The Hopper Games

The Hopper Games

A Possession Story

Chapter 1 by Mr-Pseudonym Mr-Pseudonym

Chapter One: Stolen Identities

You banged your fist one last time against the corrugated sheet of iron metal before you. Much like the result of all your previous attempts, the wretched surface refuses to yield to your touch, the cold steel leaving a numbing sensation down the edge of your pinky finger where it had made contact.

Exasperated, you collapse to the floor, rolling your hair follicles into clumps as your vision darts around to the four identical solid sheets encompassing you which form your dank, claustrophobic prison. Your panicked rush of adrenaline begins to fade, and as your breathing steadies; you once again delve into the interior of your mind, searching for any fleeting glimpse of a memory; a survival instinct; training of some description; anything at all that might help you out of your current hopeless situation.

All that greets you behind your eyelids is white noise. Not unlike the static on a TV screen, accompanied by a faint but shrill ringing noise to boot. The nearest wall receives another unwarranted pounding.

Hours pass. Days. Weeks. Alright, probably not days or weeks. It seems whoever you are, you seem to have a flair for hyperbole. Several eons later, your isolation is broken by the sound of a pressure lock disengaging. All around you, the four accursed walls slide ever so slightly off their hinges, permitting a shearing knife of glorious sunlight to penetrate your little iron box. All at once, the walls fall aside, revealing four much thinner (and more importantly, much more transparent) glass panels in their place, leaving you stood in a box not unlike one you might find a mime pretending to be in, encompassed by a gigantic iron cross where the hated walls had fallen.

In fact, you were in much the same position as the other 23 young men and women all around you, a quivering sea of faces, arms and bodies pressed up against their glass containers, all wild eyes and twitchy movements as they registered their surroundings in tandem.

“None of you know why you have been gathered here this day.” A deep, baritone boom echoes through a concealed speaker, seemingly from every direction at once. “Your memories have been...altered... to prevent any sentiment dissuading you from carrying out your tasks.” An unsolicited shiver runs down your spine. You really didn’t like the amount of stress on “Altered”.

“Know this. Twenty-four of you have been harvested from your unexceptional lives to participate in something far greater than yourselves.” Glancing around, you notice a bizarre amount of debris strewn around the grassland all around you - antique looking trinkets and childish-looking blowguns, you even spot a bottle of colourful looking pills with the cap off a few yards from your glass box. The bulk of the random assortment of items appears to be gathered in the centre of the plain, inside a peculiar monolith, shaped not unlike a large freak formation of coral, jagged and asymmetrical.

“The aim of this contest...is to be the last remaining contender.” The elephantine voice drawls on. In your peripheral, you notice some of the other ‘participants’ seem to have gathered their wits together and are poised to break into action. You adopt the same predatory gait. “Some of the more astute among you may have noticed the items strewn about the field. These, my children… are your weapons. There is to be no killing here. No maiming or injury. The apparatus you see before you will allow you to seize control of another person’s body.”

This has to be a joke, right? A cursory glance around you reveals nobody else is laughing. “30 seconds after I finish speaking, the barriers will descend. From that point on, you are on your own. Fight, scheme and resist with all of your will. Only one champion walks away from this arena. May you Possess the most favourable of odds, one and all.” And with a crackle and a sudden rush of electric energy, a beacon erupts from the top of the coral-thing.

30

Before you have a chance to contemplate the information provided to you by a disembodied voice that you grimly realise may just exist inside the confines of your own head, pandemonium erupts. The other contenders begin beating on their cages, some wailing, some crying. Others remain stoney faced, their eyes locked on a particular trinket among the rubble in the center. All the while the timer ticks ever onward.

20

The frenzy shows no signs of abating, and judging by the fiery gazes in a number of the more physically imposing competitors, you consign yourself to making a break for the treeline behind you, away from the inevitable chaos about to ensue before you.

10

As the fight or flight response begins to take hold, the hairs on the back of your neck start to raise, your muscles tensed to make the one prolific leap away to safety. As you plot an intricate route of escape in your mind, a tiny glint catches your eye amid the dew-laden shrubbery. It looks almost like...a ring.

0

Time's up! What do you do?

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