Chapter 7 #3
Only the guys had been brought inside the supermarket, and as I glanced around, I realized there wasn’t any sign of an exit anywhere. High above me, where the ceiling should have been, was a glass dome instead, and I could see the women seated outside of it and looking down at us.
It was as if someone had dug a giant hole and set a supermarket down inside it. There was no way out but up, and there was no way any of us would ever be able to reach that far up.
We were in an arena.
All the light in the supermarket came from the glass dome high above us, with the exception of one singular light fixture that hung low above one of the tall shelves at the center of the store. It was attached by a thick cable that trailed all the way up to the very top of the dome.
I thought that was a really weird place for a light, especially because it wasn’t even turned on, but perhaps that was another thing the aliens had taken inspiration from our world.
It was just odd there was only one.
Suddenly, the voice spoke again.
“The trial will begin now.”
There was a loud buzzing, and I knew that was my cue. I broke off from the others and quickly began my search.
Looking for the items was much harder than I’d originally thought it’d be. At this point, I’d just be happy to find any of the selected items, but this place was huge, and the items we were looking for were so small.
How the hell was I supposed to find a necklace or itty-bitty ring among all the heaps of random crap?
Were the jewelry pieces in protective boxes at least? Or were they just out, laying around somewhere? If so, that’d be even harder.
The other guys had scattered at the sound of the buzzer, too, and I wondered how they were all faring.
I moved to the back corner of the store, and I figured I could start there and work my way further into the store, but there were thousands of items, so I didn’t have much hope.
I glanced up at the women, and Sadie had her eyes glued to me as she watched my every move intently.
I needed to win this for her.
I started rummaging through a huge clothing pile near the back.
The jewelry pieces wouldn’t be hidden inside pockets, right? That seemed a bit excessive.
Granted, I’d also felt the storm from yesterday had been excessive, and that still happened… So, who knew at this point?
As I sorted through the clothing, I tried to thumb the pockets a bit to ensure nothing was inside, without having to manually turn them inside out to fully check.
I felt like that would’ve taken too much time.
I couldn’t feel anything in any of them, and I soon made it to the bottom of the pile.
Nothing.
Next, I moved along the wall, and I kept my eyes peeled for anything even remotely sparkly or metallic looking.
As I moved along the back of the store, I noticed a metal panel at the base of the wall. It almost looked like a much smaller version of a loading bay door. It was barely a foot tall and just shy of being that wide.
As I kept moving, I saw there were a lot more of the mini doors at certain intervals along the wall. I wasn’t sure what they could possibly be for since they weren’t very large, but perhaps they were supposed to be more for decoration rather than function.
Although, that would be a very odd decor choice.
I continued to search through the scattered items, and it appeared this store had even more than I’d originally expected, because I began to come across random home appliances and patio furniture tossed into the mix.
I kept my eyes practically glued to the floor as I searched, and I randomly stopped to rummage through the random piles of toys and clothes.
Still nothing.
I hadn’t seen a single sign of any of the jewelry pieces, and I’d begun to feel very frustrated and nervous.
What if I couldn’t find anything? What if the only reason I couldn’t find anything was because everything had already been found?
I glanced up at the women again, and each one seemed to be intently focused on different spots in the store. They were all watching to see if their assigned partner succeeded, and they all looked very nervous.
So, at least I knew the others were still looking, too.
I moved to another clothing pile, and I was about to begin rummaging through it, when something else caught my eye.
I could’ve sworn I just saw a faint glimmer.
I focused my gaze in the direction of the gleam, and there, resting on top of the clothing pile, was a small, open, velvet box of sapphire earrings.
Holy shit.
I found them.
I scrambled up the mountainous pile of clothes and stretched out my hand to grab the box of earrings.
But before I could reach them, there was a sudden announcement from the robotic voice.
“The time for the first challenge has been completed. All contestants will now be entering hard mode.”
Hard mode?
What the fuck was that?
The moment the voice stopped, there was a loud, high-pitched, grating sound. It was like metal scraping against metal, and I glanced at the wall just in time to see all the small panels I’d noticed earlier opened up.
Oh, shit.