GAMES

[Published in a secondary variant as part of The Charlotte Fox Short Story Prize 2025 (a limited release from the University of Plymouth); the variant here is the pre-publication variant with some minor edits that spawned from the publication process.]

I pick my scabs so that they are my own. When it is hot, I go to the red-ribboned oak tree in the far corner of Salvation’s fields, my back against the most shaded side. Within a minute my arms are dribbling. Sometimes I use the dry, yellow grass as padding to stop the flow. Sometimes I watch the cut bleed until it doesn’t—my own infliction.

          Blood draws the Outside Ones. Especially so close to the fence; they are always there when I am. I never see them. The shrubbery creates a second barrier between us and them.

          When I return to the buildings, the adults see me as something strange. I guess they assume I have tripped and torn on the ground. Olivier and his friends see me the same as before. My red and grass splotches are only manifestations of the weird in me they already saw. Sometimes they smack my scabs so the grass comes off. Then I can start again. They did it today.

          It’s not just me. Elijah, Fred and Willem have all had this treatment at some point. Though, it is always me.

It is another warm day of summer and I am alone. Among the birches are Elijah and the other two. They keep close. Out in the centre under no shade sits Olivier with his friends. Their shirts are off and they and they do not fear the sun. I am by my oak tree. There is no wind. The red ribbon does not flap. It sits firmly around the trunk. My scabs are dry.

          Most of the men are beyond the fence. Olivier’s dad has led them out Salvation’s gate. They talked about an aquarium. Maybe they will come back with fish. Maybe they will come back with lanyards and postcards again.

          Olivier’s mum is running activities for the women. The women and Darren. It must be crochet today because the boys in the sun look miserable. Last time they each ended up with multi-coloured jumpers, but there hadn’t been enough wool to make one for me or Elijah.

Approaching the birches, I try talking to Elijah but he is occupied with Fred and Willem. They do not hide their conversation. I imagine that I have become small or perhaps a ghost. In time they decide to notice me. Elijah smiles and welcomes me to sit with them. Fred and Willem pick hard at the grass. They are about to play a game, Elijah announces. It is called GIMP. It’s like truth or dare but every time someone answers or does the dare they get a letter removed from the word GIMP. I have seen them play this before. They learned it from Olivier’s group.

          Elijah starts. Through cracked, round glasses, his eyes meet Fred. Fred chooses truth and has to answer a crude question about his crush on Olivier’s girlfriend. He strings out an answer until Elijah is satisfied. Fred down to GIM-.

          Fred scans across us. There is dirt on his cheek. He turns to Willem. Willem chooses dare.

          At Fred’s instruction we all approach the fence. Willem must cut his finger and stick it through a gap in the barrier. Fred hands him a shard of bark. Going across a scar, Willem opens his finger. He is trembling. No one is smiling.

          After thirty seconds, a shuffle comes from the bushes. Willem asks to retreat, it’s been long enough. Elijah agrees. I nod. Fred is unsatisfied. The shuffling grows closer. Willem shakes and begs but Fred places his hands on Willem’s back. A clear droplet leaves Willem’s eyelid.

          The shuffling becomes continuous and fast. Approaching. Approaching closer. Willem squeals and tenses, trying to push back. His eyes seal shut. From out of the bush jumps a small creature. A squirrel. It scuttles up and along the fence.

          Fred releases. Willem weeps as he rushes back to the birches. Elijah and I join him, Fred following a little behind.

          Sitting, Elijah lays his arm across Willem’s shoulders whilst Fred drops down and endlessly apologises. I sit back.

          For whatever comfort may result, I mention that it had been a squirrel in the bush. All three look up at me. Willem squeaks that it doesn’t matter what it was.

Willem down to GIM-. He then begins his turn to choose – me.

          I choose truth.

          Is it because both your parents died that you don’t understand people?

My mind’s first reaction is to treat this as a genuine question. Then, Willem’s emotion bleeds through. Contempt. Misunderstanding. Loneliness.

I should leave. I stand and my legs direct me towards the oak. Willem shouts the name of the game through a strained throat. I am the GIMP. I have lost.

Back at the oak, strange sounds of yearning pass through my lungs. My belly begins to hurt. The sky clouds over and I look around the trunk to see everyone else heading towards the buildings.

The red ribbon begins to flap.

My fingers claw at the earth between two large roots. Fingernails fill with dirt. Tears soften the mud. Wiping away the ground reveals a plastic tub. I pull it out. Click off the lid. Inside are pictures and a note.

Reading the familiar note, I scratch at my cheek. My eyes bore and a thin plate of fingernail digs. Almost at the bottom of the note, I jolt. A stinging sensation strikes and my cheek is loosed of blood. It trickles down and seeps into my shirt.

Movement begins beyond the fence. I hear the growl of an Outside One.

Its crooked yelp reminds me of a story my dad would tell me before bed. The memory breathes cold into the breeze across my neck. The red ribbon beats against my head.

Leaves rustle and twigs snap. The Outside One is coming through. My hand presses against my cheek but the blood crawls between my fingers and glides across my knuckles. Stuff it with grass. It’s coming closer. I shake. Its noise is all around me. The ribbon blocks my vision.

Pushing it aside, a red iris gleams between the leaves. A glare is upon me. We are locked. Its gaze follows as I stand.

It is just like the bedtime story, and just like the time I stepped outside Salvation’s gate.

The creature, like a man, has eyes as red as this ribbon. Look at him. How is he standing? Do you have something to hit him with? Are you far enough to run? You must make your decision because he is coming. Once he has caught up with you, the creature will throw you to the ground and stop you from moving. Then, you have your final chance. If you do not push him away with all your strength, the next thing you will feel is his teeth. And it will hurt.

And that is how it happened.

Clouds overhead condense and heavy gusts take hold of the air. The first raindrop falls. I blink. The blink holds itself as I try to remove images from my mind.

Open. The iris is gone.

I spin around, seal the tub back in the earth and run for Salvation’s buildings.

Dinner seems to get later with each evening. We sit in the common room. My mum told me once that I wouldn’t have been allowed in here Before. Back when Salvation was a school, the common room was for older kids. Now, we bunch up the tables, seal the doors with metal piping and eat here.

There is a funny smell.

Darren walks out from the kitchen with trays of meat. I have had bass before. I have not had shark. He places them in the centre and we all take a plate and helping of the fish.

          Next to each of our plates is a can of lemonade and a knife. We used to use knives with a fork to eat but not anymore. Hands mean less washing. The knife is in case we need to defend ourselves.

          Down the table, I see Olivier. Once again he is putting on a show to make his mum give him an extra piece of bass and her lemonade. It works.

          When one of the ladies asks Olivier’s dad how they got their hands on a shark seeing as the aquariums should be dried up now, the man does not respond. He brings his hands down from the table and checks them front-to-back.

          I ask something else about the aquarium. The man’s pupils lay upon me. Into me. Olivier tells me to shut it as spit flies out from the gap between his two front teeth. No one contests him. The bass I’d placed in my mouth after asking the question becomes tasteless and unchewable. I think Elijah notices. He’s sitting next to me.

Somehow, Fred and Willem are in the centre of the field with Olivier’s group. The sun beats on all of them. Now Elijah will sit with me. We’re on a bench by the buildings. An overhang shades us.

This is not the first time we have met like this. I know he wants to ask me why I spend so much time alone. He doesn’t because he is kind, really. I’m not even sure how I’d answer that question. It’s not like I want to be alone. After sharing our opinions on shark meat, I tell him this. For the first time in our conversation, he looks at me. Looking to my cheek, he says he hadn’t seen this new cut come from Olivier. I say it was an accident.

          To test my claim of not wanting to be alone, Elijah suggests we join the group. I fear the idea but agree. On the way over we notice Fred talking with Olivier’s girlfriend. Elijah raises his brow.

          A few greet Elijah as we arrive and begin to sit. They are talking about the Outside—a world most of them have never seen. Elijah, Fred, Willem and I are all quieter during this talk. That is until Olivier’s girlfriend asks Fred what he thinks it’s like. He says that he can’t know. Olivier butts in, agreeing. He says he’ll never have to go beyond the walls because that’s his dad’s job. I am overcome to ask about his dad getting old—what will he do then? Elijah and the other two look towards Olivier, everyone else looks at me.

My dad isn’t weak like yours was.

Does it strike me? I can’t tell anymore.

          Fred lowers his head, then looks at me. I see the moisture in his eye, behind his overgrown fringe. There is a reason we are different from these guys. There is something we share. As do Elijah and Willem. Fred looks over Olivier’s shoulder. He opens his mouth.

Why don’t you go ask your stupid questions to your time capsule?

          His gaze shoots through me. Before I can process anything, I am halfway towards the oak. My fists ball, digging into the sides of my legs. I stop. My face is blood-filled.

I turn. I take a step. They are looking at me.

I lose to tears and continue heading for the tree.

When I wake, my face aches. It’s embossed with bark patterns. The sun still shines. No one has yet left the field. I hear shifting in the bushes, but I am not bleeding.

I dig up the tub again. This time it’s the pictures. I find the one I am looking for. Mum, sitting on a rattan chair outside and wearing a floral dress. Two other women stand by her. Dad, also sitting in a chair, with a man knelt next to him. I am on Dad’s knee. He is tying the red ribbon around my head. Everyone is looking at me. They are smiling. I am looking at Mum. I am smiling.

I rub my forehead and return the picture to the container. It goes back in the ground. I lay against the oak trunk, hands over stomach. My face is still. My vision, a hollow tunnel into the shrubbery. Thoughts do not come. Eyelids grow heavy.

A hand touches my arm. I jump out of haziness and turn my head. It’s Elijah. The grass has turned dark orange. He tells me everyone’s heading in. Without words, I follow.

It is warm. We will eat outside tonight. I help Darren prepare a table in the field close to the buildings. He and I are silent. That is until we are returning outside with plates, when I ask him why we aren’t talking. The aproned man startles and says he doesn’t know what we would talk about. By the time we get to the table, I have thought of something. I ask whether he hates me like everyone else. He is taken aback. We sit on the bench under the overhang.

          Darren says he’s like me. People didn’t talk to him when he was at school. It was different then—Before—but Darren still says I’m going through the same thing. I ask him if his parents died too. No. But his sister did. His sister was his best friend. Do I have one of those? Maybe Elijah, even though he doesn’t always see me.

          The aproned man looks down on me. Then he asks me about my scabs. In return, I ask him about them.

Why does nobody say anything?

          Darren’s chest begins to twitch. His head lowers. He begins to cry. I am almost afraid of him. I don’t know what to do. He puts his arm around me and starts to tell me. Yes, some things are not different to Before. But, some are. The adults have become hard. Especially since my parents died. And they think I need to become hard too.

I am then confused why Olivier is tended to when he moans. Darren tells me that all the adults know Olivier is soft. I am expected to lead the other kids when we are the adults. It is as though the loss of my parents signed me up to the role. Darren tells me I have resilience that they do not.

          But they don’t listen to me. They will never listen to me. I say this under my breath, though Darren hears. He tells me that they may not yet, but they will.

          There is a flare in my mind—the red iris. I think I’d sooner be able to get an Outside One to listen.

Candles along the table are the only light. It is fish again. I don’t speak.

The air is still warm in darkness. Elijah and I sit a little further into the field whilst the other kids stay closer to candlelight. The adults are under the overhang. There is little to talk about between me and Elijah. He lies back and looks at the stars. My gaze is stuck upon Olivier.

          The night air travels through me, heating my insides. I speak to Elijah. I ask why he did not do anything earlier. He sits up. He is as unsure as I am. I ask him if he likes me. He is hesitant, but reaches a yes.

I look at Elijah. I look across the rims of his glasses, into his eyes. He is kind. I know it. I believe he is hesitant because he is a thinker and this is a complicated situation.

          Maybe I have made him nervous, because he suggests joining the group again despite what happened earlier. I return observation to Olivier. His face burns in candlelight. For Elijah’s sake, I will join them.

          Olivier offers some kind of handshake to Elijah, which he accepts and is praised for learning. A game is about to take place. It is the knife game. From his sleeve, Olivier withdraws a blade taken from the table. He explains that we must spread our hand—palm-down—on the ground and stab the gaps between our fingers back and forth, getting faster over time. He demonstrates with ease. It is clear they have been practicing as a group, because most of his friends take a go, no errors. Olivier then tells his girlfriend to do it. Fred intervenes. As is the way, Fred is teased and must now take her spot.

          First cycle, done. Faster. Second cycle. Faster. Third cycle. Stabs his middle finger. Blood leaks. I look to the adults. They are all occupied in conversation. That is except for Olivier’s dad. His brow shadows his eyes, but I can see the whites glinting over at us. He does not move.

          I say the game is stupid. I seek confirmation in Elijah. He doesn’t look at me. His mouth opens. He says that if I think that then maybe I should play to know for sure. They all cheer. But I don’t want to play. Elijah looks at the earth before me. His mouth opens, canines reflecting candlelight.

Just play . . .

Who is this boy?

I feel imprisoned within the circle of children. The warm air grows hotter inside me. For the second time today, my face is blood-filled. They laugh and mock. Fred throws the knife into my lap.

          They laugh and mock. I slam my hand into the grass and begin to stab.

They laugh and mock. First cycle, done. Faster. Second cycle. Faster. Third cycle. Fourth, fifth, sixth and on the seventh I am shoved. The steel sticks through the back of my hand.

          My lungs strain and yearn again, though I do not make a sound. Hand, red. A nearby candle flickers, reflecting in blood. I can see it. My own eyes look back at me with irises of red. The ribbon is tied around my head, flapping without wind. The dark of night pours in. All that is left is the shimmering blood. There is only red. There is only me.