The Fear Trials
Authors: Lindsay Cummings
To my agent, Louise Fury, who made this dream come true.
I
live in a walled-in world.
The Perimeter stretches as far as the eye can see, a massive expanse of titanium. Only the seagulls can soar above the wall, see what destruction lies on the other side. It should make me feel safe.
But there is always the Dark Time. There are still the hundreds of murders that happen every night when it comes.
“
Focus
, Meadow! You're daydreaming again.”
I look up. My father stands across from me on our houseboat, his silver eyes staring into mine. Sometimes I am convinced that he hates me.
The waves rock the boat up, down. It is near dusk, and my father's scars are illuminated by the dying light like hundreds of watching eyes. They are proof that he is a killer. A survivor.
He keeps us alive, and someday, he expects me to become just like him.
“Steady hands, Meadow,” he says.
I put my fists up. But for one moment, I glance away as a seagull swoops past and dives headfirst into the waves in pursuit of a meal. It's hardly a secondâbut it is long enough for my father to lunge forward and land a punch across my cheek. I taste blood, metallic and bitter.
“Pay attention to your opponent,” he says. His Catalogue Number, a tattooed barcode that we all bear on our foreheads, wrinkles up as he frowns. “
Never
look away.”
“You hit me.” I spit out a mouthful of blood.
“Next time you lose focus, I'll use my dagger.”
We circle each other, both light-haired, our bodies covered in scars, skin dark from years under the hot sun. The sun drips down into the sea. The world is illuminated in red. Blood red.
My father punches me in the nose. I whirl to the side and land a blow across his shoulder, but he is always faster. Stronger. He grabs my arm and twists it sideways, so close to snapping bone that I cry out.
“Not good enough!” he snarls. “Coexist with the pain. Fuel off of it. I won't have a weak daughter, Meadow. Weakness is death.”
“I'm not weak,” I growl. “I'm tired.”
A wave rocks the boat, and nausea sweeps over me. I drop to one knee, but my father rushes forward. I have just enough strength to roll sideways, toward the railing. A body floats past below. Though we all have nanites in our systems to keep us healthy, there are still ways to die in the Shallows.
Starvation is one. Murder is the other.
“I'm done!” I scramble back, away from the railing.
My test is still two years away. I have plenty of time to learn how to defend myself. Tonight, I just want to sleep.
“You're not done until you win,” my father says. He crosses his arms.
I cross mine, too. “I'll never win against you. It's impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible if you want it bad enough.”
There are other boats around us. Almost all of them are wrecked, half-submerged, like jagged teeth biting through the surface of the ocean. In the distance, on shore, palm trees sway with the sea breeze. People, looking like ants from here, hurry from the beach, rushing to find shelter for the night. A place to hide.
Suddenly the alarm sounds, whooping high, then low. It is loud enough that I almost believe I feel it in my bones. I shiver.
The Dark Time has come.
“We'll finish this later,” my father says, motioning for me to follow him inside the cabin, where the rest of our family waits.
No one, not even my father, wants to be out when daylight fades.
Darkness brings nothing but death.
I
remember the first time I saw a dead body. I was seven. My older brother, Koi, had just completed the Fear Trials. It is a rite of passage in my family, a series of tests devised by my father to prove to him that we're strong enough, brave enough, to leave the boat and work in the city without his protection.
Koi took me out in our dinghy. He paddled fast and hard, eager to make it to shore. But we never got there. A body floated past us. Koi didn't see it until the tangled mess of hair got caught in his oars.
Koi turned the boat around before my scream drew too much attention.
My father bars the door behind us, and pulls the curtains closed. I settle down on the mattress beside Koi. He is humming softly to our little sister Peri.
“It'll be fine, Peri,” I say. “We'll keep you safe.” I press her teddy bear into her arms. It is mangled, missing an arm and an eye, but Peri loves it.
“I want Mommy.”
“I know you want Mommy, but she's busy.” I smile at Peri. “She's working on the Initiative boats tonight.”
“She'll be back soon,” Koi adds.
We exchange a glance with each other. We never know if she'll be back.
My father settles down across from us and pulls Peri into his arms. He rocks her gently. I don't remember him ever doing this for me. “Go to sleep, little one,” he says. “Mommy will be here in the morning.”
Soon Peri falls asleep, but it is not peaceful. She whimpers and tosses when my father gently puts her on a mattress.
My father lights a single candle and opens our bag of rations. We have one loaf of bread and a bundle of dried meat to last us the next two days. When my mother comes home, she'll bring more.
If
she comes home.
“You lost again, huh, sis?” Koi breaks the silence. I can see only his outline. Lean, but muscular from years of training with my father. His shoulders shake with laughter.
“What's the point in fighting him, day after day?” I ask. “It's not like he's actually trying to murder me.”
“But others will, someday,” Koi says.
Another bite of bread. Another bite closer to it being gone. I set it aside, save what little is left for Peri to have when she wakes up tonight, crying with hunger.
“When do you leave tomorrow?” I ask. Koi has his placement test in the city. A chance at a job, which means more rations, more food for all of us. Especially Peri, who gets thinner every day, when she should be growing taller and stronger.
“First light,” Koi says. He looks exhausted. He has been tossing in his sleep all week.
“Will you pass?” I ask. I try to keep the fear from my voice. But I know he hears it. He always notices everything about me.
“I've trained him plenty,” my father says. “He's ready.”
“And if I'm not?” Koi's voice is a whisper.
My father sighs. “Then we'll just have to work harder to survive.”
He is right. The Initiative grants us rations enough for two, and only the Wards are offered free meals. Families must work for it. There are five of us. If Koi fails, we will be forced to wait until I am of age, or steal and barter to survive. Two years is a long time to be hungry.
I
lie awake all night. Sometime in the early morning hours, my mother arrives.
She knocks three times on the door. I open it, hug her, and breathe in the scent of lilies.
She always makes everything better. But tonight, her eyes are wild. Her silver hair is disheveled. I don't think she's slept in days.
“Do you want to watch the stars with me?” she asks. “I don't want to be alone.”
“You should go to sleep,” I say.
She smiles, but it does not reach her eyes. “Not now. I don't want to dream tonight.”
I look over my shoulder, where my father lies asleep, his dagger next to him. “It isn't safe,” I whisper.
“We need to embrace the darkness, darling,” my mother says. “It's beautiful.” She takes my hand and pulls me out on deck.
We lie side by side and stare up at the sky.
“That's Orion's belt,” my mother says. She points up at a constellation. Three dots in a row, in a perfect line. “It looks the same as it did when I was your age. It will always be the same.”
I lift my hand, imagine what it would be like if I could pluck the stars from the sky, cup them like fireflies.
The mast creaks, and the rocking of the boat makes my eyes heavy. My mother sighs.
“What was it like?” I ask. She has told me hundreds of stories about the way the world used to be, before the Perimeter went up. About how freedom felt.
“It was like the kiss of the wind on a hot summer day,” she says. “But it was also terrible. With so much freedom to make our own choices, the world was a scary place.”
A cloud races across the moon, the stars, and suddenly it is pitch black. In the distance, I hear a loud crack. A scream, somewhere far away. “I can't imagine a world scarier than the one we live in now,” I say.
She pulls me closer, wraps me up in her arms. For a moment, she is the mother I remember. The one that used to sing all day. The one that was happy. “We can't change the way things are,” she says. “But we can learn to love what we have now. And we have each other.”
“Always?” I ask.
It takes her a moment too long to answer. “Always is impossible, Meadow. But we are here now. So let's enjoy it together.”
I fall asleep to the sound of the wind and the waves.
I dream of darkness and death.
I dream of a world without my mother.
T
he sun rises too soon.
My father and I stand on the deck, watching Koi strap knives to his chest. Then he pulls on his shirt and turns to face us. There are circles under his grey eyes. His hair is rumpled.
“How do I look?”
Sweaty. Nervous. “Like you're about to puke,” I say.
Koi fakes a smile. “Thanks for the support.”
My mother and Peri come out to kiss us all good-bye. We climb down the rope ladder and into the dinghy, then paddle away. As we navigate through the maze of wrecked boats, my mother stands on deck watching. Not waving, not smiling, just watching.
Once on shore, we hide the dinghy. The beach is already crowded with people. My father keeps his hand on my shoulder, making sure we don't get separated.
People beg for food. Some are crying. I grit my teeth and stare ahead until we reach the trees. The heat is unbearable. Sweat drips down my spine. It is hard to breathe.
“Wouldn't a plane be nice right now?” Koi asks. “A big metal bird?” He holds aside a palm frond for me.
“I'd like a plane,” I say. “We could fly away from here and never come back.”
“I never trusted planes,” my father says behind me. “Sometimes they crashed. And everyone died.”
“That's Dad, always so positive,” Koi snorts. “It's his greatest trait.”
We walk in silence until we reach the edge of the jungle. The trees and vines become sparse, and warped concrete and buildings take their place. Some of the buildings are almost rubble, windows shattered, missing entire chunks of wall. Initiative flyers are plastered to the brick, waving in the wind.
And there are so many citizens, it is like a sea. A great wave of humanity. And in the middle of that sea, rotting on the concrete, are the bodies. The victims of the Dark Time. It is best not to look at them. The gulls usually pick out their eyes before dawn.
“We need to hurry,” my father says. “The train will be here any minute now.”
We melt into the crowd, swept up by its motion. People press against me on all sides, and I feel as if I can't breathe. My father's hand on my arm is the only thing that keeps me tethered, safe.
The train tracks cut across the middle of the city. On most days there is one train, but today there are two. A red and a blue. I don't understand it completely. I only know that one train is good. The other is bad. I hear whistles, see the trails of smoke as they come rumbling toward us. We stop at the edge of the tracks.
Koi grabs my hand like we are children again. “I don't think I can do this,” he says in my ear.
“You can and you will,” I say back.
The trains slow but do not stop. People leap into the open cars, pushing and shoving, screaming. The only way to make it to the testing site is to get a spot on a train.
Koi chews his lip, his eyes darting from one train to the other. “Red or Blue?”
“It's up to you!” My father yells. The wind blows his hair from his face, and he smiles. “You're a Woodson. We never fail.”
“Red!” I yell, at the last possible moment.
My brother nods. He squeezes my hand again, and then he leaps. For one second I think he's not going to make it. But his hands find the right holds, and he climbs aboard the Red train.
“He's on his own now,” says my father.
He makes me run the entire way home. Training, he says, so I will stay strong.
In case my brother fails.