SO ANOTHER NEW STORY LOOK AT THAT HOW ABOUT THEM APPLES NEVER SAW THAT ONE COMING DID YA.

I'm insane.

Tag, You're It

Penthouse

Len woke up in a room he'd never seen before. Orange light filtered in through a dusty window in the tint of morning, revealing a large, open room boasting various states of decay. Paint peeled from the walls and off of the ceiling. Lights dangled from single wires, rocking back and forth slowly from a breeze coming in through a hole in the wall. Len couldn't decide exactly where he was, but, after taking in the various broken furniture and paintings half hung on the wall, he figured he was in some sort of hotel room.

Len sat up on a bare mattress sagging in its frame. His neck and back were sore from sleeping in an unfamiliar place, and, for some reason, he found that his chest was aching. He rubbed a spot right above his heart. It hurt to touch. He looked down and noticed the blood stippling his shirt. Startled, he hurriedly unbuttoned it, a curse escaping his mouth.

"The hell…?" he muttered, rubbing at an oddly-shaped lump protruding from under his skin. The area around it was blotched with bruising, and a freshly sewn scar laced its unnatural edges.

Len's heart was pounding. He touched the bump again, wincing. It felt hard, manmade. He looked around and rubbed his forehead, trying desperately to remember how he had gotten there, in that unfamiliar place. All he drew were blanks. The last thing he remembered was walking into his dorm room. After that, there was nothing. Len's breathing grew rough. The only conclusion he could come up with was that someone, somehow, had knocked him out and cut him open to put this strange… thing inside of him.

Len shot up to look out the window of the room, hoping desperately to recognize the street outside.

It was nothing he would have expected.

Len was high above the ground, looking down upon what looked to be the shattered remains of a city. There was not a single person on the street. Trash littered the sidewalks; signs crumpled to the ground and buildings barely stood with half of their structures missing. Len felt himself begin to swoon, and steadied himself against a lopsided lamp post. He needed to find a way out of that room

He glanced around for a door, found one, and made a dash for it. However, as soon as he touched the handle, it fell to the floor. He pushed then pulled on the door, and, after that didn't work, he beat against it and called for help, foolishly. He knew that he was alone in the building. Len scoured the room for another exit, maybe an air vent, but came up empty-handed.

The door opened.

Len whirled around and stared at the tall blonde in the doorway. She had long hair and blue eyes. As soon as they saw each other, the girl called out behind her. "Hey, guys! I found number Ten!"

Before he had a chance to think, the blonde pushed forward and grabbed him by the arm, dragging him out into a wide hallway.

There were eight others standing before him:

A brunette in an odd leather outfit that looked to be in her late twenties.

A pink-haired girl with blue eyes, crossing her arms self-consciously.

A green-haired boy and girl clinging close to one another.

A salmon-haired man appearing to be in his early forties.

A teal-haired woman frowning at the room.

A blue-haired man standing unnaturally to the side.

And a blonde girl, with short hair and blue eyes that frighteningly reminded him of himself.

The brunette spoke up: "So this is Ten? Looks like him and Nine could be sisters."

Len bit back a harsh reply. He had no idea what was going on and the woman was a stranger to him. Surely she was just as confused as he was at the moment.

The blonde that looked like Len gave him an apologetic glance. Then, the tealette spoke.

I guess we'll do the run-down again for this one," she said, although Len had no clue as to what she was referring to. "My name is Eight. One is the one that just insulted you, and Seven found you in your room."

"Why is everyone named after num—?" Len started to ask his question, but the woman stopped him.

"Let me finish," she said sternly. "The boy with the green hair is called Five and his sister there is Six. Then, the man with the pink hair is Four, the man with the blue hair is Two, and the pink-haired girl is Three. And Nine is the other blonde girl. Which makes you Ten."

Len took a moment to go over what the tealette, Eight, had just said. Len was number Ten. Nine was the girl that looked like Len. Eight was teal. Seven was the long-haired blonde. Six was the green girl and her brother was Five, the green boy. Four was the salmon-haired man. Three was the pink-haired girl. Two was the blue-haired man. And One was the brunette.

"What's going on here?" Len said. "Where in the world are we? And why are we here?"

Seven was the one that responded. "Nobody knows," she said. "We all woke up here with no memory of what happened beforehand. We've already looked around. All of the doors are locked and neither of the elevators works."

Len scratched his head and looked around. There were two, apparently dysfunctional, elevators to his left and a few uncomfortable looking benches to his right. Lights above him flickered with faulty wiring. The paper on the walls was half torn-off, and the carpet was dingy and worn through in some places. Down the hallway were two more branches, probably leading to hotel rooms. Nothing really seemed to catch Len's eye, until he noticed a speaker, bolted messily onto the ceiling in the far corner.

"What is that?" he said, pointing at it. The others followed his finger and, noticing the speaker, moved closer to get a better look.

The blue-haired man, Two, was the first to comment. "It looks like this was put here recently. It's much newer than everything else in here. The bolts are still shiny, even."

Before anyone else could say anything, the speaker crackled to life.

Hello, and welcome to all," it buzzed. Uncomfortable silence fell across the room. "And congratulations to the ten luckiest people in the world." The voice sounded raspy and irregular, as if it were going through a voice changer. "The ten of you have been specially selected for a psychological test pushing human capability to its very limits. The test will be conducted in the style of a game. The rules are quite simple. Players will have twenty hours to escape from the hotel. Failure to do so will result in the building's detonation at the twentieth hour. Unauthorized exit of the building will result in immediate elimination from the game. Unauthorized returning to floors previously visited will also result in elimination. Players will have twenty seconds to return to their designated floor before elimination. All players must stay together on one floor. If a player moves ahead of the group they will have twenty seconds to return before elimination. If multiple members move ahead, the group with the least number of members will have twenty seconds to join the larger group before elimination. If both groups are of equal size, all members will be eliminated.

"Following the first ten hours, players will begin a game of 'tag'. Each hour, a player will be selected at random as 'it'. That player must then complete a specified task, not to be disclosed to any other players. If an 'it' player admits to another player their specified task or their 'it' status, both players will face immediate elimination. Any player who does not complete their specified task within the hour given will be eliminated.

"This experiment is not to be taken lightly. To ensure that all players follow the rules set before them, bombs have been planted somewhere within each player's body. Any attempted removal of the bombs with cause immediate elimination. The bombs will only deactivate after successfully escaping the building.

"The doors within the penthouse have now been unlocked. We advise that you begin your escape as soon as possible and, of course, we wish you good luck."

The speaker crackled and fell quiet. The silence and stillness in the room was impenetrable. Eliminated…

Eliminated.

Finally, someone spoke up. "I guess… we should start searching the floor again." It was Two.

"Hold on! Don't we need to think of some sort of plan first?" Seven said. "We only have twenty hours to get out of here. We need to think about this or something!"

"Oh, lay off," the green boy, Five, said. "That's a long time. All we have to do is take some stairs down to the first floor. It shouldn't take ten minutes. This is a joke."

Everyone began talking at once. Seven and Five were shouting at each other as Eight tried to quiet them down. One and Two had a conversation off to the side. Three was keeping to herself, away from the group. Maybe a minute passed before Len couldn't take any more.

"Shut up!" he shouted. The other nine turned to look at him. "I agree with Seven. We have to figure out what the hell we need to be doing right now." He paused to make sure everyone was listening. "Now I don't have a clue who any of you are and I don't know why any of us are here, but what I do know is that we have a twenty hour time limit to get out of here. I have no idea who the insane person behind all of this is, but I don't think they would give us twenty hours to sit around and piss ourselves is we could just walk out of here." Len saw Five glance away. "Now I think the first thing we need to do is learn some things about each other." Before One could object, Len went on. "I get why One wanted to go by these fake names and all, but there has got to be something linking us together that brought us here."

"Wait," Three said. It was the first time any of them had heard her speak. "What if these people are listening to us?"

"What are they gonna do," Len said, "'eliminate' us for going to high school in New York?" He ripped the front of his shirt open, exposing the bruised lump on his chest. "Someone has just sewn a bomb under my skin and I am not having it go off because some of us aren't serious enough about this 'game'." The nine others all touched a different spot on their person. Len let the silence hang as he buttoned his shirt back up.

"I agree," Two said, after a while. "We have no idea what we've gotten ourselves into. The least we can do is get to know ourselves a little bit. I'll start: I am Two, I'm in my twenties, and I have congenital analgesia. I can't feel pain."

Congenital analgesia. It explained why he stood so unnaturally, and when Len looked closely, he could see scars muddling Two's features. He tried not to stare.

"I'll go next," One said. "I am One, I'm in my late twenties, and I work in a motorcycle bar, hence my read leather." And bitchy personality

"I-I'll go," Three stuttered after that. "I'm Three and I'm a high school student in Detroit."

Soon, everyone had said something about themselves. Four was a psychologist, Five and Six were siblings born about six years apart, Seven had just graduated college with a degree in robotics and a minor in music, Eight was a waitress with two young children at home, and Nine was studying abroad in the United States.

"Okay, we've all introduced ourselves," Seven said. "Now it's your turn."

Len appeared startled for a moment, but he shook it off. "Oh, right. So I'm Ten and I…" He stopped. "I…"

"You what?" Seven asked impatiently.

"I'm… A college student."

"A college student? That's it?" she hissed.

"I…" Len couldn't say any more. He couldn't remember anything else.

One scoffed. "I can't believe this. Was that your plan all along? Get everyone to tell you about themselves then fake amnesia? Unbelievable."

"No, I swear that's not it! I…" Len wracked his brain, looking desperately for something to say. "I don't know! I can't remember anything; I don't know!"

One scoffed again, but Two defended him. "I think Ten's telling the truth, guys. This kind of thing happens all the time when people are under stress. Give him a break. I'm sure he'll tell us what he knows as soon as he remembers something." Len looked at Two thankfully.

A bell toll range once throughout the hotel; everyone stopped. The ten players exchanged a glance.

"What… was that?" Nine said.

"I think that was our first hour," said Two.

Silence sobered the group, and then, out of nowhere, Five turned tail and started running. Six and Three followed without thought. Len had no clue what was going on, but he joined in, to.

The players came to a door with a faded "EXIT" sign posted over it. Five tried the handle, and it was unlocked.

Confusion rippled through the other nine.

"How is it open…?" One mumbled. "We tried that door ten times before…"

"Does it matter now?" Five said. "It's open. We only have nineteen hours left, right? We'd better get going while we still can."

Did you know which characters were which? I know most of them were probably easy, though Four Five and Six may have been a smidge tougher. Maybe Seven, probably not. I like the whole prospect of keeping everyone ambiguous, though. I'm trying to make it so that my main character doesn't know any more than the reader does, so that I'll force myself to communicate everything clearly.

For this story, I am going to have to think up NINETEEN different puzzles for these characters to figure out, and they'll have to translate into "novel language". I have three planned out, but, as for the rest, I am open to any suggestions that may inspire me.

If anyone is confused about anything, please feel free to let me know, and I can clear things up in chapters to come. This is my first time writing a puzzle/suspense novel, so any suggestions that could help me improve are totally welcome.

Please note that the chapters to come (probably starting with the 4th chapter) will become increasingly violent, and the rating is likely to change from T to M.

Thanks so much for reading, and please review!