It feels like an eternity goes by as we sit in the dark, waiting for Aiden to decide when we should go. No one says anything. The room is so silent that it feels like I can hear my own heart beating as if it were outside of my chest and right next to my ear. I look around the room to see if I can spot anything that could help us as a way to pass the time, but it’s useless since it is too dark.

The sudden sound of a gunshot is heard in the distance. The loud noise of the shot makes me jump a little, and I think Devin does the same. At first, it’s just a single shot, but then after about thirty seconds, there is the sound of another, and another, and then it’s silent again.

After a minute, someone speaks up, “Do you think they’re shooting at them?” The voice sounds like it comes from a girl who is young, too young to be in a situation like this. I can’t make out the features on her face, but she does not sound familiar.

Most people in our town are strangers to me. There are many familiar faces that I know from walking and biking around town, but I don’t actually know who they are. I have only ever made small talk with the people I encounter. When I do make a friend, I hang out with them for a few weeks until our conversations fade to nothing, and they become acquaintances again.

The people here just don’t interest me that much. The people I went to school with would rather sit at home and read and reread the same books. They also like redoing the same tasks and rewatching the same shows. I think they believe that if they do something enough times, they will find something new in it, but I think they are just delusional and dull.

That’s probably why Devin became my best friend. Not a lot of people in our town like challenging themselves by playing games and trying new things. They are content with doing the same thing over and over again. I guess they have to be right. The New World has not provided us with many things to do around here, aside from putting up a carnival that was secretly meant to kill half of us.

If people aren’t reading, working, or in school, they are most likely talking about one of the ten TV shows that play on rotation. Devin and I don’t like watching those shows because they are very predictable and don’t make for a fun game.

One show called Criminals is about a married couple who just so happen to also be detectives. Each episode starts off with the couple finding out that there is some kind of criminal in the town that they live in, and they must stop them by finding evidence that leads them to the criminal or suspect. The couple always gets the criminal within the show's last few minutes, making it predictable, and Devin and I can’t stand it.

Devin has more friends than I ever did because he’s just a social butterfly. He can talk to anyone about anything. I am pretty sure he has talked to everyone in this town at some point in his life. Hell, I think he has even had a conversation with a tree about the soil it lives in.

I am more introverted, and when I was in school, I liked to play made up games with myself in class. Whenever I saw two people talking to each other, I would make up fake conversations for them just to make my day more enjoyable. My English teacher always said that I had a large and wild imagination.

I never minded not having friends because I had my family, but now, looking at our situation, I wish I would have gotten to know more about these people here. Or maybe not. If I were to know more people who came here tonight, then perhaps I would leave here even more brokenhearted if I knew they were going to be killed.

Aiden takes a second before speaking, “No. If it were Theon’s group, there would be more than just three shots fired.” This calms me down a little bit, but just because those shots were not for Theon’s group, doesn’t mean they weren’t for another innocent person.

I can’t believe these thoughts that are in my head. Thinking about another innocent person being shot at is not something I have ever done before. When we learned about the war with the Fritts, I always thought of the people who died in the same way I thought about a book character, they just weren’t real. It is insensitive to think about those people who died and fought for us as fake, but it just made school easier. I probably should have taken school more seriously.

As we sit in silence, I think about our situation a little bit more. I have experienced guns, blood, and death, all in one day. This is similar to a war. We are in a war.

No, this can’t be a war. Wars are fought by two sides with weapons. This is a slaughter. They didn’t even give us a fighting chance. They have guns, and we have nothing but our hands. They have the security of the government and their soldiers, while we have mistrust and betrayal. We have no security. We don’t even know if we can make it out of here alive tonight.

The worst part is we didn’t even know this was going to happen to us. The government had us trusting them all this time. Meanwhile, they have been secretly planning on killing us for two years.

If the government had told us of the situation at the same time they found out, then maybe we could have come up with something better. The more brains, the more solutions, right? It makes me think that the government never had our best interests in mind and only looked out for themselves. Did they test their own intelligence and strength? I bet they didn’t. If they had, they would have failed because they are idiots.

The Governors chose to kill the lives of innocents, and the best part is, they themselves didn’t even have to get their hands dirty. They sent their guards, or shooters as Aiden and Theon called them, to do their dirty work.

Mass murder is not the solution to food and supply shortages. It can’t be, it can never be. Is there something else they are not telling us about? Are we missing something? They have kept us secluded in our towns for years. What if there is something they don’t want us to know about on the other side? What does the rest of the world really look like?

I have questioned these things before, but I never really lost sleep over them because I felt safe. I felt like I could trust our three Governors. I believed what they told me because they never gave me a reason not to.

They told us the rest of the world was a wasteland of destruction, that nothing was beyond our borders besides the remnants of past wars and battles. I always felt like I should not question these things since they provided us with a great life, didn’t they?

“Time to go,” Aiden stands and waits at the door for us. “Remember, stay close together in the shadows and be as quiet as possible.”

When we all nod in agreement, he opens the door, cheeks to make sure it’s clear, then steps outside. Since I am now the closest one to the door, I am the next person to leave the kitchen. Devin follows after me and then the three other people behind him.

I am now standing between my brother and Aiden, and I feel like a kid. The two of them are taller than me, and I’m not even that short. The two of them are just trees. Unlike my brother, Aiden seems to be a little older than me, probably in his early twenties, while Devin is only sixteen and will probably still grow a little more. I hope he doesn’t.

We walk in the shadows for a few feet until we come to the end of the dark pathway. Before us now is the Ferris wheel to the left and a few other games in front of us across a somewhat medium size open area. Everything is still lit up, which is going to make it harder for us to sneak around to the maze.

Aiden looks at the area before him for a minute before turning back to us, “Okay listen, we are going to go one at a time across to the other side. Do you see the game lit up in blue? And the one lit up in green? We’re going to run and hide in between those two games.”

I see what he is talking about, but it’s kind of far, and the only way to get there is by going through the wide open and well lit up area where anyone can see us. There is a small booth in the middle, but there is no way all of us can fit in there. I don’t even think three of us would fit in it, and that’s assuming we make it that far without getting shot.

“We are going to go one at a time. I will go first, then wave one of you guys over.” He looks to us to make sure we understand before continuing, “Do what I do, watch my signals, and we will be fine.”

Aiden waits until no one objects before making his move. He checks to ensure no shooters are coming, then runs midway across, stopping at the booth just before the Ferris wheel.

For the short time he is in the light, I can see that his dark hair is a mess. He has a little dirt on his face, but for some reason, he manages to look good. His shoes appear to be worn out but it doesn’t seem to phase him.

He ducks down at the booth and waits a few seconds, checking again for any guards before running across the rest of the way to hide in between the darkness of two games. The whole time he is out there, he never once stands up straight. He always stays crouched down and keeps his knees bent.

He comes out of the darkness just enough for us to see him, and then he looks around again before waving us over.

We all look at each other, wondering who should go next. No one wants to be the first to go, but we all will eventually have to run to the other side if we're going to get out of here.

Chapter 10

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