Steven dos Santos - The Sowing

Then hands are pulling me away—Arrah and Mr. Ryland—while Dahlia and Rodrigo try their best to contain Leander, who’s snapping his teeth and spewing saliva like a rabid Canid.

“I swear I’m gonna kill you!” he spits, his voice muffled by his bloody nose.

Tristin points down the obstacle field. “Look!”

Preshea’s almost at the finish line, Cage not far behind her.

But it’s Drusilla that surprises us. Not bothering with leaping from one blinking disc to another, she’s decided on the most direct path. Right over the prisoners themselves. Using their writhing and screaming bodies as a living pathway, she jumps from one to the other in a straight line, her boots tromping on foreheads, cheeks, wrists until she soars past Preshea and disappears over the finish line. Leaving Preshea and Cage behind.

Arrah lets go of me, half-sobbing, half-laughing. Mrs. Grimstone is on her knees, hands clasped.

Preshea prepares to leap for the final disc with Cage right on her tail. Her image blurs in a green and crimson haze as she crosses the finish line. Cage is just an instant behind her.

Tristin’s hand feels warm against my ice-cold one as she squeezes it. She knows what’s coming.

I’m dead.

Cage’s jaw is set, rigid, his lips clenched. I’d have thought this would be an easy decision for him.

But Preshea’s smile vanishes, her eyes suddenly confused as she looks down at her abdomen. Cage’s eyes follow her gaze. Wisps of smoke swirl around her midsection.

Then the upper half of her body falls away at the waist, revealing a smoking stump of charred intestines that topples after it.

Mrs. Grimstone’s shriek tears through the entire chamber as the rest of us just watch in stunned silence.

Recruit Preshea’s poor performance has resulted in termination of her participation in the Trials. As such, both of her Incentives shall now be shelved.

Cassius’s words barely have enough time to register when two metallic claws descend from the ceiling and grab Rodrigo and Mrs. Grimstone, pulling them toward their cell.

Rodrigo looks like a frightened child. “What’s going on? Lee-Man! D! Help me … !”

“Hang on, Rod-Man!” Dahlia shouts as she and Leander try to grab his hands. But they’re no match for the powerful steel pincers clamped around his body.

Mrs. Grimstone is wailing over and over again, “My baby. They killed my baby.”

Then both Rodrigo and Mrs. Grimstone’s bodies are flung inside their cell, which seals behind them.

Rodrigo presses his face and hands against the glass, so much like that little boy in the prisoner pens. He’s sobbing. “ Please . I don’t want to die. I wanna go home, man…”

Leander’s palms press against the space opposite his. “Don’t think about it, Rod-Man. Just close your eyes, think about all those crazy times we had… we’re the elite that can’t be…” His voice chokes. “They’re gonna pay for this… they’re gonna…” His words fade with a whimper.

Grinding gears vibrate through the room and the cell rises, disappearing from view along with the hologram of the trial field.

Dahlia caresses Leander’s head. She looks up at me, her tear-stained eyes icy slivers. “It should have been you.”

On the big screen, the image of the cell rising into the actual trial field appears. Both Mrs. Grimstone and Rodrigo are sobbing and pleading, the severed body of Preshea now lying between them.

Commence shelving.

Mrs. Grimstone and Rodrigo burst into flaming clumps of flesh and gristle, which obscure the camera lens before the image fades to black.

“You think you’re all on some type of holiday with free room and board?” Slade’s voice echoes through the silence of the common area as she makes her way through it, an armed quartet escorting her. “You’re still going to have to earn your keep around here”—her eyes dart up to the one empty cell, darkened now—“no matter what happens.”

Ever since that first Trial ended, all of us have just been sitting in our open cells, not saying a word, not even looking at each other.

Slade pauses in the center of the room. “Out of your cells, now .”

I ache all over from sitting on the cold, hard floor, cross-legged, in the exact same position for who knows how long. The pain reminds me that I’m still alive and I have to fight, regardless of the odds stacked against us.

I shuffle after Tristin out of our cell and line up beside the others. I study their faces for the first time since the trial, and I can see the change there. Where once they looked confused and frightened, now there’s something else there, a hardness just beneath the surface. For the first time since we’ve been here, I get the sense from those shell-shocked faces that they’re finally starting to understand.

Slade eyes the room. “As you all witnessed for yourselves, the Trials can be quite messy at times.” Her gaze lingers on the cell vacated by Rodrigo and Mrs. Grimstone. “As such, cleanliness is of the utmost importance.”

She shares a wink and nod with the guards standing sentinel over us. “Beginning immediately, you are all assigned to clean-up detail of the competition fields, where you are to pick up all debris and scrub each area until it’s spotless. Any performance that is lacking shall be rewarded with reductions and/or cancellation of rations.”

It takes a moment to realize that she’s talking about bodies. All those poor people who were sliced and diced by the lasers. She wants us to dispose of them and wipe out any trace of their existence. They could have automated drones do this, but that would be too easy. They want us toiling away among the stench of death and decay.

“What are you waiting for?” Slade barks. “If you start now, you’ll barely have enough time before the next Trial.” A smirk stretches across her face like a sail in blustery skies. “And I assure you, you won’t want to miss it!”

She snaps her fingers and the guards step forward, prodding our line out of the chamber. Slade points a finger at Leander and myself. “ You two wait here.”

Both Arrah and Dahlia crane their necks, staring back at us as they follow the other Incentives out. The two of us stand alone before Slade and the remaining armed guards.

Leander’s face is filled with venom. But behind his glare, I sense anxiety, if not downright fear. He’s probably thinking the same thing I am.

This can’t be good.

Slade’s eyes move between us. “I figured, with such qualified and elite Incentives as yourselves, it would be best to put your leadership skills on display to set an example to the others.”

She snaps her fingers and another guard appears, wheeling a bucket, an old mop, and scrub brushes, which he plunks down in front of us. Some of the water spills over the rim, splashing our feet and ankles with muddy ice.

“Some of the containment cells can get particularly grimy, so you have to make sure to get in between each crack and crevice,” Slade whispers.

Grinding gears shake the room, rattling my teeth. Rodrigo’s and Mrs. Grimstone’s cell descends and I stifle a gag. The once-clear glass is coated with reddish gunk, some chunks still glistening with moisture as they drip from the glass in a symphony of loud plops.

She tosses me the mop. “Don’t just stand there. Clean up your friend.”

“I oughtta just kill you right now and mop you up along with Rodrigo.” Leander glares at me. “He is— was —my best friend. Even before we were recruited. We went to school together. Lived in the same neighborhood. He had everything going for him. Would’a made a great Imposer if you hadn’t come along.” He wrings the scrub brush so hard, I can see the veins in his arm bulging. A stream of gore sloshes from his brush and into the bucket, spattering my cheek. It’s going to take more than a shower to feel clean after this.