AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I frowned at him. “No? Why not? This sounds like a good deal to me. We can escape and find a way off this planet.” Adone could help me get back to Earth.
Adone stiffened. “I wish to finish the Game.”
The elderly alien faltered. “I don’t understand. No one wants to risk their lives to compete. Trust me, the prize is sizeable, but it’s not worth endangering your lives.”
“How do you run a Game when no one wants to compete?” I asked.
“We . . . enlist participants.”
“Steal them,” I said in disgust. “Like me.”
“I was sold to the Universal Council,” Adone said softly, adding to me. “They run this event.”
Burmoot blanched. “I am truly sorry you were sold.”
Adone shrugged. “Why? It is the way of our world.”
“It never should’ve happened. If only . . .” He shook his head. “That is for the past. We must focus on the future. As for your question, the Universal Council is ultimately responsible for the Game, and they make considerable profit off each event. This is enough incentive for anyone to run the Galaxy Games. As for me, I have a . . . shall we say, an ancillary position on the Council.”
We couldn’t trust anyone who was associated with this Game. From the sharp look Adone shot me, I could tell he was sharing my thought. I grabbed his arm and tugged him far enough away from the old guy so he couldn’t overhear.
“Why not take his offer and run?” I asked.
“Do you think he truly means it? This Game is all about tricks.”
“Maybe I’m naïve.” Actually, I was naïve. “But I think he’s being honest. He’s offering us a way out.”
“It could be worse out there than inside the dome.”
“I’m not sure what could be worse than a blue desert.”
“You don’t wish to know.”
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” I said. “Even without the option of escape, I suspect you still want to see this through.”
“I do,” he said, taking my hand. “Did you not hear? When we win, we will be granted our freedom.”
“We’d have that outside the dome.”
“Would we? Or would they hunt us down and kill us? Perhaps on your home planet, you were free to do as you wish, but I have been trapped inside a world much smaller than this dome for most of my life. Not only trapped, but tortured. These . . .” He flicked a scale on his chest. “I was not born with them. Or these.” He spread out his glorious wings the same burnished color as his striped skin. “They were fused to me. You don’t know what it’s like to be forced to lie still while someone tortures you.”
Tears sprang up in my eyes, but they were for Adone, not myself. “You’re right. I don’t know what it’s like to be tortured, but I do know what it’s like to be trapped inside a terrifying world.” I explained briefly about the commune, how my parents brought me there when I was small and how we weren’t allowed to leave. “I ran.”
“You left this place?”
“I was trying to. I’d escaped the building and got under the fence. I planned to run all the way to the city and hide.”
“Did they catch you?”
“Four-armed, blue-skinned aliens kidnapped me. They brought me to the arena.”
“Perhaps you were safer inside your commune?”
“Only if I wanted to give my body to the leader.”
