Lie or Die by A J Clack

Author:A J Clack
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Firefly Press Ltd
Published: 2024-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

21

I don’t understand what he’s saying, so I just repeat his words back to him. ‘You were supposed to die?’ I don’t get it. ‘What do you mean for real? Like as in proper die?’ The words coming out my mouth sound so ridiculous, I giggle, waiting for him to join in.

He doesn’t.

I wait for more ’cause I’m sure as hell not happy with that explanation.

Noah fidgets from foot to foot.

‘Really?’ I say.

After a moment of awkward silence, he grabs my hand and pulls me through the run. ‘Where are we going?’

‘I need to take you back into the house.’ Noah’s voice is strong.

‘Stop.’ I push my heels into the ground, forcing him to stop. ‘What did you mean, Noah was supposed to die? Tell me what’s going on.’

He throws his arms up in the air. ‘It’s not real. The game, the house, any of it. It’s all fake.’

‘Fake? So that’s not Cali? This is a wind up?’

‘No, she’s the only thing that is real.’ He’s acting weird, half laughing into the darkness and it’s scaring me.

‘My name isn’t Noah, it’s Tom. Tom Stockett. I set this all up.’

‘What?’ Warning bells are chiming so loud in my head right now I can hardly hear over their incessant pealing.

‘None of it’s real,’ he says. ‘It’s as fake as the reality it’s pretending to be. Even the studio isn’t a studio anymore, it closed down months ago.’

‘But the game? The cast? How did you…?’

‘I’m a TV director. Pippa’s worked in TV production for years. Lie or Die was a concept I had been working on for a while. It was easy. One little advert and over a thousand applications. We held auditions and crewed the show as usual.’

‘Wait, so you’re older?’

‘Of everything I’m saying, you question that?’ Noah says. ‘I’m twenty-four. Isla always joked that my baby face would come in handy some day.’

‘Isla the director?’ I’m trying to keep up.

‘Director Isla is an actress, I named her after my twin sister. Isla Stockett.’

I know that name. Isla Stockett was a reality TV star.

‘Why would you fake all this?’ I say.

‘To kill Reality,’ Noah says.

‘I don’t understand.’ I wish I could see him properly, this whole weird confession in the dark’s freaking me out. I can’t tell if he’s messing with me. ‘You want to kill reality TV? Why?’

‘Because it killed my sister.’

Oh. I may not be able to see his face but the agony in his voice is painfully clear.

‘People get eaten up by the cult of celebrity.’ He carries on talking into the dark. ‘Winning a reality show made my sister an overnight star. She made it all the way to the top and it was perfect. Until it wasn’t. My sister took her own life. Isla is dead.’

He stops, lost in his grief. I wait. I remember her; her death was all over the media.

‘Nobody could have predicted how crazy famous she would be. It was too quick, she wasn’t prepared. There was so much attention, the positive and the hype and the fame.

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