Futile Trials

(69) 12:00

You whip out your knife and stab a hole near the top of the bag, carving an arc around the uppermost point.

A wave of moonlight pours in, drowning you for a moment in the light. How the bag could have blocked such a brilliant light is a mystery.

Satisfied that the hole is big enough, you tuck away your knife and reach out your arms like new shoots in the spring, your head following suit. What you see, however, is not quite a flower's welcome into the world.

You are suspended over a cliff that seems to drop for miles into a black abyss. The bag sways over the nauseating distance and it's tempting to pull back inside and hide like a turtle.

However, hiding does not get you out. You take a look upwards, noting the secure knot around the neck of the bag leading up to a beam that extends from the cliff side. It's a narrow chance, but it seems your only chance.

Carefully, trembling, you pull yourself out of the bag and onto the metal beam, not daring to look down. Painstakingly slow, you inch along the beam, holding tight every time it swayed with a gentle gust of wind.

What seemed like a football field of crawling was hardly three yards, but you have succeeded to make it to the cliff wall. There's a cut out in the cliff which you happily leap upon: solid ground.

"Congratulations, you're still alive.." A filmy whisper echos around the six by two space, but there is certainly no one else there.

"Assignment two.." The wall behind you grinds open to reveal a simple ladder leading up into a moonlit tunnel; it led to the surface, surely, and so you took to climbing the squared rungs.

Not moments later, you emerged on the surface: the bank of the cliff. This is where you had hoped to be.

"Are you ready to begin?" You whirl to see it- the thing- it's eyes glowing white in complement of the moon. The hood that had obscured all but the eyes before has been shifted just enough for you to make out an ivory white nose.. Or more so, the lack of. What protrudes from the hood's shadow is a bone found about the likes of deer and elk.

"Begin what?"

Suspecting yourself and this creature to be the only things out here, it was not only frightening to hear a scream claw its way out of the cliff's ravine, but unexpected. Turning to peer over the edge, you see dozens of beams jutting from the cliff side, each holding its own sack. It appeared... one... had just lost its contents.

"Assignment two."

Do you...

Jump off the cliff?

Skip to "Auf Wiedersehen"

Ignore the other bags and people and inquire about the assignment?

Skip to "Assignment Two"

Express how appalled you are?

Skip to "Body Bags"