The Game Read Online Free PDF

back into the Game. She’d spent everything she had; even re-entering the Game as an insect or a small plant was too expensive for her. She was now an ex-player without enough credits to even buy herself admission into a public school. She had become one of the poor.
      Alex had only considered life without the Game once, years ago when she’d spent all her points to gamble for a better play. The Game had helped her then, and life had become a dream. Now the Game appeared to have turned its back on her. It was Game Over.
      Immediately after leaving the white building, a messenger had greeted her to deliver her first blow — a message from her Patron announcing that she was exercising her escape clause in their agreement. This meant Alex didn’t have a place to live or food to eat. Now, like all non-Gaming children over the age of 14 who possessed no credits, she was a ward of the State. This meant she would be required to live in a compound where she would be fed and clothed, trained to be a labourer and then discharged at age 18 to live out her life as the lowest and poorest of society.
      By the time Zack finished his Game, weeks had passed and Alex was gone, invisible to the world and the wealthy. He never found her; Alex was certain he hadn’t even bothered to look. Everyone knew what happened when a kid could no longer buy their way into the Game; any chance for a good life was over. This was a society that valued the winners — losers were quickly forgotten. It was best for everyone to accept the reality and move on with their lives.
      That had been almost a year ago; a miserable year for Alex, full of pain, heartache and sorrow.
      Public school turned out to be slavery. Alex was quickly transported to a dirty, smelly building and handed filthy, grubby clothes. Orientation for new students revealed that ‘school’ was actually a life spent from sun up to sundown doing the dirtiest work society had to offer — taking away garbage, cleaning the sewer systems, sweeping away the incredible amounts of refuse created by the wealthy.
      The jobs that didn’t involve filth and stench were even worse; moving and lifting heavy refuse, learning how to fix the broken and thrown away machinery from the wealthy regions. All the junk had to go somewhere, and the school where Alex was sent to took care of most of it. Large, hot factories that melted down old steel and plastic to be sent back to other schools as raw material for constructing new toys for the rich is where many students found themselves. Each day was spent lifting heavy objects, doing backbreaking work, and toiling in filthy conditions to keep the city functioning for the wealthy. Her other concerns consisted of scrambling for enough food to keep her strength and avoiding the gangs of violent workers that would band together to bully the weaker individuals into doing the worst of the work while they kept the best food for themselves and worked very little.
      At first Alex had wanted to die, but she quickly learned that no one would let her. She was still a celebrity, but now her fans were the poor. Poor fans didn’t look up to their celebrities, they mocked and hurt them. Most of the workers, the Caste, as they were called, had failed out of the Game. The one thing that seemed to help them forget their own loss and misery was revelling in the loss and misery of others. The higher one rose in the Game, the happier the Caste were when they fell, and the more miserably they treated the fallen one.
      The area that Alex was transferred to contained many fallen, but none who had fallen so far as her. She was instantly the lowest of the low. Not just a fallen, it became her title: “Fallen.”
      This meant Alex was the most hated person in her school.
      “Move over, Fallen. Real workers coming through. You had enough food before you got here, Fallen, we’ll just take your dinner tonight. Sleep in another corner, Fallen. My luck’s already bad