Time to get serious

Azure

The host watched delightfully as Levi and Lauren gaped slack-jawed at the date night revelation.

"THAT'S A LIE!" Lauren finally shouted, breaking the silence.

Azure shook her head. "You heard Jezebel. The first name on the date waitlist is you, Lauren."

"Well, she's wrong. That bimbo moron probably can't even read!" Lauren countered, pointing at Jezebel.

Before anyone could respond, Alison appeared beside Jezebel and snagged it from the blonde's hands. She then wordlessly turned the book towards Lauren to show her name written on the first page.

Sitting so she could also see the name, Tomoko let out an impressed whistle. "Wow, Lauren. After all your talk about hating the kid, I never thought you'd sign up. You must be a great actress."

"Shut up," she yelled, slamming her hands onto her table and reaching her feet. A few contestants gasped as she marched onto the stage and in Azure's face, not caring about the consequences.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TRYING TO PULL?" she spat in Azure's face.

The host feigned confusion. "Whatever do you mean? It's not like I wrote your name in that notebook."

"Well, it sure as hell wasn't me."

Azure gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes. "Well, obviously it wasn't. You haven't even spent a single BP since you got here."

Lauren stamped her foot. "Then you admit it. I didn't sign up, so I shouldn't have to date Levi!"

"The signup sheet doesn't care who wrote the name, silly," Azure giggled.

A twang of confusion mixed with her enraged expression. "What?"

Azure didn't answer. Instead, the screen displayed a recording of Jezebel from the previous day, showing Tomoko, Kaitlyn, Elena, and Sophia the card shop.

The past Kaitlyn pointed to a shelf containing the waitlist and asked what it was. The Jezebel in the scene answered in her compelled voice, saying, "That's the waiting list to spend time with Levi. In the morning, someone is chosen to spend the night with him. If no one signs up, it's random, but you can spend 1 BP to add someone's name to be chosen."

The screen paused, and Azure smiled smugly. "As you can see, you can also spend to put someone else name on the waitlist. It doesn't have to be yourself."

Lauren stamped her foot again. "No! That's not right. I remember you explaining it during the opening. You never said it could be someone else!"

"And I never said you couldn't. The ceremony was just a basic rule overview. It's not my fault you stayed in bed instead of going to the card shop tutorial. Or at the very least read the rulebooks I left in your room."

"That... that's such BS," Lauren muttered, her energy waning as she realized she couldn't reverse this.

Turning to the rest of the contestants, she yelled, "Which one of you did it? Out with it!"

When no one replied, she pointed to Sophia at the far end of the hall. "You! Virgin! I saw you spent all your BP yesterday. It was you! Wasn't it."

"No," Sophia stated simply, averting her eyes from the intense gaze the goth was giving her.

"Then who?!"

Sophia looked over to the scoreboard. Within an instant, she knew who was responsible.

"No idea," she lied.

Lauren scoffed and moved her accusatory finger to Olivia. "You did it then, didn't you!? It's not enough that you've decided to be my terrible roommate. You've even sunk this low to get at me!"

Olivia raised an eyebrow. "My life doesn't revolve around you, bitch."

"Then it was..."

Azure cut the girl off. "Ok, that's enough of that. You can play prosecutor when I'm not in the middle of a presentation."

The host made a gesture with her hands, causing Laurens legs to give out and collapse onto her hands and knees. The goth looked up at her tormentor with pure hatred and murderous intent, which would have been terrifying if Azure didn't know she had all the power. Still, it unsettled her, having never seen a human give her such an intense **** glare.

"Back to your seat," Azure said, not wanting to look at the girl's face anymore. From her all-fours position, Laurens body crawled on her hands and knees like an animal, moving off the stage and onto the wooden floor. She tried to curse at everyone the whole time, but Azure had put her back on mute.

"That brings us to today's schedule," Azure beamed as if the interruption never happened. "Normally, we'd have all sorts of activities planned throughout the day. But since tomorrow is a Challenge, and today is your first full day anyway, I've decided to give you 24 hours to do whatever you want. Maybe get your points up, explore the castle, and get to know each other."

Azure's smile widened. "Or better yet, claim the master's virginity. Which, spoiler alert, will double whatever points you get for doing the deed with him."

"Jesus Christ. Shut up," Olivia scoffed. Lauren, who agreed with her roommate for the first time, tried to voice something similar but was still muted.

Azure pretended to be shocked. "Why don't any of you want him? Are you worried about getting pregnant? If so, you'll be happy to know that I paused your menstrual cycles while you're here so he can't impregnate you."

"You what?!" Half the contestants shouted.

Azure gave a tiny bow. "Yup. That means no periods, either. You're welcome."

"Stop doing weird stuff to us!" Elena spat.

Azure's proud look turned to genuine confusion. "Wait, are you guys complaining that I gave you a three-week break from cramps and bleeding? You humans are so strange."

"That's not the point," Elena snapped back.

Tomoko shrugged. "I agree with Azure. Mine was coming up, so I'll take it."

"Whatever," Olivia muttered.

Azure cleared her throat, wanting to get back on task and finish her presentation. "So use this time wisely and get your affairs in order. Because the first challenge will take place at 1 PM sharp tomorrow."

Cheerful music blared as the monitor was replaced by red text on a black background, updating every second.

Challenge #1
26: 31: 52

A few of the girls felt a shiver down their spine. The simple text of red on black gave the timer an air of dread, like it was a countdown to their execution.

Levi Summers

Levi watched as Azure and the stage she was standing on disappeared into smoke, leaving only the monitor behind. However, he was only half paying attention. His mind had been fixated on the thought of his date with Lauren. She was easily the second person he least wanted to interact with. The idea of having to spend an entire night together was inconceivable to him.

Despite being lost in his anxieties, he had enough situational awareness to notice Ji-Woo leaning forward to talk to him. He didn't have the mental bandwidth to deal with it while also worrying about Lauren, so he got up, hoping to return to his room.

"Hey Levi, wanna have sex?" Tomoko asked, appearing out of nowhere

Levi, who had been in the process of standing, instead lost his balance, banged his head on the table, and collapsed onto the floor.

"WOAH!" Tomoko exclaimed in surprise.

"Are you ok, Mr. Summers?" Ji-Woo added in mock concern. Meanwhile, Sophia and Elena also came over to see what the commotion was.

"Y-yeah," Levi said as he got to his feet. As he did so, he looked at Tomoko, finally taking a moment to appreciate her outfit. She was wearing what could only be described as a short-sleeved sweatshirt crop top, exposing her midriff, cleavage, and bra straps. The women wore booty shorts like yesterday, which were black instead of denim. As Levi took her in, she brushed some of her bangs behind her ear and gave her a flirtatious smile.

"Like what ya see?" Tomoko asked as Levi said nothing but stare.

'Damn, she's good,' Sophia thought, starting to feel a bit charmed by Tomoko as well.

The purple-haired woman's question did snap Levi out of his trance. "Uh, no. I should, uh..." the boy said before stopping to think of an excuse. "...get this head wound checked out," he settled on, placing his hand where he had hit the table.

It was at this moment he noticed it no longer hurt, just like how his pain had vanished when Sophia had kicked him into a wall. 'That's strange. Can I not get injured here?' he thought.

Still, Levi didn't let his remarkable recovery stop him from using it as an excuse to escape. He rushed for the door, pretending to be in pain as he went.

Sophia Maoulin

Sophia observed Levi as he scampered out of the hall, hand on his point of impact. "Where is he going? The only people in the castle are here?" she asked, gesturing to the other contestants and Alison, the latter of whom was busy staring off into space.

"Maybe his tower has a nurse?" Tomoko offered.

"You idiots," Olivia expressed, having joined the group. "He's faking it to get away from you all."

"Oh... really?" Sophia asked, having missed the social cue.

"This is bad. I can't... I mean we can't make any headway if he won't even let us talk to him," Ji-Woo said, trying to sound diplomatic but unable to keep the slightest hint of a tremble from her voice.

"I mean, except you, Elena," Tomoko teased. "You two hooked up, after all."

"We did not!" Elena retorted.

"Of course, she didn't. You heard Azure. That loser's still a virgin," Lauren voiced bitterly, having also joined the group with her sister. "And in any case, why do you care? Instead of whoring out our dignity, we should be trying to escape."

"I don't think that's a good plan," Sophia countered.

Before Lauren could reply, Ji-Woo stepped up. "We don't HAVE a plan. But if we all want to survive this, we should. I propose a meeting," she said, channeling her team manager experience.

"Not a bad idea," Elena agreed.

"Sure," Tomoko nodded.

"Makes sense," Sophia added.

Kaitlyn looked nervously at her sister. "I assume you don't want to, right?"

Lauren thought it over for a moment. "I want to see what awful ideas you idiots are thinking," she shrugged. "Maybe I can knock some sense into you."

"Whatever," Olivia repeated.

Ji-Woo smiled, glad to see everyone was on the same page. "Ok, let's start now, then."

Sophia suddenly raised her hand and exclaimed, "Can it wait?! I just remembered something!"

Ji-Woo managed to suppress her irritation. "What could be more important?"

But Sophia had already begun running for the door. "No time to explain. Just follow me!" she shouted, without confirming if anyone would follow her.

Tomoko instinctively ran after her, followed by Elena, curious about what had excited Sophia. The Peterson sisters looked at one another, and Lauren shrugged, silently giving the two permission to follow. Olivia also tagged along, having nothing better to do.

"Damn it," Ji-Woo muttered to herself as everyone was leaving. She went after them, not caring what Sophia had found, but to get people back on track.

Kaitlyn Peterson

The two sisters ran after the rest of the crew in front of them. Unfortunately, as they rounded the corner, Lauren foot got caught in her black dress and tripped.

"SHIT!" she shouted as she banged her knee.

"Are you ok?" Kaitlyn asked, stopping and going over to her twin.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Damn, that virgin-girl. What the hell is her hurry?" Lauren asked as she pulled up her dress to see if she skid her knee.

Kaitlyn wanted to help but was nervous about approaching her sister, still remembering how she had snapped at them the night before. Averting her eyes, when asked, "Uh, by the way, is. Are... are you still mad at me?"

"About what?" Lauren replied absentmindedly, more focused on seeing if her leg was uninjured.

"Nothing," Kaitlyn sighed in relief. "Here," she added, taking out her hand to help her up.

"Which way did they go?" the voice of Ji-Woo asked, making the two jump as she appeared from behind the corner. Kaitlyn pointed down one of the hallways and then joined the others.

Sophia was examining a metal door with the number twelve engraved upon it in silver digits. The other six women gathered around her in a half circle.

"Ok, we're here. What did you want to show us?" Elena asked.

Sophia turned to the others with a smug grin on her face. "I thought I noticed it on the way here but was in too much of a hurry to check. But I was right! The twelve-door is open!"

Sophia paused, expecting some sort of shocked or excited reaction.

"The what?" Tomoko asked after a prolonged period of silence.

"The twelve-door. You know... from Alison's tour?"

Another bout of silence.

"It had a giant gold lock! Remember?" She asked, getting frustrated.

"How the hell would we remember that?" Lauren scoffed.

Sophia let out an exasperated sigh. "Alison said it was a SECRET door. It was obviously important. Seriously, am I the only one who pays attention?"

Kaitlyn crossed her arms. "We were kind of preoccupied by the sudden ****."

This only made Sophia more frustrated. She pointed at Kaitlyn. "We literally talked about the numbered doors last night? Did you seriously forget?"

"Uh, no" Kailyn lied. "I'm just saying you can't blame the others for..."

"Jesus Christ. Will you get on with it?" Olivia asked in annoyance

Sophia shook her head a few times to get herself back on topic. "Right. So anyway, we saw a few doors like this with numbers and locks around the castle. And I'm sure there are more. But in any case, I examined the locks, and there was no keyhole or inputs. Meaning we must have to do something related to the number in order to open it. I mean, that's just basic game design."

"Game design?" Ji-Woo asked in disbelief. "This is a show, not one of your video games."

Sophia looked at Ji-Woo like she was an idiot. She then got back into her explanation, not wanting to even dignify her comment with a response. "One thing I noticed is that all of them had a number of 12 plus some multiple of 24. For example, I found 12, 36, 84 and 132."

A smile crept onto her lips as she continued. "Now, obviously the fact that they're separated by 24 is suspicious, since its the number of hours in a day. So it got me thinking if time and dates were a part of it."

She gestured proudly to the unlocked door and spoke faster. "I was right. The opening ceremony started at 5 PM. This door was unlocked overnight. So perhaps the 12 represents how long after the start it opens. Twelve hours would be 5 AM, so it unlocked while we were sleeping. And the fact that the other doors I've found are all some multiple of 24, plus 12, I think that means we'll have a new room available every 24 hours.

She spread out her arms in pride before bowing. "Q.E.D."

Tomoko clapped as Kaitlyn and Elena nodded, impressed.

"You made us run over here and wasted our time with that long-ass explanation?" Olivia asked in irritation. "You could have just said, 'Hey, I found a door' back at the dining hall."

Sophia awkwardly played with her hair, the wind taken slightly out of her sail. "I mean... I didn't want to leave out the details..."

"Well, I thought it was impressive," Kaitlyn said kindly, only for her sister to butt in. "And why the hell should we care about another room?"

Sophia rolled her eyes. However, a moment later, her expression changed, so she was beaming as she opened the door. "Because anything they kept locked up must be amazing.

Cold and wet air poured out into the hall, along with bright natural light. Beyond it was the sight of green and flowers as far as they could see. Twelve feet above them was a glass roof, letting the sunny midday light into an enormous greenhouse, one that should not have been able to fit within the castle's architecture.

Standing between two walls of flowers was Alison, back in her signature maid attire.

"Welcome to Extra Zone One. The Greenhouse."

BONUS IMAGE