Savage Run (16 page)

As I continue onward, the muscles in my legs
start to tremble. How much farther do I have to run? I still feel
somewhat strong, but seeing how these young men have been blown to
bits is wreaking havoc with my mind. If I could just sit down and
rest for five minutes to think, to process it all, I’d be fine. I
just need a moment. To gather my thoughts. To make sense of it all.
But I can’t. If I stop, it’s the same as saying I’m dropping out.
So I continue—counting my steps. Just one more. Then another. And
another.

True to his word, Arthor keeps his distance
for the next few miles, only glancing back once in a while. Mile
after mile, my mouth feels drier and drier. What I wouldn’t give
for a glass of water right now, and a shot of painkillers to dull
the achiness in my feet. Biking is so much easier on the feet.

All of a sudden, I hear at least ten
landmines go off back to back in the distance. I stop when I hear
the cries of the wounded young men, and immediately I plug my ears.
I can’t listen to their screams when it’s as if their voices bleed
into my bones. From the corner of my eye, I see Arthor zooming past
me. What is he doing? When he’s about a hundred feet in front of
me, he slows down to a jog and glances back at me. I keep moving.
Reaching the place of the massive blast, I see that there’s nothing
left. Nothing but craters and blood. No injured participants. No
bodies. I suppose if one is too injured to continue, then one is
taken to the hospital. For the sake of their families, at least I
hope this is the case.

My feet are dragging to the ground now.
Surely I must be coming to the end of the marathon soon. I have to
be. My right foot has gone numb and I need to pee, but there’s no
way I’m going to stop in the open area to squat and relieve myself.
That’s one thing that’s unfair about this; the guys can just whip
it out and do their business. My head has been pounding for some
time, and I know I’m in danger when I stumble over a small rock in
my path. Catching myself with my palms, I let out a cry. They still
feel sore from my fall yesterday, and the wounds reopen and start
to bleed. I roll onto my back and rest my arm across my eyes to
shield them from the sun. It feels so good to rest. Every last
muscle in my body screams for me to stay down. But it’s not long
before I hear footsteps, and when I uncover my eyes, I see Arthor
standing above me.

“
Don’t you dare!” I shout,
holding my arm out in front of me.

“
Then get up!”

“
No.”

“
Five…four…”

“
Are you kidding
me?”

“
Three…”

I stagger to my feet and brush the sand and
rocks off my palms. “There, happy?”

“
Yes. Now run.” He
points.

“
Since when are you my
master?”

“
I’m not your master. Just
a friend.”

I know his intentions aren’t to boss me
around or to hurt me; they’re to help me. But the way he’s doing it
is driving me crazy. “Okay, okay! Just run ahead. I’ll follow.” My
voice is harsher than I intended, but I’m too tired to make
amends.

We continue on like this for a while, him
glancing back at me, me grumbling every time he does. Every so
often, a landmine explodes—but instead of looking toward the
explosion, I’ve learned to train my eyes on the back of Arthor’s
head. Maybe having him here isn’t as bad as I thought.

The sun hangs high in the sky and every step
has my legs screaming at me. What I wouldn’t do to have my bike
here. In the near distance, a whole bunch of landmines go off at
once—fifty, sixty, maybe more—startling me enough to get the blood
flowing to my brain. I stop and lean my hands on my thighs, giving
myself just a moment to recover. Then, I hear whopping and
screaming just beyond the gentle hill where Arthor is. He looks
back at me, and his lips rise in triumph.

“
We made it!” Arthor
yells.

Chapter 13

My feet still ache, and I’m exhausted
physically and mentally. I can hear the end of the marathon just
beyond the hill, which gives my feet renewed strength. Go, don’t
stop! Go, Heidi! Cresting the hill, I see water. Blessed water! The
sun reflects off the surface of the lake like a gold medal and a
sudden surge of energy awakens my tired arms and legs. With every
muscle in my lower body aching, I dash toward the lake and jump
into it. I plunge my face into the cool water and drink deeply. I
hadn’t thought to ask if the water was safe, but everyone’s
drinking it, so it must be. Unless they want everyone to die at
once, which would make the Savage Run a complete tragedy. It would
do nothing for Volkov’s popularity. I high-five Arthor, and his
face is beaming.

“
You made it,” he
says.

“
Yeah, thanks for pushing
me back there.”

“
You don’t need to thank
me.”

I roll my eyes.

“
Just keep going,
okay?”

“
Okay. And if you need it,
I’ll help you out.”

We sit down and I pull off the Savage Run
shoes. I dig my feet into the wet sand and feel the grains rubbing
against my sore toes. I’m sure if we stick together, there will be
an opportunity to pay him back.

A cameraman wearing a Savage Run outfit
films me from a mere six inches away.

“
Why are you filming?”
Arthor asks.

“
This is for President
Volkov,” the cameraman says.

I just ignore him. It’s not like I have any
extra energy to give him. A few of the cameramen are out on the
water in motorboats. They’ll probably be following us all the way,
catching the gory details of the interaction between the e-condas
and us. President Volkov wouldn’t want to miss seeing how his
precious creations interact with the inferior class. I try to look
for any short-cuts. Nicholas said not every obstacle course had
one, but I had almost expected that at least one of the two first
would.

Watching the other participants brave the
lake, wading forward into the unknown deep, I can’t help but dread
what’s to come. They’ve probably starved the predators for days so
the slithering electrical monsters will eat anything offered to
them.

Arthor and I relax for a few more minutes
before delving into the second round, allowing our muscles to
regain some strength before we put more demands on them. There’s a
flashing sign that reads if we wait longer than twenty minutes to
continue, we’ll be disqualified. This could mean a myriad of things
including being shot like the young man who tried to get a head
start in the marathon. The sign also reads to swim toward the
setting sun, which would be westward. How long will it take me to
swim ten miles when I’m exhausted, hungry and find it hard to stay
focused? At least four, I’m sure. My arms grow heavy at the
thought.

If I were still back at home, I’d be riding
around on my bike, delivering medicine right now, trying to sneak a
peek of the Savage Run coverage between runs. But I don’t want to
think about the life I had to leave behind. Nor the people I
betrayed.

I wiggle my legs a little—the achiness in my
joints is impossible to ignore. Sitting down, my body has decided
to revolt and feels even stiffer than while I was actually running.
But I don’t have the luxury of time to sit here and rest and I must
keep going before I grow too sore, unable to get a move on.

I look over at Arthor. “Ready?”

“
Yeah,” Arthor says, his
eyes void of their normal energy, his shoulders slumping. Instead
of getting up, like I expect him to, he remains seated for a while
longer. Eventually, he climbs to his feet and slowly tilts his head
from side to side, loosening the muscles in his neck.

I wade out until the cool water reaches my
waist, and stop to wait for Arthor. Unable to hold my bladder
anymore, I relieve myself in the water. It’s totally gross, I know,
but they can hardly expect me to hold it until I have completed the
entire first phase.

Of the three rounds in this phase, swimming
is my least favorite, one of the factors being that I never really
was a strong swimmer. Soon, the water reaches my chest, and I gasp
at how cold it is. Once I get moving, I’m sure I’ll build up body
heat again. I grit my teeth, submerge my shoulders into the water,
and start to swim. From the very first breaststroke, I think I felt
something in the water—an e-conda?

“
You good?” Arthor asks,
swimming next to me.

“
Yes. Just a
little…nervous.”

“
And you’re okay with me
swimming with you?”

I can’t tell if he’s being difficult or
playful. “That was only during the marathon.”

“
Good.”

Unlike the marathon, the screams come right
away. Ahead of us in the sunlight, I see a young man, his arms
flailing, his voice screeching in pain. “Get away from me! Help! I
withdraw! I quit! Help me!” He continues to scream for help, but no
one comes to his aid. The Unifers in the boats just ignore him.
Like me, everyone knows that if they swim over to help him, they’re
dead meat.

“
This way,” I say to
Arthor, taking a long detour around the poor guy. If I think about
it too much, I might panic. We swim on, stroke after stroke, and
again, we hear screams. This time the screams come from a distance,
so we don’t see the person who’s being attacked. It’s a little
easier to ignore these screams.

“
Ah!” Arthor’s eyes go wild
with fear and he gasps. “I felt something.”

For a moment, I’m unable to move. Arthor
thrashes his arms into the water as his eyes search for an e-conda.
All of a sudden, he lets out a shriek. “It shocked me!”

In an attempt to scare off the e-conda, I
kick my legs as hard and as fast as I can. Then, as I feared, I
feel a jolt, too, and a current rushes through my body, leaving my
muscles immobilized. And everything throbs. Unable to move my arms
or legs, I sink beneath the surface. Keeping my eyes open, I see
dozens of thick, snake-like sea-creatures slithering below my feet,
just waiting to make their next move. I tell my legs to kick, but
they won’t. I try to scream for help, but below the surface the
water drowns out my voice—no one can hear me. Even if they could,
they still wouldn’t come. The water muffles the sounds of the
e-condas’ sharp shrieks, making them sound like a deeper octave of
my bikes’ squeaky breaks. I need to take a breath soon; the air is
running out. Kick stupid legs, kick! This time, my right leg moves,
and within seconds, I can move both my legs and my arms. Soon, I’m
able to command all my limbs, enough for me to stop sinking and
begin rising. I have to get up quicker—the surface is so far away.
I see light up above, and with each stroke, my body feels stronger.
Once I reach the surface, I gasp for air. Even though I wasn’t
under for very long, the exertion of kicking and punching the water
to get rid of the e-condas has made me breathless.

Arthor is still above water. “We have to
continue, or they’ll eat us alive!” I yell. A motorboat approaches
us with a Unifer holding a camera, coming to feed off of our
demise. They think they’re so safe in their vessels, but I bet even
the e-condas could tip the motorboats over with one flick of their
tails, and they would be fighting for their lives, too. I almost
wish one of them would fall into the water. It’s not fair how we
have to fight so hard for our freedom while they were born with
it.

Arthor and I swim as fast as we can, cutting
through the water, kicking our legs. Adrenaline courses through me
and I feel like I’m on the verge of death. This must be it! The
hope that I’d make it through the first phase has vanished into
oblivion. All I’m left with is envisioning my dead body at the
bottom of the lake with a gigantic snake wrapped around me. Or
maybe the e-conda will just swallow me whole, and I’ll slowly
suffocate in his stomach.

A few feet in front of me, there’s another
young man who appears completely incapable of lifting his limbs,
and his head is bopping in and out of the water. As I continue to
watch him, I see the water is dyed with blood and he spews and
coughs pink water from his mouth. A long, thick snake with a head
twice as big as mine, spirals itself around the young man, causing
him to scream louder. I hear a loud buzzing sound as the snake
shocks the young man—a thousand volts of electricity streams
through the poor boy’s body. Before long, his screams melt into
mellow whimpers, and he slides beneath the water’s surface with the
e-conda still wrapped around him, leaving nothing except bursting
bubbles on the red water’s surface. I become angry at once. How
could President Volkov do such horrible things to young men? He
must have absolutely no sympathy for others and be a cold-hearted
monster to his core.

Arthor lets out a cry, sounding like a cross
between a scream and a sob. His arms and legs go motionless and his
head starts to sink beneath the water’s surface. With the drama
dwindling around us, the Unifers turn on their engines, preparing
to move onto the next location. A thought pops into my mind, and
though it’s a stupid one, I’m willing to try anything at this
point. “Swim toward the boat,” I say. Arthor doesn’t respond so I
grab him by the collar to keep him from sinking farther beneath the
gentle waves. I haul him with me toward the motorboat’s stern. When
I reach it, I grab hold of the edge with my free hand, staying as
far away from the moving propellers as possible, and trying to stay
as low in the water as I can so that the Unifers don’t see me.
Almost before I’m ready, the motorboat takes off with a jolt. I
feel my fingers slipping, but I refuse to let this be the end of my
short existence, and cleave on as we’re hauled away. The water
gushes against my body and my fingers feel like they’ll be ripped
off if there’s any more pressure. Water sprays in my face so I
close my eyes. After some time, the boat slows down a notch, and I
open my eyes to assess where we are. We’ve cleared the area where
several attacks have occurred, so I let go. Sinking into the water,
we stop moving. My hand and lower arm feels spent, like the muscles
and tendons have been stretched beyond their limits.