When the voice that always comes from the loudspeakers announces that we have to face ... Our respective partners, I look at the boy in front of me. A little blond that I chose because, with his childish face and kind smile, no one else wanted to choose him. It amazes me that he is still alive until now, after hundreds and hundreds have died.
"Oh, wow, it seems that we have to kill each other ... What's your name?" (Are you really asking me that in a moment like this one?)
"What are we going to play?" I say cold. The killers dressed in red watch us from behind their masks.
"Oh come on, why the rush? Please tell me your name" He persists.
"Why do you want to know?" My eyes fixed on his, an emerald green hue.
"To call you by your name, of course. Hey, let's make a deal. If you tell me your name, I will tell you mine. What do you say?" The young man extends a hand to me that I do not take.
"How are we going to bet the marbles, twenty-two?" I call him by the number on his shirt.
"My name is not twenty-two," he complains as if he were a child. Doesn't he understand the seriousness of this whole matter? One of us will die today, in less than half an hour, when the damn game is over.
"I have a better idea than all this," he begins.
"No, don't say stupid things" I cut him off abruptly. Anxiety is driving me crazy, as are many around me.
"Come on, unidentified lady, you will like it"
"What did you call me?" I am outraged.
"Listen, we donut have to play many rounds. The suspense would be too much. Don't you think?"
"Twenty-two ..." I say, looking at him with a frown and crossing my arms. (Now he makes stupid puns and everything, great) My legs ache from standing, so I sit on the floor. The little blond I should kill if I want to stay alive imitates me. I do not want to do this. But do I have another option? Have I ever had a choice since this gaming craze started? I'm trapped in this twisted version of the world I knew it since the first participant's blood stained the floor ... and splashed my clothes.
-Let's play a single round, we will bet all the marbles at once- He proposes, and I look at him puzzled. (He must be up to something. All this talkative, harmless child thing is just a pantomime, a ruse. Keep your eyes open, Marinette) I tell myself.
-Assuming I listened to you and trusted you, what would we do in the meantime? -
-Well, chat, I guess. Hey, don't you trust me? - The boy looks offended.
-Oh, don't take it personally, I don't trust anyone- (Chat? What kind of stupid idea is that?)
There is silence for a few minutes but, for a change, the green-eyed one breaks it.
-I understand you, believe me. I know it sounds cliché but I was like that before-
I planned to keep quiet until it was time to play, but my curiosity piques.
-Before?-
-When I found out that my father was actually an undercover mobster. He was always busy, he never had time for me, but I didn't know what he was doing exactly- I freeze. I did not expect something like that.
-Oh ...
-And you, you know, had you seen someone die before coming here? -
I shake my head. My life outside this nightmare place is not perfect, my family accumulates unpayable debts and they threaten to take away everything we have, but I have never witnessed anything like what happens here.
-I do. My mother- his voice sounds deeply sad.
"She, she died last year." His eyes fill with tears.
-I'm so sorry, uh ...- (Now I would like to know his name) I think
"Twenty-two" he gives me a dull smile.
I keep quiet. Either way, one of us is going to die. Better if we don't know much about ourselves. No? But the boy keeps talking, while the minutes pass mercilessly on the giant clock of this macabre game.
"Don't worry, let's talk about something more cheerful" I pout.
"Like, uh, what would you like to do if you win, unidentified lady?"
"Stop calling me that! What would I like to do?"
"When you get out, when we get out of here. What would you do with all that money?"
"I haven't really thought about it, and what's the point in talking if we're going to die, twenty-two?"
"Exactly that sense. You and I will not speak again after today, so I think we can take the opportunity to, I don't know, to tell each other things that we would not tell anyone else"
He again amazes me at his response. I have to admit it makes sense.
I sigh resigned.
"Well, what do you want to know?"
"Whatever you want to tell me, partner"
"How did you get here?" He says. I decide to open myself to a person for the first time since I came to this place. His eyes, the calm that his emerald gaze transmits, is as if he were inviting me to come closer, to lower my guard, to trust.
'My family contracted many debts. We have a small bakery and when sales started to go bad my parents took out some loans. Not being able to pay them, the interests went up more and more and now, now they threaten to take away the house along with all our belongings and leave us in the streets, that's when someone slipped that card under the door"
"Oh, well, it's a very complicated situation" I nod, crestfallen.
"So you have a bakery. I love croissants. My father and his assistant forbid them, but sometimes I eat some on the sly. Even filled with chocolate!" The little blond smiles as he describes his favorite food, excited like a child. For a moment, with the closeness of him, I feel different. As if I wasn't caught up in an organized cold-blooded massacre, locked in with a bunch of strangers. I can only see the boy with green eyes and contagious smile, my heart can feel his warmth … and it pains my chest when I remember that I have to beat him in a stupid game of marbles and see how he is shot dead.
"… but the best ones are the ones with melted butter, definitely. When we get out of here you have to take me to meet your bakery and we could go to the movies together, or go out for a coffee Do you like coffee?" He keeps saying. In front of me is a handsome, friendly boy my age who would like to go out with me, but I can't help but think that in fifteen minutes to be exact, he is going to be dead. (Don't feel, don't feel, don't feel, please) I tell myself.
"No" I regain my previous coldness, but inside I'm crying out loud. Even though the guys in the masks and their leader treat me like disposable garbage and have no respect or consideration for my life, I'm still a human being.
"Sorry, I talk too much, right? That's what my father always says, well, what he said before they sent him to life imprisonment" My heart breaks listening to him.
"Sorry, I'm doing it again" he apologizes once more. (He is also a human being, stupid selfish girl) My conscience reproaches me and, in a fit of madness, forgetting about the game, the deaths, the shots that echo around me and the damn marbles, I hug the boy sitting next to me, who gasps, taken by surprise. He remains static.
"Stop apologizing, twenty- Sorry, you're not a stupid number. You are a person, and you don't talk too much, I like listening to you" I affirm and then I let go of him. As soon as I held him in my arms, I felt … something. Like an electric current ran through me from head to toe. I had never felt anything like that. Never. My face burns as he looks at me and smiles. His green eyes light up at my words and his heart races, painfully. I glance at the clock, which snaps me back to reality. There are only ten minutes left. No!
"Things, things that we wouldn't tell anyone. You asked me what I want to do when I get out of here. I, heavens, I have a lot of dreams. I want to be a fashion designer since I was little, but I have never told anyone because I want, well, I want to be rich and famous and all that and I am afraid of being laughed at because I, I am very clumsy and always I have been of a rather low class. I am afraid that they will tell me that I will not be able to do it but I want, I want to be someone important, I want to help mom and dad, I want to leave one, a mark in this world" (I want to save you, I want it to be a way) I think, but I don't verbalize that last thought, as inopportune as my heart racing as I gasp from saying so many things together. The boy looks at me as dazzled by my words. There is a curious melancholy in his eyes when he speaks to me again.
"I don't"
"What?" I look at him, tilting my head to the side, not quite understanding anything.
"I don't have any dreams. I didn't have what you would call a childhood, you know? My father always ran an apparel design company, like, uh, a cover for his real deal" I nod, listening intently, resting my chin on the palm of one hand.
"I have had to be a model from a very young age. It was almost like the games, but without the, you know, the gory part. I mean, I'm, I was trapped. I had no choice. I never had a choice. I couldn't go out to play like any other children. I never went to school, I was educated in the mansion, at home. I didn't have any friends either, until today" He smiles at me. (Poor thing, what he's telling me is horrible. Does this boy really consider me his friend? My God. I don't want anything bad to happen to him … But my own life is at stake)
"Five minutes, unknown lady, we have to play that one round"
I stand up with difficulty, my legs shake as I take his hand, which he extends to help me up. "You , you choose the game" I tell him.
"Okay. We will do something simple. We are going to throw a marble. Whoever throws it the farthest wins. Let's aim at that wall" A thin and delicate index finger points to a wall about five paces from us.
"Alright"- (No, I don't want anything bad to happen to him)
"Ladies first, miss…"
"Marinette" I interrupt him.
"W-what?"
"My name is Marinette Dupain-cheng"
"Oh, what a nice name. Now I have to keep my promise. I am a man of word" He takes a hand to his chest solemnly. (If you tell me your name I will tell you mine, what do you say?) I remember he told me.
"My name is Adrien Agreste"
"It's, it's a beautiful name" I feel like my heart is going to leap out of my chest as I hold the damn marble with trembling fingers and throw it with very little force. Although some progress is made, it is not too much. I want Adrien to win. I don't want him to die.
I see that he is about to throw and I cling to his arm, anxiety is hurting me.
"Wait, please, Adrien, tell me, tell me something more about yourself" I beg. He gives me a sweet smile, like he's trying to reassure me.
"I really like to play the piano, and I also study Chinese, fencing … Oh, and I play video games"
Tears come to my eyes as I understand how much I wish I could stay chatting with him forever.
"Video games? Me too. Hey, do you, do you know Ultimate Mecha Strike III?
-It's my favorite game- He sighs deeply, holds the marble between his long artist fingers and I understand that I can no longer hold it. The damn thing falls to the ground and … makes almost no progress. I win. (No, no, no, please, no) Never, ever has survival tasted so bitter.
Helplessness mixes with fury and I grab him by the collar of the blue jacket that has the number 22 printed behind him, pressing his back against the same wall that indicated the finish line.
The sound of many shots almost simultaneously pierces my ears … and Adrien is next.
"Why did you do that?! Shoot again! Come on, shoot again!!!"
"I won't, Marinette," he says in the most calm and serene voice in the world.
"Was this your plan? Was this your stupid plan from the beginning?! Sacrificing yourself for a complete stranger?! Do you have a stupid hero complex?!" I'm out of my head. This can't be happening.
"You have something to live for. I've been wondering what I'm going to do if I manage to get out … ever since I entered, and I still can't think of anything. I don't have any dreams, remember? I can't get Mom back. I could get Dad out of jail, but he has hurt so many people. Me included. It wouldn't be the smartest thing to do…" The assassins in the hood and the red suit crowd our sides. They are surrounding us. No no no no!!!
"Who lost?" Says one of them, they almost never speak. I shudder to hear the deep, robotic voice.
"Me, sir" Adrien says before I can say anything.
-No! Please don't do this, Adrien. Let me die. I lost!!! I lost!!! I start yelling my lungs out , but it's no use.
The boy, the little blond with emerald eyes. The sad, lonely, misunderstood, talkative and gluttonous boy. Sweet and sincere. Noble and educated. Too noble. So much so that, with a last, friendly and reassuring smile on his face, he turns away from me and stands in front of the executioners, who point their weapons at him. No!!!
"This is my goodbye, Marinette. Follow your dreams... And thank you, I'm glad you've been my friend" I see myself reflected for the last time in his emeralds, which are filled with tears and then … The shots are falling on him from all sides, like deadly raindrops They murder him like everyone else, without a trace of hesitation. I remain paralyzed in place, then I fall to the ground on my knees and burst into tears. I see his blond hair stained red and curse everyone in this damn place. I curse my own existence. I curse my own life. I curse that they are capable of killing someone like the young man I knew. The murderers retreat, and when they come to take the body I throw myself at him, hugging him with all my might. So many that they have to drag me across the ground to get me to release it. But there is nothing I can do.
"Participant number twenty-two, eliminated" Announces the voice over the loudspeakers.
Adrien Agreste is dead and so is the light of hope his smile had given me.