By: DamnCasifer
I opened the envelope, and there were two tickets to…….
The Fear Zone..
My heart began to race as my brain fully registered what I had in my hand. This was one situation I was not ready for; a situation I had been dreading since the day the Fear Zone was brought to the attention of the public.
The Fear Zone is a game show that pushes you to your wit’s end. The government actually runs the program, and many people speculate that it is a form of population control. When one, or more, is selected, they cannot back out. I have never heard of such happening, either because no one has, or they never lived to tell their tale. Within a day or two, you are rushed to an unknown facility, where you are kept in isolation for another day before you actually participate in the “game”.
The objective of the “game” is to make it out alive. One is placed in a simulator that generates their worst fears. It starts with the least dangerous, and as you progress through the levels, they get more terrifying and dangerous. The amount of levels depend on the number of fears you have, and if you manage to make it through all of the levels, you win the game. Then you are left with a large fortune and you get to live happily ever after. The thing is, only two people have ever survived.
If one does not die right there in the game, they make it out without a fraction of their sanity left. They are not considered victors, for you must keep your sanity to win, and they are escorted to a mental facility where they spend the rest of their days. However, there were the two exceptions: a gentleman around the age of fifty, who claimed to have no fears worth dying of, and a girl around the age of ten, who had feared only one thing. This one, however, happened to be too gruesome for the public and it never aired.
No one ever wishes to receive a ticket, let alone two or more. When you receive extra tickets, you are expected to select (x) amount of people to join you. If you do not, it is rumoured that not only will you be executed, but those closest to you will be as well. So imagine my horror when I revealed the two tickets.
Shaking, I retreated to my room to think about my options. I did not want to participate in this show, nor did I want anyone I cared about to as well. I thought about maybe selecting one of my classmates, one I truly didn’t care for, but sending them with me would be such a heartless act. Now I was down to only two options: play by the rules or don’t play at all.
I bounced between the consequences of each, and neither of them were desirable. Do I run away and risk my immediate death along with my relatives and friends, or do I risk only two of our lives? There is a chance of survival, but am I willing to take that risk? Am I willing to force someone else to take that risk?
I barely slept that night, trying to think of some way I could get out of this and keep those I love safe. I finally decided there was no possible way to avoid the show, and I should just go willingly.
That left me with one final decision: Who to choose?
Caine, my best friend? My sister, Lana? Or maybe my grandmother, who is already on the verge of death? How about Kiran, the kid I despised most in my class? Who was I going to choose to suffer along with me? It took a day for me to figure it out, and during that time I realized an important fact: It doesn’t have to be somebody I personally know. Once I realized that, my choice was simple and I just had to wait for my escorts.
The escorts, a man and a woman, showed up two days after I received the tickets. They both seemed to appear out of nowhere on my doorstep, wearing the plastic smiles of a game show host. When they noticed I was the only person in my house, seeing as I sent my family out, their smiles dropped immediately. They demanded to know where the other contestant was, and I simply smiled and assured them he was more-than-likely already at the facility. Although the escorts were wary, they herded me to the car and we took off.
I want to say that when I arrived at The Fear Zone, everything went exactly as I had planned. However, if I did tell you that, I would be lying. When I entered the building, the very first thing the workers did was search me for weapons and such, which I hadn’t thought of. Then they demanded to know where the other participant was, and I told them he was already here, hopefully. After a few moments of confused silence, I revealed exactly who I had chosen: Kory Michaels, creator of The Fear Zone.
This, of course, threw up many problems, but in the end he entered the game. There were no rules against choosing any employee of The Fear Zone, including the creator himself. People tried to argue against it, but in the end Kory decided to go through it. He was the gamemaker after all, so he should surely survive, right?
That was not the case. He didn’t survive the second level, where he died by the hands of all his former contestants. Everyone was surprised, and I almost didn’t have to go through the game myself. However, to distract everyone from the flaw in their game, the other employers shoved me into the simulator.
The game hadn’t been as bad as I had thought it was going to be. I easily passed the first level, where I was locked in a dark room alone for an hour or so. Of course it terrified me for a few minutes, but then I began to remind myself that it could be worse and calmed myself. On stage two, I spent what felt like ages in the middle of a mall aisle, my feet glued to the floor as others bumped into me as they passed. This was because of my fear of strangers, and I eventually made a mental game of it by imagining them dressed in ridiculous outfits.
The third stage was the one I failed. I had been kayaking alone, without a life jacket, and the kayak tipped as I went over a rough patch in the river. I ended up hitting my head against a rock, knocking me out and ultimately causing me to drown. If I had only thought a little quicker…..
After Kory’s episode, The Fear Zone was shut down. The government feared that other contestants would try to choose other employees or political leaders, and they immediately called it quits. It’s a shame so many people had to suffer such an awful thing for so long before someone finally outsmarted the system. Anyways, that’s my “tragic” death story. What about you?
