“You’re fired, get your stuff and never let me see you again” Mr. Kurt yelled, his face a bright red.
“What about my pay?” I snapped back.
“Just take it” he huffed, as he threw some crumpled up 20’s on the table. “And get out of here before you need to put those bills where your skin used to be”
I stuffed the bills in my pockets, grabbed the rest of my stuff and ran out of my third dead end job in a month, and ended up jogging into the street, directly in front of a speeding car. I didn't try it, but the parking lot where I parked my car was across a curvy dirt road. It just happened that one of those blind curves was right where the stairs from “Mr. Kurt's Dry Cleaning” lead out. The last thing I remembered thinking about before I was hit was how Mr. Kurt was most likely laundering money.
When I woke up, it took me a minute to get my surroundings. my head was buzzing like I hit it incredibly hard. I was situated in a blank white room, which I soon realized was a hospital room. The beeping of the heart monitor was just as prevalent as in some tv shows.
“Hello Mr. Farris, I'm glad to see you awake.” a prim and proper voice echoed around the empty room, making my head spin.
“How do you know my name?” Even in my groggy state I could tell my voice sounded raw, like I had been screaming for hours.
“We know more than just your name. you are Gilligan Farris, age 32, and you went to college for 3 years before dropping out.” The voice continued to spout out information about me, but I stopped listening as I located the person who was speaking. He was wearing a gray suit and had no hair anywhere I could see.
“You don't look like a doctor, who are you?” I was still waking up from my slumber.
“I'm sorry that I have to be the one to tell you this, but you suffered a serious car accident and your insurance is refusing to pay for any of the medical bills. Soo..” the person in the suit drew out the last word, his scratchy accent feeling like nails on a chalkboard. “You have two options; sign this contract here and get all your debts paid off, or you can make me walk away and the government will try to take every penny from you.”
I tried to sit up in the bed but my arms just flopped around. I tried again and again, eventually managing to scoot my way up to a half sitting position. My new elevation let me get a better view of the hospital room. It looked like it was a thousand feet wide, and at the same time it felt like it was squeezing my chest and making it hard to breathe. I let myself fall back down to a lying position.
“Good job Mr. Farris. the doctors told me you would be immobile for at least a week.” the suit man stated, his voice making him sound sarcastic and sincere at the same time.
“Tell me about the contract. My vision is swimming too much to read” I just wanted to get this ever so I could go back to sleep. the longer I was awake, the more my head started to pound.
“All you need to do is be on our game show. it will be televised. if you or your group wins, then you will have all your debts paid off, medical, student, loans, everything. Just sign here.” As he said that, he put a pen in my hand.
I didn't even need to think about it. I needed my debts to be paid. I tried to sign the paper he held out to me, but I just dropped the pen.
“Sorry about that sir.” he handed the pen back to me and it took me two more attempts to sign the thin sheet of paper.
“I should have asked this before I signed, but what is this game show about”
“ I'm glad you asked Mr. Farris. It's a state of the art VR simulation. you and 127 others will be competing in a tournament. Imagine DnD but you're the character. it should be right up your alley. there's some other stuff, but I won't spoil the fun” for the first time, I heard some actual emotion enter his voice.
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“I didn't take you for a nerd… sorry, but I didn't catch your name, and who you work for.” my excitement at finding a fellow nerd dampened my common sense.
“Sorry, where are my manners? I'm Dr. Brumus. I'm the assistant manager at the intelligence gathering department of GECOIM”
“So you boss around a bunch of professional stalkers?” The exhaustion in my voice showed through my excitement.
“Basically.” he started to chuckle, but his watch started to beep. “Sorry to cut this short, but I have to go, and you need to rest more, you were in a medically induced coma for nearly three weeks. with all the brain swelling, It's a wonder you survived” as he stepped out of the room, my vision slowly transitioned to black.
I reawakened while being wheeled down an obnoxiously bright white hallway. The three people on the sides of the bed I was being moved on wore bright yellow hazmat suits, like they were from that one show with Bryan Cranston that I couldn't remember the name of.
“What is happening?” I asked, or at least I tried to, all I actually did was groan like I was from a crappy zombie movie.
“hes waking, let's move it” one of the people in the hazmat suits snapped to the others
I was wheeled into a room much like the other one I was in when I talked to Dr. Brumus. In the middle of this room was what looked like one of those big old school CT scanner machines. when they picked up what I thought was the bed I had been lying on, I realized it was only a light stretcher now. As they laid me on the bed of the bulky machine, I tried to thrash around, but it was just as effective as a drunk person with a pounding headache rolling around in bed. They strapped my arms, legs, and head down, and they put a piece of leather in between my teeth.
“Good luck kid, your gonna need it” one of the hazmat suits on my right side said
“I'm not a kid, you can't do thi..” my sentence was cut off as the cantankerous machine started to clank and clack and the part around my head started to spin faster and faster.
The machine started to flash multiple different color lights into my eyes, they were so bright that even when I closed my eyes they were leaving dark spots in my vision. Then the noises I could have only described as the screaming of everyone who has died, is dying, and will die, started to blast in my ears. It was like I was being over-stimulated to the extreme. All of the sudden four sharp needles jabbed into knees and elbows, other parts of the machine stabbed and poked and beat most of my torso and legs. It felt like every bone in the body was being broken and set over and over again. I felt the urge to just give in to the pain, to stop fighting, but then I remembered something my dad said before he left.
“If you're in a tough situation and it hurts, just remember, not everyone gets the luxury of pain. pain shows you're still alive, still kicking, use the pain to find the cause, and keep kicking it until it stops resisting”.
I don't know why I thought of it now, but it was just what I needed to keep fighting. I thrashed more mentally than physically, I could tell whatever they were doing was scanning me. When I thrashed mentally I could feel something not entirely physically binding me. I threw my mind against it, I kicked and kicked, but nothing happened. Whatever they were doing was nearing completion, the pain made it hard to think, but I threw everything I was at the restrictions, I threw all of the hatred I held towards a world that just wouldn't let me help my friend, the one person I cared about. In the final moments before I passed out again, I felt the restrictions give.