SEMI-FINALIST – 5

Name:  Lindsay N. Currie and Patricia Burgess Leaver

Title:  FATUM 

Genre: YA Dystopian 

“I had nothing to do with us losing that game, Keith.  We were ahead five-two until you stepped onto the mound.”

We’d been having this argument every day for the last week, but here I was again, defending a score I knew for a fact was correct.  Guess that’s what happens when you’ve been cooped up in a missile silo for the better part of a year with nobody to talk to but each other.  Somehow, something as trivial as the score of our last baseball game becomes a matter of life and death.

           

“Whatever, Jake. We would’ve been ahead five nothing if they’d let me start.”

           

I stood up, sending the old cable spool we used as a table crashing down, our only deck of cards scattering into the thin layer of dirt that covered the floor. “Are you kidding me, Keith?  The only reason you made the varsity team is because your dad is the assistant coach.”

           

“Was!” Keith roared.  His father had died along with the rest of our team that day on the bus, leaving the three of us to fend for ourselves.  “And if you’d done your job and won the game before that, we wouldn’t have been on that damn bus, Jake.  We would have been home.”

           

“Now you’re saying it’s my fault your father is dead?”

           

Keith nodded, took one aggressive step to invade my personal space. “I’m saying you losing that game sure as hell didn’t help matters.”

           

“You little prick!” I grabbed him by the shirt collar, the thin fabric fraying in my hands.  He’d been blaming me for everything lately, and I’d had enough.