Free I Am Alive by Cameron Jace

Eventually, we all have to help each other.
    Other skaters follow the girl with pink hair. She seems to be the leader, with all those tattoos on her arms. The Hoverboarderz approach us, and pull us up to ride along with them. They are strong and well-built.
    The girl with pink hair picks me up.
    Leo signals for the rest of the skaters to go save those in the remaining bus, while someone else drives the Jeep. They hesitate for a moment. He fires his rifle, missing on purpose just to scare them. They swing fast toward the bus.
    It makes me wonder what Leo is capable of when he opens his mouth.
    I am clinging to the pink girl from behind, as if riding a motorcycle. She is much stronger and taller than I am. She controls the speed of the Hoverboard from her iAm too.
    We speed up. One minute to explosion.
    I can’t see Leo anymore. He is left behind. But I hear a bang. An explosion. Did someone fall to the ground, trying to run? Did someone mess up the speed?
    It crosses my mind that it could be Leo, but it is unlikely.
    What surprises me is that I tell myself that I don’t care if it is him. Little by little, explosion by explosion, I am starting to learn that everyone’s priority in this game is saving him or herself. Although we are seeking alliance at the moment, it doesn’t mean the pink girl won’t push me off the Hoverboard at any second, if it is her survival against mine. That’s why Leo shot the boy. I cling harder to the girl with pink hair, my short fingernails almost ripping through her jacket.
    If I hadn’t switched the iAms, I would have never known about this world down here in the battlefields. I would’ve never known the truth about the evil Summit. I would have been preparing myself to become a good girl, looking for a boy to go to the prom with, then marry him, have children, and grow old without affecting the world. What a bore. I prefer the deadly adventure I am living now…and I will find you, Woo.
    “Attention, please.” Timmy is standing behind a counter in a hotel, dressed as a receptionist, pushing the bell repeatedly. “Attention, you skater-haters-monkey-flying-slayers.” He is manicuring his fingernails, blowing air bubbles. “Since we don’t know where you got your machines, don’t think they will not explode when the time is up.” He gulps a piña colada and burps.
    Almost twenty seconds left to the next explosion.
    “Hang on,” the girl with pink hair shouts against the wind. Almost all of the skaters arrive. Every Hoverboard has two or three teenagers on it. We are circling around, keeping up with the minimum speed, and waiting for the rollercoaster to arrive at the lowest point of its route, so we can all jump down. Which is an extremely hard thing to do.
    “Your Hoverboardz will explode in about…” Timmy looks at his oversized, loud-ticking watch. “Fourteen seconds.”
    I hear the rollercoaster coming. My heart is racing. I feel something in my throat. I can feel the heat from the girl’s back against my belly. The top of my spine is heating up. Will I be able to survive the jump?
    “Ten seconds.”
    The rollercoaster is coming. The safety bars and shoulder harnesses are already open. Leo must have controlled it from his iAm. But Leo is not around.
    “Now!” the girl with pink hair yells. We jump in the air like fools diving out of a plane without parachutes. What the hell am I doing? Dying on a rollercoaster? It feels like my heart is jumping with me, almost bursting out of my rib cage and throat. On the way down, it falls like a heavy bowling ball, down into my feet. I land upside down in the rollercoaster. The girl with pink hair lands straight in her seat next to me. I am glad I didn’t break my back or neck. I hear people thudding against the seats everywhere, dropping like flies with no wings, and I hear a couple of explosions as well. Not everyone survives.
    I have to admit that if this is an actual and legal game in the world out there, people will pay