Sarah Tries to Save the World (9 page)

Chapter 7

I wake up around dawn (which, by the way, is discernible because the village is suddenly lit up right around there) and get changed. About a split second later, Arcya opens the door and comes in, presumably to wake me up.

She stops dead at the sight of me. “You’re awake.”

No duh, Einstein. “Yeah.”

“And changed.”

Duh again. “Uhm, yeah.”

“Drat,” she says. “I liked waking you up and rushing you through getting ready.”

Ha, okay, then good thing I woke up. “Uhm, okay. Well, I’m going to go get breakfast.”

She follows me to the food hall and we eat breakfast, which is totally boring and humdrum as usual.

Some more humdrum, boring chores like sweeping up huts and setting up tables for lunch and taking me to feed the tigers again are some more things she makes me do.

Nothing particularly notable happened till around lunchtime.

I’d become at least partly accustomed to having to sit where Arcya sat (in the most secluded corner of the room) after a few meals with her, so I was pleasantly surprised when she marches in the opposite direction of the usual place.

She sat down at the table that Ben, Aria, and Lily sit at, smiling at everyone before beginning to talk with the other mentors.

“Hi guys. So, what did you all do today?” I say.

“I cooked,” says Aria, looking less than happy.

Lily grins back at me as she replies, “I watched the tree entrance from a higher branch, making sure no strangers came near.”

I laugh. That should’ve been no problem at all for Lily.

Ben says, “Well, I fed the tigers. There’s this weird little cliff thing that you throw food down from. And I think there’s a waterfall there. It was pretty cool, wasn’t it, Aberle?”

The brunette (note to self re: calling her by her name, which must be Aberle) flashes a huge, 100-watt smile at him, with her too-white-and-perfect teeth. “Totally.”

I turn to Aberle-the-brunette and ask, “So, were you born in the village or did you just arrive here somehow?”

“I used to live in San Francisco. I don’t know what happened, but I somehow ended up in the jungle. When I stood up, I tripped and hit my head on a giant rock. I was knocked out. When I woke up, I was here in the village and they basically adopted me,” she gushes, finishing with a smile. Apparently, she’s not too upset about losing her whole life in San Francisco.

“Haven’t you tried to get back home to your family?”

She looks away when I ask her that, and I’m surprised to see her looking downcast and almost.. sad.

“Well, we don’t really have transportation, and I don’t know where we are. All we know about what’s happened in the outside world comes from outsiders. Last we heard, there were somehow human zombies. It was a garbled story we were told, but it made me think that my parents might not have survived.”

I nod, looking back to Ben. In a really bad attempt to break the awkward silence, I clear my throat. “Uhm, so, Ben, isn’t it so weird to be here? It’s like an oasis from-” I falter, trying to find the right words.

Whoops. That didn’t work out the way I wanted it to. Aberle may look like a supermodel, but she probably wouldn’t like to hear about all the bad stuff happening and the numerous ways in which her parents could have died.

Ben smoothly finishes, “Having to eat out of metal cans. I mean, this food doesn’t have the taste of metal in it for once!”

We all laugh as I shoot a grateful look at Ben. He nods for a fraction of a second.

Aberle says more seriously now, “So it’s true? There’s an apocalypse?” She looks dangerously close to tears.

“Uhm, well, you probably don’t want to hear about this-” I say.

She says, “No. I do. That way I can- accept the loss and keep on living.”

“Well, yes, there is,” I say, and Arcya finally pays attention to our conversation. “It started with the natural disasters. Tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, you name it. Then-” I stop, remembering not to give away what I know about the zombies.

Lily continues, “The zombies came. They look like humans, almost, but with luminous eyes in the darkness and a craze in their eyes. Nobody knows how it happened except for that it became a plague. But anyways, the survivors of the natural disasters were attacked by swarms of these zombies. Almost every-everyone-” she falters too, and I see the tears shining in her eyes.

Ben says quietly, “Died. Worse was when the surviving humans were turned into zombies. Since then, we’ve lived on our own. We lost a few of our number, and other humans have helped us. We were captured by the people on Tieryl City too, and we.. ah.. escaped with parachutes down to here. I’m sorry, this is all we know.”

Aberle looks like she’s about to burst out in tears, while Arcya looks upset and the short stocky brunette is just stunned.

I didn’t realize it till now, but all the conversation in the hall had ceased while we were talking.

A deadly quiet fills the room as the adults sit there, looking at us.

The children in the room, thankfully, had eaten and left an hour ago. But still, everyone just sits there, staring at us.

Chapter 8

“You said it was a plague?” asks Elder Manoiv with a sense of urgency in his tone.

I reply, “Yes.”

“And what are the signs of said plague?”

Ben replies, “We’re not sure.”

I remember my dream about Mariella and barely remember not to blurt it out.

“Does that mean that anyone could have it, regardless of whether or not they appear to be healthy?”

Ben hesitates, not sure how to respond and why the elders wanted to know this. (He didn’t tell me this, by the way. I just know him so well.)

“Answer me,” says Manoiv.

“I suppose so,” says Ben finally. “I don’t know.”

“So newcomers to the village.. those we take in out of our generosity… could potentially have it and we wouldn’t know until it’s too late?” ask the elder.

Before I can gasp at the conclusions they’re drawing (which are actually quite logical, if you think about it), Kilo, Ociri, and some other brawny men are holding knives to my groups’ throat, including me.

I look helplessly at Ben, knowing to tell him that we’re immune as superhumans is not a good idea (they might not believe us, or worse, they will believe us and won’t let us leave the village because they need protectors) and to not tell them means confinement or death.

The elder says regretfully, “We can’t risk spreading of a plague. It’s nothing personal. Men, take them to the Ricomuz. At dawn tomorrow, the tigers will have a feast.”

I can’t stop myself from gasping. “That-- might-- give them a taste--- for human blood--” I say, even as my captor presses the knife against my throat harder.

“Arcya, is this possible?” asks the elder.

Arcya seems to be fighting with herself before answering, “Maybe. Most likely not, provided I talk to them first and tell them what these people might do to our village.”

The elder nods. “Do that.”

Before I can utter a word of complaint, I’m being carried away to the Ricomuz and all I can think about is how I considered Arcya my friend. Imprisonment. It’s dull all right, but it’s better than death.

Of course, in the case of a few, very, very unfortunate people, you are sentenced to both. Being one of the unluckiest people in the world (you know, surviving the apocalypse and all the natural disasters only to become tiger chow-chow because of something that you know you’re not to blame for is REALLY unlucky), I have both.

After I was carried off to the Ricomuz, I sat there, running various escape ideas through my head. (I’d have said them to my friends, but there was Ociri watching our every move.) Each idea was more preposterous than the last.

I could learn to speak tiger and explain the situation. (You can’t learn a language literally overnight… plus Arcya would talk to them and find out everything anyways, so that wouldn’t work.)

I could try to swim up the waterfall. (I’ll be way too tired, with not enough strength to do that. Plus then I’d probably be recaptured at the top, and the next time they try to execute me, they’ll block the waterfall.)

I could talk all about the superhuman thing in front of Ociri. When he runs off to go tell people, I escape with my friends. (Slightly more plausible, but he’s most likely too smart than to leave prisoners alone, plus he might scoff at it and think it’s a lie. Hmm… or is he too smart to leave prisoners alone? Ooh. Maybe if he thought the ‘lie’ was funny, he’d run off anyways to tell his friends and we’d escape. Wait. I have nothing to break the metal bonds around me, and unfortunately, superhumans can’t break through metal with their bare hands. I already tried. Drat it.)

I’m still running more ideas through my head and ruminating over each of them when the door opens and in comes Arcya.

“I’m here to relieve you of duty,” says Arcya with an authoritative tone in her voice.

“Elder Manoiv told me to move for no one.”

Arcya looks at him, shocked. “But Elder Manoiv was the one who told me to come take your spot!”

Ociri looks slightly suspicious. “Are you sure?”

“Do you really think I’d lie to you?”

He looks at her for a second, knowing that he’s in no place to question her.

“Uhhmm.. I’d better not answer that. All right, I’ll go. But if they escape, it’s your head on the line, not mine.”

She nods, accepting the key he hands her, which must be to our bonds. I’m debating on the best way to coerce her to release us when she begins undoing each of our bonds.

“You don’t have much time. Ociri is a really fast runner, and as soon as he finds Elder Manoiv, my deception will be revealed,” she says, handing me a key.

I begin unlocking Lily’s bonds, because however confused I am, even I know not to waste time arguing.

“But, why?” I ask. “Why release us if it’s your head on the line?”

She laughs at this, unlocking Ben’s bonds and watching as we all stand up.

“Elder Manoiv is my grandfather. Do you really think he’d kill me? Besides, he just wanted to be rid of you. As long as I assure him that you’re gone, I’ll be fine.”

“But still. Why release us at all? You either hate me or somewhat like me, and even Aberle, who I know has a really awful crush on Ben, didn’t try to free us.” I say this with a matter-of-fact tone of voice.

Arcya grimly smiles. “Aberle’s a rule-follower. Me? Not so much. Besides, all the boys in the village fall lovesick at her feet at some point or another. She’ll be heartbroken for a few days and get over it.”

Ben feebly says (with ears tinged red from embarrassment), “She doesn’t like me.”

I ignore him, but everyone else says in sync, “Yes, she does.”

“Come on, we don’t have much time,” says Arcya, opening the door and ushering us out. “Go that direction-” she points to the right- “and after walking for a few days time, you’ll be out of the jungle. Food is in this bag I gave to Ben, and there are water sources marked on the map I gave you, which is in that bag.”

“How do you know we don’t have a plague?” I say.

She looks at me with a half-smile again. “Well, let me just tell you one minor detail. I was captured as a child, so I was on Tieryl City too.”

Right on cue, Ben, Lily, Aria and I gasp.

“There was a girl with scars like yours who had superhuman abilities. I knew you were one from the start. Your speed at learning things, agility, and natural ability to climb trees? Even Ociri couldn’t outrun you, and I’d be extremely hard pressed to climb a tree faster than you. I assumed your friends were the same after you and Ben won the race. And I have some sort of strange feeling that superhumans can’t be affected by the plague or be carriers of the disease.”

I nod, while Ben says blatantly, “The plague happens when the injections also used to make superhumans goes wrong. If you’re already a superhuman, it’s impossible to have or carry the plague.”

Another strangely familiar voice from the trees says, “Well, well, well. Superhumans. And you weren’t away for your health?”

Ociri steps into sight again, and I swear that at the sight of him, all the blood drains from Arcya’s face.

“No wonder we never got a response to the letters we 'sent to you'."