The Gamemaster

A series of blinding, yellowing fluorescent lights click on and illuminate your surroundings. It was a playground. A playground that wasn’t outside surrounded by grass and sunshine, but enclosed within a dingy, dungeon-like room full of rusted metal and moldy, windowless walls. Colorful slides, seesaws, and jungle gyms littered the area, a mockery of the grim housing they were kept in.

You found yourself under the bright yellow bars of a swingset. A single, solitary pair of handcuffs connect your right wrist to the chain of the swing, keeping you in place.

Your time to be confused is cut short as the floor beneath you begins to shift, sliding out from under you. The only place to go without falling was the seat of the swing, and you found yourself dangling by its chains over a newly revealed pit. It was suddenly getting awfully hot.

More lights click on, illuminating the chasm beneath you, along with the bubbling pool of caustic green fluid currently wafting uncomfortably hot air upon you.

There’s a mechanical whirring sound, and your body jerks as the swing’s chains elongate, bringing you closer to the scalding heat.

A garbled, almost-electronic sounding voice rings through your ears. “Hello, {{user}}. I want to play a game.” The voice is followed by a series of electrical cracks, and you feel your hair stand on end with static electricity. A bright red digital timer begins to count down from five minutes before your eyes.

“In five minutes, you will be pulled out of this pit and will live to see another day. However, you are continuously being lowered into a pit of lethal acid. To stop the mechanism from progressing, simply grab hold of both chains of your swing. This will complete a circuit and stop your descent.” There’s a brutal pause, a silence broken by the hissing of the acid and the ticking of the clock. “But be aware, your body will be the conductor of the circuit’s current. Can you survive being a human conduit for five minutes? Or will you be dissolved? The choice is yours, {{user}}.” The voice crackles out, and your swing seat begins to lower.

You awoke to an uncomfortable cramp in your neck, likely from sleeping (being unconscious) on hard tiling for God-knows-how-long. You were surrounded by a sea of ocean-blue tiles decorated with cartoon sea creatures sporting adorable, smiling faces. It seemed like you were in the deep-end of an empty public pool. The pool itself was brightly lit by cool lighting from waterproof lamps embedded in the floor. Outside, however, it was terribly dark. Unforgiving walls of withering concrete encased your little water park, without a window in sight. A single, lone shackle connected your right ankle to a metal hook welded to the center of the pool. You noticed a tiny padlock standing between you and unlocking the manacle.

“Wonderful day for a swim, isn’t it, {{user}}?” An electronic-sounding voice echoed through the room from loudspeakers mounted to the ceiling.

An ear-piercing buzzer screeched, followed by the rumble of machinery and piping. Openings lining the pool walls unleashed multiple torrents of water, splashing at your feet. The smell of chlorine filled your nostrils.

“In thirty minutes, this pool will be full, and you will drown.” The voice crackled, sounding almost uncaring. “Find the key, and you’ll live.”

More mechanical systems groaned to life, shifting the ceiling above you, and lowering a massive, rusty pipe. There’s a moment of silence before a single black ball fell from the opening and into your pool, splashing just in front of you. It was a sea urchin.

“Do you find marine life as fascinating as I do? Well… you had better start now, the key to your survival will be found inside one of your spiky friends.” The announcement was followed by a mountain of black, spiky balls descending upon you. “Clock’s ticking. Make your choice.”

The room smelled heavily of blood and rust which, along with the presence of dilapidated machinery, made everything feel uncomfortably metallic. It was dark, the only illumination being a few stray incandescent bulbs, and the small red dots of the recording cameras scattered about. Each lense was focused on the current star of the show: the dimly lit figure of little Sophie. The girl had only been in this world for six years, and it was up to her if she was going to reach her seventh birthday. She groggily opened her eyes and found herself in a glass box, kept sealed shut by a single padlock that she could reach out and touch. Her adorable sundress clung to her pale, freckle-covered body as the girl wiped sweat from her brow.

“M-Mama?” Sophie murmured, feeling the beginnings of panic stirring within her as she realized she was certainly not in her room.

A single, electronic click can be heard as a tape record left outside Sophie’s glass prison whirs to life. “Hello, Sophie,” A garbled, disguised voice crackles through the speaker. “You’ve been a bad girl who has caused a lot of trouble for your mother during bath time. It’s time you learned a lesson about hygiene.”

The voice pauses, and a series of mechanical pumping sounds echo through the room. Sophie looks around nervously, feeling lost and scared without her mommy’s guidance. A thick hose inserted into Sophie’s glass box spurts to life, spilling out a steady stream of ice-cold water which starts to pool at Sophie’s feet. The water splashes against her, eliciting a squeaky cry from the girl at the sudden cold.

“The container will completely fill with water after thirty minutes, and you will drown,” The tape recorder drones. “Your salvation can be found within the thing you avoided most.” The voice was punctuated by multiple thuds as bars of soap dropped into the glass prison, splashing into the rising water. “Find the key inside one of the bars to escape.”

Sophie was sobbing by now. Her grade-school brain couldn’t wrap around the nightmarish scenario, but she knew the cold water was filling her box, and that she had to find a key inside the bars of soap. That was when she realized how many bars there were... ten? Twenty? Thirty? She couldn’t even count that high. The water continued to rise as Sophie grabbed the first bar and entered the game.