Yes, he does!

The heavy gym doors groaned open as Megan led Lucas inside. The squeak of sneakers and the rhythmic clap of hands filled the air as the cheer squad rehearsed a complicated sequence in the center of the polished floor. Ponytails swayed, voices shouted in unison and at the front Jenna Blake landed a clean flip to the squad’s applause. On the sidelines, Coach Torres stood with arms folded, her dark eyes sharp and critical, her posture commanding in her fitted tracksuit.

Lucas squared his shoulders, emboldened by what had already worked for him today. He stepped forward with Megan at his side, voice loud and clear enough to stop the routine mid-motion.

“All of you should be my slaves.”

The cheerleaders froze, confusion flickering for only a second before dissolving into laughter. Snickers spread down the line. Jenna smirked, hands on her hips and a few of the others nudged one another, whispering.

Before Lucas could throw down the die, Torres was already moving. Her fist sank into his gut with practiced precision, knocking the breath from his lungs. He collapsed forward, the die slipping from his hand and bouncing across the wood before landing with a faint click. Megan rushed to catch him as he buckled, her arm slipping around his shoulder.

“Pathetic,” Torres spat, shoving Megan aside as though she weighed nothing. She pinched Lucas’s ear between two fingers like she was dragging a child caught stealing. “You’re coming with me to the principal’s office. Now.”

The cheerleaders’ laughter grew harsher, more pointed. “Creep,” one called out. “Loser,” another added, their voices overlapping in a cruel chorus. Jenna’s laugh rose above the rest, sharp and unrestrained.

Then Lucas noticed it: a faint light pulsing at the edge of his vision. The die on the floor, showing a single digit, glowed with a steady rhythm as though alive. Each pulse spread outward in a ripple that distorted the shine of the gym floor. Suddenly a bright flash emitted from the dice.

Lucas blinked, his ears still ringing from the blinding flare that had torn across the gym. For a moment the world was colorless, washed out. Then shapes sharpened, details bled back in and what he saw made him a bit confused.

Coach Torres’s iron grip on his ear had slackened completely, her manicured fingers now limp at her side. Her face, normally alive with sharp, no-nonsense disdain was wiped clean, the hot edges of her Latina beauty dulled into something eerie and hollow. Her lips parted slightly, but there was no trace of personality, no glimmer of that dominant authority she exuded just seconds ago.

And it wasn’t just her. Jenna, the rest of the cheerleaders, every player, every girl in the bleachers, all of them stood with the same slack expression, the same drained stillness. It was as though the light had burned out the humanity inside them, leaving nothing but flawless statues waiting to be wound up again.

Then, the voices came. Not one, not a dozen, every single mouth in the gym opened at once. Perfectly synchronized, the sound carried like a metallic announcement broadcast through their mouths:

“Emergency power surge deployed. Emergency power surge deployed.”

Lucas stumbled back, goosebumps crawling up his arms. The sound was too exact, too synchronised, it wasn’t human. He swallowed hard, his gaze sweeping across the room, heart racing as the words repeated.

“Hey kiddo,” the chorus said, tone shifting now into something he recognized. That tone. The man who had given him the die in the first place. A lazy chuckle undercut the words, like he was talking to Lucas through an intercom wired into everybody around him. “I knew you’d do something reckless that got you into trouble. So I ensured an emergency system was in place. The first time you rolled a critical failure, this would kick in.”

Lucas froze, stunned, his eyes darting between the expressionless faces. Jenna’s lips were moving in sync with the rest, though her blue eyes were glassy and lifeless.

“This surge,” the voices continued, “is the equivalent of rolling a twenty. Make sure you’re more careful next time. I won’t save your ass again. You can make one instruction. Choose your words carefully.”

The moment the last syllable faded, silence filled the gym. Every girl, every body, every set of blank eyes turned to face Lucas in unison. They stared through him rather than at him, waiting, vacant, like dolls perched upright with strings cut.

Lucas’s mouth had gone dry. He wiped his palms against his jeans, brain scrambling. One instruction. One chance. The ultimate lifeline. And here he was, standing in a gym full of blank-faced goddesses: Jenna, Coach Torres, the squad of toned, tanned cheerleaders, all of them waiting for him, open and compliant.

For a heartbeat, panic urged him to blurt out something simple, something safe, “forget this,” or “go back to normal.” But then a different spark flared in him. His words: Choose carefully.

Lucas scratched the back of his head, buying himself a second as his eyes roved over the frozen scene. And then the idea came, he knew exactly what he had to do.

He didn’t waste time. With the gym frozen, he slipped his fingers under Coach Torres’s lanyard, tugging the whistle free from her chest. On impulse, he cupped one of her breasts through the fabric, giving it a squeeze while smirking at her slack, uncomprehending face.

“I’ll make sure you know your place bitch,” he muttered, mocking the blankness in her eyes.

The dice pulsed on the floor, demanding his choice. Lucas crouched, picked it up, and felt the heat thrumming in his palm. His mind raced, rethinking his options one last time, then locked onto the perfect idea.

“Alright,” he said aloud, straightening with sudden confidence. “Within this gym hall, whenever I blow on this whistle and make a statement, anyone who is present must believe it to be true.”

The words echoed strangely in the air.

As one, every voice, Torres, the team, even the gaggle of girls sitting cross-legged on the bleachers overlapped in the same monotone:

“Yes, it is done.”

A brilliant flash swallowed the room. Then, as if nothing had happened, the glow collapsed back into the die and died out completely.

Lucas blinked. The gym was normal again. Coach Torres jerked her head as though shaking off a daze, focus returning to her sharp brown eyes. She spotted Lucas again instantly and the whistle dangling smugly from his fingers. Her face darkened in rage.

“You little punk–” she snapped, lunging for him, hand outstretched.

Lucas lifted the whistle to his lips and blew sharply. The piercing shrill cut through the gymnasium, making Coach Torres flinch, her brow furrowing at the audacity of the boy in front of her. But she didn’t stop her advance, her shoes hitting hard against the polished wooden floor as her fury only mounted. Lucas calmly lowered the whistle, his smirk widening as he pointed directly at her.