The Nine Games

The first game is arguably the hardest.

It’s the entry level stuff. Only certain people get to apply, and of those who do, one wins. The rest are slaughtered and deemed Unfit. Kind of Hunger/Games-esque.

I won.

The second game was easy. A puzzle game. Designed to test intelligence. Really, it was a game. All the others were introduced as higher forms of entertainment. To call it game would be to downplay it. But that is what they became. The Nine Games.

The Nine Games are entered by all people age 16. That is, the ones who try out and get in. That in of itself is hard. After sixteen, you’re no longer eligible. There are the people who don’t even care, who try not to get in. There are the people who devote their whole lives to get in only to fail. There are those who do so and succeed. Then there are those who don’t try and get in anyway.

Guess which I’m in. The latter. I never actively tried to get in. I did do my research, however. Practice tests are all over the internet and the VR world.

Not that they can prepare you for the real shit, but it helps.

There are no rules. Not officially. But there is one that you either follow or die—

Trust No One.

We (the gamers, officially called The Eligible. I’ve grown to hate that word. Eligibile. Yuck.) have that unofficial code. You either follow it, or lose. And I have followed that rule ever since I was three and my uncle killed my mom and dad, then proceeded to rape every one of my siblings, myself included. I have eighteen. Now I have twenty, as two of them got pregnant and gave birth. Shitty luck for them. But at least they don’t have to enter the games. People will do stupid stuff to get out of the games. You can’t enter if you’re crippled, so people will cripple themselves. People commit suicide. People have sex to get pregnant at eleven just so they don’t have to go through with it.

I was never one of those people. So I followed the rule. I never looked back. I killed without mercy. If you crossed me, you died. If you disagreed, you died. If you shared with me, you died. Etcetera. Basically, I see you, you die. The end.

This is the story of when I broke that rule.

Pariah stood on the ledge, staring down at her hands. They were clean. Shoving someone off a Cliff was such a clean way to murder someone. No blood. Just death. It meant she didn’t have to waste precious water washing the red liquid from her hands.

The Nine Games. She’d been dreaming of this since she turned two. And now she was in. And it was everything she dreamed of.

Yet despite this perfect happiness, scars laced her body. Words. The names of her family, carved on her left arm. On the right, just swirly designs. It wasn’t pain so much that made her do it as much as just plain boredom. When she was bored, she dragged a knife along her skin and drew pictures with it. Wrote words. Short poems contained in a word.

Carnage was her favorite. She had that one carved at least eight times, three on each thigh, one on her arm, and one in sloppy lettering on her neck.

She knew she wouldn’t die from this. It wasn’t deep enough. She looked like one of those crazies who covered their body in tattoos, except she was covered in scars. Some were fresh, pink and red and bright florescent colors. Some were black and scanned over. Some pulsed yellow and purple with infection. All of them seemed fatal. But Pariah had learned long ago something that she could never tell any of the Overseers, or other players. She was immortal. Not in the traditional, live forever sense. She could not die of anything other than old age. Which meant she’d live until her organs gave out. Her scars, since she knew they couldn’t kill her, were really just a form of entertainment. Her left pinkie was completely missing. Early on in the game, when she had no steady source of food, she cut it off and ate it. Now she had found a private pond where she holed up. There were, quite literally, plenty of fish in the sea. Except it was t a sea. And the fish were small, the size of her thumb, and some were diseased and bloated. But that made no difference to her.

Until today she returned to the pond to find it no longer empty.

Man, I can’t believe I haven’t found this place sooner! Water, food, moderate shelter. Hell yeah! Behind me, a twig breaks. I pretend not to notice. That’s what you’re supposed to do. Then seize the moment they take to take out a weapon and shoot them. I have a gun. It’s always loaded. Ten people get to be in the rounds. I killed four this round. What number? Has it really been twenty? Wow, I only need to make it to round twenty five. This is game nine, after all. Five more rounds. If no one kills anyone else, not counting this round, that means only 45 more people to kill. Counting this round, then at most, 51. Not too many.

Nothing compared to the 128 others. I suddenly feel sick.

“Hi,” I say, spinning and pointing the gun at the stranger in less than a second. It’s a girl. She has dark skin covered with a lot of strange marks. Her hair is a myriad of color. She must have dyed it. She’s studying me like a book. She looks stunned. “Who are you?” I continue, my finger on the trigger.

“Damn it,” she mutters, thinking I won’t hear- or maybe not even realizing that she spoke.

“Who are you?” I repeat.

“Pariah,” she says. “And you? Can I know your name before you kill me?”

“Such optimism,” I say, clicking my teeth the way my mom used to. “I’m Air.”

“Nice name,” she says with a nod. “So shoot me.”

“How many have you killed?” I ask.

“Four,” she says. I remain stoic. “You?”

“Two,” I lie. No use in her thinking we are the last two. She’ll get more competitive, which means she might fight her way to me and kill me and win.

“Are you going to shoot me?” She asks.

“No,” I say. “Sorry about your luck. We should team. Kill the others. Then I’ll kill you.”

“Maybe I’ll kill you first.”

“Meh,” I say. “I don’t care. I’m not in this to win.” She looks at me with something resembling awe.

“That’s admirable.”

“Not really. Those who want to win never do.”

“You think?” She says with a spark in her eye.

“I know.” She obviously wants to win. She looks like one of those crazies, the ones who spend their whole lives learning to hunt and kill and survive in hostile environments. I don’t really care. She’ll either kill me, or break the rules, trust me, and I’ll kill her.

This is the last game. Winner takes all. Am I really going to let her have a chance at winning?

Hell, why not? Might as well. I lower my gun. She makes no move for a weapon.

“You’re serious,” she says, impassive. “Weird.”

“This your hangout?” I ask, taking a look around. She nods hesitantly. I shrug.

“You got a pretty good setup here. Mind sharing?”

“Yes, but since you kindly elected not to kill me, I will share anyway.” Good choice, I think with a wry grin.

“What’s so funny?”

“Everything,” I say. “We have total freedom in here. Total anarchy. It’s fun, if you ask me.” She rolls her eyes.

“Yeah. Fun.”

She takes me to her “house”, a giant hollowed out tree. She’s dug down to make a kind of bunker.

I should have killed her. I should have killed her. I should have fucking killed her.

But I didn’t. And now I’m going to lose and die. I’m sure of it.

But I still didn’t kill her.

“Your name is Air.”

“Correct. You are Pariah.”

“Also correct.”

“Is your gun the only weapon you have?”

“Yes,” I lie. In reality I have thirty throwing knives hidden in various pockets of my military jacket and cargo pants. Plus a small pistol. And a set of catanas strapped to my back under the jacket.

“That’s a stupid thing to say,” she says.

“Meh,” I say. “I’ve said worse.”

“I have no doubt.”

“Your weapons?” She unsheaths a dagger.

“Never used. I don’t kill people with it.”

“Then what does it do?” She looks at me and laughs before casually digging the blade into her thumb.

“What else?” I look at the needle sharp point and think how glad I am that I won’t be on the receiving end.

At least, hopefully not. Probably will end up dead, though.

Who is this girl? How’d she find my hidey-hole? And why didn’t she kill me?

The lies I can explain. She doesn’t want me to know that we are the last two. Understandable. She doesn’t want me to know about her other weapons scattered across her being. Also understandable. But why didn’t she kill me? Why? That one has no logical explanation.

But the real question is why haven’t I killed her?

Also no logical explanation. I could win this round. Bam. The end. Perfection. I have the ability to win. But... I won’t. Why? Why is my heart thumping against my chest, threatening to burn us both alive?

“So, we’re a team now, right?”

“Right?”

“What happens when we’re the last two?”

“I dunno. I guess you’ll kill me. Or I’ll kill you. Somehow I feel like it will be the first one.”

“What makes you think that?” I ask, knowing she’s right.

“Your scars. They’re infected. That would kill a normal person. You’re one of the Immortals. Unofficially, my guess. You are in this to win. And if you’re immortal, then I can’t kill you. Unless I survive here for eighty years. Unlikely.”

HOW DID SHE FIGURE ME OUT SO FAST?!?! This has been my secret for sixteen years, and she just... bam. Figured it out. The end. How weird?

Who is this girl?

Ha. Bet she didn’t think I’d figure that one out. I can tell from the red flushing across her face like fire. I didn’t survive this long on strength. I survived on wit. I can read people. Even her. I can tell when people are too squeamish to kill. You’d think that people wouldn’t be that way, given the rigid selection schedule.

The first eight games can have one winner, and multiple survivors. This one, since it’s the last, has one winner, no survivors. There are ten rounds. Each has nine Extras, and one Champion. I was the champion this round. But Pariah definitely wasn’t just an extra. Maybe there were multiple Games? In different places? I thought that was impossible. I thought our city was the last one?

I should be asking important questions. Like; what is this feeling? Why am I trusting her?

And why is she trusting me?

This girl now knows my deepest secret. My fatal weakness. Maybe she couldn’t kill me, but she could disqualify me.

I have to get her on my good side. If I don’t I’m screwed. And I get the feeling that I wouldn’t kill her. I can’t. When I think about it, my body joins a revolution and overthrows my brain as government. What is this weird warmth creeping through my body like worms into dirt?

Love isn’t real.

Another thing my uncle taught me.

But what other name is there to point fingers of blame at?

None. That’s what this is.

Love.

Curse the world. Curse my uncle. Curse the games. Curse this genius girl who figured me out in the short period of time it takes to fall in love.

Sir. It’s working.

If they fall in love then they will end up living out their whole lives. And there will be no winner. Which means no more games.

For sure. And the serum is working. They are falling in love.

Perfect. Keep administering it into the air. If we skip a dose it could ruin everything.

I know that.

Good. To the real end of the games.

To the end.

“So how does it work? Your immortality?”

“I’m not really immortal. Not the traditional definition, anyway. I will live to eighty, and then die. No illness or human-made weapon can kill me.”

“Human made?” Pariah flushes and looks down.

“There’s a legend amongst immortals, kind of like the bogeyman with you guys, right?”

“Okay.”

“It’s a way to scare kids into being good. But there are some adults who believe this tale.”

“Tell me! I’m rotting with excitement!”

“Fine, okay. The story goes that a long time ago a mortal fell in love with an immortal. This happens all the time these days, but back then it was unheard of.

Anyway, the mortal fell in love and began to obsess over the immortal. Like, stalker level. Stealing clothes, following and taking pictures, that kind of creepy shit. Until one day, the immortal began going out with another immortal. This mortal basically went insane. He knew he couldn’t kill an immortal in his mortal form. So he sold his Soul.”

“His Soul? But that’s what makes you who you are! He wouldn’t even love her anymore!”

“I know. Crazy, right? So he did that. Then, obviously, he forgot why he did it and just became an immortal hunter.”

“That’s actually pretty cool. So what happened to the guy?”

“Not sure. One version says he had kids to continue his legacy, another says he was killed.”

“I thought you couldn’t kill a Soulless?”

“Yeah. That’s why I think he had kids to continue his legacy.”

“Weird.”

“I know, right?”

“That’s cool.”

The trunk is not big enough for the both of us. It’s small and cramped. Our bodies are pressed together. Pariah is warm and comfortable, although I’d never admit that. She’s breathing softly. The air leaving her mouth tickles the loose strands of her hair, making them dance.

Suddenly I can’t think straight. The only thought I can summon is kiss her! So I do.

Her soft lips press into mine and then I am staring at her. She’s so close.

I’m blushing super hard. I thought she’d be stunned, but I actually think she’s blushing more than me.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

It worked.

Told you it would.

Now we only have to wait seventy four years.

No we don’t.

What do you mean? Immortals can’t be killed.

Not by mortals. But by me.

You rigged the game! You’re going to kill her!

No. I’m going to kill them both.

Why?! This wasn’t part of our agreement!

I said they both have to die before the games can be over. You should have known that! Or listened!

But they are just kids!

Murderers. And you know full and well that a mortal and an immortal can’t be in love.

Dude, stop living in the past. It happens all the time.

Not this immortal. She’s mine.

You’re forty!

So?

... wait. You’re that guy! The one from the legend.

Ah. You’ve found out my secret.

What?’No!! Don’t!!

Goodbye. Thanks for your help.

OHGODPLEASENOAHHHHHHHHH——

The air is saturated with mist and fog. I can’t see the hand in front of my face. It’s a terrifying experience, especially given what happened last night.

Did I really kiss her?

Did I really like it?

What do I do?

I look over at Pariah. She twitches as if having a nightmare. When she wakes up she is sweating. The side of my body that is pressed against her is soaking and cold. She looks at me while panting frantically. What could have scared her so bad?

The mist has the same effect as putting a bag over my head. Suffocating. I feel like I can’t breathe. Being completely blind is completely distorienting. Ack.

The flashbacks are the worst. Every night I think back to that day when everything in my life descended to shit.

His large, meaty paws on my body. They move across me as if they are covered in a thick web of grease.

My eyes open, misted over with tears. Oh wait. That’s not tears. It’s fog.

My body is burning.

“Air...” I whisper. I hear her moan.

“What’s happening?”

“They released acid mist.”

“Ah... what?”

“Acid Mist. It burns.”

“Um... Pariah, I’m not burning— HOLY SHIT! What’s happening to you?” I look down. My skin is bubbling like a hot spring spa. What the Hell? I’m supposed to be immune to this stuff. What is the cause of this pain?

“Oh God, help me...” My body feels like it is being slow roasted over a hot fire. Maybe this is what it feels like to be swallowed whole by a dragon. Burning all the way down. Dissolving in a pit of acid at the end. The Games were the dragon. They were eating me.

Oh God, the pain.

“Pariah!” I see her bony white arm stretch towards me and wrap around my arm. Her skin instantly blackens where it comes in contact.

“Oww!”

For some stupid reason, she does not let go, even as I scream and cry for her to get away from me. I watch her body roast in front of me, while agonizing pain rips through me.

This is what Hell is. Not my uncle. Not the games. This is Hell.

At last Air's body stops moving— is it bad that I am relieved? I can feel my immortality slipping away.

"You're mine now," says a gruff voice.

Then darkness takes over, and I am dead.