Welcome back to the story. You all must be wondering what's going to happen to Zac. How long will he waste away in that dungeon? Though I feel most of you just want me to introduce the cast you actually care about. So rude, yet quite understandable. Without further ado, let's do part 2.
Zac sat in a corner, curled up in a ball, waiting to finally be released. He didn't know how long he had been in this cell. It could have been days, weeks, even months. He had no way of telling the time. He just sat there, waiting for some form of escape. In the times he wasn't trying to formulate some kind of escape plan , he took time to study his supplies. Well, what supplies he had left. With it being the only food he had, he had begun eating what was inside. Only later to slow down to make it last. The ingredients in the bag weren't all edible in their current form, so Zac simply had to make do with what was edible. He continued to do this, waiting for the day he would be freed from this prison. To find out what happened to his memories was something that kept nagging at him. Hopefully, he will find out what happened when he was released.
Zac had no idea when it happened. All he knew was he woke up to the sound of his cell door unlocking. Looking up, he made out the form of a huge man, or so it looked to be. Fear closed in on Zac as he scrambled up, using his cane for support. Peering into the darkness, Zac noticed that what he saw wasn't a man. It was a humongous puppet. The puppet appeared to be wearing some form of lederhosen. Its eyes seemed lost, almost sad even. As it opened the door, the puppet began a slow advance forward. Seeing this, Zac began to swing his cane at the puppet. In doing so, he lost his balance quite easily and fell to the ground. As he looked up from the ground, the puppet continued its advance. "Shutting his eyes, Zac waited for the anticipated pain or something more traumatic as the puppet stood over him." "Instead of being harmed however, the puppet seemed to have picked him up. Opening his eyes, he saw the puppet carrying him out of his cell. " Hey, what are you doing? Where are you taking me?!" Zac asked, beginning to struggle. The puppet said nothing, though it's grip tightened as if it was reacting to the struggling. Feeling this, Zac felt it would be better to just sit tight and wait for the puppet to reach its destination. " Well, at least where I'm being taken to should be better than wasting away in that cell" Zac thought as his eyes began to close, sleep taking over him as he was carried out.
Zac awoke to being dropped on the floor. Reacting to this rude awakening, Zac scrambled to his feet. Looking to see where the puppet had gone, he suddenly froze. In front of him was the shadowy form of a man with two puppets standing next to him. "He slowly began to back away. He then bumped into another person. Peering behind him, he found the silhouette of another person. This man was extremely tall, wearing some kind of a jacket and a hat. The thing that caught Zac's attention was his hands. One hand seemed normal enough. The other hand however, seemed elongated. The fingers seemed to stretch forever, culminating into claws at the end. He wasn't sure, but Zac believed he heard the man laugh, causing shivers to go down his spine. Zac began to back away again, only to take a look around and see the entire room filled with shadowy figures. Each one of them a different height, body size ,and from what Zac could guess, gender. Moving to the middle of the room, Zac began to shake uncontrollably, fearing for his life. Every single one of these figures looked as though they could break him apart easily. Gathering what little courage he could muster, he decided to speak. " Where am I? Who are all of you and what have you done with my memories?" What followed shook Zac even more than before. Each of the figures responded to his questions differently. Some of them seemed indifferent to the question, continuing to just look onwards. Others seemed to growl or whisper among each other, causing Zac to shuffle a bit. The worst were the ones who began to laugh. The laughing echoed throughout the hall, shaking Zac to his very core. Hearing the laughter caused him to fall, scoot backwards and look for some way of escape. "Quite courageous of you, demanding answers like that. Maybe you will make these games more fun." Zac began to look around, trying to figure out who had spoken. The answer came when the ceiling began to open up. As light began to flood in, the shadowy figures began to move back, retreating back into darkness. A figure seemed to appear from the opening. Looking closely, Zac saw a lady. She appeared to have a slender form with a bird's mask covering her face. The strangest part, however, was that the woman had no legs. In place of her legs was a cage. Zac pondered on this as the woman finally landed. " Greetings Zac Flaine, my name is Miss Nightingale. You are here in order to participate in the host's game. You still have your invitation, do you not?" Zac thought about it, then immediately started rifling through his bag. After a bit, he found the envelope and handed it to Miss Nightingale. After reading it over, she smiled and handed the envelope back to Zac, who immediately put it back in his bag. " Everything seems to be in order. You are now free to enter the games along with your fellow 'survivors'." The way she said survivors made Zac's hairs stand on their ends. As he was about to ask what she meant when the woman simply held a hand up. "Anything you needed to know before now has been said. Now, let's get you to the other survivors. Mr Beck, if you would?" After saying this, MIss Nightingale seemed to vanish into thin air. Looking behind him, Zac saw a very buff man bringing an object down on his head, knocking him unconscious. " Not again" were Zac's last thoughts before sleep overtook him.
" Hey _" "Yeah Zac, what is it?" "Why'd you decide to take me in." "What brought this question on?" "I dunno. Some kids up the block said they couldn't understand why you'd help someone like me." " AWW, forget what they said. I took you in because I don't want a kid as young as you to not have a future. Dying now would be a waste of your potential." "Do you really believe that?" "Course I do. I believe that about everyone and everybody. Don't matter how your life starts, only matters how it ends." "Wow, that's a lot to take in." " Just think about this, then get back to work: When the day comes and you're on your deathbed, what can a person say about the life you lived?"
"Is he awake yet?" "I wonder who he is?" "He's obviously a new survivor, duh Tracy." "I know that, duh. I was wondering about his personality." " I'm sure he'll be a nice person. Now, why don't we….. KREACHER! Put that back or so help me I'm going to shoot you with my gun!" "Sorry, sorry."
With that outburst, Zac awoke with a start. Looking around his room, he saw quite a few people standing about. There were two boys and two girls standing in front of him. One of them, who he guessed was named Kreacher, had his hands inside of Zac's bag. Meanwhile, one of the females had what seemed to be a flare gun held up to his head. "UHHHH…. Hi?" was all Zac could say, which caused all of them to jump and stare at them. The other girl, who began to shrink backwards, spoke first. " Oh my gosh, we're so sorry for waking you up. We just wanted to see what you looked like, that's all. We'll let you get your rest. William, RUN!" As she said that, the girl jumped on the bigger man's back. In the second she did, the man produced what looked to be a football and booked it out of the room. Zac had never seen someone run so fast. Looking over to the other 2, he saw that the man named Kreacher had been knocked out, with the woman dragging him by his pant cuff. She looked up, smiled and said " I apologize for the intrusion. Please get your rest. We can all properly meet later today when you're up and ready." She began to walk away when Kreacher suddenly woke up. Looking at his predicament, he began to plead with Zac. " Help! Help Kreacher! She will kill me. Don't let gun lady take Kreacher. He will not come back..." The door closed and the only thing that could be heard was what sounded like an explosion. Zac's eyes went wide and slowly slipped back under his covers, wondering what kind of mad house he had walked into.
About three hours had passed since his initial meeting with the group. Feeling as though he had nothing else to do, he went to get dressed. Looking through what he had, he noticed his baker's outfit he had worn before was nowhere to be seen. In fact, as Zac looked down at himself, he saw he had been sleeping in nothing but an undershirt and black pajama pants. Opening the closet, Zac found he had a few copies of a normal baker's outfit. This included a white shirt where the buttons switched for every other button, a pair of black pants, and a random assortment of shoes. The shoes ranged from sneakers, to trainers to shoes meant for formal events. The closet also had lounging clothes which had a tag saying they were meant for days he had no matches. Another note said to wear the baker's outfit to meet the other survivors. Deciding to just follow the rules (after washing up first), Zac put on the clothes and made his way downstairs. As he made his way down, he felt something being thrust onto his shoulders. Looking back, all he saw was his bag of cooking materials. The person who put the bag there was nowhere to be seen. Figuring it was best to ignore this for now, Zac continued on his way.
As he made his way down the stairs, he heard a large amount of shushing and some giggles as he came into view of the surprisingly large crowd. Stepping into sight, he was showered with balloons and streamers. "Welcome to the manor" was what Zac heard as he nearly tripped down the stairs." After righting himself, he looked into the crowd of about 20 something people who all had on bright smiles and were laughing. A woman wearing a blue and white outfit walked forward and shook his hand. " Hello there, my name is Miss Emily Dyer and she is Emma Woods." The lady motioned towards a girl who was standing next to her who gave a quick wave and hugged him tightly. A little too tightly for that matter. When she let go, Zac quickly fell to the ground. When he attempted to stand, he felt someone quickly tug him back up. Looking forward, he saw the same man who had been with the group from earlier. Smiling from ear to ear, the man said " Hey there, sorry about last time. My name's William and I can't wait to be on a team together." Others tried to introduce themselves before Emily made a whistling sound to get everyone's attention. " I'm sure he'd like to meet all of you, but why don't we let him introduce himself first? With that being said, Emily led Zac to the front of the room. When they're finally the center of attention, she made a motion to show Zac had the floor. With nothing else in mind, he decided to start with his name and supposed occupation. " Hello everyone, it's nice to meet you all. My name is Zac and my job was as ..." "Dogmeat" Zac froze as everyone turned to see who had spoken. Zac saw a man wearing a green covering and what looked to be elbow pads make his way to the front. As he did so, Zac noticed different reactions from the survivors. Some of them simply shot glares at the man while others simply shook their heads in shame. Emily rose to her feet in order to confront him. " Mr. Subedar, that was most uncalled for." "Yeah Naib, that's not cool." Mr. Naib, as the others had called him, simply shrugged his shoulders. "I'm just calling it as I see it. I mean, dude only has one leg. How in the world is he going to kite a hunter, let alone even move fast enough to be of any help on the battlefield?" As if a magical spell had been lifted, almost everyone seemed to take a look at Zac's legs to see that Naib was correct. Zac was indeed missing his left leg. A few murmurs rose among the group while others simply looked in silence. Sensing trouble was about to emerge, Emily attempted to bring the group back together. " Everyone please, now isn't the time for this. Mr Subedar, save your comments for another time. This celebration is meant to make him feel welcome, not to outcast him for what he has lost." Emily seemed to regret her phrasing at the end. She turned to Zac as if to apologize, but Zac didn't seem phased at all. He intently stared down at Naib, as if to issue a challenge. Naib noticed this and decided to rise to it. " You look like you've got something to say." Zac swallowed some air and proceeded to speak. " Yes, I'm missing a leg. Yes, I realize I may be a bit of a liability because of it." Emily looked as if she was going to interrupt, but Zac simply held his hand out. " However, just because I have one less leg doesn't mean that I won't give my all. Whatever this game is, whatever hunters there are to kite, I promise to give my best no matter what. As a proud baker and worker, I will do my best not to slow you all down." With that, Zac began to walk away from the front of the room and grabbed a seat. The hall was silent for a bit, until Emily broke the silence. " Thank you, Mr Flaine. Once again, we wish to welcome you to the manor. Some of us will be along to explain the rules to you a bit more. Please enjoy the party. Now, Mr. Subedar. A quick word if you will." Emily walked off to a nearby hallway. Naib followed along with the girl from earlier who had the gun trailing close behind. Zac noticed a few people actually praying in the corner as soon as Emily closed the door they went into.
While he were trying to piece together what was about to transpire, Zac felt someone tugging on his shirt. Looking over, he saw two girls standing next to each other. One of them was a girl from earlier, who he believed her name was Tracy. The other girl was wearing glasses and a blue beanie. In her hand was a cane, similar to the one Zac had. " Hi there, my name is Tracy and she's Helena." Helena waved her hand and issued her greeting. "It's very nice to meet you." "It's nice to meet you too." Zac replied smiling at both of them. " Don't listen to Naib. He's always been like that. In fact, he acted a similar way to both Tracy and I when we came to the manor. Only because Tracy was a basement dweller and I am color blind." Tracy seemed to bristle at what Helena said, but Helena just seemed to ignore it. " If I may ask, what is your ability to be going in the games?" Zac looked at her as though she was speaking a different language. "I'm sorry, my ability?" Tracy stopped glaring at Helena in order to give Zac a confused glance. " Yes, an ability. In this, manor, everyone's job in the outside world corresponds to an ability that the host grants a person. For example, Helena can use her cane in order to project the locations of everyone on the field. I, on the other hand, use a robot I created to act as another teammate." As soon as she said this, she immediately pulled out a controller and began to fiddle with it. A second later, a robot seemed to materialize out of nowhere. Zac stood there amazed at the design of the robot. " Wow, that looks so cool, Tracy" he said, looking over at the robot. "Thanks, it's my pride and joy. Now, what is your ability?" " As I said, I don't know. All I can do, apparently, is bake. Maybe I'll throw pies at the hunter or my goods give boosts." Zac said in an effort to be funny. Tracy and Helena, however, looked at you with stars in their eyes. "That sounds awesome. Let's go make some now. Can't wait to see Joseph with pie in his face." "OOH, I'd love to learn how to bake and this seems like a good opportunity. I'd love to help with this" Both Helena and Tracy began to drag Zac towards the kitchen as Zac tried to tell them he was joking. Back in the main hall, the other survivors just seemed to chuckle and laugh at him. A guy in a cowboy hat called out to him and said " Welcome to the Manor."
End of chapter 2
I can just tell I've upset the Naib fan group on this one. I'm pretty sure I'll hear get an elbow pad to the gut for what I did. Still, I apologize for nothing. Plot development for the win. Now, Zac has made it to the manor. After spending time in a cell, meeting Miss Nightingale, things weren't looking too hot. Now, on the survivors side of the manor, maybe things can finally become less intense. As long as Zac can handle the rambunctious survivors.
Welp, that's all the time for part two. If you'll excuse me, I hear the Naib fan base calling for my head. TTFN: Ta Ta for now
