Ashton rolls a 3.

Ashton grabs the dice and starts tossing it in her hand.

“Keep it on the table this time.”

“Yeahyeahyeah, I got it.”

Ashton was looking around the board again, she was also forming a plan. With the same position as Seth was originally in, a fifty percent chance to tie or take the lead. And an additional chance to land on the brown space and discover its secrets. Ashton liked the idea of causing a little bit of chaos during the game. Made the game more exciting, she thought. A three would land on the brown space.

Ashton closed her eyes and let go of the die. All others watched as the die surprisingly stayed on the table and landed as a three.

“LETS GOOO!”

“Ummmm, you know that doesn’t put you in the lead.”

“Not yet you mean.”

Ashton had a maniacal giggle as she moved her piece onto the brown space, and everyone realized what her goal was.

“FUCK”

“AW MAN”

“ASHTON, WHAT THE FUCK”

There were complaints and groans from Jersey, Yonah, and Seth. Thomas however, stayed calm and silent. Ashton looked to Thomas, who she knew that Thomas knew what the space did.

“Thomas, hit me with it.”

“Draw your card, see what it says first.”

A brown card appeared, but the card’s backing was slightly different. There were two black spots on the back with the brown backing.

“What are the spots for?”

“Let’s see.” Ashton starts to read.

–

“Finally some competition,

For this battle of attrition.

Two options for you to choose,

To see who will be abused.

--

Pick a player you suspect,

A new effect they must collect.

Or roll once more for gain,

But suffer double the pain.”

–

A grin appears on Ashton’s face before she starts to giggle again. Chaos. Exactly what she wanted.

Fear slowly takes over Jersey, Seth, and Yonah.

“Thomas, care to explain?”

“Gladly” Thomas answers in a smug tone. “Ahem, the brown space allows the player to either: roll again but take two effects of the color they land on, or choose another player and give them an additional random effect.” Thomas reads this directly from the rule book.

“What the fuck.”

Everyone knew Ashton was not gonna roll again, it wasn’t in her nature to let an opportunity to put someone down pass by. It was early in the game and Ashton doesn’t feel the need to try and get ahead.

“Hmmmmmm, who to choose.” Ashton starts to tap her finger on her mouth as she thinks about her targets.

“Why is that a space in the game?” Jersey cries out.

“Well, it is called ‘Chicken Out VERSUS’ so, I imagined we were eventually gonna run into some mechanics that allowed us to target other players.” Thomas responds. “We aren’t on teams, we are all technically playing for ourselves, and for the win.”

“BUT WE SHOULD BE PLAYING LIKE A TEAM SO WE ALL GET TO TURN BACK TO NORMAL.”

“Well yes and no. It doesn’t matter who gets to end first if we’re all gonna make the same wish so we might as well have some fun with it.” Ashton commands from her temporary position of power. Ashton looks at everyone, analyzing her options.

She looked at Thomas, and quickly dismissed the thought, because Thomas hasn’t gotten her turn yet. Ashton may be cruel, but she also likes to be honorable from time to time. She had no beef with Thomas.

She looked at her best friend Seth. Ashton and Seth always had a somewhat love-hate relationship with each other. They would always have friendly banter with each other, but that wouldn’t prevent them from meeting up and being best buds the day after. This was also a prime opportunity to make Seth feel some repercussions. She got two changes that barely affected her, she should get another one to see if it's actually a punishment.

She turned her attention to Jersey. The source of everyone’s problems here, Jersey should also be punished harshly. A red effect that no one knows what it did didn’t seem like enough of a punishment. Additionally, she turned everyone into girls because of her terrible roll at the start of the game. She wonders how different this game would’ve been if we bypassed that space.

She finally turned her attention to Yonah. While Yonah hasn’t inherently done anything wrong thus far, her attitude was getting on everyone’s nerves. She was also in the lead with Jersey. Perhaps this new change could set her behind and give Ashton a better chance to take the lead next round.

Ashton thinks about the five options she has, before choosing the victim of this card’s effect.