I can't believe it, we finally figured out where it was! We're really going to steal this Jack-in-the-Box. I start to get a grip on the fence, slightly worried that we might get splinters.
Luke pushes me up, and I sort of launch myself over the very tall fence. I'm sure it's over six feet, but I can't focus on it because I need to start focusing on my teammate who, for some reason, is 5'4'' and can hurdle jump 6'.
He then proceeds to bolt across the yard and into the rickety shack where he can't hear the sirens. I start to panic, realizing that I probably won't get his attention. We were supposed to have more time. Two days, I counted...
'What did I say about the uncertainty?' I scolded myself. I yell at the top of my lungs, dragging myself closer.
'Someone turned in their flag already!' I can barely handle walking; it hurts so bad between the spikes I'm forced to wear, the fever, and all the rigorous tasks we had to do just to not die.
I don't know why I thought it was a good idea, but it wasn't; spikes are little – scratch that, big anklets and bracelets that monitor positions on the field. We give them to 'contestants' who break a vital rule. I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was that bad.
'Okay!' he tries to shout; he can't though because we're all in pain.
We both look up when a loud booming voice starts to speak, 'Bonjour mes petits jouets, how are you doing?' Their voice teases us with fake sympathy.
'How about I make this a little better for you, and the next to collect and bring back their item can be spared from the next challenge and elimination! Wouldn't that just be so much fun?' At this sound, both my partner and I immediately go sprinting for the annoying toy, moonlight shining on us as the wind blows through my long, messy hair.
I'm through the doorway when I feel a sudden, stabbing pain in my calves and shins. I look down and see what happened, a trap.
'And a bad one at that,' my teammate says, almost reading my thoughts. The last thing I can remember is hearing an ear-piercing horn before losing my vision and winding up here. I feel around to try and determine which lobby room I'm in.
I feel a tall, rectangular surface to the right of me. I wipe my hand across and feel a weirdly uncomfortable smear where I moved. 'A refrigerator,' I try to look for more clues since I already know it isn't Rooms 1, 4, 6, 3, and a few others. None of them have metallic objects other than weapons at the top of the room dangling down. That was a pretty big danger for me because that was their way of trying to eliminate the 'genetically advantaged people' as one of the late contestants calls it, from getting out first from events.
I'm broken out of my thoughts when I hear a sniffing sound coming from behind me.
'Wha-' they stop to sniffle and get closer, 'What's go- going on?' As they ask me this, they crawl into my lap.
'Well, I don't know, can you take the mask off of me first?' I know that this is a dangerous risk; it could be a monster and kill me at sight. But I don't care if it really is a child or not; I feel the need to comfort it overwhelming me as it slowly lifts the blindfold. I help them take the piece of cloth off as our eyes meet.
'Awe, look at you, little one, what's your name?' I ask him, in love with his cute, round, lime green eyes as he fidgets before answering.
'Michael!' he shouts, closing his eyes and balling his fists as he squirms on my lap. I moved him off because it was cute until it started moving my spikes; I still don't know why they are still on. He looks at me as if I killed a man but then proceeds to babble about kindergarten and other stuff.
I should be listening, but I'm looking around at who I won't be on a team with. That is the one thing that is secure in the rules. If you are in the same room as someone, then you are not on the same team unless it's 'instant death,' as we called it.
I listen more to the adults, hoping they knew what was going on, but nope. More people start to scream and shout and decide to shout less than appropriate things at the ominous speaker. A few seconds later, I hear the little boy, who starts to ask me to sing to him. I'm not the best at that, but I don't want to leave him alone and scared. I don't think I can handle that, but I pick Michael up, trying to get comfortable, and after a while start to sing.
'Rock-a-bye baby in the treetop, when the wind blows, the cradle will rock.' He starts to snuggle closer, but then he puts his hand on my face and pats my face.
For the first time since I was put here, I was happy, and I continue to hold him, covering his ears right before an adult cusses out whatever god is putting us through this kind of torment. He stares at me with soft, innocent eyes, and I start to feel salty wetness on my cheeks as he asks for my name.
I try to blink away the tears, answering as quickly as possible, knowing what's going to happen. 'Paul, my name is Paul-' After I say that, a female voice comes on, warning that the teams will be formed. I feel deaf as I hear those words, feeling like there was aching pain going through my chest. I continue to sing even though he and his innocent strawberry blonde hair are gone.
'When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.' I begin to yell, only caring that the workers hear me.
'You'll kill him! Of all people, why him!' I wipe my eyes before I stand up and go to the only thing in this room that looks like a door. I walk to the other side of the room picking up my pace before bolting towards the seemingly invincible wall.
'Why. Won't. You. Just. Op-' I put my hands to my face as I realize the door opened. Luckily, I crash to the ground, protecting my face, as I hear a few giggles from my new team.
'What do you want, uh - Alice!' I spat irritatedly at a nearby kid.
'I'm sorry, but it's not my fault you're so clumsy,' she snickers at me before moving to Mr. Olive Branch across the room. She starts to look at him and waves a hand over the front of his face. I start to notice that we're in a bedroom.
I like the room; it has a nice, comfy bed and dolls. I look for the date on my calendar and realize the upcoming due date is in two days as Alice finally wakes Oliver up.
'Carnival!' I yell, acting before I think, not realizing I probably killed my cat's eardrums.
'What do y-' Oliver says, being as confused and scared as my cat, Pumpkin. I ignored him in favor of running out of the bedroom and packing up clothes and snacks for the 'playground' we're going to.
'Calm down!' Alice starts, 'I know you get excited but I need you to calm down.' Alice acts as if she realizes what's going to happen, she acts like she has been in this situation before, maybe she has, stuff like that has happened before. Y'know, worker error.
But she hasn't, for the few hours I've known her, we've never encountered anything like this. She starts to help Oliver as she grabs the bag; she starts putting random stuff in there. I know she gets paranoid, but,
'Do we really need to bring a pepp-?'
'Yes,' she replies snarkily before zipping the bag quickly and running out of the room. I wonder why she acts like she's on top even though she's not because she's the shortest. After a bit, we leave from Alice's house, and she starts to lead us to the arcade.
'Alice, did you hit your head? This was-' I start, genuinely worried.
'I'm fine! We just need to get some snacks before we leave.' She yells at us, slowly getting quieter as she continues. We enter the arcade as we all head to the counter, Oliver glancing over at the Q*bert setup.
'Why do you like that game so much, dude, it's at least eighty years old,' I asked, wondering if I was the stable-minded person in this trio. He rants, 'It's only thirty years old, Blah Blah.' I stop listening when I see Alice walking into a fridge. I'm confused, thinking that it was a prank, I decided to tug his hair to get him distracted,
'What was that for!' he yells at me as he slaps my arm, but I can't blame him but I do, saying that he was zoning out, which he kinda was. He ignores me as I take him to the small, box-shaped fridge,
'Alice is in here, you might wanna be in there too.' I whisper to him as he realizes what I mean.
'Oh, you little -' he starts but stops when two kids walk by us.
'Just go in there!' I tell him as I start nudging him, he starts to nudge me as well to annoy me. By the time we stop, we realize a worker is staring straight at us; his name tag says 'Michael,' he has a bit of stubble with a green set of eyes.
I realize this, and in a panic, I grab Oliver and open the door to the fridge and shove him in. I hide in there, ignoring the man's worried and sad face as I duck in. I thought it would be more crowded; there were supposedly three people in a small, teal fridge.
I turn around, and I see Alice in a weird jumpsuit, her dirty blonde hair now in a frizzy ponytail. I never knew she had bangs, but I look over to Oliver, and he looks no different, the same hair, in the same big green shirt, with the same round, squishable face. Alice had makeup on though, was wearing heels, and a light teal two-part jumpsuit.
I went to ask her what was going on, and she interrupted saying to 'sit on the couch and wait, don't do anything else.' She left, going into the louvered closet. I looked around, noticing posters; one of them to my right was an ad for cigarettes. I didn't smoke, so I turned to look at the floor.
It has some carpet, which was soft, but I got bored because it had a normal diamond pattern so I looked at the bland, wooden coffee table and an orange couch that sat on the floor. I turn around and face the wall as I plop down on the comfy rectangular couch and start to look around again.
The couch was in the middle of the room so that was helpful. I realized there was a mini kitchen. I giggled as I realized that there is a mini kitchen in a mini-fridge. Jokes like that were one of the few things I liked about my old job, even if no one really appreciated it.
'What's so funny over there, idiot?' said a disembodied voice.
'WHA - oh, it's just you.' I had jumped out of the comfy lounge chair, scared.
'Yeah, it's just me, scaredy-cat. Did he show you the wall?' She pointed at a cool-looking design that is painted onto the wall behind the couch.
'It looks nice with the half cir-' I stop before I'm interrupted by Olly.
'How do I look!' For some reason, it sounded more like a statement. He has his dark auburn brown hair slicked back, which I find quite funny and cute. He has a dark orange jacket over an ivory button-up. His pants are a dull green plaid and are slightly flared, which annoys me. He has something on his arms though, a black and red outfit. Alice grabs it, ushering me to the 'changing room,' as they call it.
I finally get into the outfit a few minutes later after some torture and 'fashion advice.' I walked out but didn't get through it the first time because I'm one hundred eighty-seven centimeters, curse being tall.
I'm wearing a fuzzy maroon sweater with a white-collar shirt underneath and black jeans, tied on top with a pair of glasses (I need them), and my hair pulled back into a short ponytail.
We eventually walk out of the 'lounge,' as Alice has deemed it, and into the arcade, looking around as other players stare at us realizing Alice's plan. I'm starting to regret following Alice's advice of 'getting snacks' because it feels like everyone is staring at me.
Suddenly a horn goes off, warning us of what's about to happen. The majority of the people run out of the arcade, trying to get out of the town we are stuck in until the game ends. I get confused and my mind and eyes blur over for a few seconds.
'When will they learn?' Alice sarcastically questions us, Oliver stays silent as I reply.
'What do you mean by that?' I ask, seriously concerned and curious. Oliver and Alice stare at me and then look at each other as if communicating.
'How good are you at running, Paul?' Alice asks me, raising a thin eyebrow.
'Great, I am tall, a hu-' I get interrupted by Oliver, who asks me to stay silent like I'm a kid. I look around realizing that everyone has left, when I turned back I realized they were whispering to each other.
'How well can you, let's say, jump fences?' Olly asks, glancing around; I answer.
'Not the best, but it can still work out-' I stop, realizing that they are looking at me.
'Why do you ask?' I respond and feel the sweat on my hands.
'You're very important to us even if you are an amnesiac and may not even remember what the flag is,' spits the feminine of the two.
'What do you mean by the flag?' I ask, getting them to look at each other in an irritated manner.
'They really had to give us the dullest of them didn't they!' yelled the shorter one at an empty void of a room.
'It's fine we have two days, remember? Or did you get affected too?' teased Olly. The girl grumbled and looked outside.
Starting to drag us both to an abandoned, beat-up, Oldsmobile cutlass. She shoves both me and Oliver in and goes to the front stepping on the gas, launching us forward.
'What are you doing!' me and Olly scream in a terrified unison.
'Since we have the cons of an amnesiac as well as no head start, I don't think we should be caring about road safety laws,' Alice shouts as she starts up the car and begins to make sharp turns and I accidentally-
'What's going on!' I shriek, fearful for my life.
'Oh, finally you're awake! I thought you were dead, done for, six feet under, kicked th-' Olly listed off, getting shut down.
'We get the point, we thought you had died but turns out you had just passed out,' Alice explains double-checking for any injuries. I remember what was happening before I blacked out.
'But did you get the jack in the box in time?' I ask, hoping to be spared.
'No, but we can help, we're immune so we're fine.' Olly glances towards her, clearly unsure.
'You shouldn't worry your pretty little head about it, okay Paul,' she calmly whispers to me, lightly pecking my forehead and cuddling me.
'What is with you and being reckless one minute the next you act like my mom when-' I ignore and zone out his sarcastic question because I don't care, I just focus on the loving embrace of Alice, knowing she'll be gone like Michael.
'They don't know the repercussions of losing do they?' I don't care what they say, I give the suggestion anyway.
'Let's try to get it though, like a trophy, right?' I say enjoying that Alice hugs me tighter.
'No, I don't want to, not right now,' Oliver says, but he looks sympathetic, does he know what it's like losing too?
'Who cares, just focus on them' I thought, realizing that Oliver euthanized her. As painlessly as you can get with a broken beer bottle that was underneath the car seat. He quickly broke down into tears; it broke me down too.
'I'm sorry, but I can't handle this, just everything!' I nod, quietly agreeing with him as I wipe his tears and hold his shaking hands. Silently oathing that we will head to the old shack, to get that uncollectable toy so we can end our ever-changing loop.
But for now, we just hold each other hoping to ignore the small body growing colder in the front seat staring at us with soft but glassy eyes. As the dark red puddle beneath the kid grows, we hold each other closer hoping to ignore and prevent our fates.
We fail, as the lost one's hand falls onto the driving stick and the cutlass unparks almost miraculously. We all start to slide closer and closer to the edge of the cliff. As we fall, I use my last breaths,
'And down will come baby,' we lean and hug closer, 'Cradle and all.' Olly's screams barely reach my ears as we're crushed.
'What's that sound?' a young cadet-like boy is shouting over a pair of sirens.
'It's a siren, but it doesn't matter,' his colonel responded, clearly annoyed with both the trainee and the sirens, shortly after said siren turned off.
'I thought you said that sirens meant something went wrong' the cadet was still hung up on it, his green eyes dashing around the room looking for some invisible threat.
'It does, a sergeant was taken out. But we meant for it to happen.' Gruff and straightforward as always. He scratched his beard as he looked up from his station.
'Why?' the cadet responded.
'You know you're like a toddler, right Michael?' He knew cadets were younger but he didn't think it would be this difficult.
'Why did he die?' he asked again.
'Fraternizing' quickly shot down again.
'Fraternizing?' quickly revived and stood up and started choking this colonel with the sheer amount of annoying in that one word.
'Yes, Fraternizing.' He very quickly learned that if he couldn't handle this he probably shouldn't be training cadets.
'Why does that warrant killing him?' the cadet in training asked.
'He kept trying to stop the games' there, a simple answer.
'But I thought the games didn't do anything bad' again with a question.
'To be honest with you kid, he thought that too. Then he beat me to sergeant and not only did I lose respect for him, he started to learn what happens' again with an answer, just less simple.
'But everyone else seems fine with it?' this cadet was starting to get on his nerves.
'He wasn't trained, and even before that he seemed a bit off, kept breaking dress code' he always hated Paul's hair. Too long, too human.
'We have a dress code?' if you didn't know better you probably would have thought this kid would have just walked in here.
'Yes and you're breaking it too, just like he did actually.' he noticed that about an hour ago, right when he came in from the arcade, but he gave him the benefit of the doubt.
'How?' as if
'Hair, you aren't allowed to have facial hair, and your hair is too long' at that moment he pulled his strawberry blonde hair back into a short ponytail and tucked it.
'Good, you look a lot like him, well looked now I guess. Now get back to work or you're getting put where he was.' Finally, the conversation ended.
'Yes Colonel Oliver!' He rushed off to fulfill some meaningless tasks all cadets did.
'It's Colonel Johnson.'