The Unknown Game

Matthew

The air smelt sulphuric and sour whilst the constant sound of dripping water was the only thing cutting sound upon the silence. My body ached everywhere, making moving extremely painful but I forced myself to open my eyes slowly but it was to no use as I was only met with darkness. After a few blinks, I started to realise that I had no idea where I was. Panic washed over. Thoughts blurred. My voice felt fragile as though it itself was too afraid to speak. All I could think of was:

" Where am I?"

"Wait... wait I.. I need to retrace my steps."

" Yes exactly that's what I need to do!"

"Ok so I ...."

I closed my eyes in hope that I would remember what led me to this moment but I got nothing. It was like everything before this was a blurred out image that was just out of reach. It felt so... frustrating. Before I could try again, sounds of groaning filled the air but the weird thing was that these were "people groans" or at least I suspected so. I tried to further adjust my eyes and saw what seemed like a human silhouettes. Before I could approach any of these people, a piercing strike of light hit directly into my eyes and I moved back whilst covering my eyes with the inside of my elbow. I could hear the sounds of people moaning in both irritation and pain.

A voice behind me shouted, " Who the  hell switches on lights immediately after darkness, have they not been to a fucking cinema or something!"

I began to adjust my eyes and when I tell you I was in shell-shocking awe - as in the type that makes you fall dead silent - I...was...shocked.

I seemed to be in a huge cave that I assumed glistened due to the water that ran down its brown rocky surface as dripping sound came from what I guessed to be the caves stalactites. Yet even that I couldn't see because of how big the cave was. It spread in all directions and I couldn't even truly see the cave's edges and it roof ran up way too high but the lighting refused me the chance to get a good look.

I looked around me and I saw at least 80 - maybe more - people hustling about and trying to get up but I didn't seem to recognise a single one of them, but maybe I am just being delusional for thinking that I could actually recognise 80 people.

"Where the hell am I?", I whispered to myself.

"Probably in hell", a female voice behind me to which gave me a fright.

I turned around and saw a girl who was looked roughly 16 years old, to which was about my age. Her curly hair was covered in rock particles - I guessed it must've been from waking up on the hard, wet cave floor. Her skin was covered in soot and her dark blue jeans had a small rip along the side of her right thigh. She wore a bright purple T-Shirt that had the slightly faded words "I love being me" imprinted on it.

"I'm sorry but do I know you cause if I do can you tell me what's going on here?" I said, slightly intimidated. She let out a little smile that for some inexplicable reason made my heart slightly happy as well. "Well I wish I could but even I don't know," she said distractedly as though something else was severely bugging her, "everything about my past feels like a fuzzy fever dream that I can't remember anymore. Also to answer your second question, We probably haven't cause I think I would remember a boy as cute you." She said confidently with a subtle charm to it and if I was gonna be honest almost made me skip a beat. But I immediately lost that feeling and knew she was just lying. For some reason I felt as though I had a really bad experience with false flattery. I tried to let out a smile.

Before I could say something back a sharp ringing sound came from all directions of the cave and everyone, including myself, fell to the ground holding their ears. Screams came from everywhere but once the ringing came down so did the screaming. A distorted voice coming from all directions of the cave boomed through the silence and said, "Hello everyone, I really do hope your were comfortable and sorry I couldn't come sooner. You know how it is, people to kill and mayhem to cause for these are not very easy jobs to do you know but that's besides the fact. I welcome you to the Unknown Game." There was a long silence as though the speaker wanted those to settle in and not in a pleasant way.

"Mmm...each level has thier its own rules and regulations so I can't really explain the rule very properly but I guess I should still try.", said the voice as though were speaking to itself but thier words mistakenly got projected.

"Firstly what you need to know it that your main objective should be always be to reach the finish line and to do so you have to pass through 100 levels to get to end. You should also know that every level will get harder than the last an-"

The voice got interrupted by a man shouting, "What if we don't want to play this little game of yours!?". He said this while putting air quotes on game.

I honestly didn't expect the voice to answer but to my astonishment, the voice sighed and said quite happily, "Well then, you die." It let a distorted laugh that sounded far too close to the sound of gurgling. "Since that's over and done I think it's time we started the real fun.",said the voice sounding amused with itself.

The cave began to shake and cracks could be heard echoing as the started to form and spread. There was a blinding flash that came from nowhere but completely bathed us in light. When the the light died down and my eyes had fully adjusted, I saw that all of us were on a very wide passage with one side extending into darkness. However when I look ahead, in front of us was a double-car garage door size entrance that emitted a slight blue hue of light.

I stared up and saw there was a sign the shone bright due to the neon number "001" that was placed on it and somehow switched on even though there was no plug to be seen.

A deep growl came from the opposite darkened end of the passage which got people rowdy and uneasy. After a few growls we decided to enter the entrance and so I walked in but noting could've prepared me for what was yet to come.