BOOK OF MIA: 2081
Chapter 3: Tremble
When I come to, I feel the icy cold ground beneath my cheek and a shearing throb on the side of my head. Everything is ninety degrees anticlockwise, a vertical image rather than the panoramic I am used to. I see out only through my left eye. My right is against the ground. I turn my head so my vision can go back to three dimensional.
For a moment, I can't fathom what I'm looking at, except it's carnage. Total carnage. And so loud. God, it's so loud I can barely hear myself think. In fact, I can't remember a thing since hearing the blare of a foghorn, and the announcement to let 'the ceremony begin'. But this is no ceremony. Not from what I see. No one is cheering and clapping and whatnot. No. They are screaming — for their life. The sound, overlapping one another, curdles my blood. What the hell is happening? And where's Nate?
What I see is mayhem — a massacre — a frantic scramble up a mountain for survival. To plant a team flag and declare victory the peak, so they can move onto the next phase of their lives, alive. The recruits. It is a well-planned massacre and I'm in the middle of it. Wait till I tell my parents about this!
I try to move, to sit up, something, but I am frozen in place, part by fear, part in pain. God, the noise, it's unearthly, and the ringing in my ear won't stop. The squelching thuds, the mewled screams, the vocal-cord shearing cries for help.
They resound around me as bodies drop one by one, logs in a timber yard. A shiver courses through me. Am I one of those bodies, hanging onto the last shred of life? I hope not. I'm not even sixteen yet, dammit!
I look down at my hand and realise I'm still holding the taser I stole from Sentry 176 somehow. My hand is slick with blood. So much of it. Is it mine?
What happened? I try to think back, as I slowly push myself up on one elbow. My head threatens to fall off my neck, and I shake the pain away, glancing up at a mirage of horror. I dare not look around for fear I might know a face or two, if not more. My elbow slips under me, across the red floor. My face meets the concrete again, splashing the pool of warm blood from someone's body. A sensation shoots across my temple upon contact, and I yelp in pain.
Shit!
Through blurred, double-vision, I see a guy twice my size turn in what was once a blue bib, now red, spot me. A burly mountain of a kid one would not think was a child. About him, a pile of flesh once living lies. His flaming red hair bristles around his head like a demonic halo and the spatters of crimson arterial blood across his face only add to the devilish look. His bright green eyes narrow at me. A hellish grin lines his thin, slippery lips as he advances my way, slashing down anyone within reach like they were twigs.
The sight sends me skittering back on all four, still dizzy, still disoriented. I bump arms, disembodied, kick torsos in desperation to get away from certain death. Till I feel nothing more than an icy wall against my back. Fuck! Sorry, I slipped. I can't help it. Fudge just isn't powerful enough right now.
I eye the katana in his left hand, the likes of a fire poker in his immense grip. On the other, he holds an odd weapon — a massive stone on top of what looks like a baseball bat. One to slice with, the other to bludgeon, probably. Effective, and definitely not good for me.
I look at my taser, and luckily there is enough charge left for one more shock, so I mustn't have used it yet. I point it at him, a warning of sorts — do not come closer or I will use it on you. His grin morphs into a snarl on his red face. He's enjoying this and I know for certain the adrenaline rushing through his veins makes him immune to the minor inconvenience of an electric shock.
I need something better. Something much better. Perhaps even deadly. Where the fudge is Nate with his gun? So much for staying behind him. I don't even know what happened or how I got on the floor, passed out and bathed in blood and other bodily fluids. But all that comes later. Right now, I need to protect myself. I need a weapon that can save my skinny ass.
I spy an orphaned spring-loaded crossbow a body's length away from me and scramble for it, pushing myself up on unsteady legs, tumbling over a student from a rival school. As my hand grips the device, I swivel and place my exposed back against the wall. I do not want a deadly surprise. Not when I have Hulk to deal with in front of me.
"Stop!" I scream above the roar. Either he doesn't hear me, or he doesn't care. He continues advancing, correcting his course to where I stand.
I hold the crossbow up, aimed at his chest — I hope — muttering to myself as my hands tremble, making me doubt I will hit anything at all. I am absolutely dung at archery.
"I don't have a choice. I don't have a choice," I chant under my breath, trying to psych myself into believing I have no choice but to shoot, and truth be told, I don't. In the hall's carnage, the two of us are in close vicinity to each other, thus obliged to engage, I wager.
Snippets of memory float in at that moment. G. A. Tribes' smiling face as she raises a horn above her head, saying "Those of you worthy, know what to do. You have your instructions. Let the ceremony begin!" and that dastardly fog horn blares.
What instructions? I did not know then, and I still do not know now, but somehow, those around me knew what to do, the thing being asked of them. I could tell something in them had snapped. Their bodies went rigid and their eyes vacant at the sound of the horn, and simultaneously, almost every single one of them gave a discernible nod. Nodding to what? No idea.
I remember staring in awe.
The students had gone from a state of confusion to a state of emotionless robots — turning to one another with a strange look. Matter of minutes. That's all it had taken. Matter of minutes for the gathered, confused students to lose their innocence. Within minutes, a bullet had driven through a tall girl standing meters from me in the standstill crowd. Too tall for her own good.
"Participate or be terminated. The choice is yours." I remember a still smiling G. A. Tribes had spoken those words sweetly before they had shot the girl down.
As her body had slumped to the floor — a pool of blood spreading about her eviscerated chest — innocent eyes gazed into innocent eyes, terror reflecting off each other in the realisation that it was kill or be killed. The last thing I remember seeing was reluctant killers and victims alike. You flinch, you hesitate, you are weak — you are dead.
The katana swings my way, and I reflexively release a bolt from the crossbow, the memory still clouding my mind. He misses my body, but strands of my dark hair slices above as I dive low. I, however, do not miss, to my surprise. The bolt drives itself into his left shoulder and the sword clatters to the ground beneath him. He howls in pain.
'Get to the north-east corner now, Mia!' the voice barges into my head again.
I nod to no one in particular and try to get my bearings. I don't even know which way is north-east. If I am wondering whether the voice is my inner self or someone else, that debate ends the moment she says, 'Behind you. The left-hand corner. Go now. He's waiting. Don't get killed.'
She is here, whoever she is, and she is trying to help me. Why? I don't care. How 'she' knows what I am doing or where I am are questions I want answers to, but this is not the time or the place to have them answered. I need to get out of here first, and if a voice in my mind is telling me to do something, to save myself, I'm not about to ignore it.
As my attacker grips the bolt in his shoulder and yanks it out with effort, I turn around to locate the left-hand corner exit she is referring to. A sea of threats separates me from my target. Namely, the still-standing mountain, who is dragging the boulder across the floor, teeth gritted in malice.
"I'm gonna kill you!" he growls.
"You can try," I challenge, even though I'm scared shitless. I dash around the side. He swings the boulder. It catches my leg from under me and I fall headlong onto the floor.
He laughs. A guttural laugh.
"Are all students as pathetic as you in your school?" He chides, spitting to the side. That he is salivating at the thought of having cornered me makes me angry, angry enough to drive another bolt through him. But trust my luck, I lost my grip on the crossbow as I fell and now it's beyond my reach.
"You gonna beg for your life, little girl?" He hovers over me, relishing the moment.
I glance around. Few recruits are eyeing us, but none dares to approach him. They see the carnage surrounding him.
"Are all your people so oafish?" I spit and see confusion flicker on his face.
"I'm gonna enjoy crushing that smug little head of yours!" His lips curl in a snarl as he lifts the boulder above his head. His left side bulks slightly from the injury I inflicted and the boulder's weight.
This is my chance. In his showmanship, he forgot to keep a safe distance from my legs. I grip the body about my head, and bracing, drive my legs towards his left knee.
Bam.
His leg buckles and he goes off balance, taking him and boulder-on-a-stick down. As he recovers on the floor, I pull against the body to get myself up and I make a run for it. Blindly. If I run fast enough, maybe no one will catch me.
Maybe. If the Codex deems me worthy! Far out. This is not what I imagined when I opened my eyes an hour ago.