36

Abel woke as soon as he hit the floor. His eyes opened to total darkness. Was this it? Was he dead? He moved his arms around to try to place where he had been. His right felt metal, his left felt something more soft, he couldn’t place what it was at first.

“Excuse me.”

His eyebrows raised and he took a guess at what it was and pulled away, “Ah...sorry.”

“Forget it. You okay? You were out of it for a while there.”

She was awake then, Abel noted.

“I’m good. Another memory—I learned why I can walk again.”

“Oh.”

Abel shook his head, not that she could see it, “We need to keep moving. We can worry about what it means in the end once we’re free. It’ll be easier to process everything then.”

He didn’t see it, but he could sense that she nodded too. “Right...there should be a way out of here. I’m no architect, but the fact that there’s something down under that podium hints that it leads somewhere.”

“Do you know which way to go?”

“No, I’ve been underneath you this whole time.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

She was quiet a moment, “I needed a moment to myself, and I hoped you were seeing something else and not dead.”

“Well, I’m not dead.”

“You can get off of me now,” she said.

“R-Right,” he said, making his way to his feet. A sliver of light poured down from above as the podium attempted to open once more. It shone down as a ray to illuminate the tiniest of circles around his right foot. There was a splotch of blood on the ground underneath his foot, It must be from the blood that was on the underside of his shoes. In the light he saw Sophie and helped her to her feet. The both of their clothes had varying amounts of bloodstains on them, but that was the least of their worries. Abel’s biggest worry would be that Alpha would find a way down there with them. He didn’t seem to hear him, but hell if he was going to not worry about it.

“I think I see something over there,” Sophie said, pointing a hand he couldn’t see. She took a step out and he followed, keeping close behind her. “Here, it seems to be a door.” She made an effort to pull a handle down by her gut and it slowly pulled outward. She bumped into Abel as she pulled it back, and as she did light begin to fill in the room completely. It was extremely bright for the both of them at first, they turned around so that it wasn’t shining directly into their eyes. Once their eyes adjusted to the light several things caught their attention at once.

First, was the trail of blood that led from the spot where they fell to the room they’d just opened...it wasn’t little specks like he’d assumed had come from their shoes or clothes. There was a proper trail, enough so to turn them back around.

Second, was the door Sophie just yanked open. It was so heavy that she was sure it’d close on itself if she let it go. On the face of the door were five letters written in bold face.

L U C A S

“I think you-” Sophie began.

“I see it…” He said, looking at it intently.

His eyes naturally flowed to the center of the new room, before he took anything in he saw it as plain as day. It was the third thing. The body that had been laying in the center of the room, sans a leg and an arm, blood leaked from both stumps openly.

It was Simon.

Abel’s throat was dry, so when his breath caught he had a terrible cough that slashed against his throat. He stepped inside, following Sophie, and let the door close behind them. It slammed shut with a heavy thud. The rest of the room began to fill itself in his mind, an extremely large monitor sat on the right-side wall with just as big of an input device. The center of the room held a rectangular table that had a peculiar design imprinted on it, it almost looked like a map to the very building they were in. There was a sort of workshop in the back with all kinds of junk laid out on the tables, but none of it interested him. He took another step closer to the body and turned it over.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

He wasn’t dreaming, he wasn’t seeing hallucinations, and he wasn’t crazy. Simon was here, he had died due to blood loss. Sophie confirmed as much when she placed two fingers to the vein running up his neck and shook her head.

“How...how? I thought Answer killed Simon for not entering the door with us, and then Answer in turn was killed by Alpha just like Lucky was! This doesn’t make any sense if he’s down here!”

“I...I think I have an idea.” Sophie said. “It’s only a guess based on the information we have, though. We’re still missing Levi, right?” She asked.

“Yeah, but wasn’t he left behind when that asteroid hit?”

“I think he was out of that...whatever it was, simulation of outside or what, I still don’t know how to fully process that one, but I think he left before us. Whether he learned something from the woman or not, something happened when he came back in.”

“Maybe it was considered a violation of the rules for coming back in too early?”

“What would constitute that, though? How early is too early?”

Abel shrugged.

“Well maybe-”

The monitor turned on at their side and glowed a blue light onto them.

“Maybe…” Sophie repeated, before reading the words that appeared on the screen.

“You are Abel Gray—The RED. You get to live with the guilt of my death. Everything is your fault. Everything Everything Everything Everything—————-\\\\\\\\\\\\\”

The screen then cut abruptly to a video feed coming from the main lobby. It’s pointed at the ground from above in a bird’s-eye-angle. Simon is lying on the ground where he had been before they came back from Levi’s door. A few seconds pass before the Levi bursts through the door, he’s looking left and right frantically. Answer floated down from above, flapping wings slower and slower until landing between Simon and Levi.

“I am your answer,” he said.

“I don’t care about your answer, I need to figure out how to remove the bo-” was all he got out before his body exploded before their eyes, enveloping Answer in the blast and completely vaporizing him save for a lone wing. Simon was caught in the crossfire, awakened by the forcible removal of his arm and leg, a terrible scream filled the air as hot steamy blood coated everything.

Simon looked up as he coughed up blood, probably coming from an internal wound. He saw pulled himself closer to the center of the roulette podium, which had looked as it had before they entered the room, closed off. He was shaking...bad. He slammed a fist down on the panel, somehow it activated and tried to open up, getting stuck on as it had before. He crawled into the opening and slipped into the hole.

The screen powered off, this time for good.

“He crawled all the way here thinking he had a way out,” Abel said.

Sophie shook her head, “I don’t think he expected to live,” Sophie began. “I think he just didn’t want his body to be used by those...those…” she started to tear up. “Oh fuck now why am I crying over him…?”

Abel found that he couldn’t keep it together much longer either. Too many people had died....and for what? Who brought them here? Who was the tall shadow? He started to shake as he took a step over Simon’s body. He saw past a partition that separated the workspace with another—more open area. Sophie followed without saying a word, because she had seen what he had. There was an elevator just past a bed in the open space.

Elevators had to go somewhere.

He pressed the button on the wall and waited for the familiar ding. The doors opened and a space that felt...safe welcomed them. Abel looked to her, silent, and nodded his head. She wiped a tear from her cheek and nodded back.

They hadn’t beaten this stupid game, but he didn’t care. He saw the button labeled “1F” among a host of sub-levels he didn’t care about and pressed it as hard as he could. Finally. They were going to be free...finally. The elevator began to move, it rumbled slowly underneath their feet. There was the faintest sound of bells ringing in both of their ears. Abel swallowed hard. The bells evolved to a faint voice. It was familiar.

“They’re right on time.”

Just then the walls started to shake as much as the floor had. The two of them looked at each other as worry began to set in.

The walls began...if they were seeing things right...to move the smallest bit closer. They weren’t seeing things, they had definitely moved closer.

And closer.

And closer.

They could do nothing but scream and pound on the walls as the walls moved until they could move no closer. The cracking of bones and crushing of skulls was the last sound to emanate from that room. Their blood would forever paint the walls as they would never be touched again.

“Nobody...cheats the game.” A devilish smile laughed into darkness as the world faded to black.