Just as soon as his would-be captors chased after the naked rock-thrower, Russell hightailed it away in the opposite direction, pausing just long enough to scoop Tumzy, the ridiculous panda water bottle, out of the sand. He didn’t know what came next, but one thing was clear: his mission was to fill that stupid thing with water, no matter what.
If he were left to his own survival skills, of which he had none, finding drinkable water would be an impossible task. He’d be dead, no doubt. But Hotness, for all his bluster, had mentioned water back at their “crib.” God knows what qualified for a crib in this place, but whatever it was, it had to be close. Neither Hotness nor Mari, the spear-wielding death stare of a woman, had been wearing shoes. Russell figured they weren’t pulling off any cross-country feats, not after he’d just spent an hour slogging through the sand like a drunken penguin.
Hotness had pointed down the beach when he talked about their hideout, no sleight of hand, no games. Russell could tell the guy was scared shitless of the jungle; the beach was their turf. So Russell jogged on, his legs aching, his mind spinning, trying to make sense of the insanity he’d just lived through.
Man, those guys were out of their minds. They’d bought into this game, hook, line, and sinker. Were they really that desperate for their time on television? Fame-starved lunatics, clawing at the spotlight no matter how ridiculous it got. But even with his brain fully-baked from dehydration, Russell couldn’t shake a couple of details that didn’t fit.
There was Mari’s look, cold and sharp, not like someone play-acting for cameras but a person who was doing whatever it took to survive. And there was the way Hotness said, nobody’s coming, like he wasn’t trying to scare Russell, just level with him. Like he was telling him the rules of a game nobody signed up for. But then again, it all started with a fight over a panda water bottle, and they’d chased after a naked guy like it was the most natural thing in the world. This kind of circus only happened on reality TV.
If they’d really drunk the Kool-Aid, Russell wasn’t about to save them. He couldn’t. And he sure as hell couldn’t make them rich with legal payouts. What he could do was use them. Specifically, rob them blind while they were busy chasing a nude lunatic down the beach.
And hey, maybe looting two fame-hungry psychos would be “badass” enough to earn him a level-up in this ridiculous game.
His little quest paid off quicker than he’d expected.
The smooth white sand started to shift into jagged stone, an uneven stretch of shoreline dotted with tidal pools. The rocks jutted up in tight clusters, forcing him to navigate carefully as waves crashed against the edges, frothing the water. About thirty yards ahead, a cliff face rose up like a natural wall, cutting the beach short. If those two lunatics had a base, it had to be here.
A white tarp flapped lazily in the breeze, fastened to the cliff side just above the tidal pools. Even with his vision blurred, Russell could read the crudely-written words painted across the tarp, all caps:
FUCK OFF
Russell smirked. “I’m here now, bitch.”
He unspooled Tumzy the Water Slut’s lanyard, slipped the panda around his neck like some ridiculous badge of honor, and stepped into the rocky labyrinth.
The smell hit him first, thick and sour, the kind of stench that crawls into your throat and makes itself at home. Rot, salty and heavy. Russell pressed forward, leaning on a jagged stick he’d scavenged for balance, stepping carefully through the stones. The ground was littered with fish carcasses, gutted and gnawed down to the bones, then tossed aside like candy wrappers.
Russell kept his eyes on the pools as he went, hoping for some sign of fresh water, but all he found were scraps of sea life, sluggishly circling in stagnant, briny death traps. It was the worst kind of aquatic slum, a cocktail of trash and despair. If the jungle was a survivalist’s nightmare, this place was a drunk hoarder’s fever dream.
Every pool told a story of neglect. Empty soda cans floated in formation, a tin-can armada. Shredded DUDU packages lay scattered, their contents raided. Plastic bits, knotted rope, and decades-old netting clogged the pools. Russell kicked through the debris and spotted a twisted car bumper, rusted to hell and back, missing its license plate — though, he had a feeling he knew where it had gone. A few VHS tapes bobbed in one corner like bloated corpses. Enough of them to start a rental store — if you were dumb enough to think a VHS comeback was still in the cards.
But the biggest find came in the form of a pinball machine, slumped on its side in one of the deeper pools. Its paint had faded to faint ghosts of what used to be, but it was unmistakable: a relic from better days, now marinating in brine. Fish darted in and out of its cracked glass, making it more useful to them than it ever would be to Russell.
The whole place was a shit-hole. Russell kicked a fish head off a rock, watching it splash into the nearest pool. "And these psychos are eating out of it," he said, shaking his head.
No way in hell he’d stoop that low. Raw trashbag-fish wasn’t on the menu, not today, not ever. He didn’t need their food, didn’t want it. All he needed was their water. So where the hell were they hiding it?
Russell leaned on his stick, fingers tapping against Tumzy on his chest as he scanned the mess. No jugs, no barrels, no bottles. Just filth and decay.
“Dammit.”
He’d been so sure this whole “rob the assholes blind” plan would work out, he hadn’t given much thought to a Plan B. The treeline loomed not far off, but if Hotness was even half-right, the jungle was no sanctuary. And Russell already had enough problems without adding whatever fresh hell lurked in there.
Clicking his device, he scrolled through the menu again, praying he’d missed some hidden “emergency water” feature. Nothing. Of course not. Watching him flail was probably the whole point. Good television, right? Bastards.
He glanced back at the tarp, still rippling in the breeze, its rude little warning flapping at him like a middle finger. Maybe he should just take the advice, pass out somewhere dramatic, and force the Gamemaster to step in. No way they’d let him actually die out here. Right?
“No,” Russell said, shaking his head. He had way too much pride for that.
Then he spotted it. Behind the tarp, something darker, deeper. The fabric wasn’t just a warning — it was a curtain, hiding whatever was stashed behind it.
Russell grinned, tossing his walking stick aside.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“Gotcha.”
----------------------------------------
The cliff face was rough, jagged, and about as welcoming as a DMV, but Russell had his hands on it anyway, sizing up the climb. The tarp wasn’t too high, but the way up wasn’t laid out easy either — and this wasn’t exactly his line of work.
He scanned the rock face, spotting a few narrow ledges zigzagging toward the tarp. They weren’t exactly pathways, he’d have to press himself against the cliff just to use them, but they’d do. Problem was, none of them dipped low enough to grab. No stairs, no handrails, just a wall that didn’t give a damn. Then he saw the boulders at the base of the cliff. Big, black, scorched bastards, piled up like a giant had dropped them there and walked off. They looked like leftovers from some rockslide, huddled together in a way that might form a makeshift ramp. Key word: might.
Russell hated might. But standing there feeling sorry for himself wasn’t an option either. He adjusted Tumzy around his neck and gave the stupid panda a pat. “We got this, pal.”
The boulders were hot to the touch, gritty with soot, like they’d been through hell. Each step smeared black streaks on his hands, but he climbed anyway, taking it slow. Every few feet, he stopped to catch his breath, forcing himself not to look down. His throat burned, his legs wobbled, but he pressed on, cursing every stupid life choice that had landed him here.
At the top of the pile, he paused, sucking in as much air as his cigarette-abused lungs would allow. The gap to the cliff wasn’t far — just a jump. But not the kind you could screw up. The ledge on the other side was barely wider than a shoe, just enough to shimmy up the rest of the way if he landed it right. One misstep, and he’d be nothing but a crumpled mess at the bottom.
“Don’t think about it,” he said. He wiped the non-existent sweat from his head, bent his knees, and leapt.
For one fleeting second, Russell was airborne. Just a man and gravity, locked in a duel.
BA-DING!
In the middle of his fateful jump, his device gave an upbeat little chime — a cheerful sound at odds with the fact that he might die in the next half-second.
WHAM!
He hit the ledge hard, scraping his arms and knees against the rock, his body flailing to stay vertical.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” he hissed, clinging to the rock like it was the bosom of a centerfold model. His heart pounded in his throat, but after a moment of sheer panic, he realized he wasn’t falling. Not yet, anyway. He pressed himself flat against the cliff, forcing his breathing to slow, waiting for his brain to catch up with his body.
Then, one shaky hand after another, he dragged himself the rest of the way up. When he finally reached the tarp, his chest felt like it might explode, but for the first time all day, his head didn’t feel like it was swimming through molasses. Something about his dehydration had changed. Huh. Maybe exercise wasn’t bullshit after all. He shook the thought away, grabbed the edge of the tarp, and yanked it aside just enough to squeeze through.
“God damn,” Russell said, stepping into the primitive little hideout.
The cave, or at least what Russell could see of it, wasn’t much to look at. About the size of a dingy motel room — the kind where you could park your car right outside the door, if you didn’t mind risking your hubcaps. The decor wasn’t any better. Two makeshift bedrolls were shoved against opposite walls: one a sagging cardboard palette stained darker in places that Russell didn’t want to think about, the other a deflated yellow raft, like something a seven-year old would use in the backyard pool.
Straight ahead, the cave swallowed itself in darkness, the kind of black that made you think twice before stepping forward. How far it went, what was lurking back there — hell if Russell knew, and he wasn’t about to find out.
His eyes stung, vision blurry unless he got close to something, but he didn’t need sharp eyesight to tell him the place was sparse. It was clear this wasn’t home sweet home; this was survival by the skin of your teeth. But they’d gone to all the trouble of hiding it behind a tarp, which meant they had something worth hiding. Water, maybe. He had to find it.
He started with the cardboard bedroll. Beneath a heap of salt-stained clothes that reeked like Hotness himself, there was nothing but a few loose-leaf papers — they looked like photos even, but Russell didn’t waste his time with them. He wrinkled his nose and kicked the pile aside, catching sight of a cluster of empty tuna cans scattered around the base of the bedroll. That wasn’t the worst of it. There were napkins, too — a dozen or more, crumpled and stiff, frozen in their folded misery.
“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Russell groaned, staggering back like the napkins were radioactive. “Gross motherfucker!”
Had he really climbed all this way to raid some psycho’s jerk-off station? The thought alone was enough to make his already-foggy brain break in half. He rubbed his temples, willing the image away. He’d check the other bedroll and pray to whatever cruel gods existed that Mari wasn’t sharing Hotness’s hobbies.
Her side of the cave didn’t offer much better. Inside the raft, Russell found an old in-flight magazine warped with moisture, a tube of lipstick, and a couple of sharpening stones. He fanned the magazine, hoping to knock loose something tucked inside, but no dice. More useless shit.
Not a drop of water in sight.
“FUCK!” The word tore out of him before he could stop it. He ripped Tumzy’s lanyard off his neck, furious at everything and nothing, and punted the panda into the cave’s shadowy depths. His bruised foot screamed in protest, and Russell let out a yelp that echoed through the cave like a wounded animal.
He collapsed onto the filthy floor, clutching his foot, curling himself fetal in defeat. His chest heaved, his throat burned, and his head spun with exhaustion and shame. This was it. He was done.
Let the Gamemaster have their fun, he thought bitterly. Let them send in a stretcher for the guy in piss-stained leggings, film it all for the audience to see. He could already imagine the episode title: World’s Worst Survivalist Cries Uncle in Jack Shack of Trash. Maybe it would be better this way. He’d take a nap, wait for production to find him, and let the rest of the world laugh it up.
It wouldn’t be long now. It couldn’t be. He’d just close his eyes until they came…
“Don’t give up so easy, silly boy!”
The voice snapped Russell out of his stupor, yanking him back from the brink of unconsciousness. His eyes shot open, darting around the cave in confusion.
“Who… who said that?” Russell croaked. His voice echoed into the darkness, where it was met with an equally chirpy reply, fairy-like and feminine.
“You just lie there, die like big dummy? Come on, try harder, lazy guy!”
The voice was sweet, playful even, but it came from the shadows like a ghost — friendly on the surface, but spooky as hell in the echoing dark.
“Who are you?” Russell asked, though deep down, the answer already itched at the back of his mind.
The voice giggled, light and innocent. “Wrong question. Who you? You big quitter? Or you man who get up, do work?”
Russell swallowed hard, his voice shaky as he answered, “The second one.”
“Then stand up, lazy man! Show you not dead weight!”
Despite every fiber of his body screaming in protest, Russell dragged himself to his feet. He wobbled, unsteady but upright, and took a cautious step toward the voice.
“That’s it, you move now! But careful, okay? Watch step!”
“I need light,” Russell said. “Light would be good.”
“Then make light! You smart man, no?”
Russell frowned but tapped at the device on his wrist, ignoring the notification that was blinking on the screen. It flared to life, blinding him momentarily as it lit up the cave. The glow revealed jagged rocks and uneven ground, stretching out into an open chamber that seemed to go on forever. The air felt colder, every step sinking him deeper into the icy void. Still, the voice pushed him forward.
“You do good! Step careful now, don’t fall. Big hole in front!”
Russell froze mid-step, glancing down. Sure enough, the ground dropped away just a few feet ahead, leaving a jagged ridge between him and a steep fall. He let out a shaky breath and adjusted his path, hugging the edge of the ridge as he moved toward the source of the voice.
“Where are you?” he called out, best as he could muster.
“Here! Come quick! I not wait all day!”
He followed the sound, the light from his device bobbing with each step. His foot hit something solid — a small object, kicking it lightly toward the cliff’s edge.
“Ahh! Help me, clumsy guy, you kick me!”
Instinct took over. Russell dove, snatching the thing just before it tumbled into the abyss. He sat back, catching his breath, holding the object in his hands. It felt familiar.
“Whew! Good save, close call!” The voice chirped, this time coming from the thing he held. Russell lifted it into the light of his device, still ignoring the message on the screen.
“Tumzy?”
The panda bottle grinned back at him, its painted mouth somehow moving. “Who else, silly man? You forget me already?”
Russell stared, disbelief plastered across his face. His first instinct was to hurl the talking toy into the darkness, but he stopped himself. Curiosity got the better of him.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked.
“Big trouble for you,” Tumzy said. “On brink of death, no good! So I come help and you no give up.”
“No death. They’ll come get me,” Russell said. “This game’s over. I’m done.”
“Ha! Not so sure. Remember what Gamemaster say, ‘You survive, or you not.’ That mean you on own, dumb-dumb.”
“Fuck that guy,” Russell muttered, sagging against a rock. “I’m cold. I’m tired. I just wanna sleep.”
“Sleep later! Water close, very close! You almost have it, but you quit now? Bad move. Reach out, take what you need.”
Russell groaned, his body barely responding. He scanned the cave with his device. He could make out the line of the ridge, the curtained light from back the way he came, and then something else. Something shiny not far from the edge of the ridge. Metallic, almost within his reach.
With a groan of effort, Russell dragged himself forward, sliding across the ground on his belly like a seal. His hand brushed the cold surface of the object. It was rectangular, solid. He felt around until his fingers closed around, my god, a handle. He gasped, and he could’ve sworn dust came out of his throat.
“Yes, yes! You got it! Big strong man!”
“Shut up,” Russell grunted, pulling the object closer. Plastic wheels squeaked over the rocky ground as the thing rolled into view. It was a beverage cart, the kind flight attendants used on airplanes, maybe a little smaller. Russell stared at it, baffled.
“What the hell is this doing here?”
“Does it matter, smart guy? Open it!”
Russell hesitated, then spotted the words scrawled across its side in smudged lipstick: KEEP COOL. His heart thudded. Above the message, another handle. With trembling hands, he yanked it open.
Inside were rows of water bottles, glistening with condensation, packed tight like buried treasure. Russell’s eyes sparkled, and even Tumzy’s painted ones lit up in excitement. One voice was a Saturday morning cartoon, the other a hoarse whisper, but together they nailed the only phrase that fit the moment.
“FUCK YEAH!”