“Lyle, you were supposed to calibrate the Monsterizer!” she barks at a passing yellow, fish-like humanoid with maroon fins and lips, who flinches noticeably.

  My glasses slide down my nose on a wave of sweat, pushed back up by a burning, shaking hand. Where she touched me is bruised and bleeding, skin like wet tissue paper, peeling and tearing in bloody sheets.

  “What…did you…” I begin, looking down at this new limb attached at the base of my spine.

  “Sshh, champ, I’m going to fix this,” she promises, settling me into a folding chair next to the snack table.

  She lowers the microphone to her headset and asks, “Are you sure? I think he’s rejecting his…understood.”

  My hands peel and bleed under her grip. The flesh burns like the pinkness under a ruptured blister. Her toad green eyes look into my good eye with utmost love and support.

  “Rest. Get something to eat and drink. I’m going to make sure this doesn’t happen again.” She then stands up and bellows, “Someone get me his medical records!” Her hooves tap against the ground as she dashes off somewhere.

  My hands…long, thin, brittle fingers, skin as white as paper, split open and revealing ruby flesh like under a ruptured blister. Twisted, black, club-like nubs at my fingertips.

  “What did…what did you do to me?”

  The other contestant, straight-backed and confident in his black, fur-lined clothing, standing before me judgmentally. Up close, his hair isn’t blond, it’s pastel rainbow, each strand a different, translucent color. His eyes are the same, framed by dark eyeliner to accentuate the shifting colors, like light breaking through ice.

  He holds out one of two cups, open and steaming. I smell onion broth and my stomach turns, so hungry and empty to reject food.

  “Here, it helps,” he says pushing the cup toward me.

  I shake my head, unable to get words out.

  That was how I met Grace. There might have been an unknown ingredient in something I ate, or someone touched peanuts and then touched something I touched. The point is, I’ve been there before, and this time I don’t have an epipen.

  “…Can’t…” I murmur, shaking my head, which is a mistake and sends my head spinning.

  He sighs melodramatically, placing one of the steaming cups on the table beside me and then bracing one of his legs between my ankles, leaning onto me and clasping my nose shut, rather lengthy exquisitely painted black fingernails scraping my cheeks. When my mouth pops open in shock, he tips the second cup into my mouth and holds it there, forcing me to drink or choke.

  The broth on my tongue is thick and rich, like the stew broth my grandmother made before the tick bite, but apparently entirely made from pureed green onions.

  Gasping, I flail and push him away, but it’s like trying to move a wall and the more I struggle the more he leans into the cup. I’m read-faced and out of breath and gasping raggedly, but not numb or itchy or feeling my throat closed.

  “You could have killed me,” I whimper, wiping the broth off my mouth while he steps aside to get his own, tossing the empty one into a can beneath the table.

  “Relax, they won’t kill you back stage.”

  “Food allergies,” I gasp. “I don’t know what’s in that.”

  “They give it to the contestants after each round,” he shrugs. “Helps put back what you lost. Clears your head.”

  He leans coolly against the table, looking the picture of 80s mall culture bad boy, like that vampire movie Grace showed me. His nails arch gracefully across the soup can—not nails, claws, black and serrated, like a polar bear.

  He's missing the heavy, fur-lined overcoat and hat, wearing only a silken shirt with a neckline that plunges to his naval, showing off a hairless chest. His own tail, double headed like an age, twists at his booted ankles.

  Did he have that before?

  "What are they doing to us?" I ask, balling my fists against my knees and leaving bloody tracks where the fabric is too rough.

  His eyes follow my gaze down to his axe-headed tail, his face somber.

  "Don’t worry about that," he says after a moment of silence. "Worry about the current round."

  "I'm not doing it," I insist, shaking my head. "Not again."

  Abruptly, I stand up and start looking for the nearest exit, not especially caring if it's alarmed or not. The ground sways beneath me, nausea rolling in my stomach.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "Wow, wait," he protests, grabbing my arms and guiding me back to the chair. "Save your strength, next up is a physical challenge."

  I shake my head, which is a dizzying mistake.

  "I'm not doing the physical challenge."

  I try to get back up but he puts a hand on my chest. I look down at it blankly, a bit stunned at such...pointed contact.

  “It won't let you leave the way you got here, especially in this condition.”

  “I don't care,” I growl, trying to stand against but unable to get out of his grasp. I feel a palm-shaped tear open in my chest, blood beginning to soak through my shirt.

  “There's only two ways out,” he explains, shaking his head and wiping his bloody hands on his clothes. “The first one won't happen until the physical challenge, the second it won't let you do yet.”

  “T-tell me,” I murmur, trembling all over. “Tell me how.”

  “Win,” he growls, holding his head high, a determination in his voice, like he’s telling himself as well as me.

  I shake my head again. Blood runs down my neck.

  “I’m not going to play.”

  "Hey, look at me," he demands, snapping his fingers to draw my attention. "What's your name?"

  "My...what?"

  "Your name, товарищ, what's your name?"

  "Darwin," I reply quietly.

  "Darwin," he repeats. "да. Do you want to live?"

  "I...what?"

  "Do you," he growls, "want to live to see tomorrow?"

  What kind of question is that?

  "Yes?"

  "Are you asking me or telling me?"

  "...Telling you?"

  He sighs, a look of pity in his prismatic eyes.

  "If you want out of here, you'll need a reason to make it to the end of the round. Hope or spite or whatever you need, товарищ, but you have to find it."

  "I won't play," I repeat. "I'm not...what did they do to me?"

  "They're..." He pauses, choosing his words carefully. "They're making us..."

  “You boys getting along?” the blue woman asks, hands on her ample hips, smiling wanly.

  “’Course, Rhian, love,” the other man replies evenly. “Save the drama for the cameras, yeah?”

  “Good boy,” the stage manager nods. “Go get ready, I got this.”

  "I'm going home," I tell her, climbing out of the chair with some effort.

  "Good hustle, champ," she beams. "Keep showing out and you will."

  "No, now," I growl, looking down at my t...

  I can't even think about it.

  "You have one physical challenge to get through while your dressing room is being prepared," she says, shaking her head. "I've personally seen to the calibrations on the Monsterizer, so this won't happen again. Alpha-gal syndrome? When did that happen?"

  "When I was six..."

  "Lyle!" Rhian barks, making the yellow and maroon fishlike man flinch again. "You were supposed to update his medical records!"

  While she's yelling at the creature, I take the opportunity to slip away, away from her and away from the stage.

  I'm bleeding. My skin feels like a slight suggestion and doesn't seem to be doing anything to keep my blood inside my body. The tail--my tail--has tremors running along its length.

  I can feel them, up into my spine. I can feel the floor beneath the pointed tip, the skin peeling away. I can feel the muscles and the bone. If I concentrate, I can even make it move.

  Like it's...part of me?

  "Darwin, where are you going?" Rhian smiles, taking me by the shoulders. "The stage is this way."

  “It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” she insists as she ushers me back toward the stage. “Just remember, it’s part of your body now, so use it. Erik’s done this before, but that makes you the sweet novice just joining in. It’s endearing, use it…”

  As she rambles tips and tricks to wow the crowd, I keep protesting, trying to get her to stop, but suddenly I’m outside under the bright sunshine and refreshing, salty breeze in a stadium full of cheering people.

  It’s an obstacle course, the ninja-style kind with lots of things to climb and crawl under or over, and sweeping sticks to send you into the water below. Across from my platform is Erik, mugging for the crowd, resplendent in black with blue and red accents.

  A chill forms in my stomach.

  “He seems nice,” I smile weakly. “He’ll go easy on me, ‘cause I’m not feeling well, right?”

  “Oh, Erik? No, of course not,” Rhian answers sternly. “He’s a kitten backstage but brutal in front of the crowd. Audience eats it up. Is he a bad boy with a heart of gold or a good boy with a mean streak? Whichever it is, it’s complex and makes for good television.

  “And if I don’t want to do this?” I ask, sliding my glasses back up my nose.

  “Trust me, you do,” she insists.

  “Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen!” crows an unseen but all-present voice. “This is your Host! Now who’s ready for the Obstacle Course?”

  The crowd goes nuts. I blink, trying to get them into focus. They’re…faceless? Indistinct? Like in a video game, where the crowd is just a few repeating silhouettes to save on data.

  “In the red square, returning Physical Challenge victor, prince of the pole vault, lord of the leap, Erik! And in the blue square, our new challenger, bespectacled braniac Darwin!”

  Rhian thrusts me onto the blue platform, over the cold-looking blue water. Something pale moves beneath the surface. Erik stretches and the crowd goes nuts.

  “Am I…a sacrificial contestant to make him look better?” I ask.

  “Don’t worry about that, just make him work for it,” answers Rhian.