Sorry it's late! I hope you enjoy!

Chapter Six:

" For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." -William Shakespeare, Hamlet

I pass in and out of consciousness. All of us do. There isn't anything for us to do here but sleep and wonder what the hell we did wrong to get us in this mess. I look at my sister. Her hair is messy. Her mouth is covered in blood. She hasn't made a sound since that man came in here and took everything away form us. What did we fucking do? A knocking on the cellar door keeps me away from speculating, not that I'm much good at that anyway. "Rise and shine. I've got some news for ya!" Everyone started to rise, some more slowly than others, Ashley being the last to. "Ya here me? Get up, girl!" He gave her a swift kick to the head, right where her eye is. It'll probably bruise. No doubt she'll have a black eye.

Words can't describe what I want to do. I want to go inside my mind, let every nightmare that consumes me at night come out and attack this man. I want him to sit here, like we are, sitting in a concrete cavern that smells like blood, piss and shit. I wish I could take those eyes out of his head, not because I want to get revenge for Matt's sake, but because I want him to never lay eyes on us again. I don't know what any of us did to deserve being in this hell, to deserve feeling like shit. I spare a glance at Ashley, as she clutches her eye. I can see tears falling, staining the ground. She's been through this longer than any of us have. I want to save her. I want to save Hannah. I want to save Jessica and Matt. I want to get out of this place and just forget anything ever happened. Could I still go grab McDonalds with Chris, play video games and just talk about whatever random shit comes into our heads? Could I sit and let my worries melt away with Hannah and Beth as we watch a movie night and eat obscene amounts of ice cream? Could life ever go back to some kind of normal? Somehow, I doubt it.

I look at the man, now standing in the center of the room, looking us all over with this terrifying smile that could give the Joker a run for his money. He looks each of us over, smiling at his handiwork. He probably feels some sort of sick pride in this. I wonder if he's getting off on this? I let out an involuntary shiver when I realize he probably does.

He turns his attention to me when I give that shaking movement, that sickening smile leaving his face. "Cold, Joshua?"

I refuse to look at him. I direct my attention to the ground. "No."

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!" His scream fills the cellar, his voice echoing off the walls, causing everyone to flinch. I don't lift my head. I don't want to give him the satisfaction of complete control. Instead, I lift my eyes. "Are you cold, Joshua?"

"No. I'm fine."

He gets closer to me, crouching so he's eye level with me. "See? Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" I say nothing. The man turns away and looks us all over once again. "I wanted to talk with you, my little subjects." Subjects? Subjects for what? "While you are all down here, I've been giving your friends an opportunity to... to help you escape. I give them a task, and if they complete it correctly, you get to go home. If they refuse then I kill one of you."

My heart pounds in my chest. The others are involved, somehow. I wonder what he is making them do. Is Beth okay? Chris? Sam? Will they get out of this?

"I'm telling you this because one of your friends had to do their challenge this morning." We all freeze. I feel my heart beating faster in my chest. "They're in the hospital, suffering from a severe concussion, as well as missing two of their fingers on their left hand." I feel sick. Was this Beth? Would Beth do that to save us? I have no doubts. I know Beth would do whatever she could to save us. Is this her? Is it Chris? Sam? "They'll recover. They played by all my rules. They saved one of you."

I let out a sigh of relief. Even if it was Beth, it's good to know she'll get better. One of us that's in here will get out as well. Whoever it is can get out and turn this bastard in, save the rest of us. "Who was it?" I ask.

He lets out a laugh. "Like I'll tell you. You're all going to stay here until my game is over."

He thinks of this as a game? What the hell? This guy is nuts! "Game? Is that all this is to you? We're people! We had lives! You're going to fuck everything up for all of us just so you can get off?"

The man's sick smile returns. "Why don't you look at the walls? See all those pictures? Those are all my different game pieces. I take pictures so I never forget a game." He walks over to the wall, stopping at a picture with a girl, easily very pretty when she isn't covered in blood. She looks a lot like Sam, except with bigger eyes. "This is Danielle. She was from a game, let's see, five years ago? No, six now." He turns his attention to another girl in a picture next to her, also very pretty, dark hair that goes past her shoulders. "Nicole. Seven years ago." He turns his attention back to me. "Joshua, I could go on and on about all the different people in here. You're all pieces of my game, yes, but you're all immortalized down here, dead or alive." He pauses. "I will say most of the people on this wall are dead. I'm very good at playing my game."

With that he turns and goes. There is nothing but silence in here. One of us is alive, but the rest of us are still in the air. We're all still in danger. What he said was true. He is very good at his game.