The Games: Part II

The water is up to my chest. The icy temperatures constrict around me, suffocating me. Desperately trying to get closer to the rest of the group, I yank on the chain around my ankle, pulling until my ankle is screaming, pulling until the metal cuts into my skin and it stings as the new cut drinks in water. The ball scraps slowly along the bottom, but I'm moving! The water is up to my chin and I tip my head back, trying to breathe as long as I can.

It's coming up. . .

. . .up over my mouth. . .

. . .I take one final deep breath before the water bubbles up over my nose and swarms my ears and I'm left hovering in the dark with nothing but the rush of silence as the water settles around me.

There is something overwhelmingly calm about the quiet and cold of the water around me. I almost want to give in to the peace until my chest begins to scream with pressure. I need air and I need it now, but as I reach up my fingers don't even break the surface of the water.

My only option is down and try to find my key. I open my eyes and blink away the stinging cold of the water until my eyes can adjust. It's just as dark, if not darker, down here than the room had been once the light went out. I lower myself down until I can feel the chain and grasp onto it tightly to keep me close to the ground. With my free arm, I sweep the ground. My fingers run over the rough surface of the cement floor, but there are no keys.

Are there even enough for all of us? Or is there one master key and whomever is the lucky contestant to find it can decide to help unlock everyone else or they can eliminate everyone in this first simple challenge?

Either way I have to fight, not only for my life but the $20,000 at the finish line. I can almost taste it, see my name written on those crisp bills. That money would free Luca and even enough food and supplies for the next couple years. We wouldn't have to work for the gangs anymore. We wouldn't have to fight for miniscule scraps that we could barely live off of.

Suddenly, my fingers brush something warm and soft and I yank my hand back as fast as I can, sucking in a mouthful of water as I gasp with shock. Though small, that gulp of water sloshes down into the bottom of my lungs. Burning my already constricting chest and I have the need to cough, but I can't not under water.

Hesitantly, I begin searching again not sure if I'm more terrified to feel another human being or not. My fingertips bump into something hard and I jump back again but nothing reaches for me so I try again. It's a wooden box, open laying on it's side. Empty.

My eyes burn with the stinging pain from my chest. My body begins to heave as it forces me to take a breath.

Little black dots swarm at the edges of my vision. My body is so heavy...

Like a flood light, a beam of light pierces through the darkness. Bands of light reflect through the water, giving the floor a dim glow, enough to make out shadows. A key not more than six inches away from my fingers. A body to my right.

It's the lady with the big tits. Her arms float at her sides, her hair drifts in strings around her head like a horrifying halo. Blue puckered lips that are trapped in a permanent scream and eyes that are bugging out of her head, just staring into space. It's then that I realize she's dead. I've never seen a dead body like this before. They always look like they're sleeping. But this is terrifying, like someone's frozen her in the final struggles of death.

I don't want this to be how I die.

Frantically, I strain for the key, but it's just out of my reach. The ball and chain weighs me down and I'm too tired to fight against it anymore. My freedom, air, is so close, but I can't reach it.

Something thunks from above like someone has dropped a weight into the water.

The little black dots in my vision have turned into a swarm of flies, completely obscuring my view. I can't feel my legs...

Suddenly, someone is shaking my arm but when I don't respond, when I can't respond, they take a firm hold of my arm and pull me up, dragging me toward the surface.

The first thing I feel is the warm air touch my face then my lungs spasming as they try to breath, but my brain is telling my mouth not to open, that it's not safe. I'm still in survivor mood and don't know how to escape it.

I'm yanked up from the tank and flop onto a hard surface. It's cool and a little scratchy like cement. I cough, expelling the fluids that retained in my lungs while I was under.

Through the body wrenching coughs, I hear someone say "why'd you save the kid?"

A rough grunt comes in reply.

My body is weak and shaking, shivers taking me over. I'm not sure if it's the shock finally wearing off or the acclimation from the water to the air, but I can hardly move. I know I have to get up. To at least open my eyes, but all I want is sleep, to escape this nightmare that I've entered myself into.

"Come on kid." A deep baritone of voice vibrates next to me.

Like waking from a feverish nap, I squint through water heavy eyelashes into the face of the old man. Water dribbles from his beard onto the floor. He pats me on the shoulder, the same hand that tugged me from the depths below, and gets to his feet, joining the others on the other side of the room.

Completely waterlogged and groggy, not totally convinced that I didn't already die, I pull myself to a sitting position. On the far wall are the numbers one through six written on a small black door.

The room sinks into darkness and a screen flickers on just as before

Congratulations.

The slide changes with a harsh click.

Challenge Two - Avoid the Bite. In the order you escaped the first challenge, you will open one of the doors in front of you.

Click.

Use these however you can to escape the room.

Click.

There is only one rule: Survive.

The lights come back on with a harsh buzz, momentarily blinding me.

By the time I blink the spots away, the skinny girl with the razor sharp teeth is pulling a baseball from inside door #6. It has nails coming out of the top, the kind that comes from a nail gun. Each long and thick and deadly pointy. She flashes us a smirk as she twirls it in her hands.

Never turning his back to her, the buff guy goes over to door #1 and opens it. He pulls out a monkey wrench that is almost as long as I am tall. Testing it's heft, he clanks it against the floor, leaving a small cracked dent in the cement.

Next up is the Zen Master, who calmly opens door #3 and presents a flame thrower.

The street kid goes to door #2 and yells with excitement as he brandishes a set of throwing and carving knives, his specialty. Though the other weapons are just a menacing if not more so, I've seen first hand what this guy can do with a sharp or dull knife and knowing that he has these in his arsenal is terrifying.

I get to go last and go to door #5. I reach into the blackness, waiting for something to bite, scratch or grab me, but the air is empty. There is nothing in there.

I reach in deeper to only hit the back of the space. I run my hands along the walls, feeling for something, anything really. Then there, at the very bottom near the back, my fingers glaze over something cold and smooth. It's about ten inches long and eight inches wide. It's a notebook. What the hell am I supposed to do with a notebook?

I wonder if I'm allowed to go to the last remaining door when a loud bang sounds from overhead before the ceiling is opening and snakes are raining down on us.

to be continued...