Chapter 3 #2
I told him I was a mechanic and learned he was an elementary school teacher, and that he lived alone and had never been married.
Interesting…
The more I seemed to learn about the other contestants, the more confused I became on why we were all chosen. Besides the fact that we all lived in the same city and all of us looked like we were roughly the same ages, we didn’t seem to have anything else in common.
We were all in different careers, had different upbringings, as well as different financial situations and social status. We all seemed to be relative strangers with a few exceptions…
So, how did the aliens pick us?
I studied the other contestants again.
Six women and five men… well, it used to be six men.
What wasn’t I seeing?
Suddenly, the same robotic voice interrupted my thoughts.
“The first game will begin in ten minutes,” it announced. “Please return to your rooms to get ready.”
I exchanged glances with Tyler, and then Sadie and Parker, and each of them looked as skeptical as I felt.
A common occurrence, it would seem.
“Please return to your rooms to get ready,” the voice repeated.
Our rooms. It had to mean the weird bedroom I’d awoken in, right? But get ready? Get ready for what? How could I possibly get ready if I didn’t know what I was getting ready for?
Everyone’s eyes were on me again. A few, like Kyle, watched me with a sneer as they waited to see if I’d take charge again, while the others merely looked like they were waiting for my directions.
How the fuck had I become the de facto leader already?
“Uh, I guess we should head back to our rooms then,” I said as I awkwardly stood up.
Tyler, Sadie, and Parker all stood as well, and then the others quickly followed suit until we were all trailing back down the hallway to our individual rooms.
I glanced over at Sadie, whose door was across the hall and two down from my own, and she gave a nervous little smile before she disappeared into her room. Parker’s room was right next to Sadie’s, and she sent me a small smile and a little shrug before she, too, disappeared into her room.
Then I opened the door and entered my own room.
I hadn’t been sure what the aliens wanted exactly when they told us to get ready, and I’d resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to dig through the dresser drawers and hope for the best.
But when I entered my room, my eyes were immediately drawn to a neat stack of clothes that were set out on my bed.
How the hell had those gotten there?
They hadn’t been there when I woke up, and as far as I was aware, only the hallway and lounge area were attached, so there wasn’t any other way to get to my room without my notice.
But then I thought of the way the spaceship itself seemed to change and warp to accommodate certain needs. Why wouldn’t the inside be the same? I bet what looked like a solid wall to us was actually a panel that could open to access the rest of the ship.
The idea wasn’t in the least bit comforting.
I shook the thought away and focused on the task at hand: getting ready.
Whatever the hell that meant.
I moved to the bed and grabbed the first piece of clothing in the stack, and I was surprised to find it was a black suit jacket. I set it aside and held up the next clothing item.
A crisp, white dress shirt.
I set the shirt aside to check the next clothing piece, and I was unsurprised when I found a pair of tailored black dress pants.
The final articles of clothing were a simple, powder-blue tie and a shiny pair of black dress shoes.
What sort of sick game required that we all be dressed like Kyle?
I didn’t like the idea of removing the comfortable bodysuit I was wearing in favor of something that was more movement restrictive, but what choice did I have?
Now, I needed to figure out how to get out of this thing in the first place.
I moved to the mirror so I could get a better look at the bodysuit I had on, and besides a small slit in the crotch area where I could… free myself to do my business, I didn’t see any other openings.
I turned to study the back of the suit, and right down the center of my spine, there was a small seam, but I didn’t see any zipper or anything. I lifted my hands and grasped the fabric above either shoulder before I gave it an experimental tug.
The seam on my back parted, and I was able to pull the suit away from my body.
Weird, and almost like strong little magnets or something.
Once I got the suit off, I tossed it onto my bed, and the seam came back together so it was one solid piece again.
Even in the concern of what may be coming next, and what was in store for all of us with the aliens… I had to admit that was pretty cool.
The aliens hadn’t provided me with any underwear, which was unfortunate, but as I pulled the suit pieces on, I realized they were made of a much softer material than other suits I’d worn before.
And similar to the previous outfit, each item of clothing had no buttons and no zippers, and instead they pulled apart and sealed back together with the same strange, magnetic force as before.
By the time I finished dressing and straightening my tie, the robotic voice was back and announcing to everyone that the game would begin in five minutes, and we all needed to meet back in the common room.
I opened my door and hurried down the hall to the lounge area.
I’d only been gone for about five minutes, but in that short period of time, everything in the lounge had changed. The TVs, sofas, chairs, and even the air hockey table were all gone, and somehow even the shape of the room was different.
Instead of the huge, open space, the room was shorter and more narrow, only slightly wider than the hallway I’d just come from.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d assume I made a wrong turn somewhere, but that was impossible because the hallway had been a straight path, and there was nowhere to turn in the first place.
I was the first one dressed, so the common area was completely empty. I lingered near the room’s entrance, and I was unsure where I should go.
Then another announcement was made.
“Males, line up on the left side of the common area,” the robotic voice said. “Females, line up on the right side of the common area.”
Okaaay…
I quickly moved to the far left side of the room and turned so my back was against the wall. Then everyone else filtered in shortly after. All the other guys lined up beside me, and to my dismay, I ended up with Kyle to my right.
Across from me, all the women lined up with their backs against the opposite wall, and Sadie and Parker ended up directly across from me.
Each of the women were wearing an identical, powder-blue dress.
I didn’t know much about dress styles, but each one was flowy, knee length, and low cut to reveal an ample amount of cleavage. Similar to the bodysuits we’d all been put in earlier, these dresses didn’t leave much to the imagination.
I quickly averted my gaze to be respectful, and so I wouldn’t be labeled as a creep, but I definitely noticed how well Sadie and Parker in particular looked in the outfit.
We were all here.
Now what?
Suddenly, a panel in the wall slid open near the hallway, and two small robots appeared from the opening. They were roughly two feet tall and vaguely human shaped, with metal, dome-shaped heads, cylindrical torsos, and a pair of robotic arms.
But instead of legs, they moved around on some sort of multidirectional, spherical joint.
They also didn’t have any facial features other than two large lights positioned next to each other that I assumed were supposed to be eyes.
Each robot carried a large metal box, and one stopped in front of the first woman in line, while the other stopped at the first man.
They each held out their boxes like an offering.
I was last in line, so I couldn’t quite see what was inside those mysterious metal boxes yet.
Was this the first game?
What exactly were we supposed to do?
I glanced at the faces of the two competitors who were being offered the boxes. Their expressions were puzzled but not horrified, so that was a promising sign.
Then the robot announcer began to speak again.
“Females, inside your box are plain rings,” the voice explained. “Please choose a ring.”
The first female contestant glanced around at everyone with wide, nervous eyes, and we all watched her expectantly. She visibly gulped before she looked back down at the box and slowly lowered her hand inside.
When she withdrew her hand again, she held a strange plastic-looking ring, about the size of a frisbee. The plastic part of the ring was a simple white, but along the sides of it were long panels that almost looked like glass. Those panels were a white-gray color, similar to an unlit lightbulb.
What exactly was that thing?
As soon as the first woman had retrieved her ring, the small robot moved to the second woman, and just like before, it held its metal box out like an offering.
The second woman looked perplexed, but she didn’t take as long as the first contestant did to reach down and withdraw her own ring.
It was identical to the first one.
The robot moved on, and one by one, each of the women retrieved their identical plastic rings, and once Sadie, the final female contestant, had grabbed her ring, the small robot zoomed away and disappeared into the opening in the wall where it’d come from.
“Males,” the robotic voice suddenly started speaking again. “Inside your box are rings that have been marked with a specified color. Please choose a ring.”
A specified color? Why were ours different?
I watched as the first contestant reached down and retrieved his ring.
It looked exactly like the women’s ring had, except attached to the ring was a small tag that had the word ‘yellow’ written on it.
As soon as the first contestant had fully withdrawn his ring, the attached tag completely disintegrated.
What the hell?
The little robot moved to the next contestant: Tyler.
Tyler reached into the box and withdrew a ring with a tag that read ‘blue.’