49. Player 194
Chapter 49
Player 194
Raven
Present Day
“ G ood morning, my lovelies! And welcome to your newest round! I’ve missed you, my beautiful and wonderful birdies.” The singing echoed around my subconscious.
Familiar and distorted. Close but far away.
“It is time for all of you lovely contestants to wake up! We don’t have much more time until the games begin!”
My eyes flashed open, and for a few seconds, everything was a blur before slowly shifting into focus.
Sitting on a cold metal chair, my wrists and ankles were handcuffed down and I couldn’t move. But I could see. The Host’s face filled the entire wall five feet in front of me.
He’s back .
I did not want to think about why the thought was soothing. Why I was happy to see him again.
The piercings that had adorned his face in all the games prior were now noticeably missing, the part of his face not covered by the mask was gaunt and ghostly. His typically styled hair was pushed back by a greasy slick.
He curled his lips, baring his teeth. “You know what they say. All good things must come to an end. But worry not, my beautiful contestants, as I am here to guide you to your victory,” he sang, but his tone was harsh, biting.
Tearing my attention from The Host’s face, I examined where I woke up this time.
It was someplace entirely new…again. A wall five feet in front of me where The Host’s face was projected. A track that seemed to disappear beneath the wall.
A race course?
Even with the realization I was once more in another game, my heart felt lighter, the hours I had spent crying the night before had served to soothe parts of my soul. I wasn’t happy, I wasn’t enjoying being separated from my men, but I was going to get through these trials and be reunited with them.
At least that’s what I would keep telling myself.
Groaning drew my attention from next to me, and turning my head side to side, I was able to confirm that there were just four of us in this concrete room. Griffin, Oleks, 194, and me. Just our team.
Where is everyone else ?
The four of us were secured to metal chairs placed five feet apart. I was on one end and was grateful to see 194 the furthest from me on the other side.
The Host cocked his head. “Yes, we are nearing the end, aren’t we? Five teams and seventeen players have made it to this round. Over a month we have spent together. Over a month you have spent with your team. Fostering friendships, forgiveness…love. Let us see what happens when it is put to the test.”
My eyes found Griffin’s, and he lifted his head offering a smug smile.
“The rules on this are to the point. You are no longer connected as a team. If one of you dies, the others will survive. Consider this a lawless game with one goal in mind: to reach the finish line. The last one to do so will perish. It is time to cull the weakest link.”
A race?
Maybe if my body was healed, and I didn’t have a literal hole in my side. But how could I hope to beat the other men? Even if they promised me protection, surely they wouldn’t lose a race on my behalf.
“And as in life, some of you may be given an advantage.” The Host’s dark pupils bled into his irises, appearing nearly monster-like. “My sweet lovelies, my birdies, my swift little bunny. The time is now .” Where he had sung the rest of the words, “now” was urgent, loud, painful . He barked it. His dark eyes staring pointedly ahead.
Swift little …bunny?
Too many coincidences is not a coincidence.
“Julie?” I whispered nearly inaudibly.
The Host froze, his eyes widening, his mouth opening to speak, and then the screen went blank. The wall, where The Host’s face had been, lowered into the ground. His lyrical voice no longer echoing around us.
It’s him. It’s Julian .
Now that the thought had manifested, it had nowhere to go except to dig its way into my gut. A moment of clarity, a realization so heavy I could never hope to work through it.
Julian. My best friend growing up.
He was The Host?
How is he here?
I was an idiot for not realizing it sooner, for not noticing his familiar eyes, the way he had called me bunny, even his voice. He had thrown it into a different pitch, but it was still there, underneath the falsity.
Who else would I meet here in the Masquerade ? What else would come to light? How much more could I take of it?
Had Julian truly betrayed me?
He had known about Sparrow after all. What if…
I didn’t allow the thought to manifest.
Later. Later. Later. I would push my emotions, my feelings, my despair into a later moment.
The entire room shook, and the floor before us and around us began to partially give way. My pulse raced as the track turned into a terrifying labyrinth of platforms to jump between. Even the space between my teammates and me had fallen into the depths below, leaving a gap.
As the seconds passed, the holes where the floor had been began to fill with clear liquid, the space suffusing with a noxious smell. As it did so, some of it came up, splashing onto the leg of my sweats. After a moment, searing pain stabbed there as the liquid dissolved the material and made its way to my skin. My nostrils flared as the revolting smell of my melting skin flooded the air around me.
Swallowing my scream, I brought my feet back and up under the chair, trying to keep them protected. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if my entire body fell into the toxic liquid .
What had seemed before to be a simple race was now a game of deadly hopscotch to the end.
“Soon, two of the player’s restraints will give way. They have been given an advantage and a head start. Once the siren signals, you are to make it to the end however you can.” At the very far wall, a flashing neon banner lit up. “Please note you are not to interact until the start of the game. Please note that you are not to fall into the space between the platforms. Please note that the next two players will begin five minutes after.” This was not The Host’s voice that echoed around us, but instead, it was the robotic trill I had grown accustomed to.
My eyes jumped around the room, the concrete platforms that were different distances apart, the terrifying liquid that oozed between them, the distance it would take to get to the end. The game seemed to extend the entire span of the room, with just a thin walkway on each side to allow for the doors in the space to open and close.
I was shorter, I was injured, but I wouldn’t give up.
My cuffs fell to the floor, freeing me.
“What’s your plan here, Dres? Are you going to make it to the finish line? Do you think there is any world where this will go well for you if you do?” Griffin’s fury drew my attention, and I found that it was 194 that had been given the head start with me.
Dres. 194.
He was getting to his feet. Even from this distance I could see his tattooed knuckles. The HURT and PAIN, reminders of who I would be playing this game with.
A knife twisted into my gut as I did my best to stand. Sharp shooting pain stabbed at my ankle and it took everything not to fall to my chair. I was injured worse than I had realized. The liquid, no the acid , had done more damage than I originally thought .
“Do not pretend that you care if I live or die. You are nothing but a parasite that used all of us for your own personal gains and then threw us away at the first chance you could.” Dres’s tone was harsh as it echoed around the room. “You saw a pussy and traded it for one of our men. You saw an escape and you left us to waste away. You are a coward. And you are no leader of mine.”
Griffin clenched his jaw before speaking, “Are you not the one that sold me out to the Government in Violencia? Are you not the one that had our men hung and killed if only to save yourself? You gave away safe houses, names, families. And for what? A chance to enter this rigged game? Do you truly think you are going to leave here alive? You are nothing.” Griffin spat on the ground. “A broken man is nothing more than the putrid he spews. He is both the loudest and the deadliest. The weakest and the stupidest. Trust me, Dres, you were dead the moment you sacrificed my men for your own life.”
Dres sneered, “Such lofty words spoken by a man that isn’t even from Violencia.”
Dres’s words had his intended effect as Griffin’s face heated in rage, but he didn't have a chance to continue their bickering as the siren blared around the room, marking the beginning of the game.
My attention focused on the task at hand blocking out the swirling questions. About The Host. About Julian. About Griffin.
I jumped to the next platform ahead, landing carefully onto it. Wincing, I managed to avoid stumbling, but it took more out of me than I cared to admit. My side was still healing, the acid had caused another injury, I was exhausted . Wiping my clammy hands against my sweats, I looked towards Dres.
It was a mistake.
He wasn’t even trying to make it to the end .
He was running, and sprinting, and jumping as fast as he could towards me.
Swallowing down my heart that attempted to come up my throat, I tried to formulate a plan. To find a way out. At this point I was done giving up, but this game wasn’t in my favor. Dres, 194, he was a big man, larger than me, and uninjured. It wouldn’t be difficult to just throw me into the acid and be done with it.
Wouldn’t that just end the game?
The realization struck me, he didn’t even need to make it to the end. He just needed to kill me and he would be done with this game. He would win and be able to live another day.
Attempting to break free from the shock that had frozen me, I jumped to the next platform, staying along the side of the game as best I could. An idea struck me.
Why do I need to keep to this area at all?
With new instilled determination, I used the last reserves of my energy to make the large hop to the thin hallway beside me.
When I landed and nothing happened, happiness skittered across my nerves.
But it was short-lived.
Dres threw himself onto me, landing us haphazardly onto the ground, my face hovering inches over the deadly acid.
With my breath knocked out of me, and my body digging into the concrete ground, I could do nothing as he wrapped his body around mine.
His words were hot and slimy as they crawled into my ear. “The least I can do is take you with me. But maybe I don’t need to even do that at all. You’re injured aren’t you?” His hand reaching up and tangling into my hair .
“Let her go!” The panic in Oleks’s voice was unmistakable, but Dres didn’t even acknowledge him.
Nearby was a loud crash, but I couldn’t move to look. Even if it were Griffin and Oleks releasing from their restraints, they were too far away. They wouldn’t make it in time. Dres’s hand was pushing my face closer and closer to an acid death.
Wriggling and bucking, I needed to save myself, to get this man off of me. But all it did was serve to egg him on. His disgusting length poking into me.
This is turning him on. A monster just like Ivan.
“Fuck. Stop riling me up, you useless woman. It didn’t have to go this way, but then you came around.”
My panic and anxiety sky-rocketed. He was done playing games. He was ready.
It was in his voice, in his muscles, the way his hand tightened in my hair.
What am I supposed to do now?