The Chaos Read Free

I’ve figured out how to get out of here and where to go. I need to find a place where there are no twenty-sevens. If no one else there is going to die in January 2027, then it stands to reason I’ll have a better chance of surviving, because I don’t know my own number, see. I just don’t know. The only way I’ll find out is if there’s someone else who can see the numbers – and I’m pretty sure I’m the only one.
    There’s a bottleneck by the door into Reception. I don’t like crowds, never have – too many people, too many deaths – but I make myself walk through the gates and join the queue. In no time there’s people crowding in behind me, penning me in, and I start to panic. The sweat breaks out under my arms and on my top lip. I look around for a way out. There’s number after number ending in 2027 and suddenly my head is full of it – the noise, the chaos, trapped limbs, broken bones, darkness, despair.
    I’ve got to get a grip. My mum taught me what to do.
    ‘Breathe slowly,’ she’d say. ‘Make yourself do it. In through your nose and out through your mouth. Don’t look at anyone else. Look at the ground. In through your nose – two, three, four – and out through your mouth – two, three, four.’
    I make myself look down at the forest of legs and feet and bags. If I don’t see their numbers then this feeling will go away. I’ll be okay. My breath’s uneven and shallow, there’s not enough air getting in my lungs.
    In through your nose, and out through your mouth. Come on, I can do this.
    It isn’t working. I’m getting worse. I’m going to be sick … I’m going to faint …
    Someone behind me shoves into my back. I dig my heels in and stand my ground.
    Breathe slowly. Why isn’t it working?
    More pressure. The boy behind me is in my space, trying to push me around. He’ll have me over in a minute. I’ll go down and be trampled, kicked to bits. Perhaps that’s what’s meant to happen, but it’s not how I want to go and I’m not going down without a fight.
    That’s it!
    I swing round and catch him with my elbow, right in the ribs.
    ‘Fuck! Watch it!’ He spits the words out, a boy a bit smaller than me, with ratty teeth and a crew cut. I’ve hurt him, and now the look in his eyes says he’s going to hurt me back. I know that look – I’ve seen it too many times before. I ought to be on my toes, alert, ready for the first punch, but his number’s burning into me. It’s different, see, odd. He only has three months to go. 6122026. I’m getting the flash of a blade, the hot metallic smell of blood and I feel sicker than ever. I can’t move – his number, his death, has me in its grip. I shut my eyes to try and get it out of my head, break the spell. I open them again the split second before his knuckles hit my face.
    Someone must have jostled him, because he only catches my ear, and not very hard, but it’s hard enough to snap me back to reality. I bunch up both my fists and get him in the stomach. I hurt him, but I can’t have knocked the wind out of him because he comes at me again, one, two, into my ribs. People around us are screaming and cheering, but that don’t matter. It’s me and him that matters.
    I hit him back. I want to hurt him now. I want to make him go away. I want to make all of it go away – this boy,these kids, this school, Nan, London.
    ‘All right, lads, break it up!’
    It’s a security guard, the size of a small mountain. He’s come wading through the crowd and grabbed both of us by the scruff of the neck.
    Rat-teeth tries to protest.
    ‘I didn’t do nothing! He just started laying into me! What was I s’posed to do?’
    But all he gets is an extra neck-shaking and a ‘Shut it’.
    The crowd parts as we’re hauled to the front. We’re sent through the metal detector one at a time and searched on the other side. Then we’re marched down the corridor to an office, where the Deputy Head is waiting.
    ‘Based on today’s performance