Hey-low! This is just a one shot for the moment but if you like the idea and want more please leave a review or favorite or just let me know XP tee hee!
The obstacle course. 10 lives, 500 levels and if you beat it you get set free. Some have a theory that if you are a bad child you get sent there to be taught a lesson. Others say it's just a cruel society test to see how the generations change.
It was the eve of Kats seventeenth birthday. She stood in front of her rooms mirror trying to figure out which dress was more appropriate for the family dinner. Turning seventeen was one of the more important birthdays in the society. I freed you from the chance of being picked for testing in the obstacle course. She was her parents second child. The oldest, Rose had made it through without being chosen and now it was her turn.
"Kat!" Her mother called from the kitchen on the floor below. She quickly hung the two dresses in her closet and raced down the stairs. Their house was a fair size for their small family. It was smashed in between two buildings in the downtown region of the city. When she got near the kitchen the sweet smell of sugar biscuits filled her nose. Every birthday her mother would purchase the sweetest sugar the market had to offer and baked her special sugar biscuits.
"Smells delicious mom!" her mother stood in front of the over peering in at them. She was as beautiful as Rose, both having light skin and golden hair. Age barely seemed to touch her small dainty body. Kat on the other side took after her dad with a strong medium body, thick brown hair and olive skin. She often felt like an alien standing next to her beautiful mother and sister.
"Oh I'm not so sure about these kitty, they aren't rising!" She huffed in a very animated manor.
"And they will continue not to rise if you keep peeking in on them." She joked as she walked over and closed the oven door. "Don't worry mom ill still eat them even if they don't rise!" She smiled at me.
"You have the stomach of a poor child kitty!" Mom joked in her crude humor, which Kat never liked but chuckled to please her mom. "It is after all your seventeenth and I would like it to be special!"
"It will be special enough even without the biscuits. Now let me go upstairs, pick a proper outfit and get some Z's before tomorrow okay!" Kat gave her mom a quick peck on the cheek before racing back up the stairs.
Once again she was befuddled with which dress would be better and eventually chose the dress with the lacey collar that traveled down to her knees in crème waves with crochet sleeves. Making sure that it hung straight, she put it away before brushing her teeth and hair. Right before she crawled into bed there was a light knock on her window.
Trudging to the window she looked out to see her best friend Gale throwing pebbles. She quietly grabbed the rope stowed away under her bed and made her way out onto the front porch on-ing of her house. Lowering the rope he quickly made his way up and they sat side by side.
"Brought cha' a present!" he handed her a small box wrapped in newspaper. She smiled over at him looking into his hazel brown eyes staring into her own yellow green. His brown hair hung loosely in his eyes and even sitting in a slouch he was taller than her.
"It's not my birthday yet Scrooge, I can't open this!" I giggle fumbling with the package in my hands.
"Okay, well than happy celebrating you turning seventeen the day before you actually do!" He smiled triumphantly as I gave in with a sigh. She quickly tore apart the paper to find an old worn necklace box in her hands. When she opened it she found a dog tag and when she held it close it read Kitty Kat, 17 as of February and still dealing with Whaley Gale. She laughed aloud reading the last part. "You know I don't wear jewelry."
"Well this is an exception." He said as he carefully took it out of the box. Kat turned and lifted up her hair as he gently clasped the necklace around her neck. The cold metal made a shiver run up her spine. "As much as I'd like to stay, my mom will kill me if she sees I'm gone so I best be off. Just showing up to give that to ya." They both quickly exchanged a hug and he climbed back down the rope. She gathered everything up and watched as he raced away, quick as lightening.
She climbed back inside her window and locked it. Crawling into bed, her necklace now warm from her skin, she got comfortable, knowing that tomorrow is going to be a busy day.
…
She awoke on top of a cold metal floor in the middle of a plain white room. She stood up groggily, rubbing her eyes first and then realizing that it wasn't a dream. She looked down to see that her pajamas were replaced by a tight long sleeved sports shirt and pants. She quickly felt around her throat and felt that her necklace was still there. Tucking it safely beneath her shirt she than began to pace around, panic slowly building.
"Hello?" She called out but it only echoed around the room. "Is there anybody here? Where am I?" terror filling her voice. There was a loud clunk sound behind her and she turned to see a screen slowly descending behind her, not knowing if she should be relieved or scared. The screen flashed on and a woman appeared on the screen. Her hair was tucked into a tight brown bun and she wore a plain suit.
"Please be quiet when listening to this video. You have been selected to participate in the society's obstacle course." She said smiling through her horrible news. Kats fear and become true.
"WHAT!" she screamed out in horror but the lady on the screen continued on.
"You have been fitted with the lightest of clothes that self-wash on their own so you never have to worry about clothing. Food is automatically fed to you through our state of the art digital feeding system. If you would kindly look to your right, a table should pop out of the wall to give you your personal identification card which holds everything you need to know on there." On cue a table pushed out from the wall on my side with another loud clunk. I stumbled over to pick it up. As soon as I did the table slid back into the wall.
"By pressing the on button on the back, it will tell you how many lives you have left on the top right corner, as well as how many levels are left and who surrounds you within ten levels in front and ten levels behind. We have also installed a messaging system for your personal enjoyment which will allow you to keep in contact with fellow participants on the obstacle course. However any information passed along about levels will terminate your messaging privileges. You will be digitally transported into the obstacle courses data frame, don't worry this won't hurt a bit! From then on your ten lives will become active and you will make your way through the course. Once you have finished you will be sent back to your families. If you have any questions, please ask the guard who will be entering in from behind. You will have five minutes. Thank you once again for your participation and may the odds ever be in your favor." They lady smiled once before she disappeared and the screen rose back up.
Behind Kat she heard a door opening and looked to see a woman dressed in military attire enter, both saying nothing at first.
"So… you answer questions?" Kat was the first to speak.
"Yes." The woman's tone was cold and harsh which didn't give a very good impression.
"Why am I here?"
"To participate in the obstacle course."
"But that isn't right! I turned seventeen today! I should be free!" The woman didn't respond. Kat thought for a moment before she asked her next question. "You only respond to questions, not statements, is that correct?"
"Yes." She was as blunt as before.
"Then why am I here if I turned seventeen?"
"You were selected beforehand." Kat stopped to think again. Kat had to think once again.
"Ohhhh that's dirty. Selecting me right before my birthday. That is just horrible." She whispered angrily between her teeth, however the woman did not react. "Can't I even see my family?"
"If you survive the course you will get to see your family."
"How much time do I have left here?"
"Thirty seconds." A rock dropped in Kats stomach. Thirty seconds until she is forced into the course. She had to come up with a good last question or these five minutes would be all but wasted.
"What is the survival rate?" she blurted it out. It wasn't something she wanted to know, but if it was high there was hope. If it was low, than she didn't know what to do. She waited a second but the woman didn't respond. "What is the survival rate?" she repeated again but louder, still no response. Fed up she tried walking forward but her legs wouldn't move.
She tried moving them but she felt nothing. Looking down she gasped in horror to see that everything from her knees down was dematerializing. The same was happening with her arms. She looked up at the woman but she had already began to exit, the door behind her opening.
"WHAT IS THE SURVIVAL RATE?" Kat screamed, tears flowing down her cheeks but the woman was out of the room, the door closing. She kept screaming the question, knowing that there wasn't going to be a response, but out of horror. When the door closed everything went black.
…
Kat awoke in a small blue room. Her head was groggy and clouded and her muscles felt like jelly. Standing at first was hard and all she could really do was turn her head. She looked to her right and against the wall stood a boy, light build with short cropped blond hair. His eyes were a sharp blue that pierced her with a certain sadness; the rims of his eyes were swollen like he was crying.
"Where am …" everything that had happened dawned on her once more. She felt like she was supposed to cry but no tears were coming to her.
"Don't try moving quickly, your muscles and insides are still trying to figure themselves out."
"I'm a fast learner." Kat struggled a bit standing up but she was able to balance herself out. There was a blood rush and she swooned but the boy was over to her in an instant helping her readjust.
"My name is Pete." He held his hand out to her and she shook it in return.
"Kat." Pete snorted but soon corrected his actions when she glared.
"Okay, Kat what's the plan?"
"What plan, I just got here?" Kat looked around. In front of them was a gap connected by a wide beam. Looking over it, red glop pooled the bottom and heat radiated off of it. "What's that?"
"I'm guessing that it's the data cores representation of lava."
"Data core?"
"It's the thing stimulating this whole course. We are a part of it now."
"So this is the first obstacle." She observed. It didn't look too difficult and she didn't see any tricks to it. She carefully took a step on the beam. There wasn't a creak and if felt as solid as concrete. She took a few more steps onto the middle and stopped. Still no traps going off. She turned.
"Is this like a trick? This is way too easy!" She called back to Pete.
"They say the first hundred and fairly easy."
"Says who?"
"The guard at the beginning told me. It gets harder progressively." While he spoke Kat made it to the other side.
"Why didn't you just hobble on across? It's not hard at all, just walking." Pet paused at Kats question.
"I'm trying to decide if I should just die here." His answer shocked Kat.
"Why not try and make it through?"
"Do you honestly think that we are going to survive it all? Five hundred levels and only 10 lives, that means we can only die twice every hundred levels. It's theoretically impossible." His tone was very dark.
"Well," Kat tried to think optimistically, "Sometimes, we just have to work for things that we want to see again."
"You mean like our family?" He huffed in disgust. "My father left when I was a kid and my mother runs a declining bakery. Not to mention she beats me every time I do something remotely wrong. So I'm not sure if this obstacle course is my doom or my savior." He looked away.
"You don't even have friends?"
"I was bullied at school." He spoke that as a finishing sentence. He obviously didn't want to talk anymore, not to someone he had just met. Kat's hope was slowly diminishing with him. She tried to walk back across the beam to him but before she could something held her back.
"You had already completed the first course. Look at your identification card." She did as he said, the card digitally appearing in my hand. On the corner a little 2 gleamed. "Pretty soon you will be teleported to the next course."
"Come with me!" She called back.
"Why should I?"
"Well, we could be friends?"
"In a death course? Sounds real promising."
"It will be good for us! I mean with five hundred levels, we are bound to get lonely."
"I've been lonely my whole life, what should it matter."
"You don't have to be anymore." He held his stance. Kat began to quiver thinking about having to do the whole course alone. "I'm scared of doing this alone." At that he looked at her with surprise. His eyes had shown his consideration.
"You don't come off as someone who is frightening easily but fine." Kat sighed in relief. Talking somebody out of suicide wasn't the first thing she expected to do her but it at least made her feel better. He crossed over
"Let's do this." Kat whispered under her breath. Pete nodded in agreement. The room flashed white and like that they were standing in another room with a different obstacle in front of them.
"You ready?" Kat asked
"Ladies first." He mumbled. With that they took off.
So I wrote that as a one shot because I wasn't sure how I felt about making this into a full drawn out story. Please check out my other fanfic Broken if you are into Homestuck and leave reviews on this so I know what would be good! Thank you!