Chapter 16
by Courageousbraves
What are the captives given on the third day?
A second carrot
Day 3
On the third morning, the light rose gently, this time with colors similar to a real sunrise. The white ceiling was painted over with an orange sky, complete with soft, slowly drifting clouds. Tim and Jen sat at the dining table, their heads bent to their clasped hands, and their eyes closed. The others awoke lazily, not recognizing that anything was wrong, until Frank noticed that Tim was no longer in his cell.
He was about to call out and ask what was going on when the voice greeted them.
"Good morning, my lovely performers!"
The greeting was louder today, and more enthusiastic. The strange, happy tone, alongside Tim's unbound presence, and Jen's sad expression as she sat at the table, sent a chill through the spines of the four captives who still had no clue about what had happened the night before.
"Truly, these past two days were magnificent! A tragedy in two acts! Wonderful! Amazing! Bravo, all!" A vigorous clapping echoed throughout the room. The air was warmer than it had been the night before, but the listeners only felt colder as the voice continued. "Undoubtedly, your impressive performances deserve an equally magnanimous reward. And so, I shall present you with a life for a life. As some of you know, one of your starlets has left the stage. Today, a new actress shall take her place. Please, treat her as well as you did the woman before her. I look forward to your future performances. Farewell, and break a leg!"
When the voice stopped speaking, no one moved at first.
Leticia noted that Jen and Emery were present. She was the first to stand up and check the little, empty bedroom in the corner of the room. "Where's Anne?"
Frank looked to the two at the table. "Chief, what did you do?"
Tim was silent. He couldn't speak. Neither could Jen, but she did manage to point her tired gaze at the door to the second room.
Frank threw the door open. Inside, Jack was doubled over, trembling and fighting against his sadness. In front of him, a new girl, skinnier than Anne, with long, straight black hair framing her frightened face, sat with her back against the wall. When she saw Frank, she screamed.
Frank stepped closer, his hands in the air, and tried to get her to stop screaming. She backed into the corner of the room, looking for something to hide behind, or to protect herself with, but the corner was empty. She had nothing but her thin nightgown, which barely covered her skinny, pale thighs.
Ed and Leticia left Tim and Jen alone to enter the room and see the new girl. They reassured her that no one there was going to hurt her, and eventually, she let Leticia come closer. The muscular woman, more than twice the weight of the smaller girl, gently explained what was going on. Ed went to Jack, asking about the details of the night before.
The new girl took the news hard, but she did at least stop screaming. Jack struggled to tell his side of the story without bursting into tears, but eventually, he explained how he had found Anne's body, and how when the voice finished speaking that morning, she had simply vanished, disintegrating into nothing while he held her in his hands. In her place, the new girl appeared out of thin air, and she awoke with the same shock and confusion that they had all felt on the first day.
After they all had a grasp of the situation, Frank ordered Tim to return to his cell, and the chief quietly did as he was told. The group briefly discussed what to do with Jen, and decided that, at least for a little while, they would also place her under lockdown, in her own cell, right beside Tim's. They managed to get Tim to purchase the cell, using the hundred points he'd gotten from killing Anne, and poking his finger through the bars of his cage to interact with the store window on the wall.
"This is crazy," said the new girl, who had introduced herself as Sarah Smith, a young journalist from the San Francisco Bay Area. "You can't just lock people up like that!"
The six remaining captives, including Sarah, sat at the table, discussing their next plan of action.
Ed tried to convince her. "It's complicated, Ms. Smith. We can't let them walk around freely, either, after what they did."
"But what about a fair trial?"
Ed shook his head. "If we weren't trapped here, perhaps. But they don't deny their crimes, either. And, it's for everyone's safety that we're doing this."
Sarah held her head in her hands, looking down. Her eyes were red and wet, close to tears.
Ed went on. "Last night was, deplorable." He glanced at Jack, who was staring off at nothing. "If we're going to survive here, we need to be able to trust one another. And, I do trust you five. I know we just met, Ms. Smith, but I can tell that you won't harm anyone here, and I assure you, we aren't going to harm you, either. After the terrible events of last night, I believe that Chief Greco, and Mrs. Ferrante, have lost our trust, and so we have to take measures to make sure that they can't harm anyone else. But beyond that, we can still wait to be rescued together, and perhaps, continue to try to find a way to escape this place."
The others agreed with Ed's words, and a plan was formed to carefully use Tim's points to survive for the next week, in place of the points Anne was earning with Jack. They would only give him access to the store when he was under supervision, and if he tried to buy anything that he wasn't supposed to, they would stop him, and tie him up if necessary.
The rest of the day went by quickly. Most of the captives spent the afternoon and evening trying to ignore the fact that they were in captivity, by whiling away their time doing whatever they enjoyed. Sarah ordered a few books from Tim, along with a music player and headphones, and holed up in a corner of the first room, away from the others. Jack returned to the tiny bedroom and rested on the bed, trapped in his thoughts. Emery visited her mom, sitting outside the cell with her phone and headphones, holding hands through the bars.
At the end of the day, the walls simulated another sunfall, and an orange wave of color played over the ceiling. When the lights went out, the captives fell into a restless, troubled sleep.
How does the voice greet them on the fourth day?
A Room
Isolation. Survival. Utopia. Dystopia.
Just a little story about a room, and some people stuck in it, and a bored god. Not very original.
Updated on Mar 2, 2018
by Courageousbraves
Created on Feb 23, 2018
by Courageousbraves
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