The walls surround him like a thicket of bushes. Cody rushes forward, turns, and finds himself in another dead end. The buzzing is getting louder. He scratches his head, trying to picture the maze in his mind. Turn around, left, right, left, left… Then what? His ears are ringing. All he can hear is the buzzing. Suddenly, something jabs his ear and he jumps.
“Ow!” Cody yells. The bee falls onto his lap, devoid of its stinger. Cody half expects the cannon to boom.
It does. Twice.
Nearly jumping out of his seat, Cody leans too far forward and hits his head on the steering wheel. The horn honks and he leans back, brushes the bee off his thigh and mutters something unpleasant to himself. He grabs the nail he used to pick the lock and climbs into the tiny backseat of the truck. He glances out the window to see if anyone heard. With any luck, the sound of the cannon drowned out the horn. He settles down on the seat, wielding a nail in each hand, and watches warily from the window for signs of life.
After about five minutes, his heart stops racing and he begins to feel safe again. He leans back in the chair and pulls a granola bar out of the half-empty box on the floor. However, as he takes his third bite, he glimpses a shadow walking past behind him. The sun has almost set; what sort of creatures or people could be crawling around at night in this place? He reaches over to make sure the door is locked. Like that matters… The door doesn’t even have handles, idiot. That’s how you were able to pry it open with a nail. He slowly slides the granola bar into the glove compartment and braces his nails.
Suddenly, there’s a face at the window! Cody jumps, again, shaking the entire vehicle. What is it? A bear? Some sort of half-human dog? A CLOWN??
It’s Taylor. She knocks softly on the window and calls out, “Hey! Is there someone in there? Cody? Is that you?”
She seems harmless… But is she? Is anyone really harmless in this game? He slowly climbs into the driver’s seat and cranks the window down halfway. He holds a nail out the window in front of his face and whispers, “What do you want?”
“I’m trying to find a place to sleep. Last night I tried sleeping on the ground by the door to AE, but I kept waking up. It’s a little bit terrifying out here, and it looks like it’s going to rain. Can I at least sleep in the back of the truck?”
As much as he wants to avoid it, Cody can’t help feeling sympathy. He’s just too chivalrous and domestic. He sighs. “Alright, fine. Back up, I’ll let you in.”
Taylor backs away, and Cody pushes the door open. He steps out and gestures for her to climb in. He safely secures his extra nails in his pocket. “You can sleep up here. I’ll sleep in the back.” Before she can protest, he slams the door and clambers into the back of the pickup. He pulls a tarp from the toolbox and lays it out on the floor, then settles down. He’d been asleep for a few hours anyway… it won’t be that big of a deal to be awake a few more hours.
Two minutes later: torrential downpour. Cody sighs, cocoons himself in the tarp, and tries to pretend he’s somewhere else. He is almost successful in putting himself to sleep with happy thoughts when he hears someone yelling.
“Hey! That’s my truck! How did my truck get here? Hey, get out of my truck!” Ethan runs up to the vehicle and knocks on the passenger window. “Hey, wake up! This is my truck! It’s my little Julie! Oh, Julie! I missed you so much.” He sheds a tear as he attempts to wrap his arms around the ancient hunk of metal. Cody struggles out of the tarp and stands up.
“Hey! It’s not your truck anymore! This is the Kairos Games. I found it; It’s mine!” Cody yells.
Ethan spins around dramatically and glares at Cody. “Finders keepers? FINDERS KEEPERS?! You are NOT playing this game with me right now! You know where I slept last night? On a park bench! Guess what. Park benches are not nearly as comfortably as they look, and they make your bum cold when you sleep on them. It’s not pleasant.”
Cody, trembling and trying to maintain composure, hesitates for a moment, then responds, “Yeah, well, that’s the reality of this game, isn’t it? Some people get lucky, others get screwed over. Eventually, we all get screwed over because everyone we run into is trying to kill us. So…” He searches for a powerful threat to end on. “So, suck it up!” That will have to do.
Ethan rolls his eyes and gestures to the empty parking lot. “This is the only truck in the entire arena!” he yells. “Have you even thought about the possibility of driving it somewhere? Or were you just going to hide out in your hole and hope that there were enough granola bars hidden in there to last you the entire games?”
“How’d you know about the granola bars?”
“It’s MY TRUCK!”
“Oh yeah. Well… I don’t know. There’s not really anywhere to go, is there? We’re in an arena.”
Ethan shrugs and says, “Yeah, but how big is the arena?”
“Huh,” Cody mutters. “I guess we don’t really know.”
Ethan looks up into the spitting rain and spins around, searching the horizon. Turning back, he asks, “Want to find out?”
Cody nods. “Yeah. Why not? Let’s test this thing. Truce?” He holds out a hand.
Ethan nods enthusiastically and shakes Cody’s hand. “Truce!”
YOU ARE READING
The Kairos Games
FanfictionIn this thrilling spin-off of the Hunger Games, twenty-six lonely college freshmen face up against their worst nightmare: death, at the hands of each other and cafeteria food. Who will win the dreaded Kairos Games? Will it be Becca, with her yellow...
