Page 18 of Sparktopia
Time suddenly speeds up again and she’s about to slap me back, her hand in mid-air, when I’m saved by the ringing of the tower bells.
I blink. Then my mouth drops open.
Then someone else is yelling.
I whirl around and find Haryet, eyes cast up—looking at those fucking tower bells—screaming.
Because the god has just summoned her into his tower.
And this means I am next.
Iamnext.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When the god in the towerrings the bells, the bells ring until that massive black door opens and the Maiden walks through. Then, and only then, will the people be free from the constant stress of being reminded that there is a god living inside the monstrous building at the top of our city who controls our fortunes and future through the power of spark.
The Maidens are a sacrifice. We train them up to display the spark inside them to their highest possible level. Then we choose the strongest one and give her to the god in the tower so he can… use her? Eat her? Kill her? No one knows what happens to the Spark Maidens in the tower, but we do know that it’s a tradeoff.
In exchange for a woman, the god provides spark, and spark is what powers our city.
We all know this on some level. Even if the truth is buried deep down in the darkest corners of our minds.
But, then again, maybe not.
The people in Tau City are good. They are honest, and hardworking, and trustworthy. So if the Extraction Committeetells them that the sacrifice is really just a Maiden called in for duty, the way a clerk or a maid might be called in to file records or clean bathrooms—neither of which are particularly desirable jobs, but it’s just a job, after all—well, the good, honest, hardworking, trustworthy people of Tau City believe them.
But it’s a lie and they are nothing but naïve.
And now look, those fucking bells are ringing—again. For the eighth time in a single decade. Like that fucking god, who has an insatiable appetite for beautiful, young, spark-filled women, realizes he’s getting old, his power is waning, his youth is behind him, and he wants to use up as many girls as he can on his way out.
Which is what this means, this ringing of these fucking bells.
It means that this arrangement is over.
The god is dying.
Oh, it will take some time, so I am told. It will be another decade of sacrifices. That’s why my father bothered with the next generation of Little Sisters.
He will want more, Finn. More, and more, and more. And you must feed him.
These were his last words to me in a letter.
What a fucking shit show.
I mean—I scoff—is this going to be recorded in our history? Finn Scott, age twenty-eight, received a written record of Aldo’s Scott’s final words and they were,You must feed him.
Feed him…women.
The god—our god—eats them? Rapes them? I don’t know. No one bothered to tell me that. Probably because nobody else knows either. Not a single person who was not a sacrificial Spark Maiden has ever been inside that fucking tower.
I press my fingertips to my temples and rub little circles because I have a pounding headache that comes with a sinkingfeeling that this headache will follow me, will be here, haunting me, until the day I die.
The day someone kills me, more likely.
Because that’s how my father died. He was killed.
Murdered.
