When Daniel stepped up to the position, he spoke softly. “Daniel Abbott….100”
Cipher turned for the first time away from his screen and looked back into the camera as though he was looking at Daniel. “One more time please? What number?”
“100, I have 100.” It came out barely a whimper, more a noise than words.
“Ahhhh, Mr. 100 Days, its very nice to meet you, I look forward to spending a lot time with you. It’s funny isn’t it, your group eliminated several numbers via the bodies that were removed, some people in the room are obviously hanging on to multiple numbers and yet there you sit with the worst number to have. How does that make you feel I wonder. I hope you don't plan on retaliating on anyone due to this predicament. Instead how about you just be a man." Cipher turns away from the camera.
"See you in 101 days jackass." Daniel turns and walks away, missing out on seeing Cipher turn and look back towards him. Now while his face is completely blanked out, it appeared that he had an inquisitive look on his face, the rest of the group took notice.
It takes about 45minutes for everyone to be checked in, and they sit and await to see what Cipher says next, this is the longest he’s stayed on screen with them, and the longest the p90s have been in the room. “Thank you all for being patient, I appreciate it, I really do, we’ve prepared for all sorts of interactions with all of you, and quite honestly you’re being the best you could be, so again, I appreciate it. Now lets move on to something pressing, you’re probably all starving and need to eat.” the crowd looks confused, the man who said he would torture them every day they were there is concerned if they’re going to eat.
The P90s open a door and pull out a large cardboard box and push it down to the floor. “Inside the box are boxed meals, 98 of them, one for each person who was to be in this room, obviously theirs extra. Here’s what you need to do, eat every meal, no storing no throwing anything away, just eat, I’m sure it wont be a problem, you’re probably very hungry. Then in a little bit, more food will be brought to you for your next meal, eat it, finish it, same rules and no one will have to be punished today. Now I’m sure your worried its poisoned or tainted in some way, but the truth is its clean, 100% fine, why would i poison you if I just insisted that none of you are to be violent on one another. The test is obvious, eat the food and there’s no punishment. Bon Appetite.” The screen shuts off and the P90s leave the room.
Everyone stirs for a minute, starving yet scared they want to eat but are too worried to touch the food. A younger boy, must be in his early twenties runs to the box, he’s a bit larger and easily pries the cardboard box open. He lifts one of the boxed meals out and opens it up. “I’m sure some of you are making comments right now that sure the chubby guy is going for the food, but here’s the thing, even before we were taken it had been a day since I’d eaten; so YEAH! I’m starving. Now he said we have to eat all of these, and I’m going to eat two, I get two because I’m going first, does anyone have a problem with that?” no one verbally responds, just a lot of head shaking. “Fine.” He begins to eat the food, chews every bite looking around as if something were to happen, he swallows and with half a mouth full of food he says. “Its fine.” He then reaches into the box and starts tossing out other boxes of food to the other residents of the warehouse.
Everyone eats and for a brief moment of sharing a meal they have a bit of normalcy, there’s even a smile on a few, the pain of hunger is gone. They eat all 98 meals and put the empty containers back in the box. They are instructed to put it against a wall and then move to the far side of the room and wait.
There’s nervous chatter, a lot of stairs towards Daniel to see how he is reacting to his new status, for the most part everyone seems to have fallen back into their cliques. The woman group seems to have increased in size and in anger, this mornings activities of having a man leave before a woman has caused some serious hard feelings.
About another hour has passed, the P90s walk into the room and they kick down another box of food. Everyone looks at the box, and then to the screen as it clicks on, Cipher appears. “Same rules as before, eat.”
Someone shouts up from the crowd. “But its not lunch time. Its only been about 2 hours.” the question seems to resonate in the room and everyone looks back to the screen.
“Its been exactly 2 hours actually. Same rules. Eat.” the screen shuts off, the P90s leave the room.
“Okay, I guess we eat.” a different man begins passing around the food. He hands it to a woman who slides the package in her sweater, walks back to her area removes her sweater and hides the food under her clothes behind her. The P90s come back into the room and take aim with their weapons. Several screams are muffled as mouths are filled with food. Shots are fired. The woman is pellted with rubber bullets and she wails in pain.
The screen comes back on. “The rules are the SAME. EAT ALL THE FOOD, NO STORING, NO HIDING, EAT ALL THE FOOD.” the screen shuts off. A couple of women move over to her from the woman’s group and pull her towards them, they divide up her food and comfort her, checking on her wounds.
“How are we going to do this?” Dalton looks over at Daniel as he finishes his second helping.
“We do what we must.” Daniel finishes his food, throws his container into the box and begins running around the room as if he were running track. Dalton follows suit as do at least 20 others. The food continues to come, every two hours, and every two hours they eat, a few others are shot with rubber bullets, some of the larger members of the group attempt to eat extra portions, but it becomes staggering.
The running begins to not help, there’s no energy to run when you’ve eaten a meal every two hours for the last 8 hours. It sits like a rock in their stomach and more and more of the runners drop to their knees and begin to vomit, so sick that any movement is pain and causes the more and more vomit. The odor, the food, the pain, just leads to more people being sick, some actually cause themselves to vomit thinking that it will help them eat when the next servings arrive.
The process goes on for 18 hours, 9 boxes of food hit the floor throughout the day and they eat every morsel of food they’re given. At 11pm at night, the screen comes on, Cipher surveys the room, everyone lying down in pain, disgusted, drained, beaten and weak. He speaks four words and shuts off the screen.
“End of Day Three.”
No comments:
Post a Comment