#This isn't going on FFN for a while because I have no intent to update it with any sort of regularity

[littlemulattokitten]

The Game

*If you don’t like spoopy serial killer AUs, this is your warning.*

Day ?

?

Contestants Remaining: —

The hard crack of the light switch echoed through the metal panel on the wall and around the room. A low electric hum followed, fading into the background as more switches were flipped, more buttons pressed. A high frequency whine filled the room, increasing until the sound became too high for human ears and seemed to stop. Computer monitors blinked to life, their screens full of silent static until a button on the keyboard was held down. The sound of nineteen bodies breathing out of sync added to the quiet droning that filled the air.

Slowly, the monitors filled with images of rooms that were identical save for their inhabitants. Some were male. Some female. All of them were unconscious. None of them knew what awaited them when they awoke.

Dark eyes watched the last fuzzy monitor, the only monitor that mattered, as it’s camera feed came into view.

She looked healthy. She looked whole.

She was broken.

Another monitor, one that was unassuming except for the fact that it was as far away from the first as physically possible, showed a man. He looked peaceful, his dark blond hair askew in sleep.

It was ironic. He was whole.

But in time, he would crumble, shatter, fracture.

Break. And break. And break until he was nothing more than tiny pieces.

~~~~~

This was avoidable.

If blame is to be placed I place it with you.

I’ve accepted responsibility for my mistakes.

I’ve long since made peace with the consequences.

But you.

You. Took. Her. From. Me.

And I let her go.

~~~~~

Day 1

8:00 AM

Contestants Remaining: 19

Her head was full of cotton.

Limbs that weren’t responding as well as they should have been twitched outward as she tried to feel around for her bedside table. Her hands met something cold and hard, more like a floor than her nightstand. She squinted against the lights and waited for her vision to focus.

She was not in her bedroom.

Her panic set in mentally much faster than the effects were catching up with her body. It felt like several minutes had passed from the time she’d opened her eyes to successfully sitting up. Her head was still cloudy, buy she could think well enough even if she couldn’t move around properly.

Her back was pressed up against one of four plain, cold white walls. There was a door a few feet from where she sat, there was one across from her, and there was on to her left. Only the leftmost door had a knob. The others were smooth, and looked like single elevator doors, also painted white, and with no button panels.

She was on a plain twin sized mattress with a thin blanket and a single pillow. Two fluorescent lights, the kinds that lit hospital hallways and professor’s offices on college campuses, were on the ceiling. There was a speaker, painted white, directly above the center of the room.

There was a rectangular digital clock mounted above the door across from her. The time was in bright green letter and beside it, instead of the date, it simply said Day 1.

Hermione had absolutely no idea where the hell she was or why and nearly jumped out of her skin when a distorted voice came from the speaker.

Good morning, everyone.

Everyone? She stared up at the ceiling with blood rushing through her ears and muscles spasming in her stomach.

I do hope you all slept well.

She swallowed hard and tried to remember how to breathe even as anxiety crept up her chest.

Some of you are very energetic this morning. I would save that energy. You won’t be needing it for a few days yet.

“What the hell happens in a few days?” she muttered through numb lips. “What is this?”

My name is M. Just the letter. Very simple. Very easy to remember.

I have a puzzle for all of you. Each of you has a cubby panel in one of your walls. In a few moments, your panels will open. There will be a piece of paper and a single crayon. On the paper is a riddle. Write your answer with the crayon and leave everything in the panel.

Very, very easy. You have thirty minutes to turn in your responses.

There was a pause, during which Hermione eyed her walls a bit more closely and chewed her bottom lip. It sounded like this M person was using a voice modulator, which raised several questions. Why use an alias and hide your voice unless you thought you’d be recognized? Did that mean she and whoever else was…wherever they were, knew this person?

She jumped when M laughed.

Some of you have inquired about the…consequences of refusing to participate in my little activity.

You are more than welcome to decline and find out

But that will be the last thing you ever do.

Good luck.

Hermione stared at the ceiling in muted horror, not even jumping when the panel in the right wall slid open loudly.

The last thing she remembered was falling asleep on the couch in her flat. She’d gotten lackluster take out and downed an entire pint of ice cream during a rerun of her favorite science show. But now she was trapped in a room with a madman who, apparently, would kill her if she didn’t complete his puzzle.

She wondered what would happen if she answered wrong as she went to the cubby in the wall to retrieve her puzzle.

I devour everything with no end in sight and I command everything from morning to night.

She frowned at the slip of paper and stuck the ‘grape juice purple’ crayon between her teeth. The paper wrapping was inconspicuous and so blatantly not name brand that she rolled her eyes. She assumed her captor wasn’t very careful with his funds and had blown his kidnapping budget before he’d gotten to the art supplies, and thus, he hadn’t been able to afford Crayola.

She hoped she lived long enough to find humor in off-brand crayons one day.

“I devour everything,” she read aloud. Fire didn’t command things from morning to night, so that was out. Time or ambition, maybe, but it seemed odd to her that the answer would be borderline philosophical.

She sighed heavily and rested her head against the wall. She had fifteen minutes left to answer.

“Or else,” she muttered under her breath, glancing in the corners of the room again. There weren’t any cameras, but judging from his earlier announcement, it seemed M could at least hear them, if not see them.

She stopped worrying the crayon and hesitated.

Would he kill her for getting clarification?

She huffed out another sigh. “Are we allowed to put more than one answer?” she asked clearly, though she felt foolish speaking to an empty room.

You may.

“Jesus-fucking-Christ,” she muttered, grinding her teeth in annoyance. His voice had made her jump and now goosebumps covered her arms.

Voice modulators did not prevent amusement from being conveyed, she now knew. Maybe if she lived that tid bit of trivia would help her someday.

She wrote time, ambition, life, death, and humanity under the riddle and took her supplies back to the cubby hole. The panel slid shut as she lowered herself back to the mattress. She had just gotten comfortable again when it reopened, to her surprise.

Curiosity beat apprehension, and against her better judgement, Hermione walked back over to the right wall. She blinked at the tray of food and the seemingly unopened water bottle, idly wondering if it had been tampered with.

Not that there’s anything else to drink.

“Um. Thank you?” she said, taking the water, sandwich, packet of crisps, and cookie out of the cubby. “So I answered correctly?”

Yes.

Right then.

She cracked open the water and took a long drink after determining that it tasted normal. The sandwich, she was more than surprised to find, was a ham and turkey club…on sourdough…prepared exactly how she liked it.

She counted her blessings that M was feeding her at all and tried not to think too hard about how or why he’d presented her with one of her favorite meals.

~~~~~

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

You needn’t have left.

Nor stayed away for so long.

He took you, but you went willingly.

Why didn’t you stay?

~~~~~