Flickering Lights 1-2 #Wattys2014

Eight Counting Down

I woke up feeling dizzy. It was dark and cold and something didn't quite feel right. I lifted my hand up to my head. That was when i noticed the chains. Around my wrists were rusty silver chains. I  immediately sat up into a seated position. It was dark but from what i could make out i wasn't in my room anymore. Panick took over me and i started breathing heavily. I started to cry. How did i get here? Who had taken me? Where was i? They were the only thoughts going through my head. I started to scream "Help!? Help me! I've been kidnapped!! PLEASE!" But there was no answer. I was shaking and my body felt weak and useless. And i couldn't do anything about it because i was chained up. 

I felt my hand around the floor searching desperately for the shackles. I found them. I crawled across the floor following the chains so i knew where i was chained to. I thought that i could brake them and find a way out. Instead, i found other chains. I was sweating much now. My curiosity took over me and i cautiously followed one of the other chains. My knees were wobbling as i crawled. 

I got to the end of the chain and found to my surprise another hand tied to the chain. It scared me at first and i backed away. But then as i got closer i realised that hand belonged to a person! "Oh thank god!" I cried. I wasn't in this alone. I was relieved. I immediately shot forward to the person and shook him. He wasnt waking up. I shook him even harder. "Wake up. Please! Wake up!" I screamed. I thought he was dead. But suddenly he stirred and his eyes slowly opened. 

As soon as they did they were wide and he shot back forward. He was against the wall. His head shaking from side to side. "Where am i?!" He shouted nearly crying. 

"I dont know. I woke up and i was here with these chains." I said crying still.

Thats when he noticed his own chains. I could just make out his panick stricken face. Then i remembered the other chains. I looked at him. He had massive sweat patches already. "There are more of us" I said. My voice breaking. 

"What?" He said nervously. 

"There are more of us here. Follow me" I grabbed my chains again and made my way to what looked like the centre of the room where all the chains were tied. "See?" I said as i pointed my hand to the other chains. "I think there's people at the end of them. Help me wake them. They must be still asleep." He nodded shakily and grabbed a chain. I grabbed a different one and we both followed them. 

The end of mine lead up to what looked like a girl. Like i did with the boy i shook her. Again she didn't wake up at first so i shook her harder. And sure enough her eyes fluttered open. She had a similar reaction to what i did. She woke up slowly, started breathing heavily and sure enough started crying. She then started saying the questions i was wondering when i woke up. "Where am i?" She said crying. I nearly started again but stopped myself. She too was shaking and sweating. 

"Listen i don't know but there are more of us. Follow me" She wiped her tears and nodded. I told her to grab the chain and follow it. And together we crawled following the chain. We reached the middle to find two more people. One i recognised as the boy i woke up and the other was another boy who he must have woken up. 

I looked at the chains on the floor. There were eight in total. And since there were four of us in together i reckoned we should each grab a chain. "Right, grab a chain each and follow" They all nodded in agreement and crawled away. 

When i got to the end of mine i found another girl. I woke her up again the same way i woke the others up. She had the same reaction as i and the girl did. I told her the same thing as i told the other and soon enough we were crawling back. 

I found the six other people waiting in the middle. There we were. The eight of us. Kidnapped. Chained up. And not knowing what was going to happen next. We were all trying to comfort each other.

My eyes were adjusting to the light now and i could see that we were in a circular room. The place we were chained up was in the middle of the room. Suddenly lights were turned on very brightly. I was shocked by this sudden action and started shaking even worse. I could see the others were not so different. That was when i noticed there was four boys and four girls. All about the same age as me. Fourteen. Then suddenly an old fashioned microphone lowered down from the ceiling. I still remember now the dark voice that started speaking. It shocked and scared us all. 

"Hello children! It's nice to see you finally awake!" The voice was dark and creepy. It still makes me shiver to this day. "Now,i expect you will be wondering what you're doing here? Well, you're about to play a game. It's called blackout. There will only be one survivor and one survivor alone" I started crying tremendously loud. I thought i was going to die. It continued "The rules of the game are; Kill or be killed. You will be let into a room. And in that room somebody will die. You can pick who that person is by killing them yourselves or you can wait until the lights go out at a random time. By the time they come back on somebody will have died. When somebody dies the door to the next room opens. There are seven rooms in total. Have fun!" 

Suddenly the chains opened and the microphone went back up into the ceiling. And with a sudden bang a metal door i didn't notice before opened. We all looked at each other in fear wondering whether we should go through. There were sobs and everybody looked terrible. It was one of the boys with dark hair who then stood up. He looked at us all then went into the room cautiously. We all followed shortly. How i wish i hadn't . . .