Incarceration

Chapter Three

Running, panting, and running more. My feet beat heavily against the harsh ground, my head aches, and the stitch in my side worsens with every step I take. I want to stop, but my legs keep moving. Endlessly moving. They have a mind of their own, and no matter how much I resist, I am forced to keep running. I pass the villages and run through forests and mountain ranges. Although the scenery is beautiful, I know it's all fake, just an illusion. There are moments when I try to ignore the pain surging through my legs and lungs, but I find the overwhelming exhaustion impossible to push away. I rack my brain for anything else to focus on, but my mind can't help but wander back to the surging pain in my legs.

Each time my foot hits the ground, jolts of pain shoot upward, through my legs, into my chest, and back down again. I am sure that if I were not in the Sim, my body would have shut down a long time ago. But the game never lets you rest. No matter how much I resist, my legs won't stop moving.

I come to a small stream. The water is so clear that I almost miss it. If a brightly colored fish with vibrant shades of red and orange hadn't swum by at the right moment, I'm sure I wouldn't have noticed anything until I met the water. The fish catches my eye, but my Master Game Player (MGP) is completely oblivious, and controlled by him, I trudge through the stream anyway.

It's deeper than I anticipated, and the cool water—although briefly refreshing—immediately floods into my boots and weighs me down. I struggle through the stream and continue to run, the water sloshing against my ankles with each step. Let me die here. Let me do anything but this. I have no choice though, so I continue forward.

My sides throb and my stomach screams with agony. I can hear my heart pounding loudly in my head, and I feel the rush of blood throughout my entire body. Finally, I stop at the edge of a tall, looming, snowy mountain. To collapse in the snow, curl into a ball, and freeze to death would be a gift sent from the gods, at this point. But I can't rest until they log out. I silently scream. Log out. Please. Just log the hell out.

For years, I had recognized the flaws and cruelty of the Sim. As my father's daughter, it would be a sin not to. But somehow my preconceived assumptions of the games were proving to be insufficient. The amount of pain endured by Ranum prisoners is too immense to be conveyed through words.

Most of the Master Game Players were merciless. They were the victims of each prisoner's crime and were permitted to direct pain by controlling their aggressor's actions in the Sim. The idea had been to provide closure, a retrospectively flawed premise. The ability and legal right to exact revenge on those who had wronged them gave the MGPs ultimate control over another human being. And control, for many, made them drunk with power.

That is the flaw in the Sim—any game, no matter how minor, can be made painful depending on how sadistic the MGP is.

My father once knew a prisoner who had been caught spray painting under a bridge. He was sentenced at his trial and transferred into a game where he was forced to unload boxes from ships for a couple days. Instead, the MGP forced him to jump continuously from the highest buildings around the construction site.

"First day in the Sim, and we had to carry him out with almost all his bones cracked in two. When we picked him up, he just melted in our arms as if there was nothing but fluid inside."

Wind whips around me, causing my hair to lash out violently in all directions. Snow slashes my face, stinging at first, then melting almost instantly when it comes in contact with my blistering, burning body. Mountains tower over me, intimidating and ominous. Pure white snow blankets the ground and then climbs up the slopes, making them appear beautiful and untainted. I look around, my head moving right, then left, automatically taking in all the forged beauty.

Unexpectedly, a red exclamation point inside a triangle appears in my peripheral vision. It blinks violently as an alert signal sounds in my ear. I turn. I feel my chest rising up and down, my muscles tensing, and my heart beating faster as I lock eyes with a great mountain lion.

The lion draws nearer, lowering its head, but keeps eye contact with me. Its lips part into a snarl that displays razor-sharp teeth. The hair stands up on my neck as I watch the lion slink closer to me. My immediate instinct is to run. I will myself to turn away but instead seamlessly pull a pickaxe from thin air and leap into battle.

I lash my pick violently, digging it into the mountain lion and stabbing over and over again, blood splashing my face and arms. I feel sick at the sight of the gore, but I have no choice and continue fighting. The mountain lion roars in excruciating pain and slashes my face with its gigantic claws. The gashes sting and blood gushes over my nose and mouth, yet I don't stop. I gag as my eyes water, and I feel as though I am about to throw up.

Finally, the mountain lion falls, lifeless and still. His eyes remain wide but no longer blink. I stare down, and even though both the beast and I are bleeding uncontrollably, the snow remains perfectly white. I feel blood dripping slowly down my face, and I watch as a scarlet drop falls to the ground and vanishes instantly, absorbed by the snow.

I don't have long to think because I am soon thrust back into the movement. I slash open the lion's stomach. Lowering onto one knee beside this once magnificent creature, I extend my hand and reach deep down into his innards. I rummage around until I come in contact with a small, brown linen bag. I extract it with one pull and hear the four gold coins jingling within. As soon as the bag touches the air, it vanishes, and a small ding! sounds above my head. I feel as though I'm about to hurl.

Then it comes, the thing I have been waiting for the whole day—a gray screen is projected in front of me. On it are several options, but my favorite is the one at the very bottom, the logout option. I raise my hand, scroll down, and meet the button.

Starting with the sky, the whole world around me disintegrates. Pixel by pixel it falls away as if it were a piece of glass shattering into a million pieces. Once the game is gone, I am left in a dark room; the only light filters through a window on the wall adjacent me.

As soon as the Sim allows me to regain control of my body, I collapse onto the floor, panting and gasping, moving all my fingers and toes. I curl into a ball. My head pounds and every part of my body aches with pain. I lie where I am, engulfed in the scent of blood.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see . The glass allows me to see several men removing headphones and standing up. Most of their faces are hidden from me, covered by hauntingly white masks, but I know they are guards. The guards who feel I have betrayed their trust and broken my loyalty to the prison. For a brief instant, my eyes make contact with one. Then the guards walk out of my line of sight. The lights in the box turn off, and the whole game room descends into complete darkness.