When the Clock Strikes Midnight

11:05 p.m

A/N: Sorry that it took me a while to get this part out. I was busy sleeping to be honest with y'all. Anyways, this story is quickly approaching its end. Tomorrow I go back to school. I am going to try and get out as many parts as I can before that. I want to finish this story. Thank you guys for reading.  

I groan, moving my head to the side when I hear a loud alarm blare. I force my eyes open, my vision blurry from exhaustion. After a couple of seconds my vision has focused. I look around the room, confusion forming on my face. It looks like we are in a sort of hospital room. The walls are all white with blue trimming along the walls. There is a steel door leading into the room, which is also the only way out. I try to move my limbs to get up but I can't. I look down at myself and start panicking, my memories of the basement flooding through me. I am strapped to a hospital bed, the same ropes they use on mental patients strapping all of my limbs down. I can see an IV going into my arm, which is connected to three small jars. Each jar is covered in a different piece of colored paper so that we can't see the insides. The left jar is covered in pink, the middle jar is covered in yellow, and the right jar is covered in orange. I look around the room again, pushing my panic back down. I can see that Veronica, Jack, Jackson and I are all in a sort of circle, with an empty space in the middle of the room. I am directly across from Jack, while Veronica is on my left and Jackson is on my right. All of us seem to be hooked up to the three jar machines. Everyone else is awake and is looking around the room in fear. Jackson seems to be calm, but Jack and Veronica are far from it. I can only imagine what they are reliving from the basement right now. I open my mouth to speak but the door opens, causing my mouth to clamp back shut. Four of the men in black walk into the room, each of them moving over to one of us. I watch as my person approaches me. It looks like the same guy who brought me for my shower earlier, and who had also been there for Elizabeth's big choice. Everyone has a person of their own before the door opens again. The boss man himself walks in, a smirk on his face. He steps into the center of the room, turning to look at all of us.

"Well hello everyone. Long time no see. Welcome to the 7th challenge. This challenge will be all about those needles that you guys have in your arms. If you all look to your left, you can see that the IV in your arm connects to a small stand which holds three jars of liquid. You can see that the jars are covered in different colors of paper. Two of the jars contain an IV rehydration mixture of saline along with some glucose, dextrose, and electrolytes. Those will not harm you. One of the jars contains a poison called cyanide, which in its liquid form is called hydrogen cyanide or cyanogen cyanide. This poison will start to kill you instantly, and you will be dead in a matter of minutes. If you are really unfortunate you could be suffering for about 30 minutes. But the dosage that we have here will be able to kill you almost instantly. We will be going around the circle. You guys will pick one at a time, and we will inject that liquid into you. We will continue this until two of you have been injected with the poison. After each round you guys will be blindfolded so that we can replace the jars with new ones. Does everyone understand?" He looks around the circle and waits until everyone gives him a quick nod before continuing.

"Alright. We are going to start with Jackson then go clockwise. So Peach would be next." We all nod and turn our attention to Jackson. He is looking at the jars, taking quick and rapid breaths as he makes his decision.

"I would like to pick the orange one." The man takes Jackson's IV tube and switches it to the top of the orange jar. He then picks up the jar and flips it over so that the liquid empties into the tube and enters Jackson's IV. He meets my eyes and we don't look away from each other until the man starts to talk.

"That was one of the saline mixtures. You are safe." I let out a breath of relief, quickly inhaling sharply again once realizing that it's my turn. I take a deep breath and turn towards the jars. I already know what my answer is gonna be.