Dangerous Game

Eighteen Months Later

Eighteen months had passed.

Lucy could barely stand being in the music room before, let alone now when the song had been the same for eighteen months.

Instead, she spent most of her time avoiding Ms. Venable and Mead. That usually happened by hiding in her room with books. The place was filled with books, some in languages she couldn't recognise, and she couldn't understand how she was the only one interested in them. In the morning, Jaz would do her makeup before she headed down to breakfast. Lucy didn't bother with breakfast most days unless Venable or Mead bothered knocking her door to force her into attending. Most times they didn't bother.

An annoying alarm signalling a perimeter breach whirred, disturbing her from her reading. Sighing, Lucy placed a scrap of paper between the pages and shut it. As soon as she did so, the alarm stopped. Only a few minutes later, right as she started reading again, there was a knock at her door. After eighteen months, Lucy had learnt which knocks belonged to which person. These were a quiet and quick succession of knocks. Jaz.

She opened the door to see her friend. Only half an hour ago she had left to go and get breakfast. She had a frown on her face as Lucy looked at her and couldn't help but also frown.
“What’s wrong?”
“Today was our last breakfast,” Jas sighed as she walked in and collapsed on the bed. Her purple dress splayed around her as she lay there. “It's not fair, it's bad enough that we only eat cubes, now we don't even get them for breakfast.”

“What did Venable say?” Lucy asked, surely someone had argued about it, Coco most likely. Jaz sat upright with a stern expression on her face.
“Its not optimal but also not impossible,” said Jaz in a stupid impression of Ms. Venable that only half sounded like her. Still, she laughed at it and Lucy smiled.
“Of course,” Lucy muttered.

“I thought we should try going outside, it can’t be as bad now, right?” asked Jaz.
Lucy shrugged. “I’m not sure, radiation lasts a long time. I don’t think it’ll be safe outside for a long time.” Jaz groaned, falling back onto the bed again.
“What happens when the food runs out?”
“I don’t want to know,” Lucy muttered.

One meal a day when that meal was half a cube wouldn’t last much longer. When the food ran out, would they decide who got to eat and who didn’t? Would everyone have to take turns? They’d all slowly starve underground while a nuclear winter raged above them.

“Gallant was throwing his plate and everything when the alarm went off, you heard it, right?” asked Jas. Humming, Lucy nodded. It was hard not to hear it. “What do you think it’s going to be? A pigeon again or something?”
“I don’t know,” said Lucy. Secretly, she hoped it was a person even though it was likely to be just a pigeon. “Shall we go and find out?”