-Teaser-

-Welcome to THE GAME-

"Welcome contestants, to THE GAME" boomed an announcer's voice that sounded like someone you might hear at a racetrack in the Roaring 20's. Whoever and whatever it was, it had woken me from my sleep.

Wait a second... Why is there an announcer in my apartment?

I opened my eyes and found myself lying on the dirt floor of what seemed like a massive roman colosseum under a brightly burning sun. at the entrance and exit to the colosseum, large metal suits of armor stood guard at the entrances and exits. They were silent and unmoving, but I could faintly make out a red glow from under their full face great helms. The dust and dirt was kicked up by what could easily be fifty or so other people in the same situation as me.

This kind of situation was dangerous. Not only for the obvious reasons, but that a stampede could form if everyone panicked. The safest place would be on the outer rim, away from the center. Getting up briskly but not overly quickly, I made my way to the outer rim away from the larger mass of people and not near the two exits guarded by the armor across from each other.

"What is this?" A young black girl about the age of fourteen cried out from the other side of the arena.

"OI what's going on ere?" A Bobbie in his early forties asked the American man next to him from about fifteen meters away from me. His English police uniform clear as day, and his Cornish accent was thick.

More of the people in the arena began shouting and demanding from the unknown announcer to be returned home.

"QUIET" The announcer's voice boomed over the panicking civilians, however, nobody quieted down.

Then, the sound of a sickening crack and splattering of wet meat was heard throughout the arena as the loudest screamers exploded like flesh water balloons. Instantly, twenty or so men and women were slaughtered. Thankfully, nobody next to me exploded as I was farther away from everyone else. Still, the sight made me want to throw up. Yeah I'd seen a couple executions and such on liveleaks, but seeing it in person made my stomach churn.

I subdued the urge to vomit and looked around the arena. It seems that I wasn't the only one to have the idea of staying on the edge of the crowd, as there were five others that stood at the edge of the arena with relatively different levels of calmness. However, not everyone had the ability to suppress the vomit and the sounds of retching filled the arena.

I couldn't make out specifics as they were pretty far away, but they were all men in the age range of nineteen to forty.

"Now then. Since you're much more willing to listen, listen carefully, as this will be the only information I will provide you" The announcer spoke, his voice a bit calmer.

"Please look to the exits. There are state of the art golems blocking your exit. As you can see, your bare hands will be useless against them. Your goal is to escape from the colosseum and make it to the safe house with steel doors and await extraction in two days. This is the tutorial level of THE GAME" he continued before taking a breath.

"Oh, and if you want to survive after the tutorial, get stronger while you are here. One kill will increase your choice attribute by ten percent. This is not static. Good luck contestants" the announcer offered his well wishes before a bell rang out with a deep booming rumble.

"BEGIN"

The first thing I had to do was move and move fast like my life depended on it. I was a big guy, not the biggest or the strongest, but I was six foot five and two fifty, mostly fat though. This meant a few things. I would be targeted pre-emptively and I didn't want to be a sitting duck.

Attempting to sneak by the golems was suicide, so that was out of the question. This meant that I had to find a way out of the arena. My only way out at the moment was up. Running for the wall of the arena, I found that there were a few metal rungs to climb up out of the arena that must have been installed there. Quickly making my way up the rungs and into the stands, I looked around my surroundings.

It seemed that nobody had followed me, so I was free for now. I made my way up the stairs towards the top where one could hypothetically jump off, but since it was so large, you would be guaranteed to break your legs while landing. However, Jumping wasn't my intent. Hopefully, if all went well, I could slide down an arch onto a ledge and repeat that process till I made it to the ground.

When I made it to the edge of the arena and looked down at the walls, they did have ledges, but they were smaller than I would have hoped for and required agility that I just wasn't confident in ever succeeding to properly utilize.

Turning back to the arena, I realized that I would at least have to find a safe source of water and a weapon. Teaming up just wasn't an option for me just yet. There was a staircase going down into the insides of the colosseum. It was dark and unlit, but it was my only reasonable option for now.

"Screw it" I breathed out as I took the first step in this life or death game.