The Wheel

13. Sam

"No! I don't wanna be here!" my girlfriend insisted. "If I came here by choice – though I don't remember squat – so I can go."

"Ms Spears," Ayma answered her. "I repeat you agreed to be here. You also agreed that you would leave this place provided that you went through the trial: you'll get a special signal from me, as soon as it is over."

Veronica shook her head and put her palms on her face; I could only hug and caress her.

"What the hell!" she said.

The guys started inspecting the furniture that had appeared in the room.

"Let's have a look," I whispered to Veronica's ear.

My exhausted girlfriend nodded and got up. We all gathered around the table and began to inspect a small device that was lying on it. It looked like a wheel for making decisions: a small rotating cogwheel with eight gear teeth or sectors. In the center there is a bulging metallic cylinder with a small red dot, which points to a needed sector after the wheel have been span. Some time ago that wheel helped me to ask Veronica out: the wheel said 'Yes'. I tried to take the metallic device in my hands, but I couldn't: it probably has been screwed into the table. The names of the sectors were 'Lie', 'Quirk', 'Shame', 'Fear', 'Sin', 'Weakness', and 'Fetish', - the eighth sector was empty, and there was an inscription that said 'My biggest' in the round center part of the wheel. My biggest lie? My biggest quirk? My biggest fetish?

"I suppose you understood what you are about to face," I heard this 'voice assistant' again.

We looked at one another suspiciously.

"I'll make it clear for you," Ayama began, "you can see a wheel in front of you with the following sectors: 'Lie', 'Shame', 'Quirk', 'Fear', 'Weakness', 'Fetish', 'Sin', and an empty sector. As you have noticed there is an inscription 'My biggest' and a red pointer. You will all have to spin the wheel and speak about the sector that you got. If it's 'Fear', you will have to talk about something you are most scared of; if it's 'Fetish', you have to share with us your most intimate sexual fantasy and so on. Plain and simple. It's some sort of 'Wheel of Fortune', except you don't have to guess the words: you just need to take off all your social masks and expose the demons inside."

Emma pressed her palms against her lips in shock. Her hands started shaking.

"What if there is an empty sector?" I asked.

"When there is, then you'll now," Ayama evaded the question, "I can tell you that this sector is special."

"It doesn't make any sense," Veronica said. "Are we a part of some kind of an experiment?"

We were looking at each other, waiting for what would happen next.

"And then?" Miguel broke the dead silence.

"You will have to pick the one who will sit at the table and spin the wheel first," Ayama said calmly.

At this moment my heart sank.