We lay there in the darkness for a minute, breathing heavily, elbows and knees and sides all aching… Trying our best not to think about how close we just came to getting trapped down here in the darkness.
Orange offers her hand to help me up. Blue offers hers to Indigo, and we clamber up to our feet, somewhat shell-shocked, and still unable to speak.
Indigo breaks the silence first. He turns to me, and to Red.
“Th-thanks”, he mutters quietly. “You know. For not… for not leaving me behind”.
Red grunts. “Don’t mention it”. He finds his voice and straightens his back, brushing down the front of his stomach. “I did what I had to. What I’d expect you to do for me. We need you, after all. Indigo key for the final door”.
“Right”, says Indigo softly. “Still”.
I just nod at him. There’s a truth to Red’s words, but, I’m choosing to believe that our actions were more than just simple self-interest.
“Those girls…” Red grunts, then louder: “those damned girls…”
He clenches his fists and strides down the corridor.
“Red, hey!” Blue calls to him, hurrying after. “Wait, just a second-”
“I don’t bloody think so”, he retorts, as we round a corner, and the computer room becomes visible ahead.
Green pauses his typing and sits back in his chair.
Violet and Yellow also notice our arrival.
Violet remains seated with barely a glance towards us at our approach, but Yellow jumps away from her desk in terror and backs herself up against the wall.
She stammers and splutters and puts out a hand to try and speak, but Red interrupts, walking right up to her and bellowing into her face:
“HOW COULD YOU LEAVE US, EH? Stupid, stupid, SELFISH girl!”
Blue tries to come between them and Red shoves her away.
“You didn’t just put this man’s life at risk- you risked it for ALL of us! We NEED his key! You put all of our lives at risk because you were too cowardly to stay and help!”
Yellow trembles in fear, and Blue comes between them again. She puts out her hands and this time Red allows himself to be pushed back. He runs a hand over his face.
“Well I don’t regret it, and I’m not sorry”, Violet murmurs from the side of the room. Rising to her feet, defiantly, staring at Red. “I did the only smart thing. My life was at risk and I acted to protect myself. I’m not going to allow myself to get trapped for some stranger”.
She gestures to Indigo.
“I mean no offence buddy but I don’t know who you are. I don’t know anything ABOUT you. About ANY of you, really!”
Red shakes his head. Veins bulging. “That’s not the point-”
“Wrong”, Violet interrupts. “It’s all about survival. Survival at all costs. That’s the point of these games, and the sooner you realise it the better off you’ll be”.
Red stares at her, glowering, fuming. “If we lose a SINGLE person then we are lost. We cannot afford to lose even ONE member of our team-” I don’t miss a quick glance in my direction. “You have to start thinking less selfishly!”
Violet snorts and shakes her head. Returning her attention to her computer.
The tension simmers painfully in the room.
“…Well, I’m sorry”, comes a voice. It’s Yellow’s, and we turn to her.
“What?” says Red.
“I’m sorry”, she says, wiping her eyes, and the tension diffuses, just a little. She looks at Indigo with red eyes.
“I could have stayed longer. I should have stayed longer to help. I left because I was scared. I’m sorry”.
He looks back at her, expressionless. “…It’s okay”, he says after a beat. “Don’t worry. I… understand”.
We all stand around in silence, until Red grunts and goes to sit at his own seat. “Huh. More forgiving than I would be. Don’t think you girls are off the hook. You owe a debt to the team”.
“F*ck off”, Violet replies.
“Sit down Red, for f*ck’s sake. There’s no use arguing now. We’re all here. We’re all still here”.
Red fumes and begins angrily typing away at his keyboard. God knows what it is he’s actually typing, though.
I realise I’ve been holding my breath, and I allow myself an exhale. I look up to the timer.
Forty-four minutes to go.
I sit in my seat, take a slow, deep breath. I stretch my fingers, and get to work. Typing up the events of the previous room, up til now.
*
I finish typing with ten minutes to spare. I didn’t have to rush quite so much with this one, which was nice. I crack my wrists and lean back in my chair with a creak, looking around.
I’m the last one to finish, as usual.
Red’s gone back a little ways through the corridor to take a piss. The others are all gathered together in one corner, by the door marked with yellow paint. They’re having a conversation, and I go to join them.
“…I teach at IIT”, Blue says, leaning against the wall.
“IIT?” Green asks.
“Indore”, she says. “Indian Institute of Technology, Indore”.
“IIT…” Violet mutters. “Your parents must have been very rich”.
She continues before Blue is able to respond. She reaches up to her collar and gives it a little rattle. “So what do you make of these? Are they legit? Or just some phony prop designed to keep us in line. How do we take them off?”
Blue sighs and shrugs. ”I couldn’t say. I’ve never seen anything like them before. They COULD just be props, I guess, but until one of us breaks the rules, we won’t get to find out”.
“The rules…” Orange murmurs. “Go through them again for me, would you?”
She’s become more confident, I realise. She’s acting more like a human, and less like a shell. She’s sitting with Yellow, her hand around the girl’s shoulders. My feelings towards her, and towards Violet are conflicted. Do I blame them for prioritising self-preservation? No, not really. But they left Indigo behind. He was terrified and in trouble, and they left him behind.
…They did that knowing we’d still likely need his key. How quickly would they abandon you, ‘Grey’?
But still. She looks so young. Yellow, I mean. Violet has a rougher air of maturity about her. Yellow might as well be a kid.
…I don’t ask how old she is though. I don’t really want to know. I’m hoping she’s at least eighteen, otherwise my ‘no kids in the cylinder’ theory breaks apart, and we risk panicking and de-stabilising Orange all over again and she really does seem to be making a difference.
Yellow has taken to her.
Blue straightens, and begins listing off the rules, given to us by the stone man on the screen way back at the beginning.
“Don’t use personal names”, she begins, holding up a finger. “That’s the first. The second one relates to the keys”.
She reaches up to her neck, her fingers tracing the blue-coloured key hanging beneath her collar. “Don’t try to remove the key, don’t try to remove anyone else’s”.
Red returns and stands at the back of the group, arms crossed as he listens.
“Rule three”, she says, “was about the cards. Each room has eight cards, so the rule says, and each card can only be used once in each collar. If you try to enter a new room without first ‘deactivating’ your collar in this way, then… well, then it’ll activate, supposedly”.
“I’m still not convinced that they actually do anything”, grunts Red. “It’s a fear thing. Fear and control”.
“And the fourth rule”, finishes Blue, holding up her fourth finger. “The final door. We need seven keys to open the final door. The last door, and the one that will allow us to escape, once and for all. The seven colours of the rainbow are required to open it”.
“Is that exactly what the rule said?” I ask, well aware of the isolating nature of this rule upon myself. “Were those the exact words?”
Blue puts out her hands. “I can’t say for sure, ‘exactly’. But more or less”.
I sigh. “There must be more to it. There’s a purpose to this key”. I reach up to the White-Grey key around my neck. “There must be”.
“…Maybe we’re all being punished”, Indigo murmurs in his quiet voice, staring down to the floor beneath his feet. “Maybe this is Hell”.
“Nonsense”, Red cuts in. “The clue’s in the name. Drowned Man ‘games’. This is some billionaire’s sick fantasy. He’s roleplaying as an Asura and moving us about like pawns on a chess board”.
“No, this doesn’t make sense”, says Green scratching his jaw. “I’ve been in India barely a month. I’ve never met any of you”. He sighs.
“And someone please tell me what an Asura is? Blue, you keep mentioning this. It’s the man made of stone, right? The voice. The one who set this up and gave us the rules”.
“An Asura is, allegedly, a mythical being. A demi-god. Lords of their own domains”. She looks around at the damp, subterranean room we find ourselves in. A long, dark pipe overhead leaks and drips steadily to the floor.
“…I guess this is the domain of our Asura”.
“And are they good or bad?” Green asks. “What’s the story?”
“…It depends. There are hundreds upon hundreds of stories about them. They vary in appearance and in abilities depending on the tale. Some seek to help humans that they feel sorry for. Others prefer to do harm”.
“You sure know a lot of about folklore for a technology professor”, says Violet.
“I have a wide range of interests”, Blue replies simply, levelly.
“And the bastard behind the screen. The one pretending to be this Asura”, Red cuts in. “He’s responsible for bringing us all down here. For drowning all those people back up in the cylinder. He could be drowning all the rest of them right now, as we speak”.
A sob escapes Yellow’s throat.
“I hate this”, she says. “I hate this so much. So much. I just want to go home. I want to go home and see my mother again. Why am I down here!?” she begins to babble.
The longest continued stream of words she’s spoken, I believe, since the beginning. “IS this a punishment? Am I being punished? Maybe I deserve it. I always thought I was a good person. I mean, I made some… some mistakes, sure, but I tried to do what was best. Mostly. And then- then when I’m actually put in a- in a position that counts, I let people down”, she gestures to Indigo, her eyes full of regret.
“I really am so sorry, Indigo. I wish I had stayed. I wish I had stayed to help you”.
“Really”, he says softy, “it’s okay”.
“No”, she shakes her head. “It isn’t. I could have done better. I am a coward. Maybe it would be better for everyone if I just… I don’t know… died down here. I’m a disappointment to my mother anyway. I’ll never be like my sisters”. Her body is wracked by silent sobs. “…I don’t know”, she finishes lamely.
“My head’s a mess. I hate this. And I hate the person who did this to us”.
“…I wonder if he's watching us”, Green asks. “Anyone seen any cameras?”
“…Maybe he doesn’t need cameras”, Violet says quietly. Glancing between us.
“…Maybe he’s been here with us the whole time”.
…We consider this, and my blood chills, just a little.
The timer ticks down, and it reaches zero.
With a mechanical whirr and the grinding of gears, the yellow-streaked door begins to rattle its way into the wall, revealing the room beyond.
I can hear the sound of rushing water. The next room looks like the brightest so far, illuminated clearly with sun-like yellow beams.
“Here we go then”, says Blue. Hearts pounding as we make our way into the next room.
Surely not… I think to myself as I consider Violet’s words. The Asura couldn’t be one of us, could it? That doesn’t make any sense.
Then again, nothing seems to make any sense down here. Nothing seems rational.
…Maybe that’s the point.
The room widens, and the door clanks shut behind us. The walls to the left and right are shrouded in shadow. The centre of the room, however, is well-lit, as I mentioned. Beneath the glare of two long, yellow beam lights is an enormous pipe, that slopes down beneath the floor and rises back up again a little further down the room. It is made of hard, yellow plastic, and both sections kind of look like slides.
Slides you might find at a large swimming pool or a water park, I guess, and going in opposite directions. It’s likely some sort of tunnel, a person could probably crawl down one of the openings and scramble beneath the floor, before climbing up and out of the other. It appears slightly wider at one end, though.
Blue steps up close to one. “The pipes are full of water”, she says, “take a look”.
I do so.
The lower rim of the pipe closest to me begins about one metre off the floor. It’s tunnel-like, and slopes downwards, gradually disappearing beneath the floor. I realise that one wouldn’t be able to climb or crawl through it after all, because to do so would require you to become fully submerged beneath the dark, still water within the pipe.
…Oh, shit.
“Wait, we don’t think…” I hesitate. Looking between their haggard faces.
“The cards… are they down in the pipe? Under the water? Like in the red room?”
“I damned well hope not”, Red grunts. “But let’s face it, it’s likely”.
And at this, a flash of red above the next door signifies the start of the timer. The return of the dread. The waves of panic, the uncertainty and the fear… My stomach lurches in distress as the timer starts ticking down.
60:00
59:59
59:58
We have an hour, then.
“The cards are probably in the pipe”, Blue begins.
“But we have to make sure. Split up, check out the room, ensure there’s nothing else we need to be aware of”.
We do so. Quickly separating and exploring the confines of the room. Searching in the darkness. Examining the limited apparatus available for us to interact with. Grates in the corners. Another little vent…
I turn to the nearest pipe. The thought of squeezing myself down there makes my skin crawl. I really don’t consider myself particularly claustrophobic, but that being said… There’s no way I could squeeze myself in there. I’m just too broad.
I say this out loud.
“I can’t get in there”, I say to the group. “There’s no way; the tunnel’s too narrow”.
“This one’s even smaller”, says Indigo from across the room.
“If someone’s going down… Then they’ll need to be small. And they’ll need to go in head-first”, says Blue.
There is a pause.
“…No”, mutters Yellow, as the attention drifts her way. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m the smallest. Please, don’t make me go down there. I can’t, I can’t”.
Her chest starts rising and falling in panic.
Blue runs a hand through her hair. “Look, if I’m being honest…” she looks between the members of the group.
“Myself and Indigo could probably fit in this larger pipe”.
Indigo gives her a questioning look.
“You’re tall, yes, but you’re skinny. I think you’d fit. Yellow, Violet, you guys might just fit in the narrower one”.
“No, NO!” Yellow repeats, shouting now.
“Grey, Green, Red, and, no offence, Orange… But I think your builds are just too, uh”, she falters. “Look, you’re not going to fit. You’ll have to hold the feet and the legs of the people who are going down”.
“F*ck… are you serious?” Violet stares at her. “What are you saying right now? You’re saying that we’re going to have to go DOWN these pipes… under the water, holding our breath with our hands out in front of us so we’ll even fit? That’s insane”.
“I’ll get STUCK!” Yellow shouts. “I’ll DROWN!”
Red runs his hands over his face. “I am getting pretty bloody sick of you”, he says.
“Pull yourself together for F*CK’S sake! You were JUST apologising for being a coward! Here’s your chance of redemption. Get into the damned pipe and go find our cards”.
“Yellow, look, he has a point”, Green chimes in. “We really need you for this”.
Yellow has begun to cry again. “No, no no no, please”.
The timer ticks steadily down.
Red spits on the ground. “F*cking useless”, he mutters. He jabs a finger at Blue and at Indigo. “You two. Get ready to go down”. He points at Violet.
“And you. Get your *ss to the pipe over there. This is YOUR chance to redeem yourself too”.
She snorts. “If you think I’m going-”
“GET YOUR *SS TO THAT F*CKING PIPE. YOU SELFISH B*TCH”, Red screams, and Violet’s words are caught in her throat.
There is a pause, and for a second I think she’s going to defy him again… But she does not. Fuming, she heads to the opposite pipe, and reluctantly attempts to get a sense of its metrics.
“Under water for a second time”, Blue says to me. “I wonder what I'll find down there”.
“Yeah”, I reply. “But you’ll be fine. We’ll make sure”.
“Yeah, you’d better”, she says back with a quick, grim smile.
“Just… don’t leave us down there too long. We’ll have to rely on you to push us down and to pull us back up, but once we’re underwater you won’t be able to hear us…” she trails off.
“We got this”, I tell her; deeply, deeply thankful that it isn’t me who has to go down into one of these terrible pipes.
…We prepare, and we get to work.
*
The premise is actually very simple. To begin with, Blue will clamber up and into the pipe, headfirst, and then Green and I will hold her legs, and push her down and below the water. We’ll also be responsible for pulling her back out, since she won’t be able to do so herself.
…I try not to imagine what that’ll be like. The all-encompassing darkness. The water. The tight pressure from all sides, the narrowness of the tunnel… The burning of the lungs as the desperation to take a breath grows stronger and stronger…
My throat dries.
And on the opposite pipe, Red and Indigo will be doing the same for Violet.
Indigo is ready to swap out with Blue, when required… But no-one besides Violet is small enough to fit through the opposite pipe. No-one besides Yellow, and she sits huddled against the wall, currently out of action.
Violet looks terrified. I can sense a cold fear simmering in Blue as well.
“You have to pull me out”, Violet murmurs to her little team. “I can’t hold my breath for that long. Don’t leave me down there. I can’t do more than like, half a minute. Okay?”
Indigo nods.
“Half a minute. Easy. Come on now, in you go”. Red squats and holds out his hands for Violet to use as a step. She hesitates, but she does. Stepping up, and climbing into the pipe.
It’s so damned narrow. Even from here, I can hear the sounds of her shoulders rubbing against the wet plastic. “WAIT!” she screams, suddenly writhing and squirming. “STOP, STOP!” Indigo and Red pull her back out and she falls backwards, collapsing to the floor, hyperventilating.
“The hell’s the matter with you?” Red barks.
“Now just hold on!” says Orange, to my surprise, and she puts herself between them. It surprises Violet, too.
“This is NOT an easy task by any means, can you really say you’d be much better?” She turns to Violet, crouches down. “Are you alright?”
“I’m FINE”, Violet replies harshly, batting away Orange’s hand and getting back to her feet by herself. Then, a little calmer, she says it again. “…I’m fine”. She takes a deep breath. “Okay”, she says, “let’s do this”.
She tries again. Clambers up into the pipe. She stretches her arms out in front of her and wriggles her way inside, until her arms, head and shoulders all vanish from sight. Red and Indigo exchange a look, and then, holding the girl by her legs, push her down into the pipe. The muffled sound of a splash echoes from the inside of the pipe, and Violet is pushed all the way inside, until, from my current position, I can see none of her at all.
We watch in dreaded silence, noting the seconds of the timer tick down.
44:22
44:21
44:20
“She said thirty seconds, right?” Red grunts, as I catch sight of one of Violet’s feet, kicking. I move around a little closer to see them both kicking, violently.
“Pull her out!” I tell them, “quick!”
They do so, grabbing her by the ankles, then waist, and hauling her back up into the air. Water splashes and I hear the sound of a gasp as Violet is retrieved, sucking in great mouthfuls of air as she brings a hand to her throat.
“Oh my God..” she splutters, pushing the men away and collapsing in a heap on the ground. “Oh my God… That’s the worst. That’s the worst thing in the world. I- I couldn’t move- I couldn’t move, and- and the water-” she gags and coughs up a load of trapped water, still spluttering.
“What did you see?” Red asks. “What’s down there?”
“Are you alright?” Blue interjects, crouching down besides Violet.
She coughs. “No. Not really”. She tries to catch her breath. “But the cards are down there, alright”.
Excitement ripples across the group. “I’m pretty sure there were eight. There’s a little light under the water, the cards are all just hanging on strings, floating… I managed to get two. But I really had to reach for them. There was no way I was getting any more”.
She reveals her hand, and between her fingers, are two green cards. She brings one up to her collar, slotting it into the groove. It beeps and chimes.
The other she tosses to the floor. “They connect, by the way”, she says, as Red and, to my surprise, Blue, both dive for the card. Red grabs it first and snatches it away from the woman, quickly sliding it into his own collar with a beep and a chime. Blue glares at him, but says nothing. "The pipes definitely connect beneath the water”.
“Great!” Red says with a clap of his hands.
“Fantastic. Green, Grey, back to your stations. Get Blue down that end, and we’ll send Violet down this one again”.
“No, nope”, Violet laughs, spitting out the last of the water. “I don’t think so. I’m not going in there again. It’s worse than the f*cking cylinder in there”.
Red groans. “What the hell is it with you kids? You just don’t give a sh*t about helping the team, do you?”
“I got TWO, okay?” Violet shouts as she climbs to her feet. “TWO. One quarter. Twenty-five percent of all cards. I’m done. Send her in next”, she points to Yellow, still huddled by the wall and barely visible.
“She’s smaller than me so she’ll go down easier. But I’m done”.
Red takes a step towards her and raises a hand.
“TOUCH ME-” Violet begins, “and I bite your f*cking fingers off. Don’t try me old man”.
“Old man? Damn kutiya”, Red fumes, but he stops where he stands.
Blue speaks up. “Look, try and convince Yellow to change her mind, alright? I’ll take this pipe here”.
She considers. “Actually, Indigo, you try and convince her. Orange too, please. Red you just stay here”.
Red opens his mouth to respond but Blue ignores him, and turns to myself and Green. “Alright guys, we’ve used up enough time. Violet says the pipes connect, and that the other cards were all out of reach. Maybe they’re closer to my side. Come on”.
We nod in agreement and help her up into the pipe. This one is a little wider, but it still makes my skin crawl to see how tightly Blue has to be squeezed into it in order to get down. I can hear the plastic rub against her shoulders and arms as we start to push her into the pipe.
I look at Green, and he looks back. “Ready?” he asks.
“Give me a second to take a breath, and then go for it”, Blue responds from inside the pipe. Her voice is heavily muffled, but it sounds higher-pitched than usual. I can feel her shaking, also.
We give her the requested second, then grunt with exertion as- each of us holding one of her legs- we push her down into the pipe and below the water.
...All the way in, until only her feet are visible above the water’s surface.
…We agreed upon thirty seconds, but it just seems too long for me. Green thinks likewise, so at twenty we make to pull her out.
…And find that we are unable.
“F*ck!” Green stammers, “oh God, she’s STUCK!”
Her feet begin to kick and splash. I grab hold and try to pull, the water making her too slippery to get a grip, and I stumble backwards, hands empty.
“Oh shit, shit, shit, RED! RED GET OVER HERE NOW!”
To his credit, the man hustles, and the three of us, together, grab firm hold of Blue’s thrashing feet, hauling her back… further… then further, and then when we can get a proper grip on her legs we are able at last to drag her completely back to the surface.
She stumbles and staggers her way away from the pipe, collapsing as Violet did to the ground, choking and coughing, clutching her chest, eyes wide.
“Hey, are you good?” I ask her, crouching down and resting a hand on her shoulder. I’ve mentally assigned Blue the role of someone who is in control. Some cool, composed, and calm under pressure. She is a source of stability, and she helps keep me grounded.
…But she doesn’t look any of those things right now.
The colour has drained from her face. She looks worse than she did upon leaving the pool in the red room; far worse. It’s as if some of the life has been sucked out of her soul. Her jaw clenches and she shivers, despite the room’s relative humidity.
“Maybe Indigo was right..” she murmurs. “Maybe this is Hell”.
“Did you get them?” Red asks. “Did you get the cards?”
“I got a few”. She holds up her hand, revealing three.
Red reaches down to grab them at once. Blue pulls back reactively, but only manages to keep ahold of one of them. Red takes the other two. He hesitates, then he thrusts the other into Green’s fumbling hands. He sets off round the pipe and towards Orange.
“Hey!” I call after him. “I think that one should be mine, don’t you think?”
“No”, he says back. “Not really. You are Grey. It doesn’t matter to us a great deal- based on current information-”, he says with a look back to Blue over his shoulder, “if you make it to the end or not. Orange needs this more than you”. And he places the card into her hand.
…Orange looks at me, she looks at the card, and she quietly slots it into her collar.
“Sorry Grey”, she says, as her collar beeps, and chimes. “I hope you understand”.
“Wh-what the hell? Why Orange?” Indigo asks suddenly, stepping forwards. “Red, I needed that card too. I can’t be last. Not again. Not like last time. I can’t go through that again”.
Red stands his ground. “Indigo, I’m sorry. But you are one of only four people able to go down into the pipes. Yellow is useless. Violet’s de-activated her collar and her motivation is lost. Blue has just done likewise, and her motivation might just go the same way, now that she’s had a go of the pipe”. He regards Indigo with cold eyes.
“You’ll be more willing to go down yourself if your collar remains active. And the group needs you down there, Indigo. We need those cards”.
“Jesus…” Green mutters.
Indigo grinds his teeth and holds Red’s gaze. It is the older man who looks away first.
“Creepy bastard…” Red mutters.
My heart starts to pound. I hear the sounds of Blue’s and Green’s collars beep and chime behind me, and I shoot a look up to the timer.
35:25
35:24
35:23
It’s okay. There’s still time. There’s still time.
Just three more cards to go. For Indigo, myself, and for Yellow.
Begrudgingly, Indigo volunteers to go next. He’s only slightly larger than Blue, though he weighs a little more. We haul him up and force him down into the pipe, the sound of the water muffled by the thick plastic. He’s taller than Blue, too, and can reach closer to the cards in the very middle, where the two pipes link up underwater. With splashes and swearing we bring him back, and in his hands he holds two cards.
Red approaches, but Indigo pulls away his hands, sending water flying.
He quickly offers one to me. “Take it”, he says. “As thanks. For coming back to help me”.
I hesitate. “But… Yellow…”
“Look, Grey, do you want it, or not?”
I glance up. Red is almost upon us. “Don’t do it Grey!” he warns.
…F*ck it.
I take the card, and I slide it into my collar.
It beeps, and chimes.
Red stops and throws up his hands. “F*ck. Idiot! Selfish, selfish…”
Indigo slots his own card into his collar. It beeps and chimes.
…And that just leaves Yellow. Still huddled up against the wall.
The timer ticks down, and an argument breaks out as to who should go down to retrieve the final card.
“Indigo, obviously”, Violet exclaims. “He’s the tallest, he can reach the furthest”.
“Yes”, he says quietly. “Though also the easiest to get stuck, and to drown. You have the smallest build. We should lower you down the largest pipe”.
She shakes her head. “I’m not tall enough to go down that pipe, the card will be too far away… and I’m sure as hell not going back down the narrow one”.
“YELLOW!” Red roars. “It’s time to STEP UP!”
I exchange a look with Blue as the argument heats up. She nods over to Yellow’s position, and a message passes between us, unspoken. I nod in return, and make my way over to the girl, sitting down beside her. The waterfall rushes nearby. Flowing down, frothing through the grate in the floor.
“I’m sorry you ended up down here”, I tell her, as we watch the commotion.
“Yeah. Me too”, she says, hollowly.
“Do you know why you might have been chosen?” I ask her, frankly.
She sighs. “I’ve done some cruel stuff, honestly. I said I made some ‘mistakes’, but… it’s worse than that, to tell the truth and I didn’t want to kick up a fuss, earlier but... and don’t get mad, okay? But I also do know Violet. I recognise her”.
I try not to react. She’s opening up to me, and whilst I AM angry at her... Both for abandoning Indigo, and for withholding potentially important information… I get it. And besides, she’s still basically a kid. I chew my tongue.
“So how do you know Violet?” I ask.
“We attended the same school for a while, though she’s a couple of Standards higher up than me, so she left a year or two ago”.
“Where did you go to school?”
“East Mumbai. Violet doesn’t recognise me, though I know her name, I think. She was one of the popular kids. She always scared me. I thought she was so cool, back then… I ended up trying to copy her. To act like her”. She shakes her head. “Turns out she’s kind of a b*tch. What the hell was I thinking”.
“Yellow-” I begin.
“Yeah”, she interrupts. “I know. I’m going to give the tunnel a try. I have to, right?” She looks at me, and smiles. “Thanks for coming to talk to me”.
“Oh”, I reply. “Yeah, well, it’s okay”. I get to my feet, and I reach out a hand to help her up. Her hand is small in mine as I hoist her up, and we return to the pipes.
“I’m going down, alright?” she says to the group, cutting through an argument between Green, Indigo and Violet.
“About f*cking time too”, Red barks. “You can go down this one. You ready?”
Yellow ties up her hair, and she takes a slow, deep breath. Her legs are shaking.
“…Yes”, she says, and putting a hand on Indigo’s shoulder and using Green’s hands to step up, she clambers into the pipe. Arms in front of her, head-first.
“Here we go then”, says Red. “Three, two, one”.
And down she goes.
Instantly, she starts to scream. Her screams are lost to the splash of the water and Indigo has to jump back to avoid a series of violent kicks. She shakes and twists in the pipe-
“Damnit, get her out already!” Blue shouts, and we do so, Red swearing as he does.
Yellow is hauled out and she pushes the men away, dropping down to the ground.
“I can’t!” she screams, eyes wide. “I CAN’T! I’ll get stuck! I can feel myself getting stuck!”
“You WON’T get stuck!” Red says, exasperated. “Violet went down, and she’s bigger than you. You’ll be fine, come on, go again!”
“I can’t- I can’t!” she has begun to cry again. “I thought I could do it… I really did… I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for being so useless”.
I look at the timer.
25:50
25:49
25:48
“It’s okay!” I tell her, “we can try again! There’s still time!”
But Yellow’s burst of confidence has evaporated. She is now worse than she was before. She sobs in great heaves as the rest of us try to work out a new plan. Orange goes to comfort her.
“Fine”, Violet mutters under her breath. “I’ll do it. I’ll go down again. Quick, before I change my mind”.
And so down she goes.
The water splashes, she’s forced down beneath the water, headfirst…
…But when we bring her up, her hands are empty.
“F*CK!” she shouts, spitting water to the floor. “F*ck this. I tried. I tried”.
The timer ticks down.
The tension in the room grows tighter, and tighter.
Blue tries again. Indigo, he too tries again.
…But no-one can get to that final card.
“It’s so close…” Indigo mutters upon his return, twitching and shivering. “But I can’t reach it. I just can’t reach it from this side. It has to be Yellow, or Violet that goes down”.
“NO!” Violet replies angrily, but there is more than just anger in her voice. There is genuine fear there too. She really, desperately, does not want to go back down into the depths.
It’s fine, I tell myself, it’s fine… We’ll think of something. We’ll convince Yellow to go back down. There’s still time.
…But we do not.
…We are unable.
…And the timer ticks down.
Down, down, down.
It hits the ten minute mark, and the green door whirrs and slides open for us.
…But Yellow still does not have her card.
“F*ck, it’s going to be just like last time!” Red splutters. “Yellow, PLEASE-” I think this might be the first time I’ve heard him use the word- “You MUST go down! It has to be YOU!”
“I CAN’T!” she screams back. “I WON’T!”
“DON’T YOU GET IT?” He shouts, “YOU’LL DIE! YOU’LL DIE DOWN HERE!”
“I won’t”, she replies. “I’m not getting trapped”. She scurries around on the floor, scrabbling for used cards. She tries them all in her collar, one by one… but none react in any way. Her collar makes no signal that the cards have been registered.
“…I’ll go again”, says Indigo quietly. “Come on. I know you’re getting tired, but let’s get that last card”.
So we repeat the routine with increasing desperation.
Down he goes.
…Back up he’s hauled.
But still, every time, no card.
…He cannot reach it, no matter how far under the water we push him, and he’s at risk of getting stuck. If we push him in too far, we won’t be able to pull him back out.
It feels like I’m stuck in a dream, or a nightmare. The air seems to shimmer as I look around the room in a terrified daze. The timer, red and blurry, blinks at the top my vision.
01:10
01:09
01:08
“We don’t have it…” someone says. It’s Red. “Indigo, if you don’t get the card on this final attempt then it’s over. We’ve lost, and we die down here”.
Violet stands motionless. Her jaw is clenched tight shut. She does not blink. She does not speak.
Green and I push Indigo down into the pipe.
…And the timer ticks down. We push him as far as we physically can without losing him to the depths.
00:45
00:44
00:43
…We pull him back out…
…And Indigo coughs. He splutters, and shivers… and shows us his hands in a panic.
…They are empty.
We have failed to collect the final card.
00:30
00:29
00:28
“…What do we do?” Orange asks into the deafening silence.
“…Well, we don’t have a choice, do we”. Blue replies coldly and she strides from the room, pausing only for a second at Yellow’s side. She reaches out, as if to touch her, then decides against it, and she passes through the door.
Indigo, soaked to the bone and shivering, goes to follow. He reaches out and strokes Yellow’s hair. “Sorry”, he murmurs. “I’m sorry”. And away he goes.
Yellow, temporarily frozen as realisation hits her like a truck, now starts to hyperventilate. “No”, she says, over and over. “No, no… I’m not getting trapped. I’m not getting trapped”.
I look between the faces of the people still in the room. To Red. To Violet, to Orange and Green. No-one knows what to do. No-one knows what to say.
Yellow shoots a terrified look up to the timer.
00:16
00:15
00:14
And she makes a decision. She sprints towards the open door to the next room, and she passes right through.
I feel myself take a sharp, sudden intake of breath…
…But Yellow simply vanishes into the shadows of the corridor.
Green speaks. “Well, we’d better go through as well then”.
Red grunts in affirmation, his eyes wide, and we follow through, all passing through the door. Striding down the corridor beyond towards the next computer room.
There’s a grinding and a whirring from behind, and we turn to watch the door seal shut behind us.
It fastens with a low, deep rumble.
…It’s done, then. We all made it through to the other side.
We approach the computer room. Yellow stands quivering on one side of the room, Blue and Indigo stand at the opposite, regarding her with caution.
We stand there, us eight players of these terrible games, watching each other. Watching Yellow, mostly; waiting… waiting for something to happen.
…
“…So I was right”, Red mutters. “They’re a ruse. The collars are fake, to keep the fear instilled”.
An enormous, mad grin stretches across Yellow’s face. “AH!” she exclaims with lunatic glee. “AH-HAH! YES!”
Red breathes a long sigh of relief. “For a second-” he begins.
Yellow’s collar begins to emit a low, long, monotone sound that cuts Red’s words off in his throat. It shatters the grin on the girl’s face and it sends an awful, unending chill rippling through my veins.
The noise hangs terribly in the air. Cuts through it, like a knife. And then:
“Yellow player”, comes the voice of the Asura through the collar. “You have entered a room without activating your collar. You have broken rule three and as such, your game is now over. Thank you for playing the Drowned Man games”.
…The tension is pulled to breaking point, and then, it snaps.
Yellow’s collar begins to whirr and grind. Inner-mechanisms rotate and buzz. She screams, and brings up her hands to try and claw it off, but there is nothing she can do.
Chaos erupts as blood spouts thick and scarlet from Yellow’s neck. Erupting in little geysers from all angles; splashing and pouring through her fingers and over the collar and down her chest. She staggers backwards and slams up against the wall, then trips forwards into a desk and knocks the computer upon it to the floor with a dull crunch.
She screams, trying to speak, but finding herself unable.
“WHAT DO WE DO?” someone shouts in the room. “WHAT DO WE DO?”
…But there is nothing we can do. Nothing. It’s over.
She starts to choke. Coughing up blood. Taking in gasps and only filling her lungs with fluid..
She’s drowning, I realise in frozen horror, she’s drowning right before our eyes.
She charges me, grabs a hold of the cuff of my shirt and stares into my eyes.
She coughs and screams and blood splatters across my chest- she tries to tell me something. She tries to get across some final words. She points up to the ceiling once, then twice, then falls to the ground, writhing; blood bubbles from her neck, from her mouth.
She claws and clutches at the collar, her eyes staring out at nothing, her body jerking and writhing… And then, after a few more twitches, she lays motionless. Still losing blood.
We watch it pool into a growing puddle by our feet.
…Slowly but surely, spreading out across the floor.
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Updated 15 Episodes
Comments
Joy 999
That's why my mom tells me to follow the school rules
2022-06-19
2