A blinding light engulfed him and when he could see things clearly again, he still found himself surrounded by the same crowd as earlier. But now, their surroundings had changed.
Instead of the sand, they now stood on concrete. There was no natural light from the sun anymore. Lamps with old-fashioned light bulbs illuminated the huge warehouse they were standing in.
Frederick had estimated their crowd to be around a hundred people so the fact that they only filled out a small part of the entrance of the warehouse emphasized the fact just how gigantic it was.
All kinds of strange items filled the shelves. A wild western guitar on one row, a whole ass stove on the other and over there you could see an entire shelve only filled with screws and – oh wait, was that the skeleton of a grown giraffe laying there?
If one was ever searching for something that they weren't able to find anywhere, then here was the place they might find it.
"Welcome, my dear players!" An energetic voice spoke, drowning out the rest of the noise. The crowd, which had been panickily clamoring before, became silent at those words. Suddenly, headlights went on and pointed towards the middle of the stage that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
A man standing on it bowed towards them. He wore a black tuxedo with a white vest. His head was crowned by a black topper and a monocle was in front of one of his eyes. To Frederick, he made quite a funny picture since he reminded him of Mr. Monopoly.
"I am Jasper. Your game leader for this round." Mr. Monopoly introduced himself.
"This is a game personally designed by me – I call it 'Collecting'!" He continued to speak.
"You all will get a message on your phone with a list of objects you will need to collect in an hour. Precisely one hour, 60 minute or 3600 seconds – not one hour, minute or second longer. 's that clear?"
"Hey!" One of the men from earlier suddenly shouted out after the crowd had recovered from the shock of the man and the stage appearing suddenly through the headlights turning on.
Despite his attire being a suit, he did not give off the energy of a gentleman. More the opposite – rude and loud.
"What is going on here!?" He shouted out loud, disturbing the silence that had befallen the crowd and animating other people to also cry out loud about what was happening.
"Besides, who do you think you are to dare and contain us in this place?" The angry man continued.
"If you don't let me leave now, I will make sure that you will never get out of prison and never see the daylight again." To underline his words, he left a string of curses free.
A bit to Fred's left there was the student from earlier and the elderly man, who Frederick had seen earlier at the breadboard. It had been his innocent question of where they were that had started the debate of this place being the afterlife or not.
He saw the blue training jumpsuit wearing student lean towards the old man with a straw hat on his head and overheard the words that she was whispering to the other.
"Do you need some earplugs, old man? All those foolish words can't be good for your blood pressure." While saying those words, her shoulder-length black hair – dyed blue at its tips – was slightly swaying as she tilted her head.
Aggravated by those words, the older man whisper-yelled back at her. "You go and worry about yourself, young lady! You probably think you are very funny, tsk."
"You should go back to school and learn some manners," he scolded her. "My pulse is absolutely fine."
She sniggered. "Sure thing, old man."
Fred: "…"
Fred tuned the bickering of these two beside him out and put his concentration back towards the still ongoing tumult in the mass.
It seemed like with every comment more against them being detained in this place and the demand of being let free, Jasper's eyebrows folded more, causing his monocle to sit slightly crooked on the left side of his nose.
"Silence!" He shouted after his last piece of patience seemed to have gotten lost. His voice was inhumanely loud and echoed through the warehouse, causing Fred's and the others' ears to ring, seeing as some were desperately holding their hands above their ears and pulling their chin against their chest.
Beside him he could hear the female student loudly moan and then curse, after which she was reprimanded by the old man beside her for her crude choice of words.
"I'm sorry, old man!" She whined.
After Jasper had gotten everyone's attention through hurting their ears, he continued to speak with the volume of before but with a slightly more aggravated tone in his voice.
"Since this is your first Desert Game ever, I made its rules pretty easy on purpose - there will only be one!" A slightly mean grin graced the man's lips as if he was thinking of all of them as stupid, without exception.
Because of his earlier shout, no one dared to interrupt Jasper again.
With his grey hair and slight wrinkles, their game leader had the look of someone way past their forties but if one was to ask Fred about the age of this man, he wouldn't be able to give them a straight answer.
There was something timeless about the man. As if he had stopped being a human and instead become a character.
"You either have those items in your possession by then or not – if you don't, then you will not get any points for this round. But you will also not get any minus points."
The man sighed melancholically, like someone who was about to say something that would probably end with "man, everything was better in the old days…"
"You know, you all are at zero points. If one has less than zero points – loses a game but had not enough points before to cover the minus points from that loss – they die and have to experience the feeling of having failed the goal they had set for themselves in this world," he started his monologue.
"But the current empress has made some changes that the beginner games are exempted from this rule," he sighed once again like this was a real tragedy for him.
"Now all the pathetic weaklings can get through the beginner games. I don't understand how that's any good – now all of you will just die in your first real game. Well, I mean, at least there is nothing stopping you to kill each other for the win now either. At least one way a few might be sorted out in this game."
Fred raised an eyebrow. Did he just call them dying being sorted out?
"Oh, would you look at that!" He suddenly exclaimed while dramatically looking at the with-diamonds-decorated watch around his wrist. "We really should start now or else you will be late for your second game. Let's start!"
With those words, he clapped in his hands and vanished, leaving all of them behind. Most people confused and scared about what the meaning of all of this was.
A swarm of simultaneous Pings filled the room.
Looking at his phone, Fred took stock of the items he would need to collect. Looks like he needed to gather three different things in total. A hairpin, a lock and – huh?
Looks like this game wasn't as easy as collecting scraps after all.
This should be interesting.
-
His first act in this game was to take a step into the direction of the old man and the student.
The student was already scanning the surroundings of the warehouse while the old man clearly had trouble reading the words on his phone, squinting at the screen with his eyes.
Suddenly, a mechanic voice spoke from the phone, slightly scaring the old man as he visibly flinched.
Fred's and the student's attention, who were the only two beside the old man to still be near enough to hear the voice, were pulled towards the device too.
[Reading modus activated.
Potential victory points: 1
Potential loss points: 0
Rules: The player needs to collect the items on the following list in one hour.
The List:
Official government document
Pencil
Feather
Remaining time:
57 minutes and 23 seconds.]
It was exactly the same of what the newest message on Fred's phone had read, except for the type of items the old man needed to gather.
Being closer, he noticed the slashes that the knife with which student must have gotten murdered with had left behind in the belly section of her blue jumpsuit top. It seemed to be trenched in by (now dried) blood too.
Her skin, as far as he could tell, was unblemished beneath those slashes though. The man who had talked about burning to death also had no visible burn scars on his skin.
Looked like the traces of whatever had been the reason for the people's death had not followed them to this place. It brought Fred back to wondering what the cause for his own demise had been for a short moment.
No use dwelling on it.
"An official government document?" The student spoke. "Sounds a bit tricky, if I might say so, old man. Luckily, you will have me to help your search." The last words were said with a confident pep to her voice
The old man rolled his eyes. "Get lost, young lady."
She ignored the refusal of her help. "Since this makes us a team, you can call me Ray," she introduced herself to the old man.
He grumbled something, but ultimately one could hear him say "…Bernard."
"Excuse me," Frederick said, putting on his most corporate friendly smile.
They turned towards Frederick.
Ray let her eyes scan him from head to toe one time and then let them glide back to scanning the shelves near them, her expression not betraying one bit of what she thought about him.
"And who are you?"
"My name is Fred," he said amicably.
Since there was a timer running, it was better to cut straight to the chaste and not waste anymore time.
"Do you think you could lend me the pin in your hair until this game is finished, perhaps?"