The Bonding Games, Part 1

1

ALBY

By now, I should probably know not to set foot in the cafeteria unless I’d like to be served a heap load of bullshit along with my assigned lunch for the day. And yet I’m still unprepared when a blur of movement draws my attention too late to an unidentifiable object being launched my way.

SMACK!

For a moment, I stand motionless, tray in hand and blinking like an idiot while I try to understand what just happened and why the left side of my face is tingling and feels sticky and heavy.

One blink . . . gloopy?

Another blink . . . weighty?

A third . . . smells like . . . chocolate?

It’s only when my mind catches up to the cacophony of raucous laughter do I snap out of the embarrassing state, and I mentally curse myself as one of my hands comes up to wipe the thick brown mixture off my skin.

No doubt, it looks like someone’s shit on my face.

As if I needed any more reason for people to make fun of my appearance today.

“Hey, Twig! You’ve still got some right here!”

Cheeks burning from a blend of humiliation and anger, I turn my head to find the source of that obnoxious voice.

Troy Hurst has always been a dickhead.

Bulkier than an elephant, I sometimes wonder how he can possibly have one of the highest Scores in the entire school.

You’d think with the weight of him he’d struggle to even lift a leg.

As it is, the beast of a man has a Score of 89—indicating a ridiculously high skill level—and moves with enough grace to rival a ballerina.

And yet I’m closer in size to, well, a twig, and can’t even muster enough finesse to run at a decent pace without tripping over my own feet.

“Thanks,” I mutter, wiping more of the dessert from my face onto the sleeve of my Avri suit.

I avoid looking at anyone as I do, aware of how absolutely pathetic it is to be thanking my bully for pointing out the shit he threw at me.

But with how short-tempered Troy is—and how one of his thick fingers could probably cave my skull in if he only poked me—I choose safety over preserving my pride .

. . if I even had any of that left to begin with.

Gripping my tray in a white-knuckled grasp, I practically run to the corner of the room to try and prevent myself from causing any more damage, mocking laughter following me the entire way there.

My breath leaves me in a rush of relief as I find my usual table by the bin, taking a seat on the glossy black bench and setting my tray down. Picking up my bland tuna-and-cucumber sandwich, I take an unenthusiastic bite.

One good thing about being an outcast is the peace and quiet, how the majority of people leave you alone. It’s only really bullies I attract, but on a good day, when I manage to avoid them, the calm I get is exactly what I like. Being in my own company is the only time I can get that calm.

But as much as I love that feeling, there’s a part of me that wishes I had a friend.

Someone I could talk to, someone who could understand me.

Someone who wouldn’t judge me for being me, or turn on me when they see I’m not a strong as they are.

The problem is, I don’t know where to find someone like that.

I don’t know how to even begin to trust someone as much as I trusted my first friend when that very same person grew to become one of my biggest tormentors.

“Remember last year when she spread that dude’s body parts across the arena?”

I tense, pulled away from my thoughts by the words that come from my left. Sneaking a glance at the girls gossiping on the table beside mine, I perk my ears to listen in on their hushed conversation:

“That was fucking insane! She’s literally psycho!” the blonde on the left hisses with wide eyes, tucking some hair behind her ear as she leans in closer to her friend.

I watch the brunette nod, but her eyes hold more excitement than the other girl’s. “Yeah, but crazy cool too, right?”

“Cool? Kira, you need some serious fucking help if you think that—you sound like an Exot!”

“I only said it was cool!”

“Yeah, which is what one of them would say.”

“That’s not even how it works—”

Tuning out of their rapidly spiralling argument, I grab some tissues from the middle of the table to clean up the remaining mess on my suit and face while I think back on what they first said, a chill rippling down my spine as my thoughts centre on her. Everyone knows who she is.

An Exot down to every last trait, Ezla Zefron was the youngest ever Player of The Bonding Games, otherwise known as TBG, when she first competed in 4052.

At just thirteen years old, she was already a ruthless killing machine, better than the majority of Players—some of whom were almost double her age—and she easily managed to avoid being bonded by an Evot or killed off.

It’s extremely rare to survive and remain unbonded, with only one or two Players, if that, achieving the feat per year.

So when she shocked everyone by achieving both in Game 1, continuing on to make it through to Game 6 and taking on adult Bonded groups alone, she became the world’s greatest phenomenon.

Now, all this time later, after competing and surviving as an Unbonded five years in a row and being named The Bonding Games Champion—a title that didn’t even exist before her—Ezla will have to take part in the Games again.

And I say have to because she’s required to, though with what I’ve seen and heard of her, I’m not sure she minds:

If an Evot or Exot is an Unbonded at the end of the two-month event, they must compete until they either bond, die, or age out of the Games when they turn twenty-six.

It’s horrific and completely unfair, especially for the Champion when everyone knows she deserves to win based on her performance every year and her maintained impossible Score of 99.

But, as per TBG’s rules, The Council cannot allow an Unbonded to win when the entire purpose of the Games is to have Evots and Exots bond and connect with each other.

Her father may have been able get her a different helmet from the rest of us for whatever reason, but I don’t think even he can pull her from the event he created, not when she’s so deep in it.

Though, if you ask me, it could be argued that The Bonding Games actually encourages animosity between social classifications as much as it discourages it with the amount of unnecessary killing that takes place within the event.

All in the apparent name of reducing overall crime and conflict between citizens of contrasting personality types.

And with the next Games starting in only—

“Well, maybe if my name gets generated, I’ll go after her!”

My heart leaps through the damn stratosphere as I’m yanked out of my head yet again today without warning.

Feeling my face gain colour at the thought of anyone having seen me staring into space dumbly, I surreptitiously glance around the cafeteria to make sure there are no eyes on me.

Marginally reassured when I find none, I pick up the bottle of water from my tray and take a sip, trying to cool off as I zone back in on Kira and her friend’s conversation, which seems to have upgraded from frantic whispers to exclamations loud enough for the entire region to hear:

“Please tell me you’re joking,” Kira’s friend says incredulously. “You’ll die! You’re good, but nowhere near good enough to bond her! If you do get generated for the Games, don’t be one of the many morons who try to bond the fucking suicide mission! Because that’s what she is!”

A huff and an irritated fold of Kira’s arms over her chest. “Calm down, Mils, I was only joking. I’m not that stupid.”

“Well then act like it! Dying isn’t a joke!

“I never said it was! You—”

Yeah, never mind. I really don’t want to spend the rest of lunch listening to this squabbling.

Quickly finishing up the meagre contents of my meal, I rise to my feet, almost falling backwards over the bench because that’s just my luck.

Righting myself, I hurry to drop off my tray at the rectangular bin, stacking it on top of the few already there.

Then relief hits me as I leave and head into the hallway.

Deciding to check a mirror to make sure I’ve definitely got rid of all the chocolate gloop gifted to me by Troy, I make my way to the men’s toilets nearby. When inside, I move to the sinks with a wall of mirrors above them.

My face twists at the sight of my still-burning cheeks. No matter what I do, I always seem to look flustered, and the paleness of my skin does nothing to hide that. Then again, I’m often in a state of nervousness, shame, or embarrassment, so I guess it can’t be helped.

Turning the tap on when I notice some remaining chocolate pudding in my hair, I duck my head closer to the sink, cupping some water in my palm and splashing some on the dark strands before running my fingers through them, then repeating the process.

When I’m pretty sure it’s all gone, I cut the water off with a flick of my wrist and straighten to see my reflection again, smoothing a hand over my head to flatten my hair back out.

Good enough.

A glance to my left at the lime-green numbers on the wall tells me there’s five minutes before my next lesson, the buzzer to confirm it blaring through the speakers at that very moment. With a sigh, I exit the toilets to move through the crowd of students already filtering through the hall.

I keep my head down, but being six foot one isn’t doing me any favours here, despite the many other tall guys in this school.

And it’s a good thing the classroom for The Bonding Games Studies is just around the corner, because when I hear the unmistakable voices of Troy and his friends from somewhere behind me, I fear the immediate trembling in my legs will leave me in a heap on the floor any second now if I don’t find a place to sit.