And you want me to go without... Day 4 part 2

The water seemed to flow and fill the room faster than anyone had anticipated. Before they knew it the captives were neck deep trying to keep the disgustingness that floated amongst them at bay. All the horrors that had hit the floor due to yesterday’s torture swam along with them constantly sneaking up on them trying to make contact.

Some of the captives, tried to cling to the walls, as if they had been bit by radioactive spiders to keep above water and it may have worked if not for the constant churning of water due to everyone else treading or doggy paddling. That combined with the fact that the walls were so smooth not a crack, crevice or ledge to be found, even where the wall had previously opened had not one spot that could be gripped on to.

You act like you never have love... Day 4 part 1

The previous days events lingered in the room, the stench of vomit, food, and the sheer disgustingness hung in the air like a thick milky fog. The captives were woken by the sound of rushing water and some by the puddles forming around their faces.

Sitting up immediately and noticing the trough that supplied their water in the room was now over flowing and spilling to the floor. Several members of the group run around and wake the others some run to the trough to see if the water flow can be stopped. Taking their shirts off and plugging up the holes from where the water was flowing from, they desperately try and stop the rising threat.

The monitor turns on.

“Good morning everyone, it’s Day 4, everyone to the center of the room and hold up your tags.” The group does as their told without hesitation, his grip on them is strong but not completely solid. “I’m very happy we didn’t loose anyone to violence yesterday or to your challenge but don’t think for one minute that you’ll be rewarded in anyway. In fact there is one thing I am displeased about. Look at this room, its disgusting, feces, vomit, blood food remains scattered around the room. I had anticipated some of this, but still, you’ve really just trashed the place. Number three where are you?”

The room again hushes and everyone glances around to see who supposedly gets to go home today. The woman’s group that has been growing since day 1 moves their huddle up to the front of the crowd and a small petite woman, barely over five feet tall steps up.

“I’m number 3, my name is Lisa.”

“Lisa, you were not number three when the numbers were registered the other day.” Cipher leers into the camera as if he wanted to be right in her face.

“No sir, someone else in my group was, but they offered me their tag because I have a health condition. We don’t want to say who it was in fear that they will be retaliated against like Mr. 100 Days was.” Lisa looks over at Daniel and then looks down at the floor.

Well, I guess I can rule out anyone in the woman’s group, Daniel thinks to himself, trying to look as many people in the eye he can, in hopes he’ll catch a glimmer of guilt.

“Mr. 100 Days, Ha” Cipher snickers and shows his first sign of emotion; “I like that. Lisa step to the spot against the wall where the light is shining.” Yet another spot on the wall lights up, the P90s of course stand above at attention. It was barely even noticed that they entered the room. The sound of water rushing in faster from the far end of the room masked their arrival. The wall opens, Lisa leaves, and the wall shuts. “So now that we’re done with that, let us clean this room up. Do not try and stop the water from flowing, over 1,000 gallons are set to flow into this room, filling it to approximately 8ft of water, after a period of time it will drain into large drainage units built into the floor. I don’t recommend tampering with them at all. Keep in mind today’s events are being monitored and will be broadcast to the web for your family and friends to see, they can’t hear you, but they’ll watch as you try and tread water for the next several hours. Feel free to express your love and statements of hope, I’m sure it will be washed away as the day goes on, pun completely intended. Your love ones today will watch you try and not drown in water that for the most part, only a couple of feet over your head. I must assume that this will be heart wrenching, I’ve never had love, so I won’t begin to try and sympathize with any of you, it’s not my forte. Also, I assume none of you are hungry, because I’m not feeding you today, but if you are thirsty, well by all means, drink up.”

The monitor shuts off, the P90s leave the room and trough erupts like a volcano. The water just bubbling and rushing out of it; almost instantly everyone’s feet are covered. The drainage spouts on the floor adding to the water quickly filling the large room and panic starts to flow into the room as well. People screaming they can’t swim others horrified with the fact that their disgustingness will be floating around them, and others cursing and screaming to the monitors, defiance is starting to set in with some of the group. 

Leave a bad taste in your mouth... Day 3 part 2

The process of logging everyone in to their social networking site, stating their number and moving on to the next goes off with only a few incidents. Mothers crying and begging and pleading to add a personal message of hope and letting them know they’ll be home soon. But Cipher will have none of that, he isn’t here to spread hope, he’s here to spread fear.

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.”

Did I disapoint you.... Day 3 part 1

He wakes up grunting, the warm rush he felt on the back of his head now feels like dried cake batter stuck in his hair. Slowly he opens his eyes, raising his hand to block the light and adjust to the lights of the room. The pain settles in like someone took a tack hammer and dropped it on the back of his skull. “What the hell hit me?” he mumbles out of his chapped lips.

“You mean who hit you? We don’t know.” Dalton kneels beside him and tries to help him up. “In the rush of the crowd we couldn’t see who did it, all we saw was you drop like a prom dress and then the crowd scattered.” Dalton gets him standing and brushes off his back and looks at the back of his head. “You slept through the night, its day 3. The P90s just came in the room.” He gestures to the walkway above with his head but doesn’t point.

The big screen comes on and Cipher speaks. “Good morning all. I see we have had some more casualties. This stops today. The purpose of this expedition is not to see if you will all kill each other like animals; the purpose is to have you grow as humans, and to have those watching grow as well. Yes that’s right, those watching. After today you will be monitored via surveillance cameras. We are announcing to the world why we are here, what number you each have and we will show them what you are going to endure. The world will watch you try and survive, they will feel your fear and from that fear we will become stronger and a greater nation. Will everyone please move to the center of the room; its time for someone to go home and the bodies to be removed from the room.” He pauses and ten more P90s enter the room and begin to remove the bodies. “P90s account for the bodies tags and we will remove their numbers from the counter board.” A large board lights up with the numbers 1 through 100 lit up in red. The number 1 goes out, then the number 87, 93, 95, 99 this goes on eliminating only ten numbers from the board. “Very well, it seems some of you may be hold on to multiple numbers, will number 2 please come forward?” Everyone pauses looking around the room, who avoided being caught with the valuable number 2.

“RIGHT HERE BABY!” A man steps forward, he’s of average build, so there’s no way he could have fought anyone off to hold onto that number. The women in the group stare him down, burning a whole through him, how could he not let a woman leave first, several of them bond closer together. Bonny looks at him with piercing eyes, disgusted she didn’t find him yesterday. Granger spits on the floor, he should be going home, he could have taken him out easily. “You all ignored me, you watched me cry, you don’t even know my name, not one of you came to comfort me, not one of you. So sorry to disapoint you.” he shouts.
“Move to the spot where the light hits the wall.” Cipher doesn’t even acknowledge his rants. The light comes on but it’s at a different spot than it was the last time. The wall once again spins and number 2 has left the expedition. “Moving forward you may trade numbers, but it must be agreed upon mutually. You will each step forward and state your name. I will then log into your social networking site account and change your status to read, for example, ‘John Doe is… number 3’. I have access to all of your accounts, logging in wont be a problem. Now you know how I found all of you.” There it is, the common factor, but still in a social networking world where 150 million people are a part of one site, why were they chosen? Several of them ponder this, while others curse the fact that they're even a part of the site.

“Everyone get their tags out and form a line, no fighting or you’ll be shot. One at a time step up to the microphone located on the wall, let us begin." Cipher spins in his chair, puts on a headset and logs onto the Internet and brings up the social networking site.

"This is insane." Dalton looks around the room and back up to the P90s watching, "how is no one able to track this guy?!"

"He was able to kidnap 100 people in one day, who's to say he's not some crazed government black ops agent gone rogue, or hell even human, this whole thing is insane." Daniel gets in line behind Dalton. "Still got 73?"

"Yeah. I don't know how I'm going to do this. 73days? You still got your 39?"

"Yeah I stuffed it in my pocket when the crowd hit." Daniel reaches into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out his tag. "I'll stick with you for as long as I can, maybe we can figure some way out out of here or what... the... HELL!" Daniel stares down at the number in the palm of his hand. 

"Dude, what is it?" Dalton looks down at Daniel's hand and then back at him and then his hand again. "How? Why?" He doesn't form sentences he just stammers.

Daniel stares at his hand, his entire body begins to shake and the key tag starts to dance in his palm. He tries to speak, but no words come out, barely a squeak of air. He can't even bring himself to say it out loud.

100