I’ve managed to get a bit more time to post again. Between everything that’s gone on, I’m still trying my best to get this out there. I need to let people know what’s happening to me, to warn them.
So if I remember correctly, the last time I posted I’d just made it to the roof of the Walmart after making that risky climb up the drain pipe. I still look back at that now and think about how easily I could have fallen. Either way, I’d made it to the top and hidden myself under that tarp.
I was all set to stay up there for the rest of the game, waiting the entire thing out from the safety of my vantage point. Each morning I’d hear the squealing of the door hinge as the security guard made his rounds and I’d sit silently under the tarpaulin, waiting for the footsteps to fade away. Then depending on the weather, I’d sit and take in the view whilst being careful not to expose myself to anyone below.
The food that I’d stolen from the dumpster lasted me for a while, although careful rationing helped too. I knew if I needed more I could always shimmy down the drainpipe again, but the thought of climbing back up filled me with anxiety and made my chest twinge.
I’d spent the rest of my time watching things on my phone. Initially just TV shows and films, but after a while I found it hard to concentrate on them. All I could think about was my current situation. I found my attention always drifting back to the nightly streams that the organisers sent out. The terrified faces of the players were frozen in my mind as the pistol rounded on each of them, trapped in a perpetual scream.
At one point, morbid curiosity ended up getting the better of me. Against my better judgement, I opened up the Devils Games app. I had a gnawing need to know what exactly was going on. Selecting the hide-and-seek option from the menu, the page loaded before me.
I needed to know what the organisers were getting from all of this. Were they just selling their freaky customers the nightly executions, or was there something more to this? I don’t know what I expected, to be honest with you, but what I found sent my anxiety skyrocketing.
There were several videos, some named after specific days, others labelled Best Bits. From what I could tell, they each seemed to be comprised of CCTV footage of the contestants, capturing the chaos of the game for the eager viewers on the dark web. I shuddered as I realised they were tracking us. Not only were they killing us off on stream if we lost, but they were making videos of us too, selling them on to their salivating customers. That must be why they wanted our phones on at all times, so they knew where to look to make their sick shows.
Unable to tear myself away from this newfound terror, I clicked on the preview for the video titled “Day 1”. They couldn’t be turning all of this into some kind of TV show, they just couldn’t be. That same embedded video player loaded up again as the screen went black, this time cutting to some grainy CCTV footage showing a woman running through a crowded street, frantically pushing past other pedestrians while constantly glancing over her shoulder. A few seconds later a larger man with a nasty-looking scar across his cheek barreled past, knocking pedestrians flying as he charged towards the woman, tackling her to the ground.
Then the video cut to a new image. My blood ran cold as I made out a scene I recognised. It was the mall food court. I could clearly see Jenny sitting there with her pizza. I was there too. All I could do was watch as she drew her pistol out of her bag and hit me around the back of the head while my back was turned. My cheeks blazed with embarrassment as I watched it back and I kicked myself again for trusting her.
Another cut revealed a new scene of a man who I remembered seeing on the stage in that evening’s stream. He was being chased along a rooftop, terrified, by a woman who appeared to be brandishing a taser. She chased him to the edge of the rooftop, dragging him back to the ground, appearing to laugh maniacally as she tased him until he stopped moving.
Feeling sick, I closed the app. I couldn’t believe what was happening, that not only had we been tricked into joining this awful game in the first place, but now we were being exploited for their profit like some kind of trained animal.
I found myself unable to shake what I’d seen in those videos from my mind for hours after that. I couldn’t believe that I’d gotten myself into this situation. I was so stupid, why had I thought that applying for that game was a good idea, I should have known it was too good to be true. After several more hours, I finally began to push those thoughts to the back of my mind. That’s when the boredom set in.
Although the rooftop was safe, there was absolutely nothing to do. Eventually, I ended up inventing small games to entertain myself. Near the tarp, I found a few empty paint cans, so I devised a game where I’d try to throw some of the bones from my roast chicken into the open mouth of the can and, depending on the size of the bones, I’d get a certain amount of points. After a few days, I could easily throw the entire carcass in without missing a shot.
The other can was used as a makeshift latrine. I kept it on the other end of the roof so that I didn’t have to deal with the smell. As much as I was thankful for my hiding place, that was one of the worst parts of it for me. I found myself wishing each day that I’d chosen a spot with a bathroom. I’d try to cover it with my old, bloodied clothes to at least dampen the stench, but I was still terrified that one of the security guards would end up finding it when they came up for their morning smoke.
Still, I was safe on that roof. My injured ribs started healing slightly after a couple of days of resting up, and my leg didn’t hurt as much, although I couldn’t feel some of it either so it may very well have just been nerve damage setting in. I was nowhere near back to normal and I suspected that any strenuous activity would send me spiralling back to how I’d been a few days ago.
Those few days crawled by uneventfully, with no one any the wiser as to my hiding spot. I could almost forget about the Hunters and the awful game that I’d gotten myself wrapped up in until the daily message from the organisers came through. I’d long since set my phone on silent mode after that scare with the security guard, so I missed most of my notifications, but this one always made a noise, coming through every day like clockwork.
Each time I’d watch it the same show would unfold, the bird-masked man appearing with his jovial movements and the faces of the terrified players bound there on the stage before being mercilessly executed. Each time I winced at the sound of the pistol firing, imagining myself on that stage before the masked freak.
Thankfully there were no more changes to the rules. I don’t know how I would have coped with that. I wasn’t mentally prepared to have to leave the safety of the roof again.
The “shows” had been the same for the past three days, although the last one had ended a little differently. The masked man had turned to the camera again after pulling the trigger on the final Hider, wiping crimson discharge from the barrel of his weapon. Rather than taking his deep bow and bidding the audience adieu, he looked into the lense again, almost crestfallen.
“Well, that’s all for tonight folks. But there’s just one last thing. It’s come to our attention that some of you players aren’t getting into the cat-and-mouse spirit of our little game. Now here at The Devils Games, we pride ourselves on producing exciting, quality content for our viewers, and if you’re not participating then you’re nothing more than “dead” weight. We’re down to half of you players now, so it’s all still left to play for, I expect nothing but your best efforts”
He paused for a second, turning his head as though scanning the faces of an invisible audience. Resuming his whimsical demeanour once again, he took his customary deep bow.
“Until tomorrow my friends, and the excitement it is bound to bring. Adieu”
I couldn’t help the chill that traced its way along my spine as the words “dead” weight replayed over and over in my head. The way he’d said it, he’d emphasised the word as though it were some kind of threat.
I couldn’t help thinking about how I’d been up here for the past few days. Was it aimed at me? Because I wasn’t running around and being chased by Hunters like they wanted? Well, I didn’t care. I couldn’t care less if the way I was hiding up here didn’t make for entertaining viewing. I needed to survive this, so if that meant I wasn’t putting on a good enough show for them then that was their problem.
Swiping away the app, I went about the rest of the evening, watching TV on my phone and trying to shake the masked man’s warning from my mind. It took a while longer than normal, but eventually, my eyelids started drooping and I decided to get some shut-eye.
The screeching of the door hinges snapped me awake with a start. It was dark, the tarpaulin blocking out any feeble light that might have tried to seep through from the car park lights, and my eyes took a second to adjust themselves. Sitting bolt upright, my head brushed the plastic as I strained my ears to listen.
There was nothing, just the silence of the night as I waited there, sweat beginning to bead on my forehead. Gently fumbling my fingers along the floor, I found my phone in the darkness and pressed the lock button. The brightness of the screen blaring into life blinded me momentarily as I tried to make out the time. Cold fear washed over me as I read the number. 3 am. It was 3 am.
The store had been closed for several hours now. The security guard, the only person who ever seemed to come up here, wouldn’t be back for at least another three hours. No one in their right mind would have come up here at this time. But as the clicking of heavy boots on the PVC floor grew closer and closer through the silence I knew that whoever it was had to have come for me. I’d been caught.
The footsteps stopped dead what sounded like a few meters away and I held my breath, listening to the pounding of my heart in my ears. The breathing of the intruder was the only sound, cutting through the quiet, heavy and slightly guttural. I sat there, frozen, not daring to move. I was still in my sleeping bag, I couldn’t run, and even if I could there was no way my leg would hold out long enough for me to outrun whoever this was. All I could do was wait and hope they gave up.
They’d obviously come for me, they knew I was up here, but they didn’t know exactly where. Maybe I could use that to my advantage, make them think that perhaps I’d left just before they got there? I was racking my brain, trying to come up with a way out of my predicament, when a deep voice with an accent that I assumed was Eastern European cut through the quiet rooftop.
“Come out David, I just want to talk”
The hair on my neck stood on end. Although I was pretty sure whoever this was had come for me anyway, that confirmed it. They knew my name and they knew I was up here. Sitting as still as the grave, I didn’t dare to even blink for fear that the sound would give me away. How had the Hunter possibly found me up here?
“Come on David, I’m not a Hunter, you can come out. Like I say I just want to talk”
I didn’t respond, staying as still and quiet as I could. They obviously didn’t know exactly where I was, otherwise they’d have snatched the tarpaulin covering me. It was a trick to get me to give away my position, to reveal my hiding spot. All I could do was stay still and hope.
“Look, David, I’m with The Devil’s Games. I need you to come out here now!”
My phone lit up in my hand as a notification appeared. It was a message from what I could tell, although it didn’t appear to be from any of my normal messaging apps. Clicking it, The Devils Games app burst to the front of my screen. A message window opened revealing a single photo of a large man clad in a black tracksuit wearing a smooth silver mask with no discernable features other than two eye holes. I could make out the rooftop clearly and the tarp-covered mound where I was hiding just behind him.
“We’re the only ones that can use the app to send messages, so there’s your proof that I’m not lying. Now come out, we need to talk”
Relief started welling up in me as I took in his words, only to be replaced by a crashing wave of fear. Sure this guy wasn’t a Hunter, but if he was from the psychos that organised this whole thing then that couldn’t be much better. Why did they want to talk to me? And why had they sent this brute rather than just sending me a message?
“You’re testing my patience, David…”
The sour note in his voice as he said my name made it abundantly clear that I couldn’t outwait the man, and that pushing my luck by making him search for me was not something that I wanted to do. Muttering silently under my breath, I slowly lifted the tarpaulin.
The large, masked man was standing a few inches away from my hiding spot, the eyeholes of his mask angled down towards me.
“That’s better” He said, taking a heavy step over and squatting his enormous bulk down next to me.
“What’s all this about? You’ve got me trapped in your stupid game, what more could you psychos possibly want?” I asked, practically spitting the words.
“Now David, there’s no need to be like that. I’ve just been sent here to remind you what these games are all about is all”
He drew something from the back of his belt. Something long and metallic, and my blood turned to ice as I recognised it. Inspecting the pistol in the moonlight, the large man looked at it, passing it from hand to hand contemplatively.
“You see, you’re doing really well David. You should be proud of yourself. You’re one of the favourites to win this thing actually.”
“Is that what you came to tell me, that I’m the fan favourite? You couldn’t have just sent a message?” I asked in disbelief, not taking my eyes off the gun.
“Haha, no, I just thought I’d let you know how you were doing” He said chuckling to himself, still staring at the gun. “No, the reason I’ve been sent here is because there is some concern with the higher-ups that you’re doing too well”
I baulked as he turned to face me again, still holding the pistol firmly in his grip.
“You see, if all of the other Hiders are out there every day running and hiding like they’re supposed to, and you’re sitting up here safe and sound. Well that’s not very fair on them, is it? Or on our viewers? It’s not in the spirit of the game”
“Fuck your viewers! I couldn’t care less if you lose ratings, I’m not risking my life anymore for this stupid game!” I spat again, surprising myself with the venom in my words.
The man looked up and let out a large sigh, before slowly turning the barrel of the pistol towards me and training it at eye level.
“David, I was really hoping we could resolve this amicably. See they sent me here to give you an incentive to get into the spirit and give everyone a fighting chance. But I can see now it’s going to be harder than I thought. If you won’t listen to my words, then maybe I’ll have to find another way to convince you.”
The colour drained from my face as a surge of adrenaline coursed through me as what he was saying slowly dawned on me. He was going to shoot me. He was going to shoot me because I wasn’t playing how they wanted. Because I’d found a safe place and hunkered down, I wasn’t putting on a good enough show for them.
My fight-or-flight instinct kicked in then and there and I made the snap decision to run. Attempting to get to my feet and slide out of the sleeping bag in one quick movement, I collapsed as it wrapped around my ankles and sent me tumbling into the mound behind me. I was dimly aware that the shot I was expecting to ring out never came. Forcing myself to my feet again, I was just about to make a run for the stairwell door when a searing pain emanated from the back of my head, spreading out in all directions before everything faded to black.
When I awoke a few seconds later I was on the ground next to my sleeping bag. My lungs felt tight and the fire in my chest returned as I struggled to breathe. There was something heavy pressing down on my back, crushing my chest beneath it. Twisting myself around as much as I could, I turned to see the large, masked man above me, pinning me to the ground with a heavy knee in my back.
“Ah good, I didn’t get you too hard” He said as he noticed my movement. “Now I really didn’t want to do this David, but it’s obvious you won’t listen to anything I have to say”
He reached behind him, and something shone in the moonlight as he pulled it out of its sheath. Expecting to see the barrel of that pistol again, my scalp tightened as the shimmering edge of a nasty-looking combat knife came into view.
He held it there, again inspecting it just like the pistol as it reflected off the smooth surface of his mask. As if satisfied with it, he turned to me again, grabbing my right arm. I tugged my arm back and tried to kick out, but a sharp blow from the hilt of the knife sent my vision swimming again.
“Less of that please David, you’re only going to make this harder,” Said the masked man, almost sympathetically.
Lying out my arm and pinning it in place with his other knee, he began to bring the knife closer. I let out a scream and writhed again as its tip descended closer and closer towards my hand.
“Scream all you want David, there’s no one around to hear you anyway. If I were you I’d save your energy.” He said, completely unphased by the cacophony that I was making beneath him.
All I could do was watch as the razor-sharp tip of the knife gently kissed the soft flesh of my ring and pinky fingers, resting there just for a moment before being forced viciously through them. A sickening snap accompanied the movement and firey, white-hot pain flared out as my fingers were cleaved away, leaving two bloody stumps.
I let out a wail of pain, my mind refusing to understand what was happening as I lay there pinned on the floor, staring at the bloody stumps of what used to be my fingers. The crimson liquid pooling beneath them, spurting out with every throb, brought it all crashing down.
“There we go, I’m sure that’ll serve as a good incentive for you to be more considerate of other players. You just need to get into the spirit of the games. Now, I’m under strict instructions from my superiors that I am to get you playing properly, so please, don’t make me come and pay you another visit.” He said, wiping my blood on his trousers and sliding the knife back into its sheath.
“Just so you know, I’m rooting for you.” He said, bringing his fist down as the pain in my head flared up again and the world turned to black.
I don’t know how long I was out for, but when I awoke my eyes stung with the orange glow of the rising sun. I felt awful, everything felt heavy and there was a throbbing pain emanating from the back of my head. Gingerly I tried to push myself up into a sitting position. Agonising jolts shot up my right arm as soon as I tried to put my weight on it and I collapsed down again in a heap.
Turning to my injured arm, the sight of the browning bandaged stumps of my fingers brought everything flooding back. My severed digits were still there on the floor, inches from me, lying in a darkening pool of my own blood.
Weakness and nausea washed over me as I stared at my mangled hand, remembering the warning from the masked man. He’d bandaged my hand before he left, obviously I’d be no use to them if I bled out or got infected, but he’d made it very clear that if I didn’t start playing the way they wanted they’d do something much worse than take a couple of fingers.
As I sat there, unable to fathom quite how dire my situation had become, I heard the familiar squeal of the staircase door opening. The blood drained from my face as I heard footsteps clicking softly against the PVC flooring of the roof.
No… Not again. He couldn’t be back again. They’d hardly given me any time. I’d been unconscious until just now, there’s no way I could have moved from this spot. They couldn’t punish me for that, that wasn’t fair. Then again, what about this situation was fair?
Gritting my teeth, I tried to force myself to my feet again. That agonising pain flared up as soon as my bandaged hand made contact with the floor and I swayed slightly under my own weight, but I forced myself to push, to stand up. Rocking gently from side to side as I tried to maintain my balance, my head swam and the pain in the back of my skull caused my vision to dim, threatening to eclipse it completely.
I needed to run, to hide. Taking a step forward, I stumbled as my legs gave way and fell with a thud into the tarp covering that mound of decorations. The footsteps stopped dead at the sound, and I heard a voice call out.
“Hello? Someone there?”
A shortlived sense of relief washed over me as I realised it wasn’t the voice of the masked man, only to be replaced by a newly refreshed sense of panic as I realised who it belonged to. The security guard. He was early.
I needed to hide, he couldn’t find me, I needed to get off the roof! Now! Trying my best to stand again, all I managed to do was create even more noise, cursing myself as I collapsed into the tarp. After a third attempt, I managed to stand again, and reaching out a hand to steady myself on the bulkhead, I staggered my way around to the other side away from the guard. The footsteps had started up again now, heading towards my former hiding place before stopping dead again as the voice muttered to itself.
“What the fuck… Hey, who’s up here? Do you need help? Come out now where I can see you”
He’d obviously seen the blood and my former fingers. I didn’t know what to do. My head was pounding like a drum and I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. My body was slowly starting to shake off the effects of shock, but I was still hardly in a state to run away. Even if I did manage to get to the stairs, he’d hear my footsteps echoing down the staircase and would definitely be able to catch up with me.
There was no way I could climb off the roof without him seeing. If I made a dash for that drainpipe he’d clock me before I’d made it even halfway. Even if by some miracle I’d made it, there was no way I’d be able to climb down in this state. Not with my hand like this. I was stuck.
Closing my eyes for a second with my back to the bulkhead, I took a deep breath, trying to come up with a plan, when a voice from my left broke through the silence and I froze.
“Hey… You… What are you doing up here? Stay where you are and slowly turn around”
My heart sank. He’d found me, it was all over. Defeated, I slowly obeyed, turning towards the guard. He was standing a few feet away from my left, brandishing a small can of mace threateningly from his extended right arm.
“What happened up here? Who are you and where’s the other guy?”
What could I say? I’m in a secret game of hide and seek, only it’s not hide and seek and they’re killing us. I was hiding on the roof to try and save my life. Sorry for not telling you. There’s no way I’d be able to explain what had happened on the roof, at least not without making myself seem crazy.
I thought about rushing him, maybe knocking him off the roof and trying to flee, although I felt disgusted with myself as soon as I thought it. This man was innocent, just doing his job. It wasn’t his fault I’d gotten myself caught up in all this. If I knocked him off the roof just so I could escape then I was no better than the degenerates that organised this whole thing. I was done.
“Other guy?”
That was all I could muster as I stared at him, imagining how in less than an hour I’d be in a police cell and then that would be it, my life would be over.
“Yeah, you know, the big guy in the mask. What did you do to him?” He glanced down at the bloodied bandages on my right hand. “What the hell were you two doing up here?”
It all clicked into place at that moment. He’d seen the man from last night climbing the stairs, probably on the security feed. That’s why he’d come up so early, he knew something was up. The masked man must have done that deliberately, making sure the security guard saw him and came up here to investigate, giving me yet another incentive to move.
All I could do was stand there, numb. Terrified as to what was going to happen next. There was no point explaining myself, no point trying to plead my innocence. I knew how it looked to him, he’d seen a masked man climbing the stairs and found a pool of blood and a couple of severed fingers, and then he’d found me and no masked man. Even though he probably knew the fingers and blood were mine, it was still suspicious enough that he would definitely need to alert the police.
After a few seconds of awkward silence, he ushered me along the roof and back down the staircase. I didn’t bother resisting, I was defeated at this point, just accepting my fate. He led me through the back of the store and into a small room which served as the security office.
Sitting me in the chair in front of his desk, he asked me again what I’d been doing up there and what had happened with the masked man. When I didn’t give an answer he sighed heavily before getting to his feet and walking over to the door. Opening it, he turned back to me with a concerned look in his eyes as he told me he’d need to call the police, pausing for a second before adding that he would also call an ambulance.
His words barely registered with me, I just stared ahead, unblinking, unable to think of anything other than how in one fell swoop my life was over. A sick sense of irony washed over me as I realised that it wasn’t even a hunter that had caught me in the end, it was just a security guard who was none the wiser as to what he was doing.
As he exited the room, I could hear him on his phone just outside, speaking to the operator on the other end, unwittingly signing my death warrant. All I could imagine was how, by the time the day was out, I would be standing on that stage in front of the camera and the masked man. Then that would be the last anyone saw of me, my death at the hands of that masked murderer, my eulogy. I’d be another victim of this awful game, and worst of all my family would have no idea what had happened.
My family… They’d never know. I couldn’t let that happen, I couldn’t abandon them like that. Even if I had been caught, I didn’t have the luxury of giving up. I needed to get back to them, to do everything in my power to at least try to escape. I owed it to them to do everything I could.
Snapping out of the cloud of depression that had settled over me, I scanned the room for anything that might help me get out of there. The room was a small office, containing only a desk and a large chair, with a smaller chair in front of it that I was sitting in. There was only one way out.
Thinking back, I couldn’t remember the security guard locking the door as he left to make his calls. That’s not to say he hadn’t, but if it was still unlocked then there was nothing stopping me from charging through that door, then rushing past him and out into the store before he could react. The shock and nausea that I’d felt this morning had been slowly ebbing away, and while I was nowhere near back to my usual self, I was pretty sure I’d be able to push myself hard enough to make this work. Maybe I’d be quick enough?
Either way, I couldn’t stay trapped in here, mobility was going to be my main ally at the moment. And with that, I’d made my mind up. I needed to act quickly, this would only work if he wasn’t expecting it.
Getting to my feet, my vision pulsed slightly as nausea threatened to rear its head again, but it was nowhere near as oppressively debilitating as before. Quashing it down, my heart began to dance a frantic beat as I readied myself. Quietly walking towards the door, my feet feeling steadier than before, I gently rested my hand on the handle.
Psyching myself up for what was about to come next, I counted down backwards from three before pushing the handle down as hard as I could. It moved freely with no resistance and I threw my weight against the door, swinging it open wildly and sending the security guard sprawling as I started to run.
Pain exploded in my leg and chest and my vision swam slightly before the adrenaline kicked in, dampening them to nothing but background sensations. The startled yells of the security guard as he stumbled to his feet and gave pursuit seemed to come from somewhere far away. All that mattered now was getting as far away from him and the store as possible.
Bursting through a large pair of double doors, I was met with the glaring artificial light of the supermarket. Stunned shoppers gawped at me as I flashed past them, quickly followed by the hammering footsteps of the security guard. Some yelped and jumped out of the way as I approached, others shouted curses or cheered on the security guard, assuming that I was nothing more than a common thief.
Darting through the aisles, the thundering footsteps and grunting breath of the guard seemed to be getting closer, and for a moment I questioned if I’d just made things worse by trying to run. Picturing the faces of my wife and child, I pushed myself as hard as my body would allow towards the main entrance, practically sliding into the next aisle.
The security guard skidded, easily swerving to follow me. I didn’t know how much longer I’d be able to do this for, he was obviously fitter and faster than me, and it was only a matter of time before he caught up.
Then I spotted something glinting ahead of me that sparked an idea. A towering display of cola cans, the glinting red metal stacked in a large pyramid at the end of the aisle. That was it!
Charging as fast as I could towards the display, I reached out a hand and sent several of the cans flying as I bolted past. The best phrase I can use to describe what happened next is utter chaos.
A deafening cacophony of metallic clanging filled the air as the cans clattered to the ground, rolling out in all directions and coating the floor like a shining red sea. A few ruptured, spraying their contents into the mess with a loud hiss. Startled yells from the other shoppers were drowned out by a second almighty clatter as the security guard, who had obviously lost his footing in the sea of cans, flew headlong into what remained of the display, the surviving cans crashing down over him.
His angry shouts and curses followed me as I left him in the distance, fumbling around in the mass of cans. I was doing it, I was actually doing it. I felt so stupid for how I’d thought before, the fact that I’d accepted my fate and given up without a fight. I was going to get out of this, all I needed to do was run around the next aisle and then I’d have a clear line to the exit.
Skidding around the corner, the elation that had filled me moments ago came crashing down as I saw the sea of shoppers queueing for the tills standing between me and the exit. There was no easy way through, and the footsteps that had started up again behind me meant the security guard was back on my tail.
Without giving myself any time to think, I ran as fast as I could to the nearest conveyor belt. Scrambling onto it, I charged along its length, knocking shopping flying left and right. The frightened, angry yells of the shoppers followed my progress, mixing with the terrified scream of the cashier as I took a running leap over her.
Landing hard and stumbling to my feet, I could hear the angry yells of the security guard as he tried to force his way through the crowd towards me. Charging forward again the entrance doors were so close now, the gleaming sunlight and active carpark just beyond them.
A clicking sound met my ears from the side of the door and I turned to see one of the junior employees standing next to the automatic closing mechanism. His eyes were fixed on me, terrified and his hand was shaking as he pressed the off button.
I was trapped, there was no way these doors would open for me now. There’s no way I’d have been able to run over to the mechanism, turn it back on, and then run out of the doors. The angry shouts of the security guard were getting closer and he’d catch up with me in a matter of seconds. There was only one way out of this.
Without missing a step, I ran at the doors, putting everything I had into my stride. Bringing my shoulder forward, I collided with the glass pane. It collapsed beneath me in an almighty crash before shattering violently, shards of broken glass coating me and spreading across the ground like a transparent snowfall.
Pain coursed through me, radiating from my shoulder as the effects of the impact took hold, dulling the screams and shouts of the shoppers behind me. I couldn’t stop, I wasn’t safe yet. I needed to get out of here. The police were on their way and I had no idea how long it would be before they got here. I needed to get as far away as I could before the adrenaline wore off.
Staggering across the car park, I weaved between the cars, crouching down to hide myself from the eyes of the security guard who had stared in stunned silence as I broke through the glass. My eyes watered with the pain that moving while crouching sent rippling through my chest, but the lack of footsteps chasing me urged me on. I was so nearly free.
Making my way from car to car, hearing the shouts of the shoppers and security guards getting quieter and quieter, I made my way back towards the houses and streets of the city. I don’t know how long I walked, but it wasn’t until the faint sounds of sirens filled the air that I decided it was best to get off the streets.
Diving into a nearby alleyway, I finally allowed myself a second to rest. I couldn’t believe what I’d just done. I’d escaped the clutches of capture. I was alive and, for the most part, doing ok. The security guard was probably telling the police about me now though, they’d probably be looking out for me from now on which would prove problematic. But right now at least, I was ok.
I had no idea what to do next though. What the hell was I supposed to do now? I needed to keep moving, but how long could I keep that up for? Now that I was relatively safe, the warning that the masked man had given me last night reverberated around in my head.
I was alone and helpless, and the organisers had made it painfully clear that I wouldn’t be able to hide out in the same place for the whole game. Looking down at my mangled right hand again in disbelief, I couldn’t quite accept that last night had actually happened.
A shrill pinging noise broke through the quiet of the alley, snapping me away from my thoughts with a start. It had come from my pocket. Perplexed, I reached for the source of the sound, cold metal and glass brushing against my hand. Grabbing a hold of it and bringing it out, the broken screen of my phone met my gaze. The masked man must have put it back into my pocket after he bandaged my hand.
Unlocking the screen, a chill crawled through me as I saw there was one new notification sitting there. It was from the Devil’s Games app. I couldn’t help but remember the last message I received on the app and what happened afterwards.
Shakily clicking on the notification, my heart jumped into my throat as the message popped up. Only a single line of text, but it still sent shivers coursing through me.
“Well done. Now you’re getting into the spirit of things!”
I need to get moving again, I’ll post the rest of this when I can. It’s getting harder and harder to find safe places to update you guys anymore, but I need to get this out there.