Catarina crosses her fingers anxiously as she waits for the announcement, whispering prayers. Rumor has it that the brainiacs from their station have been calculating the probability of rooms being called, and they think it’s almost certain Catarina’s room is next. If they’re right, there’s a 1/20 chance she’ll have to go up. She glances at Chesna and Caleb, her bunkmates and best friends. 3/20. The rows of beds seem like they wouldn’t be able to hold all the kids packed together to watch the screen.
Although she knows it’s selfish, she wishes she and her friends don’t get called upon. It’ll inevitably cost someone else’s spot, but she still keeps her fingers pressed firm to protect her and her friends. She loves them and her grandma more than anything. If Catarina had to fight her way to stay in the Turner, her grandmother probably wouldn’t even be able to stand her sight.
Her grandma was born on the Earth, 78 years ago. There, she took up a lifestyle from a time even more antiquated than she, the 1970s. Her morals are all based on peace, love, and pacifism. If you fight, it needs to be for a cause greater than yourself. She would often point to the stars when Catarina was little, as a reminder of how tiny they are in the world. How stuff doesn’t matter as much as she thinks.
That the universe is infinite, and she and Catarina are just a grain of sand in a never-ending sea of romance and adventure. That, since they’re all so little, they need to make sure their causes are big. That’s the life she believes everyone should live by. On the Turner, a life like that couldn’t be farther from reality.
Catarina’s eyes are pressed shut, asking over and over again for her not to have to go up; begging the merciful universe her grandmother always talks about. The one that listens to your wishes and where things always happen for a reason. She hears the screen chime. “Catarina Santos x Erika Ahmad,” it reads.
Catarina’s eyes start to burn as people crowd her. The world spins around her, and she loses balance. Caleb hooks his arms around Catarina to make sure she doesn’t collapse while Chesna gingerly tells people to not come near.
Catarina always used to get in fights protecting Chesna from people who spread gossip and rumors. Her grandma even encouraged this, as Catarina wasn’t fighting for herself. Now, Chesna’s protecting her, and she might just never see her again. If Catarina wasn’t there, who’d make sure she’d eat correctly and stand up for herself? Caleb can stand up for her, but he’s not the best at defusing situations or playing it safe. He’ll just get heated.
“Cat,” Caleb says, gripping Catarina’s hands. “Don’t worry, we’ll find a way out of this. Won’t we, Ches?”
“Yeah,” Chesna reassures, in between tears. She knows none of them can stop this. “Just stall for as long as possible. It’s only five people.”
Catarina struggles to process what they’re saying, and the lump in her throat is far too large to reply anyway. Her primary goal is finding her grandma, which makes her stumble away without saying anything. Catarina’s heart races more and her body shivers and contracts as she tries getting by. The crowd seems to be purposefully getting in the way of her passing, which makes her breathing short and rapid. Every single sound around their room becomes loud and present, and every person that tries to speak with her disorients her even more.
She shoves her hands up to her ears and shuts her eyes, trying to dull out the sound, her breathing at an even faster pace now. After managing to run out and shut the sliding door behind her, she can’t even recompose herself as there’s another gathering of people around her.
Amid the crowd, she runs up and hugs her grandma, taking extra care not to knock her over. On Catarina’s way to the familiar figure, she had promised herself she wouldn’t cry. Meanwhile, with her chin resting on her grandma’s shoulder, the tears seem to flow out almost effortlessly.
“Tell me what to do,” Catarina whimpers.
“Fight.” Her grandma’s eyes aren’t daring or shameful, they’re purely encouraging. She laughs through the sentence, cupping her strong, veiny, hands over Catarina’s cheeks, a tear escaping her eye. Her gaze softens. “You’re all I have left,” she adds. “Fight with all you’ve got.”
Catarina is blown back by the comment. Her grandma had talked to her and her friends about peace their entire lives, and now she’s telling her to fight for a selfish cause.
Two guards surround Catarina, who grips her grandma’s hand and nods. She has full intent of winning. She’s taken to a backroom in which she is helped into a spacesuit with a vibrant red tag attached to it. If her opponent pulls the tag off, she’ll be sent to Earth. No supplies, famine, scarce water, climate crises, and none of the people she loves. She’d have to survive that all by herself. If she pulls off her opponent’s tag, she’ll be dooming them to live through that. Catarina clutches the tag and steps out into the battlefield.
The sandy surface of the moon reminds her of her grandmother’s descriptions of snow on the Earth. When the water had condensed enough for it to rain, and the temperatures were cold enough for the rain to freeze, her grandma’s entire backyard became covered by snow - or, as her grandma liked to call it, powdered sugar.
She said noise would stop and time would freeze. All the kids would anxiously check their laptops to see whether they’d have school that day or not. Ironically, the day they didn’t have school was often the day Catarina’s grandma woke up most alert.
It’s pretty spot on- the silence, the anticipation for the announcement, the lightness on your feet, and the powdered sugar on the floor. The only major difference is that it’s not nearly as happy. A bright red lamp will shine when opponents may start. It flicks on.
Immediately, Erika charges at Catarina. ‘Chesna, Caleb, do something!’ Catarina thinks. As Erika’s hand reaches towards her tag, hanging from her right hip, Catarina makes a split-second decision and slaps her arm against it for protection, throwing her feet up into the air to evade her. It works! She manages to flip in the air, although having failed gym class many times, and turns around to face her opponent.
It will be fine. Chesna and Caleb will come to her rescue. Catarina trusts them. If Chesna said to stall, she’ll stall.
Erika once again notices the opportunity to attack. She strikes at Catarina’s right, who dances around her. Then, their tags get tangled together. Catarina tries to untangle them, while pulling herself away, only to feel a cord snap. She panics, fiddling to see which one tore, and Erika freezes at the spot. Erika Ahmad lost today’s first fight. Two guards come to drag them out, and Erika walks through the other door, defeated.
Again in the backroom, Catarina shakes. They don’t offer to help her out of the spacesuit, but she won’t need it. She only has 10 minutes of rest before her next opponent. Now, what could she do other than win? If she loses, then both she and Erika will be sent to the ground. Chesna and Caleb will do something. They always do.
***
At the spectating room, Catarina’s grandmother is struck by such joy when her granddaughter wins that her heart pounds. It starts pounding too much. She moves to sit down, and her pulse is checked. Her left arm tightens in on itself and tingles. Before she knows it, she is being escorted to the emergency room on a stretcher covered in white, noisy paper. Beeping and talking fills the room.
***
“Caleb, come on! Do something.”
“Listen, she won the first fight. But, if nobody can watch the fight, they can’t make her fight, right? They’ll say it was rigged,” Caleb brainstorms.
“We can cut the power to the spectating room!”
And so, Chesna and Caleb try to sneak out of the spectating room, towards the main hall.
“Where are you two going?” Edith, a tall, red-ish-brown-haired girl questions, stopping them just as they’re about to reach the hallway. Edith is the type of person that would fall under the category of ‘perfect student’ in every single class. She doesn’t take no for an answer and annoys the life out of Chesna and her friends.
“Edith, can you not right now?” Caleb snaps.
“Or what? So you can shut down the spectating room?” Chesna and Caleb stare blank-faced at each other. “That’s right. I heard you. You know, the Entreaties aren’t a bad thing. They help maintain diplomacy and keep high living conditions. It’s what our ancestors wanted.”
“Of course you’ve fallen for it,” Chesna blurts before she can catch herself. Chesna may not be plenty popular, but she’s the station’s angel, so this catches Edith off guard. “It’s not a good thing, Edith,” she explains, this time more collected.
The screen blares. “New match beginning in…” and a silent countdown from five jumps out from the television at all those watching.
Before Edith can snark back, Chesna and Caleb have vanished into thin air, sprinting towards the main hall.
It’s about a five-minute walk, but they make it there in less than one, out of breath. The main hall is empty. It has aluminum, retractable meal desks being propped up against the wall since they’re not being used. There are huge windows on the side opposite of the door, illuminating the room in a cool-toned way, allowing dashes of dramatic light to seep in. Caleb flips a switch to reveal old-fashioned, incandescent ceiling lights that make it much easier to see. They make the room go from dark blue to a tuscan sun color. “It’s around here somewhere,” Caleb says, feeling the walls for a nook.
“Here! I found it!” Chesna points to a 12 by 12-inch metal closet, just a little out of her grasp. She and Caleb have a huge contrast in height, and, although Caleb does tower over Chesna, his gentle, clumsy mannerisms and hunched posture make him appear minuscule.
Caleb pries open the box with some effort. It’s only opened once annually for inspection. An array of colorful wiring makes him hesitate. Caleb has tritanopia, the more severe kind of blue-yellow color blindness. Chesna puts a hand on his shoulder. “Here, Caleb, help me up.” Since all the tables are too noisy and awkward to put aside, he interlocks his fingers to propel Chesna up. They both squirm, with Chesna only having one foot of support on an unstable surface, one arm gripping onto the box and another on the wall to make sure she doesn’t completely fall over. “They have no labels,” she says.
The boom of the TV announces the third round beginning. “Just hurry up!” says Caleb.
“There has to be some sort of pattern,” Chesna mutters, trying to recall something, anything, from the rooms she’s lived in her entire life. The TV rumbles from the other room once more.
“That was way too quick,” Caleb panics. “Do you think Cat’s still winning?”
Chesna shuts her eyes and tries to focus, ignoring Caleb’s question. Catarina had never learned any fighting techniques, and they promised her she just needed to stall. Now, each round is going by more and more quickly. She opens her eyes to see the letters G6 stamped on the wall, indicating the cafeteria room.
“Caleb, what’s the spectating room’s number?”
“B9, why?”
“And the library?”
“P7.”
“The doctors’ reception?”
“R14.”
The green, blue, pink, and red wires draw her eye. Hesitantly, she pulls on the green wire, making the lights turn off in the cafeteria. Caleb’s arms tremble at her weight. She wraps her fingers around the dark blue wire. The TV announces a fifth round.
“Hurry up!” Caleb urges.
There are two shades of blue she could pull. She tries to think about which one the spectating room would be. She impulsively yanks on the darker shade, tucks the wires in, and closes the box, supporting herself on Caleb’s shoulders as she lets herself down.
They sprint towards the spectating room, only to see its lights are still on. Ominosity fills the air between them in the already anxious environment. A trail of medics run behind them, and they slip in with them.
They follow them through the long corridors, showing up at the emergency room. Caleb and Chesna duck behind green supply bins to observe. The doctors have to manually pump oxygen into patients. On the far right, Catarina’s grandma is lying down peacefully in between the chaos. They approach her carefully, to see her sound asleep, motionless. A doctor comes up to them in confrontation. He stops when he sees the tears in their eyes as they look up at him.
“Do you two know her?”
“She’s Cat-” Chesna begins.
“She’s our grandma,” Caleb interrupts.
“I’m so sorry. She was too reliant on the support to survive the sudden power outage. Is there anything I can do?”
Chesna freezes. It was the power outage she caused. She pulled the wrong wire. She doesn’t attempt to speak as her eyes crowd with tears, one or two falling sporadically, her entire body tensed up at the spot.
“No,” says Caleb. “Thank you for your help,” he chokes out, dragging Chesna from the room. They slump back to the spectating room, where Catarina runs out. Her eyes are excited, filled with adrenaline, but disappointed at the same time.
“I did it,” she says. No ‘where were you?’, or ‘why didn’t you do something?', or ‘I can’t believe it.' Simply, ‘I did it.'
Maybe it’s the numbness, Catarina knowing she’s just sent five people to the Earth. Maybe it’s the fact she made it out in one piece. Catarina slows down from her rush. “Where’s Abuela? She’s supposed to be here.”
Chesna and Caleb look down, making Catarina panic.
“Where’s Abuela?” she repeats, this time near tears.
“She passed,” Chesna mutters. “I’m so sorry.”
“What?” The world spins once more. Catarina just beat five people. She fought, something she never thought she’d do in her life. Something that was against all her beliefs and teachings. She wouldn’t have done it if it was for Chesna or Caleb, she did it for her grandma. She did it to not leave her alone. She did it so her grandmother wouldn’t have to say goodbye again. She could’ve given up, but she didn’t. She didn’t give up. Every tag she pulled, condemning another person to Earth, was meaningless at the thought of running back to her grandmother’s arms. Now, her grandma’s just… gone. Like that. Just gone.
A man comes up to Catarina, handing her a card certificate for five years of stay. He applauds her and reaches to shake her hand, but she just grabs the certificate and strides towards her dorm. Once there, her body seems to fail. All the strength and adrenaline she had summoned leaves in such a way she is left shaking and gasping for air. She lays down and finds herself frustratingly unable to move as the tears drop from her face.
ns 18.68.41.175da2
