Summer Night's

I can’t sleep, How could I? The Nightmares always plague my head when I close my eyes, remembering what he did to me. How could they lock me away in this asylum? I will never forgive my parents for this.

I’m Anna and this is how I survived the worst summer night of my life…

It was one of the hottest days of the summer. There was a bad heat wave in Arizona, temperatures reaching 110 degrees and not dropping. I was walking to my car when I felt the blunt pain radiate through my skull

I woke up with a headache and tried to clear my vision. I remember walking the groceries out to my car and the memory resurfaces, the man that followed me the entire time I was in the store, the pain, the feeling of falling and hitting my head worse and blacking out. I take in my surroundings. I’m on a bed that’s bolted to the floor, with my ankle that’s restrained. I can see 3 other beds around me, one ahead of me, one to the right and one to the left. We appear to be in a room of some kind but there are no windows, just a hanging light that’s dim and a small square table right in the middle with four chairs. You can a camera in the corner showing the little red light, proving that someone is watching us.

Someone stirs to the right and I bury myself into the wall to try and hide the best I can as they start to sit up . They look around the room and finally their groggy eyes land on me, confusion swimming through me.

“Abby?” I recognize her instantly, my best friend since the third grade

“Anna. What is this? Where are we?” I can hear the panic in her tone as she asks.

“I don’t know I just woke up here chained to the bed, just like you.”

She looks down, just now realizing she was in fact on the bed. She jumps to the floor and starts pulling at the chain, yanking and screaming, furiously crying.

Her screaming causes the other two figures to awaken and then I recognize Trevor, my ex and Boston, Abby’s boyfriend. Why are we all chained up like this? They quickly take in the situation.

Trevor’s eyes snap to mine and they widen. “Anna? What is happening”

“I don’t know” I snap, already getting sick of that being my answer for everyone

Just as he opens his mouth to reply we hear a crackling like an old radio and then finally a voice. “Stop. You will only wear yourself out and that’s not how you will win this game.” assumingly referring to Abby who is still pulling at her chains. His voice is an unusual monotone like he's using a voice changer, I assume so we won’t be able to recognize them.

“Game?” we all reiterate

“You 4 have been chosen, I think you can survive on your own in the real world, well welcome to the real world.” The monotone voice replies

“Okay this was very funny, great senior prank haha, now it’s time to let us out” Boston chuckles humorously.

“Time to eat, gather your strength.” The voice only replies and that’s when the ceiling opens and a dome and platter is lowered to the table in the middle. None of us dare to move, frightened of what could be lying underneath.

“Eat. You’ll need the strength” The voice finally says, seeing our hesitation.

Boston starts towards it and I yell “Stop! What if it’s a trap?”

He looks at me then and says “what else are we going to do, and proceeds to lift the dome. There’s a single burger.

“Remember in life each choice comes with a consequence.” The voice comes back warning us.

“what the fuck does that mean?” Trevor demands at the speaker that is in the top corner of the room. the fucker is watching us, i suddenly feel so violated.

“Any of y’all hungry” Boston asked, eyeballing the burger. We all shake our heads and he proceeds to scarf it down. Leaving just tiny crumbs on the plate,

We all stare in astonishment.

“What?” He asks

“You're disgusting.” I say crinkling my nose

He shrugs his shoulders and wipes his mouth off with his arm. “Man that was good.”

After a few moments he starts coughing, getting worse with each passing second when he bolts and suddenly grips his bucket as he throws up, all I see is his hunched over back.

“Boston? Boston! Are you okay?” Abby asks frantically.

His answer is washed away as he heaves again and this time I have a full view of blood pouring down the bucket. I start to feel queasy,I sit down on my bed and put my head between my knees and listen to Abby freaks over Boston. I’m crying and feel like I have no hope left.

A thump is heard and I look up to see Boston convulsing and heard Abby’s chains as she tries to reach out for him but it’s not use, our beds are just far enough apart that we can barely touch each other and his body is closer to Trevor.

Trevor reaches over to feel his neck after the convulsing ceases and shakes his head, Boston is dead, and we are next.

“I told you, every action has its consequences, he was greedy and didn’t share, if he shared it would have saved his life. You all would have just been a little sick from the poison for the day but eaten whole, it’s deadly.” The voice mocks us. You can hear tye bit of amusement in his tone. Making this situation even more daunting.

“What is this? It isn’t funny. Let us go” I wave furiously at the camera

“No can do sweet little Anna.” they reply

I freeze, confused from his words ”Why me?” “why us”? I ask helplessly falling back onto my bed and starting to cry. Why is this happening? What have we done to deserve this treatment

“You were chosen” He replies humorsely

“Yeah I got that but why?” I perk up instantly trying to get the answers we all desperately want.

Silence. Deafening silence from him, drowning out the noise of Abby's cries. Her cries have gotten louder by the minute and I feel for her, I couldn’t stand having to watch someone I love die.

The next morning we’re woken up to find that Boston’s body missing

“Where is he? What happened?” Abby asks, her face is flushed and cheeks puffy, eyes red from the crying, she seems to be a bit more put together

“I don't know, did either of you hear someone come in?” I ask, looking back and forth between them. They both shake their heads.

“This doesn't make any sense. Why us?” Trevor asks from his bed. He’s sitting with his arms draped over his knees and a lost look on his face.

“We will get through this” I say hoping I’m right.

“Oh really? Do you think so? Have you not noticed that one of us is already dead??” Abby screeches at me and I pull back in shock. She has never raised her voice at me like that before.

“I’m sorry” I say

Tyler cuts in “Don’t apologize, she was out of line, Abby snapping at you won’t help anything, You’re just trying to stay hopeful, they said it's a game right? So all we have to do is play the game”

I shake my head, trying to wrap my head around this game still, “What’s next?”

Silence and then finally the voice answers. “It’s time for game two out of three.”

The door from the ceiling opens, and the dome slowly moves down to the table.Trevor steps up to it but this time there lies a revolver.

“What the hell?” Trevir murmurs almost incredulously

“It’s time for a little russian roulette. There is one bullet in the chamber. It’s up to you three to pass around the gun and choose to aim at yourself, or someone else. Sacrifice yourself or someone else.”

“And what lesson is this supposed to be?” I ask frowning, i dont understand what this could possibly prove

“It’s the ultimate sacrifice. Will you sacrifice yourself to save the others? Or will you sacrifice someone you love to save yourself? It’s time to find out who will be selfish” The Voicer replies

Trevor picks up the gun and slowly he raises it to his head *click*

Nothing happens. Then he passes it to me and falls down on his bed. Relieved

I raise the gun to my temple, my whole body tensing as I pull the trigger. I can feel the cold metal licking at me skin, my hand trembles and tears have started to well up in my eyes

*Click* Nothing. Tears fall down my face and I drop my arm in relief, I pass the gun to Abby who does not hesitate as she points the gun at Trevor and fires

“NO!” I try to knock her down but stop when I realize that her turn was also a blank and start crying more frantically then when it was my turn, my body now morphing into a full tremble now.

She slumps and puts the gun on the table for Trevor to take his turn. 3 slots ft. One of us is going to die.

“You tried to shoot me! I can’t-Why would you do that??” He asks, exasperated, as he picks up the gun and points at her the same way she had him.

“Better it be you than me.” She replies with tears running down her cheeks. “Please understand, I don't want to die please Trevor, don’t shoot me.

*Click* and the bullet goes straight for her, Point blank in the head. I couldn't move, couldn't speak as I took in her lifeless body on the floor. My knees hit the floor shortly after her. Every memory of growing up together resurfaces, from the playdates, baths together, to our first dance and getting ready for our first dates. She won’t be there for prom. My best friend is dead. I watch as her brain matter slowly starts to fall down the wall, I empty my guts in my trash can, not being able to look to that side of the room so I watch Trevor

“Oh my god, I killed her” Trevor whispers, his eyes hollow, knees trembling as he fall back onto the bed and tosses the gun all the way over to her body like it would hide what he has done

“You shot her…” I wheeze out through breaths still trying to catch up from puking. Piss and Puke. Not a great smell combination. “Why would you sacrifice her?”

He says nothing, still processing that he shot someone.

We stay in scilence for a few moment trying to process the grief we’re both feeling.

“Ah so the sacrifice has been made.” The voice says.This son of a bitch. As I opened my mouth to say something, we saw smoke enter from the ceiling and I was knocked out having no memory of what's to come next.

The bugs crawling on my body jolted me out of sleep and I open my eyes and jump up to see that I am in the middle of the woods, trees, branches and bushes surround me as I take in the forest and what could possibly this next game be when i notice that my clothes are changed and and that I have no shoes, I look closer to the at the ground to see a yellow note, it could have been brushed off as a leaf but as I reach down to grab it I see hand writing “Run little Anna, run” As I finish reading I hear a gunshot and Trevor scream and I bolt, I run as fast as my 5’3 frame has ever run before and keep going, I pause as I make it to river and debate my options, I could run through the rover and hide my track or i could turn around and try to find Trevor, we have better odds as a group, so with that I left to follow the sound of Trevor I thought came from the east when a figure appears from the tree. Shotgun handy and blood coating their Jacket

“Run little Anna, run” and the man steps into view with Trevor's head hanging from his hands and a devious smile playing at his lips.

I fell to my knees, “Dad?” I croak in horror.