Cured (30 page)

“But we didn’t make Meatloaf angry!” I said,
“We tamed him!”

She shook her
head. “Remember how they sent Eva to be your target in place of a
criminal in the sixth task?”

I nodded.

“
Why do you
think the task-creators did that?” she asked me.

“Because we broke the rules. It was a
threat.” I answered. Then I realized. The task creators were
punishing us for breaking their rules. We had acted in a way that
they hadn’t expected, and Alphas didn’t deal well with spontaneity,
or thinking outside the box. They wanted us to slay a beast at the
labyrinth to make the other animals angry, but we had befriended
ours. Now they had taken Meatloaf and made him angry themselves.
Turned our beloved pet against us. They knew we had to slay him in
this task, so they decided to let us love him first. They didn’t
take him away from us immediately on purpose, because they wanted
us to bond with him, and then have to kill him.

My body was
shaking, but from anger this time rather than fear. I should have
known something like this would happen. The Alphas would stop at
nothing to force people to submit to them. They were power hungry.
Control freaks. They had no mercy, and no limits at which they
would stop in order to gain total authority.

“Maybe I can try to tame him again?” I asked.
“We have lots of food in our packs that I could give him.”

Ellina stared
at me as if I was mad. “And make the Alphas even more angry than
they already are? Give them more reason to punish us?”

I knew she
was right. “Why did you bring him here then?”

Ellina looked
over to Theo.

“
I
kne
w you would want to say goodbye,” he
shrugged.

I wanted to
traverse the wall and give him a hug, but my legs were clamped
tightly around Ellina’s waist and I knew that if I moved I would
fall. Instead I reached around to my backpack and unzipped it and
fished around blindly, still staring straight ahead to try and keep
steady. My fingers finally felt out a round, soft object. I
extracted the bread roll and tore it in half. Slowly, I turned my
head to look down at Meatloaf, ten meters below. Even from such a
height, however, I could tell that there was something different
about him. His eyes were no longer their usual golden yellow,
instead flashing an angry red, and his jaw was bared in a grimace,
teeth gnashing.

I dropped half of the roll. The bread bounced
off Meatloaf’s head and landed next to him on the rocks. The beast
didn’t flinch when the roll hit him, nor did he acknowledge the
bread lying on the ground next to him. His eyes remained firmly
locked on us; his prey. The beast wasn’t Meatloaf anymore. The
Alphas had changed him. Suddenly I felt furious. These people
thought that their power was absolute, and they were taunting me
with it. They knew they would win eventually. They were playing
with their food, messing with me, having fun even, before they
finally killed me. They didn’t expect me to have the guts to kill
my old pet. I needed to prove them wrong, make them doubt
themselves, even if only slightly.

“Do it.” I said quietly.

“
Are you
sure?” Ellina replied.

“No choice.”

She nodded in consent and started feeling
around the rocks.

“What’re you doing?” I asked her.

She found a good handhold and reached over to
it. Then she planted her foot on a ledge by her new handhold.

“Why are you still climbing?” I asked
her.

“
I’m not
climbing,” she said, “You need to take hold of my old handholds. I
am going to slide out from underneath you and take the new
handholds.”

My body began
to shake violently as I grabbed hold of the rocky ledges with both
hands. My palms were sweating, making the rock slippery, but I dug
my fingernails into the surface. Slowly, Ellina began to wriggle
out from underneath me and move to the left, pulling herself by the
new grips she had found. Her weight shifted and she wrenched
herself over to her new position on the wall. My body was
momentarily too far from the rock, leaving a large gap of air where
Ellina’s body had previously been. I quickly heaved with my arms,
and jammed my body up against the wall, breathing hard. Once I was
sure I was steady I looked over to Theo and Felix. They had done
the same maneuver and Felix stood hugging the wall, his knees
shaking as violently as mine.

Suddenly Theo
pushed off from the wall, leaping into the air. He hung, suspended
for a moment, before falling with a thud onto Meatloaf’s back. The
animal began to buck wildly, kicking its back legs into the air and
shaking its massive torso in attempt to throw Theo off. Ellina
quickly descended the rock wall and charged at the creature,
catching its hind legs in the air and hugging them together
tightly. The beast stumbled, it had been distracted by Theo and
hadn’t noticed Ellina’s silent attack. Ellina wrapped her entire
body around the animal’s back legs, clenching tightly, until the
beast wobbled and fell, crashing to its side on the ground. Theo
managed to dismount the creature just in time, saving his leg from
being crushed by the animal’s enormous weight. He mirrored Ellina’s
position, holding the beast’s front legs. The creature continued to
wriggle and buck its body frantically. They weren’t going to be
able to hold it for long. I looked around for something to bind the
creature’s legs together. I needed something as strong as the vines
had been.

“The mane!” Felix shouted.

I reached
around to my pack that was still gaping open and yanked on the
first bundle of fur that my fingers found. The rest of the bread
fell to the rocky floor beneath me as I tried to pull the mane out
of the bag. It was stuck on something. I shifted my weight to get a
better reach into my backpack. Suddenly, the rock ledge underneath
my left foot crumbled and my foot dropped, leaving me hanging by
one hand, as my other was still clenched around the lion mane. I
screamed. My grip was slipping.

“AVERY!” Felix shouted. But there was nothing
he could do. He was stuck, a few meters away from me. Hearing my
name, Theo looked up. He immediately released his hold on the
creature and moved directly below me, his arms out in a cradle.

“
Let go
Avery!” h
e yelled up to me.

I closed my eyes and released my grip on the
rock ledge. My stomach dropped as I fell through the air.

“
Gotcha.”
Theo’s arm muscles tensed as I landed in them. Again, he bent with
me as I landed to lessen the shock. I let myself stare into his
eyes for a moment, and he stared back. Before he dropped me to the
ground his mouth twitched in a half smile.

“
Seriously,
guys?” came Ellina’s shrill yelp. “Be romantic later. Maybe when
I’m not trying to detain a rampaging bull?”

I shook
myself out of the little trance, and handed the mane that was still
clenched in my fist to Theo. He snapped back into action and dashed
over to the bucking beast, which had nearly escaped Ellina’s grasp
and was angrily kicking its freed front legs into the air. Theo
caught hold of its bucking legs instantly. After a minute of
tussling, the beast slowed, and Theo used the mane to wrap its legs
together tightly.

The animal
finally stopped thrashing, and Ellina released her grip on its hind
legs, which Theo quickly bound. Ellina immediately went to the wall
and scaled it to meet Felix. She descended the cliff with Felix on
her back and let him drop onto the ground. By this time Theo had
found a long, rectangular shaped rock. He smashed it against the
cliff, and part of the rock broke off to reveal a jagged edge. He
walked over to the beast, which stared straight ahead with its
demonic eyes, teeth still gnashing, thirsty for blood. Theo raised
the rock, ready to stab the creature-

“
STOP!” Felix
yelled, and the word echoed, bouncing from cliff to cliff until the
sound faded out. Theo stood still, arms raised, holding the weapon
in the air.

“
What is
it,
man?” Theo growled through clenched
teeth.

“
Tartarus.”
Felix muttered the word and I immediately understood his train of
thought. Before entering Tartarus, the stories said, the prisoner
was to make a sacrifice, similar to how Ancient Greeks would make a
sacrifice to appease the Gods after a wrongdoing. Many saw this
entry fee as the worst part of Tartarus, as not just any sacrifice
would suffice. The prisoner was forced to slay a being that they
loved on the altar at the entry to the prison. The sacrifice was
meant to act as a peace offering from the prisoner to the Alphas, a
promise that they were willing to obey, and that they were willing
to give up their free will to submit to the Alphas every demand
whilst imprisoned.

There were
rumours that most of the prisoners opted to use the weapon
that was intended for the sacrifice on
themselves instead, rather than slaying their offering. The Alphas
didn’t care. They got rid of the outcast either way.

Theo lowered his arms, “What did you
say?”

Felix pointed above us at the opening with
the etched panel above it, signposting the prison. Ellina and Theo
stared, just as I had, unable to tear their eyes from the notorious
torture chamber.

Finally Ellina spoke, “We have to go in.”

“
It’s not one
of our tasks,” said Theo, “We’re going to make them more angry with
us.”

“
If the
prison turns out to be an empty threat, we will be able to disprove
one of the Alpha’s main tactics.” Felix repeated the argument he
had used on me.

Theo didn’t say anything in reply. He knew we
had to do it.

“
We might
have to make a sacrifice,” said Felix, “And the sacrifice has to be
something we love.”

“
Meatloaf.
” I choked
out.

“
I definitely
didn’t love Meatloaf,” said Theo.

“
Me
either,”
said Felix.

I looked to Ellina hopefully, but she shook
her head, a sympathetic look in her eye.

“You don’t have a choice Ave.” Theo put a
hand on my back. “We will all be here with you.”

Ellina and
Theo each took one end of the beast and heaved him into the air.
Even with their super strength their arms were straining and
perspiration dotted their faces as we made our way through the
Crater in the direction of the Tartarus entrance. Finally the
prison was right above us. I was shivering uncontrollably despite
the sweltering heat.

“
We will get
Meatloaf up there and then come back for you two,” said Theo and I
winced.

“
It’s not
Meatloaf,” I said. “Stop calling him that. He stopped being
Meatloaf as soon as the Alphas changed him.”

Felix wrapped
an arm around my waist and I let my head sag onto his shoulder,
tears welling up in my eyes for what felt like the thousandth time
that day.

It took a long time to haul the animal up to
the rocky platform, and by the time Theo and Ellina set its
enormous body down on the rock-formed altar, I had wound myself up
so much that Felix was now holding my entire body weight. Ellina
lifted me into her arms and flung me onto her back easily.

“You’re a feather compared to Meat.. uh..
compared to…” Her voice faltered and petered out. Instead she began
to climb the rock. Theo hoisted Felix onto his back and followed us
up. We reached the platform and I let out a loud sob, unable to
hold the tears in any longer. No matter how I tried to convince
myself that Meatloaf didn’t exist anymore, that the thing in front
of me was a monster, I couldn’t stop picturing my pet. Felix handed
me the sharpened rock that Theo had aimed at the animal’s torso
earlier and I let it fall to the ground. I couldn’t.

“
Can’t
someone else do it?” I asked. “No one is watching. They wouldn’t
know who made the sacrifice. And how do they know that I love him?
They have no way of knowing!” My words rushed out in a hysterical
jumble.

Theo bent down to retrieve the weapon and
pointed it up to the ‘Tarturus’ sign. Now that we were close, I
noticed a small black object next to the letter ‘T’. I took a step
closer to the entrance of the prison, squinting to make out the
object. As I moved, the object pivoted, following me. A camera.

“
I guess
that’
s how they knew if the prisoner
loved their sacrifice,” Theo explained,

“
They just
gauged their reaction to its death.”

My stomach twisted. This was so sick, so
masochistic.

“Come on Ave, it is going to get dark soon.”
Felix’s voice was a near whisper.

I turned on him.

“
It is going
to get dark soon?! Really Felix?!” I was irate. “We are about to go
into the most feared prison in the history of the world… We are
probably going to die in there… Even if we don’t die in there we
will die from one of these ridiculous challenges… And if by some
miracle we make it out of these challenges alive… then the Alphas
are going to kill us anyway… We keep pretending like there might be
a chance of survival, but you and I both know that there isn’t… We
are dead… No matter what we do, we are going to die. So stop making
jokes Felix. They're not funny. You’re not funny. You’re just
annoying. And I wish I had never followed your stupid plan during
the Curing.”

My voice was raw and broken by intermittent
sobs. I was sick of pretending that everything was going to be
okay.