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 she lock me away in this asylum when the real monster is still walking?

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

It was one of the hottest days of the summer. We had 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 with a headache and tried to clear my vision, i remember walking the groceries out to my car and the 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 to the bed 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, It’s hot in here and I look down to see that I am still fully clothed, thank god.

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

“Abby?”

“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 and was here chained to the bed, just like you.”

she looks down then just now realizing that 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 see Trevor, my ex and Boston, Abby’s boyfriend. Why are we all chained up like this? They quickly take in the situation

Trevor’s head snaps to mine and they widen, “Anna? What is happening”

“I don’t know” I repeat the same words

Just as he opens his mouth to reply we hear a crackling and then finally a voice. “Stop. You will only wear yourself out and that’s not how you will win this game.” referring to Abby who is still pulling at her chains.

“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 move towards the dome.

“Eat. You’ll need the strength” The voice finally says after realizing we are not moving.

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.

“Only one of you can eat, or take the risk and all share. 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 when suddenly he freezes.

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 feel queasy suddenly and 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.

Suddenly a thump is heard and i look up to see Boston convulsing and heard the chains of Abby's bed 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 comes back

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

“No one can do sweet little Anna.” they reply

I freeze confused about what is happening.”Why us?” I ask finally

“You were chosen”

“Yeah I got that but why?

Silence. Deafening silence from him but it was not silent inside this room. Abby’s cries have gotten louder by the minute and I feel for her, I do but she needs to get it together. It's obvious that we're next and personally I don't want to die.

The next morning we’re woken up to find that Boston’s body had been moved.

“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 them 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 talked to me like that before.

“I’m sorry” I say

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

I shake my head, “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 instead of food this time there lies a revolver.

“What the hell?” Trevir murmurs almost incredulously

“It’s time for the sacrifice, a little russian roulette. There is one bullet in the chamber. It’s up to you each to pass around the gun and choose to sacrifice yourself or the other two.”

“Anf 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. Relived

I raise the gun to my temple, my whole body tensing as I pull the trigger. *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 harder

She slumps and puts the gun on the table for Trevor to take his turn. 3 Bullets left. One of us are going to die.

“You shot at 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 tears running down her cheeks

*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. Every memory of growing up together resurfaces and I reach for my bucket and wretch everything up, which is just crackers and water.

“Oh my god, I killed her” Trevor whispers and basically tosses the gun all the way over to her body like it would hide what he has done

“There were only three bullets left, It was going to be one of us no matter what.” I wheeze out through breaths still trying to catch up from puking. Piss and Puke. Not a great smell combination.

“Ah so the sacrifice has been made.” The voice says. As I went to say something, we saw smoke enter from the ceiling and I was out.

I awake to the feeling of something crawling on and 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 prey, 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 rn 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

“Dad?” I fall to my knees, not understanding

“Congratuations, you're the winner.” He replies and everything goes dark