Percussion Strike Team (Part 2)

Chapter 2 - January 1 2019

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"Hello!" shouted Hayden, pounding the spot the door used to. He found himself in utter disbelief. He had tried to retrace his steps, but every time he tried to go back, the layout of the room seemed to shuffle. He was lost. Hayden started to panic- he questioned if he was dreaming, but no, his grip on reality seemed to be just fine. There was no numbness associated with the dream world, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't wake up.

"DIMITRIUS, IVAN, ANYONE, HELP ME!" he screamed, banging his fists on the wall. The walls were moist, and they felt like real walls every time he hit them- no response. "WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?"

Hayden wandered for four more hours, no signs of an exit. He saw no end to this endless maze of sameness: yellow fluorescent lights, a mono-yellow wallpaper, and a damp aging carpet. The whole room stank of mildew and old carpet. Occasionally, a room would be too wide, too narrow, too dark, but it was all the same: yellow and dingy wallpaper. To make matters worse, the space was nonlinear and Hayden found himself in rooms that he already visited. When he went back, the layout changed on him again.

Oh god the buzzing, the loud electrical buzzing. The subtle but agonizing electrical buzz got to Hayden's ears, it felt like tinnitus.

He was tired, it was almost four o-clock. Hayden found a desk in one room after searching for nearly four hours: it was a cheap desk made of brown metal and fake wood, noticeably aging. He lay down on the desk and tried to fall asleep. Maybe after falling asleep here, he would wake up from this nightmare. The desk felt hard, he tried to close his eyes.

"Maybe I have a really weak liquor tolerance, and one shot of vodka is enough to black me out." thought Hayden. "Maybe the reason I can't wake up is because Dimitrius and Ivan is putting my hand in a bowl of warm water and drawing a dick on my forehead." he thought to himself. He fell asleep.

. . .

It was a sleepless knight, Hayden's back and head were sore, and he was cold. He woke up, expecting to be back in his bed, or passed out on Dimitrius's couch. He opened his eyes, he found himself in the same mono-yellow room laying on the same desk he slept on.

He stood up and cracked his sore back. "I guess I'm not dreaming," he thought, yawning. "I am ACTUALLY in here, and I'm kind of worried. I found nothing in here except this desk, let's assess the situation," he said, emptying the pockets of his white hoodie. He laid out the contents of his pockets on the table.

He had the bag of dry ramen noodles that he was eating like chips, three jolly ranchers, two lifesaver mints: this was his only food. He also had an Iphone 6 with a charger and earbuds, and he also had his wallet, a party hat, a party horn, and a paper clip.

Hayden looked in the desk drawers. He found a pencil in the top one. It was dull and the eraser was dry, it did more to damage paper than help. He found a screwdriver in the other drawer. The bottom drawer was empty.

"If I'm stuck in here, I guess I'll have to stay alive in here for as long as I can!" he said. He turned the desk around and ripped a cylindrical part of the metal frame off- half of it was ripped free. He ripped the other side off with ease and swung the long hollow metal rod around like a staff. He swung it around with grace and power, just as he learned in his Taekwondo class.

An optimistic sense of nervousness filled Hayden, what could he do to survive? He was a fourteen year old kid who was short and skinny. No matter how much he ate, no matter how much he exercised, he was always the shortest kid in his class. Hayden liked to play games, watch Netflix, and he also liked to knit- though he would never admit to that even to his friends. However, he did take Taekwondo and he was a junior black belt who could beat anyone in a sparring match, so he wasn't entirely helpless.


Chapter 3 - January 3 2019

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Hayden's enthusiasm faded, fast. There was no sign of an exit, it was clear to him that he was going to be in here for a very long time.

He was hungry and exhausted. He hadn't found any food or water since he came in, and he didn't get any sleep. His stomach growled, yet he couldn't find any food. It worried him, he considered the prospect of starving to death in an empty office building.

The yellow sameness of the rooms, the smell, the uncomfortable dampness of the aging carpet, and the droning electrical hum- that god damn hum, it drove him crazy. He felt alone, desolated, lost.

"ANYONE!" shouted Hayden, his voice barely echoed through the hall- no response. "Please, why must you do this!" he cried, pleading for help. Nobody answered his pleas. "Why am I in here?"

He felt like a prisoner locked in solitary confinement, locked away alone in an infinite maze that smelled foul and buzzed constantly. The maze was the same except for a broken or flickering light here and there, and a place where the wallpaper was peeling. "Yellow room torture," he thought. "Cruel and unusual punishment," if this kind of torture was ever carried out under US jurisdiction, whoever carried it out was going to be slammed with all sorts of lawsuits.

Hayden didn't lose track of time. He spent three days wandering this godforsaken maze. He felt that he must've spent longer, but time stands still when you're being tortured, and time flies when you're having fun: he learned that bit from school, but he would do anything to go back to school at this moment. At least in school, he could talk to friends in between periods and play on his phone under his desk.


Chapter 4 - January 4 2019

Level 0:
Class 1
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Hayden found a metal office drawer: it was low-quality, the gray paint was peeling and spots of rust were showing. He opened the first two drawers: a sticky note pad and a notebook. He took the sticky notes, but was rather excited about the notebook.

"At least someone can read my dying words," joked Hayden, morbidly, he began to lose hope. The bottom drawer was locked. Hayden kicked it, hoping for results, He hit it with his metal staff.

Suddenly, Hayden remembered the paperclip in his pocket. "I have an idea," he said to himself. He unfurled the paperclip and took out the screwdriver: he was going to pick the lock.

"Just like playing Fallout 3 and 4," he said, grinning. He played the game a few years back and was inspired. He found his father's safe and experimented using bobby pins and paperclips to pick the lock. This lock however was much harder than he anticipated, partially due to his deteriorated state of mind.

"Come on," said Hayden, it was really harder than it looks. After no less than fifteen minutes of shaking, he felt the drawer move. He shouted with excitement when he finally picked the lock. In the bottom drawer was something that he valued more than anything: a regular old bag of Doritos, it felt like gold in his hands. At this moment, nothing else mattered, it felt as if he owned the world.

He ripped into the bag of Doritos and ate, savoring every bite. It didn't fill him up by much, but it was better than not having any food at all. Each chip tasted like a bite of liquid gold.

. . .

Hayden's misery returned in the coming hours. "Who put me in here, what even is this place? Is this Hell? Purgatory?" he thought to himself. He was weak from hunger and exhaustion, and his throat was dry. He tried to distract himself by playing on his phone, but there wasn't a wifi connection.

"If there is no escape, so be it, I am ready to die in here." he thought to himself. "But just because this is my final resting place doesn't mean I'll let it take me without an attempt on my part. I'll be damned if I die without a fight." he said.

"Fuck you," said Hayden. "Fuck this place, you hear me! I won't die in here so easily!" he yelled. "I'll do whatever it fucking takes to survive,"


Chapter 5 - January 6 2019

Level 0:

Class 1
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Secure
Minimal Entity Count

The same halls again, Hayden found a water bottle sitting on a desk. It was three-fourths full, it looked like someone else had drank this before him. He disliked the idea of drinking someone else's strange water, but he didn't have much of a choice since he had not had anything to drink since he had entered. Despite this, it felt like the best drink he had ever drank.

What could be this place? Hayden thought. Maybe he was allergic to something in Dimitrius's house and he's in the emergency room. Maybe he's almost dead and these are just a few last neurons firing. Maybe he was dead, and this was his eternal punishment. Maybe this is a sick government experiment and he was a test subject: governments are quite unethical and would totally do this.

. . .

Hayden felt a strange sensation in his bones, then he heard the roar: a deep and guttural laughing roar. A creature slid at the end of the hall and looked at Hayden, howling. For the second he looked at the creature, it was humanoid. It had a human body, except the limbs were bent out of shape and it crawled around on all fours. It had a mane of messy black hair which fell over its back. Its face had glowing white eyes and teeth, and its skin was dark as night.

"...JESUS FUCK!" shouted Hayden. All of his fatigue left him, he ran down the halls as fast as he could. The creature was gaining on him, sooner or later he had to fight it.

He made sharp turns and ran through long unlit sections, turning around to see the creature's ugly glowing face, yet he couldn't shake off the creature. He knew he had to fight when he was driven into a corner. "...Fuck!" he hissed. As a last resort, he pulled out the party horn and blew as hard as he could. Strangely enough, this worked, the creature was intimidated and stood back for a second.

"I'm a human!" shouted Hayden. "The most foul-fuckin animal to roam the fuckin planet!" he shouted. "Don't fuck with us humans, we fucked up our own planet for some useless fuckin slips of green paper!" he said, referring to capitalism as he whacked the creature with his staff. "And when an animal is cornered, it fights and kills!" he said, he let out a loud and raspy scream, putting all of his might into the killing blow. "And the human is the most sadistic animal to ever live!"

"TAKE ME BACK!" cried Hayden, smacking the creature's dead body. "TELL ME WHY! WHY AM I IN THIS HELLHOLE! WHY AM I STARVING TO DEATH IN THIS PLACE INSTEAD OF ENJOYING A NEW YEAR'S DINNER WITH MY FRIENDS!" he asked. As he beat the creature, five more surrounded him, he gritted his teeth with anger and stood in a deep stance.

"Oh you want a piece of this," said Hayden. "Well then, freaks! Bring it on!" he shouted, brandishing his spear like he always did in Taekwondo. He fought in a frenzy, killing in a blind fit of rage.

"I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ENJOYING A NICE NEW YEAR'S DINNER WITH MY FRIENDS AND EATING A SHIT TON OF COOKIES!" shouted Hayden, he killed one of those creatures. and moved onto the next. "YOU UGLY BASTARD!"

"I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE EATING PIZZA AND PLAYING LASER TAG WITH IVAN AND DIMITRIUS!" he shouted, killing the next one. "NOT GOING INSANE IN THIS YELLOW DUMP!" he said, kicking the corpse.

"MY FRIEND ALEX WAS GOING TO INVITE ME TO HIS CHINESE NEW YEAR CELEBRATION! FUCK YOU!" he shouted. "FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU!" he repeated, whacking again.

"I WAS SUPPOSED TO GET MY BLACK BELT! AND I WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE A CELEBRATION WITH MY TAEKWONDO STUDIO TEAM!" he shouted again, killing another creature. He stomped on the creature, breaking its back.

The last creature alive lunged at him, he blocked it. However, this block sent him falling backwards into a corner. He kept falling, falling further than he was supposed to. When he opened his eyes, he looked up at a light gray concrete roof lined with metallic pipes. His back was wet, he was laying in some sort of puddle.

It was as if he was teleported into another area far away from this creature. He didn't get to kill the creature, but at least he was somewhere far away from it.