only thing on the back was her name engraved in cold silver lettering. An icy chill shivered down her spine, knowing that a mere few minutes more could have made the casket real.
Shaking her head, Sierra rushed to the walls, pressing every corner incase a hidden button was tucked beneath view. But no, there weren't peculiar bumps or ridges or scars. The walls were a smooth as beach sand.
Sierra turned to the table in which the casket had been lying on. It was about four feet tall with stubby wooden legs. She felt each edge and each nail, looking for a button or maybe a clue. Her hands were trembling again. What little relief breaking out of her coffin had given her was replaced with a growing dread. If that countdown reached zero, she would be blown to pieces.
Finally, Sierra found a small raised section under the fringe of the metal straps of the table. Eyes wide and body shaking, she pressed it. A yellow light blinked on from behind and a cylinder raised from the center of the table. The timer. Finally she could read the numbers.
09:56
There were only ten minutes left.