"Do you want to play a game?" came the croaky voice from across the room. It wasn't a person, oh no, we all know who it was: it was Jigsaw on the video tape that was now playing for the people sitting in the room. "Each one of you has wasted your life, you were given so much and you decided to ignore it, to take a path that was easier. Now you will be faced with challenges that make you think, or use your talents. Before each of you is a safe, the safes need a combination which consists of a day that was of importance to each and every one of you. I will be generous and give you five minutes to get to know each other and figure out that date. Inside the safe is a key and that key will open the collars that are currently around your neck. These collars are connected to a wire and when the five minutes are up, the wire will tighten, pulling you towards the bed of nails upon the wall. Let the game begin."
The room was cold and dark. The lights were dim and hardly lit the faces of the people in the room. The floor was dampened by the slow trickle of water in on of the corners of the ceiling. Each person in room had a cold metal collar around their neck. Attached to that collar was a steel cable that was on a pulley system. When the wire tightened the person in the collar would be pulled towards the bed of nails when the glowing timer on the wall counted down to zero, which was currently at four minutes and fifty three seconds.
"My name is Harley Davidson, don't laugh it will waste time, I was born on the forth of April, my mother died in child birth, I'm an only child, my father died on the twelfth of May, my boyfriend went missing on the twenty seventh of March, and his body was found on the thirtieth of April," a female voice said in a hurried tone.
"Why do I care?" a gruff male voice asked.
"Did you not hear him, fuck nut? The safe before us hold the key that will save our lives and the combination is a day of importance, so I'm telling them all to you, just so we can figure them out a little quicker," she said, angered, glaring at the male that had spoken.
"This is bullshit!" he replied back, looking at the other people as if looking for some back-up.
"No its not, it's Jigsaw, we need to figure out this date and get out of here," said another male, that was now glaring at the first male. "My name is Patrick Mosley, but none of those dates sound familiar to me," he replied, looking at Harley a little sullenly.
"Maybe it's a major disaster, like we were involved in a fire or something?" another new voice asked. "I'm Rachel McKenzie by the way," she said, trying to smile weakly.
"How many of us are there?" Harley asked curiously. "One," she said, starting the counting game she remembered from being in middle school.
"Two," said Patrick.
"Three," Rachel said quickly afterwards.
"Four," the male voice from early said.
"Five," drawled a new masculine voice.
"Six," a shaky female voice said.
Then there was silence.
"Six of us, that's all?" Harley asked quickly, wondering if that was it. As there was no answer, she assumed it was right. The reason she asked was because this room was very dark, you couldn't see anyone, the only time you could see was when there was a dull glow on the television as the video played, but since that was finished now, there was no light in the room, just enough to see the safe.
A wave of panic rushed through the room as the wire snapped tight. They weren't being dragged towards the nails just yet, they were being teased with the idea. The collars felt tighter feeling the air supply declining and a certain restriction that made it harder to breathe. Harley let out a calm breath to relax herself and create a calming aura in the room. There was silence for few moments, only filled with the deep and heavy breathing of its current six occupants. The panic had calmed and they were all more focused and more determined to figure out this date as I became a very real feeling that they were being tested by the actual Jigsaw and if they didn't so this, there were sure to die and it wasn't a bad prank by an asshole friend.
"What about 9/11, that's an important date, right?" asked the female voice that stated she was the sixth person in the room.
"I think it is supposed to be a date significant to us, not the nation, but go ahead and try it," the male from early said sarcastically, as if this woman was at fault for him being here.
"Look, its going to do us no good to be assholes to each other, so deal with the fact that you're here and let's figure out this date," Harley said almost instantly, protecting the woman and making sure no fights broke out.
"So what's happened in this area? I mean, stuff happens every day, but something major we were all involved in, that's got to be a weird coincidence," the masculine voice said, "and I'm Kurt Jackman," he introduced himself as an after thought.
"I'm Elise Turner," the shaky female voice said quickly.
"Come on four, what's your name?" Harley asked a little impatiently.
"Malcolm," he started hesitantly, almost not wanting to say his last name, "Moore," he said a little quieter, not wanting to reveal anything yet.
"Malcolm Moore, as in the son of Michael Moore, the owner of Moore Housing," Harley said, almost getting angry now.
"Yeah," he said quietly.
"You sonovabitch!" she exclaimed, trying to launch herself at him but being held back by the chain around her neck.
"Woah, calm down, we gotta work together, not kill each other!" Patrick exclaimed, grabbing Harley by the shoulders to calm her down. "What has Moore Housing done to you?" he asked curiously.
"It's their fault I lost my baby. After my boyfriend went missing, they pressured me for rent, I didn't have any so they decided to put me in to 'affordable' housing. That 'affordable' housing was barely passable for rats to live in. I was made to live there, expecting a child, but I didn't have that child because in that room, I contracted a virus that slowly started to shut down my body, killing my unborn child and the only thing I would ever have left of my boyfriend!" she said, trying hard not to cry or attack Malcolm again.
"That had nothing to do with me!" Malcolm tried to defend himself.
"Your father cares more about money than he does about human beings, he makes me sick," she said, almost spitting at him.
"Guys, the clock's ticking and we need to figure this out," Kurt said sternly, trying to break the fight up before it got out of hand.
"Wait," chimed Patrick quickly, "you told us all the dates apart from when you're child died, what date was that?" he asked curiously, maybe that was the right one.
"It was the thirteenth of October," she said slowly, looking around at the people around her, wondering if that date would click for them.
"That's the day my sister left home," Patrick said sullenly.
"I was in a car crash that day," Elise said, stuttering and still shaking.
"My mother committed suicide then," Malcolm said quietly.
"I was rushed to hospital after a really bad accident," Kurt said sullenly.
"I was diagnosed with diabetes…" Rachel said, a little unsure if that contributed to anything.
Quickly, the six contestants entered their codes, hurrying and hoping that this would work, anything to get out of this room. They had around five minutes left to put the codes in and walk out of that door to freedom. So all they had to enter was eleven, and then thirteen.
"That's not enough numbers for a safe combination!" Malcolm said quickly after putting both numbers into his safe.
"We need two more numbers, so that would be like, a year. All these things couldn't happen last year?" Harley said, looking at them best she could in the dim light.
"Mine did," Patrick said, looking at her.
They all resumed their frenzy, entering the year as well, the first two digits of the year and then the second two. The safes clicked open almost simultaneously. Opening the door to the safe, each person found a key inside, these keys opened the collars around their necks. Fiddling quickly, they all managed to open their collars. The bright timer on the wall indicated that the five minutes were up, finally glowing with 00:00. The collars snapped tightly, flying out of their hands and slamming into wall, creating a horrid noise. They all watched for a moment, staring at the wall covered in nails and realising that an extra second of a waiting for someone to speak and they would have been dead, but no, they were alive. For now.