A loud bang on the door jerked me out of my thoughts.
The masked guards barged in, just like always.
No words, just a hand signal. Time to move.
The hallway was packed with contestants again.. I scanned the line, searching for Zaara, but I couldn't find her. Too many people.
The walk was long, longer than usual. We turned corners I didn't recognize, passed huge iron doors and flickering lights, until finally, the space opened up.
And my breath caught.
It was massive.
Like a damn stadium. No...bigger.
So. Damn. Huge.
The floor was slick and white, glowing under overhead lights that looked like miniature suns. At the center was the biggest table I'd ever seen in my life. Round, long, impossibly wide. It looked like something built for giants or a war council out of some futuristic dystopia.
"Sooooo hugeeeee…" someone behind me whispered.
Surrounding it were chairs. So many. Almost a hundred. Ninety-five to be exact….because that's how many of us were left.
