Only a Game (Olympus Drive Chronicles)

Chapter 8: If this were a movie and not my life I wouldn't watch it

Viktor

I wake up to the alarm buzzing on my tablet. I wince as I sit up. My ankle is throbbing. Not horribly though, and it's not too swollen. I'll keep. I shiver, now that I'm out of the blanket. I pick up a sweatshirt and pull it on, rubbing my eyes. The bandage on my ankle isn't soaked through. I'll change it tonight. I sort for a bottle of water, wetting my mouth. That's all. That'll fill my stomach as well.

I stand up and slowly step out the cracked door. My father is slumped at the table, eyes closed. By the full ashtray he was working all night. I take the pencil from his fingers and set it among the spare parts on the table.

Today is a good day. We get a package of rations. My father can make soup. I'll go retrieve the line I carelessly left last night. It's all fine.

I swallow a couple of vitamins from the jar on the counter, then go about getting out my books for my lessons.

"What time is it?" my father sits up, rubbing his eyes a bit.

"It's seven. I've eaten already, I'm going to do my lesson, and when the sun comes up I'll get my line," I say.

"Get water while you're at it," he says, standing and stretching, "You only brought one flask last night. Do that while I get the supplies."

"Okay," I say, opening my books. I'm starting with math, it's my favorite subject and the numbers come easier to me than words and the lessons behind them.

"You ate you said?" he asks, leaning against the cracking cement wall and surveying our remaining supplies on the counter.

"Yes," I say, swallowing stiffly. I have control of very little in my life. Eating is one of those things. The power behind it, getting away with the lie of not having eaten. The satisfying burning of my gut. Knowing we have one day's more food, one more meal for every one I skip.

"Liar, this is what was there last night. I've told you not to take me for a fool, boy," he scoffs, as he moves to start the hot plate for the last packet of oatmeal.

"I had a bar in my bag," I lie, staring down at my paper.

"Really? When they're all gone?"

"It was old, why would I lie?" I ask, tightening my fist since of course I am lying.

"I recall you ate nothing last night either—"

"I wasn't hungry."

"Shame. You'll eat all of this," he puts the last of our butter into the oatmeal.

"I'm not hungry."

"Why don't you want to eat it? What have you got against eating?"

"Nothing," I sigh, "I've got nothing against eating."

"Then you shouldn't have a problem eating all of this, while I watch you," he says, stirring the mug of thick, slimy oatmeal.

"I'm not hungry," I say, quietly, "Eat it with me."

"You'll eat all of it, as I watch," he says, sitting down across from me.

I sigh.

"Give me your hand," He takes my hand, pulling up the sleeve, "You're skin and bones, boy."

"I'm fine."

"You will be once you eat that," he says, nodding for me to eat.

"I hate oatmeal," I mutter, forcing myself to take a slimy spoonful all the same. It slips down my throat like a slug. I nearly choke.

"Do you remember your mother making you waffles?" he asks.

"Yeah," I ate those. Warm, and fresh, and good. I remember, sitting in the great kitchen, stuffing my face. My father and mother weren't married. He'd slip down to see her in the kitchens, kiss her cheeks. Study my face, his big hands on it as he looked at me like marveling that I was his. My mother was the last person I ever knew of who could make him laugh. Not even me. I'm a project. I'm his little clone. I must be just like him I'm his perfect son. I always have to be perfect.

"Do you remember her singing?"

"Yeah," I poke at the oatmeal, not taking another bite. She used to sing me to sleep.

"Do you think about her?

"Yes," I still try to hear her voice in my head at night. When I try to sleep. I try to imagine that I'm waking up to her making me breakfast. And we're in a pretty house where it's warm and safe. And she's packing me off to school or whatever normal mums do.

"You shouldn't. It's not helping you," he says, "You've stopped eating."

"Okay," I force another bite down my mouth. My stomach turns at it.

"We'll be out soon, Vik. You can go to college."

"Dad, I'm fourteen. I know people don't go to college when they're fourteen," I sigh.

"You're clever enough to. You're smarter than any boy your age, or you will be if you dedicate yourself as you should. I was in university level classes at your age," of course he was. It's fine I've heard this before. I'm well aware how inferior I am to him.

"Okay then, college," I think I would like to go to school with people my age. Who---aren't like me I guess. Nobody is going to be like me. But still. I think I'd like to have friends. But more than that I'd like a house with windows. And to be able to look up and see the stars.

"She would be glad you're going to do well by yourself, and she would be pleased with how intelligent you are. Think of that," my father says, stiffly, when he sees me looking off and thinking like I do. He assumes I'm thinking of her.

You see, my mother died. My mother was murdered. My mother was murdered and eaten and torn up. And I watched.

I was seven.

And I watched her die before my eye as my father dragged me away. He didn't go help her. He didn't go help her. He got me. He snatched me up. I screamed at him that he should have saved her. And he right out told me he loved me more than her. And he'd had to choose and he'd chosen me so I should be grateful. I screamed at him that I hated him. He told me my mother would have wanted me to live, because she was simple and she loved me. But I wasn't going to be simple I'd be clever like him. So I guess I am. Seven years on.

"I really can't finish all this," I sigh, taking a third and last spoon full. It sticks, milky and horrible, to my mouth.

"You will. You finish that, and I'll let you help go over my plans for the rocket, all right?" he offers, "You can do your lessons later."

"Really?" I ask, hopefully.

"I mean what I say, Viktor. You know that."

"Will you look at my ideas?" I ask, hopefully.

"I will if they're any good; you can go over mine, try to catch my mistakes," he says.

"Can I have a cigarette?"

"If you find a mistake I've made, yes."

"No, fair," I say, cramming oatmeal in my mouth. I nearly gag. He'll never have made a mistake.

"You're too young to be smoking, boy," he says, ruffling my hair, "Eat that now, and drink a bottle of water, and then yes we'll look at the plans."

"And I get a cigarette."

"If you find a mistake in my code or my calculations, yes, you know that's the deal," that's always the deal. I rarely get a cigarette.

"You're on," I say, grinning.