We All Fall Down

|08

     "What?" I say, keeping an eye on the fire, which is now so far behind us that it will take at least an hour to reach us.

      "The people who sent us into this test, the doctors and scientists, told me to kill someone. I didn't at first, and so they killed my sister and the other, and they said that if I still didn't kill someone that they would kill you, and I couldn't lose both of you in one day."

      "Marcus," I say, unsure of what to think about it. He saved me, but at the same time more people died because of it, and I'm partly responsible. "They made you do that, so now we are going to survive this test, and then we are going to get revenge. We will bring them down, and we will find a way to get these cameras out of our eyes," I say to him, raising my voice, and then walking closer to him.

      "There aren't any cameras in our eyes. They just injected something in there to make sure that the fire wouldn't damage them."

      "Then why didn't the killers kill me when I closed my eyes?"

      "They told them not to, they want some of us to survive, they don't want to lose another hundred kids."

      "A hundred kids?!" I say and stare at him. "How do you know all of this?"

      "Because they told me all of this, to make it more interesting to watch. This is both a test and something for them to watch, the scientists are sick," he says to me, looking at me in the eyes. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you earlier, but they said that if I did then they would kill Sarah, but now that she is gone, I don't care anymore."

      "When will this be over?" I ask him, trying to sort out my emotions; sad, angry, grateful, confused.

      "It's almost over, this was all based on Ring Around The Rosies, the killers; aka pocket full of posies, the fire; ashes, ashes, and then next are going to be traps, everywhere; we all fall down. There were a hundred subjects to start with, and based on how many bodies I have seen, we are the only two left now, and when we survive I can't go back there, I can't go back to the place that killed my sister," he says and chokes back his tears.

      "I can't go back there either, we won't go back, and we will survive. No matter what we will survive, and we will not leave anyone behind, we can't afford any more loss," I say to him and hug him, still keeping an eye on the fire, which is now getting close enough that we need to run again.

      "Come on, we need to go, the fire is almost here," I say to him and we start to run again, looking at each other every now and then.

      After we run, Marcus turns back and then stops running. "The fire, it's gone," he says and looks around.

      I stop running too, and then spin around to see that there is no fire to be found, even the smell is gone. Even though Marcus killed someone, he saved my life multiple times and for that I am grateful to him.

      "Oh, and thank you," I say to him and look around, trying to find anything out of the ordinary that may be a trap.

      "For what?" he asks and looks at me, confused.

      "For every time you saved my life," I say and look at him.

      "Oh, you're welcome," he says and smiles at me before speaking, "Let's go, but we need to be really careful, the traps are probably already set."

      "Okay," I say and we start to walk, watching the ground as we do.

      As we are walking I am looking around for any sign of life, until I realize that I need to eat again. "I'm hungry," I say to him, realizing that I sound like a ten year old.

      "I am too, but we can't eat anything, they probably did something to it."

      "Wait," I say and then remember the berries that I picked earlier, I never ate them, but I put them into the pocket of my pants. "I have some berries in my pockets; I picked them earlier when I left you and Sarah." I say and pull them out, putting some into his hands.

      "Thanks," he says to me and we eat them along with the peanut butter and jelly sandwich that Marcus still had in his bag.

      As we eat we walk, too busy shoving food into our mouths to say anything to each other until we finish.

      "We should probably watch out for tr-," I start but then stop when I feel the ground underneath my left foot move lower than my right foot, followed by a net appearing underneath me and encasing me in it, lifting me off of the ground.