Eyes Closed

Fourth

"How can we not have noticed that? It was here just a... What the hell is happening." Nate runs his fingers through his hair.

"The camera." Zade looks at me.

Hastily, I view through the footage only to find it empty. "It's gone." I say with disbelief.

We all stare at each other for a while.

"The room looks identical... I mean we were awake the whole time... How?" Aria frantically clicks on the footage that is now empty.

"We were moved." Helios announces shakily, catching our attention. He's now standing in front of a cabinet he opened. I didn't even notice him go there.

"My vape is gone."

"Vape? How did you sneak that in? They took all of our belongings. Even my earrings." Ella says.

"I was hiding it from my mom so I put it on my boxers." He replies.

We give him a disgusted look while he raises his middle finger at us. "No, not like that! Like on the garter to hide it from my pops. And then I hid it here when we arrived so that nobody would notice."

"Why would you hide it from us?" Nate asks.

"Not from you guys, whomever is watching us. We are being monitored 24/7, it's not a question." He explains.

A compartment on the wall suddenly drops a box, cutting us off our mid-crisis conversation.

"I should just commit suicide. What the hell is happening to us?" Helios squats, his stress obvious.

"Is that a bomb? Hell, let's just die peacefully." Nate sighs defeatedly seating on the floor.

I look at Aria alarmingly when she approaches the box and open it. "It's only some canned food." She tells us with a calm voice oblivious to her death wish move.

"Damn, I forgot we haven't eaten for almost a week. The craziness of this thing has messed me up." Callum closes his eyes, leaning on the wall.

All of us are tired, drained and confused. And then a mystery box appears again with food.

"They can't just be offering us food this easy right? That could be poisoned." I say observing the canned goods.

Ella looks at me with tired eyes. "We could either die from poisoning or starvation."

I just noticed that during our time here, we are always given two choices. To play safe or take the risk. However, it's obvious that there's always danger in whatever we do. Do nothing or do something.

"It's cat food and there's only one bottle of water." Zade informs us as he examines the box.

"Of course they're not loosening up on us." Callum scoffs.

Nate grabs a can of what Zade said was cat food and opens it. "Well it's food isn't it? I once had one accidentally during my trip in Tokyo when I was in college. It was fine." And then he takes a bite.

"It's tuna flavor." He details as if knowing does any good.

I look at him with concern as none of us dares to utter another word.

"You went to Tokyo?" Ella asks ignoring the fact that he's digging in to cat food that came out of nowhere. Who knows? What if it's actually made of cats?

"I realized we don't actually know each other except for our names and skills. Why not take this as a moment to chat?" Helios grins.

It is true. Maybe talking will do us a little favor of driving insane.