Welcome to the Game

"Ugh."
My head was pounding and my shoulders ached. Hangover, I thought first of all. I tried to remember the night before and what could have caused the raw feeling in my joints but I was quickly distracted by the fact that I was cold and upright.
Why the hell am I vertical? I wondered.
I slowly blinked my eyes open and squinted into a white room. My vision was blurry so I blinked a few times until it cleared up and the thrum in my head abated.

I realised that I was standing against a wall with my ankles and wrists held to the wall by chrome coloured metal cuffs. I was stretched out like I was about to be crucified.
"What the fuck?"
"Is he awake? Hey man, you awake?"
I raised my head and looked at the wall opposite me. There was another man pinned to the wall in the same position as me. He grinned at me hopefully, the bright light glinting off his two piercings. He was very short.
"Yup, he's awake. Hey, you okay?"
"Where am I?" I asked blearily.
"We don't know," said a second voice. I flicked my gaze to the man against the right hand wall whose frizzy afro masked most of his face from me.
"What?" I asked, just because I was still feeling a little slow.
"Meaning we all woke up here just like you," says a man cuffed to the left wall who had a serious face.
"So, we've been kidnapped?" I asked, rolling my shoulders as best I could.
"That's what we think," fro-man said. "There's a pretty heavy duty door on your right so we figured this is some kind of holding cell."
Sure enough, when I turned my head to the right and squinted along the wall I saw a thin strip of metal jutting out from it like a door frame.

"What's your name?" Mr Serious asked.
"Gerard," I replied.
"I'm Mikey."
"I'm Ray," fro-man added.
"Frank," shortie said. "Hey, Gee, are you wearing shoes?"
Gee? "Uh, no."
"Oh. Thing is, neither are we."
"Great. So some sick dude has grabbed us, chained us up in some creepy-ass room and taken our shoes away."
"On the bright side, we still have our socks," Frank chirped.
I stared at him blankly until he apologised.
"Sorry, it's just, I woke up an hour before Mikey and Ray did so I'm getting really quite tired."

"You've tried getting out of these things, presumably?"
They nodded. "We've all tried everything we could think of," Mikey told me. "Nothing works. I think the cuffs have magnetic locks or something."
Frank started speaking again but was stopped all of a sudden by the lights snapping off. We fell silent, our breathing the only sound. I looked around and saw a faint green glow coming from my cuffs. Frank's and Ray's cuffs also had a green glow around them but Mikey's were glowing blue.

The lights snapped back on.
Frank and Mikey started looking at the wall to my left, the other side of me to the door.
"There's a message on there," Mikey said. "'To begin the game, advance to go,'" he read.
Ray's brow furrowed. "What does that mean?"
As he said it, a patch in the middle of the floor lit up green with the word 'GO' and an arrow drawn inside it.
"That's a Monopoly square," I said. "I think we have to stand on it."
"How?" Frank asked, tugging his wrists hard against his cuffs to prove his point.
I thought for a second. "Mikey, try and get out of your cuffs."
He looked at me like I was stupid then shrugged and tugged hard. His cuffs sprang open and he fell forwards flat on his face.
He got up and brushed himself off.
"How did you know?" he asked me suspiciously.
"When the lights went off our cuffs were lit up green and yours were blue."
He glared at me for a second more before going to Frank and trying to help him out of his cuffs.

For a few minutes he pried uselessly at the metal with gritted teeth then gave up. "Sorry dude, still locked."
"Try the door," Frank told him. Mikey crossed to the door and pulled at the handle.
"Locked," he told us. "What should I do?"
"Stand on the square," Ray suggested.
Mikey trepidatiously slid one socked foot then the other onto the square. "It's warm," he said, shifting his weight around. "Is anything happening?"
"The message on the wall has disappeared," Frank said. Mikey stepped off the GO square and touched the wall. "Warm as well," he told us. "It feels like soft plastic, I think it's a screen."
He checked the door again but it was still locked so he went to stand back on the GO square.

There was a quiet pop beside my ear and a distorted voice said, "Welcome."
"Jesus Christ," I gasped, leaning my head away from the wall.
"What's up?" the other three asked. Mikey got off his square and took a step towards me.
"Tell Michael to stay where he was, you cannot play if you do not start at the beginning."
"He wants you to stay on the square, Mikey," I said shakily.
Mikey stepped back again. "Who?"
"I welcome you all to the game," the voice said.
"He says 'welcome to the game'," I repeated.
"Who does, Gerard? What game?"
"I have put a lot of planning into this to ensure you play by the rules," the voice said. "I am going to give you some rules which I would like you to repeat to your new friends. Can you do that, Gerard?"
"Yes," I whispered.
"Exact wording please, or you will have to watch poor Franklin be electrocuted."
My eyes widened and I looked over at Frank. "Please don't do that," I said and Frank's breathing picked up a little bit.
"Gerard, what is it?" he asked but I didn't answer.
The voice began to give me a list of rules in short chunks which I repeated.

"Welcome to my game. The aim is simple - beat every trial and you will be allowed to leave. You have to play by the rules of the game. Implanted in each of your spines is a device which can be used to give you electric shocks if you disobey the rules. Once you leave the board, the chip will de-activate and disintegrate. There are two ways to leave. The first is through the door and the second is to forfeit, by which I mean that your heart rate hits zero. I hope we are all clear. There is no time limit on how long the game can be played for but there is only one way to the door and to reach it you must complete all of the trials."

There was a pause before the voice began again and I resumed my role as a mouthpiece.
"Mikey, in the wall behind Ray there is a-"
The voice suddenly stopped.
"Gerard," it said coldly.
"Yes?" I licked my lips nervously.
"I am sure I said to copy my words exactly. Did you hear me start my sentence with 'Mikey' or 'Michael'?"
"Michael," I answered in a whisper. The other three were watching me, Mikey frozen half way to where Ray was cuffed to the wall.
"Do you remember the consequences of not following my exact wording?"
"Oh God, I'm sorry," I whispered desperately.
"Your apology is not accepted."
I froze, staring at Frank in horror.
"Gerard," he asked, "what's wr-" He broke off with a scream.

"Frank!" we shouted in unison as the small man writhed against the wall. Suddenly he slumped, hanging from his restraints and gasping for air. Mikey ran over and held him upright.
"Gerard, what was that?" he asked me.
"That was punishment," I said. "He told me to copy his exact words and-"
"And you said 'Mikey' instead of 'Michael'," he guessed. I nodded morosely.
"Hey, 's okay," Frank said. "Just try not to do it again, yeah? Mikey, I'm fine man, go do what the creepy pervert tells you."
With a glower at me, Mikey stepped away from Frank. "What now?"

"Michael, in the wall behind Ray there is a cabinet. Open it and take out the object inside."
Mikey did as he was told, sliding his hand behind Ray's back.
"There's a hole behind you," Mikey said as he twisted his arm behind Ray's back. Ray arched his body outwards to make it easier for him and Mikey felt around for a while before pulling his hand out again. He was holding a key made of a slick, shiny grey metal. It was one of the old fashioned keys with a loop at the top and a rectangle sticking out of the side.
"In the front of the cuffs is a keyhole. I'm sure you know what do do with a key."

There was another pop by my ear as Mikey unlocked Frank's cuffs and helped him out of them. He still looked pale from being shocked. Mikey unlocked Ray next, then me. I could see a certain degree of blame in his dark eyes as I glanced towards Frank guiltily.
"Dude, I'm so sorry," I told him but he waved it away.
"Wasn't your fault."
"There's a speaker here," Mikey said, showing me a tiny grille of mesh no bigger than a pound coin that had been behind my head. "What was his voice like?"
"He was using a distorter, he might have been a she for all I could tell but he knew our names. He called you Michael and Frank, Franklin."

"What do we do now?" Ray asked, helping Frank stand up. The little man shook himself and gave us a genuine smile to let us know he was feeling okay.
"We could always try the door again," he suggested.
I turned around and looked at the door for the first time. It looked like the ones they put on walk-in restaurant freezers, heavy steel with a vertical push-down handle. Mikey walked up to it and gave the handle a push - it opened.
He turned and looked at us.
"Come on then," Ray said. "Let's get going."
Staying in a tight group, we all shuffled through the door.

Notes

So, here's the first chapter. I know it's weird but it's an idea I've been toying with for a while so please let me know what you guys think of it. I'll try and keep uploads about two or three days apart.

Stay cool,
Ghost xx