Cascading Empire

Chapter 36

                    Confusion ran through her mind as Saphire leaned closer. "How did you know that for sure?" Saphire whispered quietly, her eyebrows knit in confusion as May lowered her eyes, mouth slightly opened in thought. "Well, after the incident with the blackout, I had Callex give me a communication device," May explained, tapping her sweatpants pocket before criss-crossing. "I forgot we didn't have our phones. Do they think they dropped on the rooftop?" May asked and Saphire was still in confusion, shrugging. May then added, "They know our pasts, I'm pretty sure they did their research, and what happened to us isn't exactly a secret either. They'll know who did this," May sighed, leaning back on one side of the van while the sun shone down on the mattress. Sticking her feet onto the warm sunlight, past memories of doing this so often on a warm living room carpet flashed through her mind. After a while, May closed her eyes and fell asleep. 

                      

                    Saphire opened her eyes feeling confused when everything was dark and she couldn't see a single thing. Cautious, she sat up and immediately glanced around, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark room with barely any moonlight lighting up the place. '.. They didn't take us to.. a shed right..' Saphire grunted in dismay as she looked around once again, seeing light coming out the crevice under what she assumed was a door. She felt around with her fingertips, feeling the cold floor which she knew was polished tiles before her hands hit something. It was cold and thin, quite circular in shape so she assumed it was a chair. Reaching up, her hands felt a flat surface which confirmed her assumption. She stood up and blinked a couple times, before looking at the door, taking a step closer and closer to it, before hissing in pain. 

                   With the help of the light underneath the door, she could see that it was a couple shards of broken glass. With furrowed eyebrows and pursed lips, she continued walking cautiously, heading towards the door that was about forty feet away from her. Saphire continued walking slowly, making sure to feel around with her cold toes before taking any step forward. Eventually she reached the door and felt around, reaching down to the handle and opening the door slowly with a creak, surprised when she saw many people walking around. 

                   A.. hospital..? 

                   There were people walking around, whispering here and there. She opened the door and took a step out, people occasionally stopping to give her a smile here and there but continued on their way. Saphire let her bare feet take another step as eventually the hallway cleared out, the slamming of doors surprising her. Suddenly, a robotic voice spoke through the loud speakers on the ceilings. Glancing up, she saw cameras reflecting her reflection as the voice spoke. "Welcome to the game." 

                  Saphire tilted her head in confusion, glaring up at the camera. What was this jigsaw shit? 

                  "There will be four levels. Level one, find your way to the top floor. All the windows and doors have been deactivated and are bulletproof, so do not think of escaping. The emergency exit has been completely locked. There will be a side mission. As you are continuing onto the top floor, there will be some people you know. The people you know, you have to put their blood onto the watch on your wrist, or the system will not open the door to the next level." 

                  Saphire began walking, as the robot continued, "There are four floors in total. You need to collect five different blood as DNA samples. Each person that is on my side-" 'There's sides?' "Will be worth one point each. Each innocent person, will be worth a fifth of a point. You must collect five points in total. The second level-" 

                  "Hurry up!" She shouted impatiently as a laugh went through before it continued, "The second level is you have to find your way out of a maze from floor number five to six. There will continue being people from there on. Either their innocent or bad, you will find out. The people will try to kill you, and you will have to survive alone." 

                  The person dares to use innocent people in this game?! Saphire felt extremely pissed and began shouting at the cameras she was passing as she continued walking slowly through the hallways, "LUCAS! You better stop this! Where is May!?" She shouted angrily while the speaker continued, ignoring her. "Level three, Russian Roulette." 

                  Hearing these two words, Saphire's heart dropped. "With who?!" She shouted and the speaker went quiet again. "Level four will be a surprise. There will be surveillance cameras, and also-" 

                   Saphire turned a corner and her eyes widened immediately in shock. The hallways were now filled with a couple people, walking around aimlessly while they were all covered in masks. Some were shaking in fear, while some were calm. There were automatic guns all around the ceiling, and it would be impossible to run through them without getting shot at least eight to ten times. While her fingers clenched in anger, the robot said their goodbye words. "Good luck on this game." 

                  Saphire was shocked as a couple of people walked passed her, her glaring at the guns while calmly walking down the hallway. "I have to collect.. people's blood..?" Saphire glanced down at the cold watch at her wrist as her thoughts immediately began to wonder. She needed to find May. But it was impossible when there was so much floors to explore. She continued walking more and more as people were turning their heads to her, before walking past, seeing what she would do as they also all heard the announcement on the speaker. "Where is May.." Saphire sighed, biting her thumb in worry as she lifted her head. Soon enough, she saw the elevator and entered, before a couple people also entered with her. Moving to the back, all the people faced the front, completely emotionless while all four of them had different heights. A tall man stood next to her as she moved away, head leaning against the mirror wall. 

                 While deep in thought, her eyes moved down the mirror, seeing a bright white flash appear next to the tall man's hands.