I lied on the floor, twisting and turning to get comfortable as I tried to fall back asleep again, but it was cold, and something seemed different about the ground. It seemed more rough, like it wasn't smooth. Like it was tar. I suddenly jerked upward and noticed it; I was definitely in a different room, in a different environment. To my left, Darren was still asleep. I was right about the floor, it seemed to be dirt with small, sharp rocks in it. As I evaluated more of my terrain, I noticed that there was a large set of bars that caged Darren and I in one side of the room. Beyond those bars, there were two people who were unconscious on the floor, just like Darren. They to were blocked off by a set of metal bars and were isolated in their side of the room, and in the very middle of the room, which was caged off by our set of bars and theirs, there was a small box. On our side of the cage, there was a note. I also noticed the other side of the room had an identical note as well, but nothing in the middle of the room. Also, in our corner of the room, there was a hammer, but they had one to. Also in both of our sides, we had a box. I ignored the piece of paper in our side, dreading what it might say, and crawled over to the box silently. I reached the box and slowly opened the lid, being careful for it not to squeak, and looked inside. In the box, there was a small key that seemed to fit in the box that was in the middle of the room. I looked at the box that was on their side, and a question popped in my head. Did we both have keys? If so, could we both open it? I wouldn't know until I actually tried, and the only other thing to evaluate was the note in the middle of the room. Again, I silently crawled over to it and read it in my mind silently.
"As you may have presumed, this is the third trial. At exactly 10:00 A.M., when most of you awaken, the bars that separate your groups will come down. I expect that at least one person in that room must be dead by the time I come in the room at exactly 11:00 A.M.. So, yes, I'm telling you to kill each other. It doesn't matter who's dead, as long as one of you is it. And if you want to kill more than one person, be my guest. To know what time it is, look at the clock that's on the ceiling. As a reminder, there are eight of you who are alive. Four boys, and four girls. And one last thing, the box in the middle of the room needs one key to open it, but inside is another box. The other group has the key to that box, and inside it is something special. Have fun."
After finishing the letter, my stomach dropped and I quickly lifted my head to see if the other group had woken up. Everyone was still asleep. I silently crawled over to where the hammer was and secured it in my grasp, not to kill, but to defend. There was only one hammer per side, and Darren was still asleep so might as well get it. I sat silently, staring at the clock, trying to read the time. 9:23. After a few more minutes, a person on the otherside of the room started waking up, a girl. It wasn't Katie or the girl I strangled, but that doesn't mean she won't kill us. She had the same look of confusion in her eyes as I did when I had woken up, except the first thing she grabs is the letter in her side of the room. I quickly scrambled over to Darren, and grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Wake up!" I hissed silently, and his eyes flicked open.
"What's going o-" I stopped him in mid sentence by covering his mouth because he wasn't whispering.
"Whisper." I said, looking at the other side of the room with my peripheral vision. The girl was waking up the boy.
"What?" He said in a hushed voice, looking around crazily with groggy eyes.
"Third trial. In about half an hour, a cage splitting this room in half will come down. When that happens, we have an hour to kill each other. One of us has to be dead though, if not, I don't know what'll happen." I explained, and his eyes widened with momentary terror.
"They'll try to kill us."
"Exactly! We have to fight back." I replied, and started going into detail about the hammers in each side of the room and about the mystery box in the middle of the room.
