To Be A Prize

Chapter 8

"I've read the notebook so I know all about 'The Game' but fill me in on everything else" I say to the four blank faces that stare back at me.

We are sat around the kitchen table. I'm sat at the head with Dream to my right, Punz next to him, then Sapnap, and at the other end Karl is seated. The chair to my left is empty as I could only stomach sitting next to Dream. He has been surprisingly gentle with me throughout this whole ordeal and is the only one I trust to behave.

Karl chose to sit as far away from me as possible, not that I am complaining as the thought of him makes me feel sick. His face now looks alien to me, his features changed to a new combination I no longer know the order to.

I stare deeper into his face, searching for a flicker of the person I once knew, a shadow of the lopsided smile that used to light up his face or a glimmer of the kindness that radiated from his eyes. Instead I am met with a harsh coldness, not the warmth I am used to and a desperate small tear escapes from my eye.

Dream sees me staring at Karl and wipes the tear from my cheek. I feel his warm hand slide onto my lap comfortingly as he gives a gentle squeeze of my thigh to let me know he's here. In this moment I am conflicted; do I lean into the solace he provides and give myself to a man who took part in a game that reduced me to nothing but an object to be traded, or, do I stand my ground and trust in my own strength.

I choose the latter and push his hand off me.

If this offended him he doesn't show it, his face remaining stoic and neutral.

"What do you want to know?" Punz asks, piping up for the first time in a while. It took him a while to get over the embarrassment of getting an erection in front of his friends. As he asks me this question he leans forward and rests his elbow on the table, partially blocking Sapnap's view who also shuffles forward in his chair to rejoin the conversation.

"Probably how this all started, right y/n?" Sapnap asks intuitively, he speaks gently as though he understands the stress I've been under since finding this all out. I gather the sense that he is the empathetic one of the group, but I could be wrong as I clearly have been many times before when it comes to this strange gang of boys.

"Yes please" I reply, giving Sapnap a brief smile which causes his cheeks to flush. He really is quite sweet, I think, until I picture his signature at the bottom of that stupid notebook and remember he is every much a part of this game as the others.

"So, you remember how we met?" begins Karl.

"Yes, at the vintage tech store." I reply.

I could never forget the day I first met Karl. I had only gone into the shop to try to find a charging cable for a really old Nintendo DS I had rescued from my parents house when they were sorting through things to throw away.

When I walked in wearing a short plaid skirt, thick woollen tights, Doc Martins and a black long sleeve button up shirt, I saw Karl. He was stood awkwardly at the counter, jokingly arguing with the shopkeeper about the price of some old gadget I'd never seen or heard of before.

"$100 for a controller this old! You've got to be joking! No ones gonna buy this, it's worth at most $50," he'd desperately told the poor man who clearly didn't care.

He was wearing Dickies trousers and a large oversized hoodie. As he spoke, his hands dashed around manically, emphasising his point in a way I grew to love.

"Sorry to interrupt" I'd said, interrupting, after walking up to the counter to get the item I'd come in for.

"You agree right!" Karl had said, before turning round to look at me for the first time. When he saw me he instantly lost all confidence he'd once had.

I wouldn't normally describe myself as pretty but in that moment I felt beautiful.

"Well, that wasn't the first time we met" Karl continued, snapping me back to the present day.

"Yes it was, I'm sure of it. I remember thinking that I'd never seen a face like yours before" I replied. Karl's cheeks blushed at a memory I'd never told him. Punz rolled his eyes.

"No, y/n, we've met before, you just don't remember" Karl said. He pushed a scrap of hair that was getting in his eyes back behind his ear. The sun that broke through the windows lit up his eyes, that were red and sore from lack of sleep. In fact, looking round at the table, all of the boys looked a bit worse for wear. Perhaps I'm not the only one effected by this whole ordeal.

"When we first met you, you were really drunk, y'n" Dream said carefully, like he knew his words could hurt me but he didn't want to do so.

I looked up at him, confused. Although we were all sat at the table together, he still loomed over me, his height creating a distance between us.

"What do you mean? I've never met you guys in person before" I say.

"...that you remember" Punz sighed, seemingly annoyed at the pace at which this conversation was flowing. He leans back into his chair and hooks his hand behind his head, his biceps on full display. Sapnap catches me looking at him and a shade of green envy creeps across his cheeks.

"Don't be a dick, Punz" he said, as if to take my mind off Punz's body and onto his arrogant, selfish personality. Punz does nothing but knowingly scoff at Sapnap's jealousy.

"For fucks sake, enough with the back and forth, can you please just tell me the truth and start from the beginning" I say pleadingly. I look Karl straight in the eye and give him a look I know he can't refuse because of how many times it's worked before. I used to have Karl wrapped around my little finger. Granted, I was as whipped on him as he was on me, but I've always been able to get my way with him, something I enjoy in a relationship.

As expected, Karl's eyes soften a little and he brushes his thumb across his lips.

"Ok. The beginning" he takes a big sigh and shuffles in his chair to get comfortable. I get the sense this is something he's been bottling up for a while so will take just as long to work through.

"The first thing I remember about you, when I saw you that night-"

"What night?" I say, cutting him off.

"Are you going to let me tell you, or just keep interrupting me" He says sternly. That new fire in his eyes coming forwards again.

"Don't talk to her like that, man, she's just confused" Dream says, rubbing his hand on my back to comfort me.

"Shut the fuck up, Dream. We all know you're only being all nice and honourable now that she knows because you want to fuck her" Karl raises his voice, "as I was saying, the first thing I noticed about you was how free you looked. You were dancing in this tiny blue dress that barely covered you ass and your heels looked like they were fucking killing you but you didn't give a shit" he smiled at the memory.

"Oh yeah, I remember that dress" Punz said, laughing under his breath, "urgh, God that dress was..." he trailed off, realising we were now all looking at him.

"Just continue before I fight him, please" I say, exasperated at Punz's idiocy.

"If we're gonna fight, make sure to take your clothes off first, babe" as Punz says this, his mouth pulls into smirk that sends a shiver down my spine. Normally, his arrogance and misogyny would repulse me but for some odd reason I feel nothing but temptation. I tightly draw one leg over the other and shuffle forward, hoping that Dream, who's hand still remains on the small of my back, can't sense this shift.

Obviously I don't make my real feelings clear, instead I feign disgust and tell Karl to carry on with the story.

"As soon as I saw you I knew I wanted you all for myself," he continues, "unfortunately, however, I was with these idiots who also spotted you and took an interest. Some more vocally than others." At this, Karls turns to look at Punz who raises his hands in surrender and shrugs his shoulders, a smirk creeping onto his face.

Something about the way Punz is looking at me jogs a hazy memory that had been locked in the back of my head.

"I think," I begin, nursing my forehead with my hand as if to encourage the memory to come forward, "I think I remember. I remember what you all did."