What Game Will You Play

Chapter 12

(Edited)

Is freedom from this terrible night really only a few feet away?

I guess I'm not the only one who thinks this since everyone stares at Aiden for a good long minute before slowly and skeptically walking out the door one by one.

When I step out the door, it takes my eyes a second to adjust to the darkness of the outside world. From the looks of it, the brightly lit carnival looks like the safe place to be, and Treegrass is dangerous, but looks can be deceiving.

The town is engulfed by darkness, with only minimal lights on in the houses around the carnival. The distant trees, whose branches are almost bare in this early spring, stand ominously against the night sky. The carnival, once emitting a bright, joyous light, now seems like a distant bad memory. Its look of safety and excitement is a mere illusion.

I remember when we were kids, Devin and I would join the other kids in exploring the woods. We would run through the trees and make up stories about how a witch might live inside the biggest tree in the woods. We would spend all day searching for the biggest tree and then arguing about which was really bigger.

Over the course of a few months, we would grow tired of the same stupid fights and stories, and then slowly, people would stop coming to the woods because there was simply nothing more to do. Devin and I stopped going for a while because there was nothing interesting to do there by ourselves, and we had exhausted every game we could think of. But one night, the power went out, and we saw a group of younger kids running into the woods.

Of course, Devin and I were not about to miss the great opportunity to scare the crap out of some random kids. So we grabbed rakes and anything else made of metal that we could find, and then we ran into the woods, dragging them behind us and hitting them together and on trees to scare the kids. The look on the kids' faces, along with their high-pitched screams, were hilarious, and no one would go into the woods at night by our house again unless they were dared to.

Aiden closes the door of the mirror maze, cutting off the little light we had. We all stand right outside the carnival. Houses are only a few hundred feet from us, and I wonder if the people living in these houses heard any of the gunshots or if they all went into the carnival. Aiden starts walking towards the trees in the distance, and we all follow him.

I am still uncertain about Aiden and the people he refers to as the Jumpers. I really don't know much about these people other than what Aiden had said about them. How do we know they aren't just as dangerous and misleading as the New World government? Could this all be an elaborate trap?

We are strangers to the people in these other distant towns. How do we really know they are who they said they are? What if they are trying to steal from us like the Fritts did in the past?

With all of this in mind, I keep my hold on Devin's hand along with the hand of the younger girl whom I have never met before tonight. While I may not know this girl personally, I feel like I have to protect her from any more bad things that could happen, at least until we figure out what we are going to do next.

As we get closer to the tree line closest to our town border, I wonder where Aiden plans to take us. We can't get past the border—at least, I don't think we can. None of us have ever tried before. But then again, Aiden and the rest of the Jumpers got in here, so there must be a way.

Even if we can get past the border, then what? We leave all our belongings behind and live in no man's land? We don't even know for sure what lies beyond the border. We only know what we have been told, and it isn't much.

"Where are we going?" I ask.

Aiden speaks without looking back at me, "Theon and the others brought the groups of people they got out of the carnival to the border of your town, where they will be hidden in the trees."