Alive

All the suffering, all the work, all the heartache — it all comes down to this final episode. In the final episode, Em and the Birthday Children face life and death, freedom … or eternal imprisonment.

The Birthday Children fought the Grownups, and now Em has taken Matilda captive. She is forcing Matilda to reveal the location of the shuttle, the only way to escape the Xolotl. In this, the second-to-last episode of this serialized Audiobook, Em and her friends find out if there is a way to escape, or if they will be trapped here forever.

Em has had enough. No more being hunted, no more threats of being erased. She has rallied the Birthday Children to march on the Garden, ready to attack the Grownups on sight. She is going to find her people a way out of the Xolotl, and by Tlaloc, she will not let anyone or anything stop her.

In the last episode, Em discovered her true purpose in life — to be a receptacle for a much older version of herself, a 1,000-year-old monster that created Em to be overwitten. Em refuses to be a victim, and she refuses to be erased. In this episode, she must rally the Birthday Children to face this horrifying reality, and prepare to fight back.

In the last episode, Em found out the true nature of the inescapable dungeon that has held her and the Birthday Children. Brewer — the Grownup who claims Em murdered him — revealed this shocking information, leaving Em stunned beyond comprehension. Now, Em and the others try to come to grips with a shattering new reality.

In a quest to find a weapon that can defeat the monsters who took Bello, Em has led her friends to a place that Bishop and Gaston discovered earlier — the place where Bishop found the spear. Those three, along with Aramovsky and El Saffani, opened a strange door in the floor and are descending down a long ladder, into the darkness, into the unknown.

The Birthday Children wound up right back where they started. While some wonder if supernatural forces are involved, Em chooses to focus on what she can actually control — finding a weapon that will help her people defeat the Grownups. That new pursuit is about to leader down a nightmare path that will make everything she has seen this far seem innocent by comparison.

Somehow, the Birthday Children have wound up exactly where they started. In front of Em, a mystery — the coffin room she and her friends woke up in, the same room they walked away from. How can they be back? And is there any chance for escape?

A rest, a brief peace, a critical break from the never ending stress — all of that evaporated in the last episode when something grabbed Bello and dragged her into the Garden’s underbrush. Now, Em must react — but can she save her friend?

The Birthday Children have reached the Garden, but at such a cost. In this episode, the tension between Em and Aramovsky comes to a head. Is Aramovsky looking out for the spiritual well-being of the group, or is trying to discredit Em as leader and push her out?

After discovering food and water in the Garden, it should have been a happy occasion for Em and the kids. But then, tragedy befell Latu, and Em was the first to see what happens when people are left alone with hungry pigs. So this won’t happen to anyone else, Em and Bishop are in a race against to get the rest of their people and bring them safely to the garden.

Em and the others were shocked to run into a pig. Desperate for food, the kids made the instant decision to kill the pig, but it escaped, biting Latu in the shoulder and badly wounding her as it did. Against Em’s orders, Bishop ran after the pig, leaving Em no choice but to follow him. They tracked the wounded animal’s to a room with something the kids have never seen before — plants, a dense wall of brambly thicket. The pig’s blood trail leads through a shallow tunnel gnawed through that thicket, so that’s where Bishop and Em will go, too.

Em has led the Birthday Children into a strange, broken-down area filled with coffins of a different kind — thin, white, heavily beat-up, and empty. Em, O’Malley and Latu are looking in one set of rooms, Bishop and El-Saffani in the others. What they all find next will change their existence forever.

Em and her friends met Bishop and his crew. A brief, peaceful struggle for control of the Birthday Children left Em with the spear, a symbol of power. She now leads 23 other people through the halls, looking for a way out. They are also looking for food, and, more importantly, water. If they don’t find sustenance soon, Em knows her people will die.

As the group struggles to deal with the fallout from Yong’s attack, they hear the first evidence that they are not alone — the sound of heavy footsteps marching in time. That sound is drawing closer. Will Em and the others finally find out why they’ve been put in this strange dungeon?

Yong grew tired of wandering through hallways, finding nothing, and he challenged Em’s leadership. He attacked Spingate, then rushed at Em — and when he did, Em’s knife slid deep into his belly. In this episode, we learn of Yong’s fate: will he survive, or will he become just another pile of dust-covered bones?

Em and Spingate have escaped their coffins, and managed to open two more — one holds the sleeping K. O’Malley, while the other contains the dead body of B. Brewer. Eight more coffins remain unopened. Em and Spingate find out how many coffins contain potential friends and allies, and how many contain shriveled corpses.

Em and Spingate have escaped their coffins, and managed to open two more — one holds the sleeping K. O’Malley, while the other contains the dead body of B. Brewer. Eight more coffins remain unopened. In this episode, Em and Spingate find out how many coffins contain potential friends and allies, and how many contain shriveled corpses.

M. Savage woke to a nightmare — trapped in a coffin, alone, unable to remember anything about her past. She fought her way free only to find herself in a room full of coffins. One of those coffins contained another girl, trapped just like her. In this episode, the blood-streaked pair try to make some sense of their situation.

M. Savage woke to a nightmare — trapped in a coffin, alone, unable to remember anything about her past. She fought her way free only to find herself in a room full of coffins. One of those coffins contained another girl, trapped just like her. In this episode, the blood-streaked pair try to make some sense of their situation.