Introducing the Game

Riley woke up by the thing that was poking her side continuously, followed by the noise of people moving, whispering, and grunting sleepily. She opened her eyes slowly, the navy blue skies welcomed her and the cold wind of the dawn but was immediately took over by the sentry towering beside her, and the thing that was poking her was the tip of his machine gun.

"Oh, I'm sorry." She muttered upon realizing that most of the people were already up and seated, while she was still lying on the ground with only one of her shirts as her pad, and her bag as her pillow.

She hastily picked up her things and moved to sit on the side, beside the other lower class. The sentry proceeding to the other side to wake the other participants up.

She yawned and buried her face on her arm, her knees close to her chest. They were still in the government's vicinity, slept on the ground without anything given by the officials to keep them warm, they do not really care at all except for the provision of food which only a hard-boiled egg, a cup of rice, and bottled water. It was always like that until evening, she bet until their last day there before they go in the fifth division, however, she was not eating those, she kept them in her bag and eat the canned goods and already cooked foods that were easily spoiled made by her parents, mostly were vegetables, it was what they only have, she didn't even agree on taking the canned goods left on their cabinet, but they insisted and said she needed it the most.

"A pleasant early morning, participants," The people looked up to the top of the grand house where the huge speaker was when the same man with a low voice, who introduced himself as the council emissary spoke, "We will give you two hours to prepare and ready yourselves for the introduction of the game, along right after, your chance to pick the weapons you would want to bring inside the game." They started cheering, seeing an opportunity to survive if they would be given a weapon. "At the moment, the sentries are all gathering your first meal for the day, you may use the comfort room stationed at the very left of the grand house to freshen up, do your things just make sure that as soon as the sun rises, the agenda will start. Please be prompt, thank you."

The speaker turned off, and the people started standing up, rushing to the comfort room which the speaker instructed and allowed to use, while on the other side, the sentries came with once again, egg but partnered up with hot surely tasteless soup, but no one would dare complain aside from the rich people, except that it was silent and barely audible because, of course, they were still afraid of the sentries and officials.

Once she got hers, she immediately put the egg inside her bag and blew the steamy soup. She scooped one spoon and tasted it. She coughed, her face scrunched up as she eyes the food if she could even call it that, with disgust. It was indeed tasteless. It just tasted like hot water with a few ingredients just for the sake of having it. It's bland and flavorless.

She looked around, especially to the higher levels, looking for someone with the same expression as hers which she found some but what's amusing was that they still finished their food, accepting the first meal because they knew they needed to have the strength and have no other choice but to consume it because they do not know when their supplication of food would stop.

She sighed and just did the same, with every wince and gag from her every scoop upon tasting nothing, she finished the soup, and it was indeed satisfying— water was enough to make everyone full, right?

After a while, the participants were starting to go back to their places from the comfort room, or from lurking around since the sun was already peeking, and making its way to the top which tells that their time was up, and now have to settle down for the start of the information about the game.

"Good morning." The emissary greeted again, sounded so dull, like he didn't really want what he was doing and he was becoming impatient. "Everyone should listen, focus, and pay attention to this knowledge because you might get something to survive but no guarantee that this introduction would make you survive. So everyone, please be quiet and settle down, the introduction of the game will now commence."

The crowd hushed, only the shuffles of the casual shifting of people's sitting position were heard, but overall, the whole wide ground was modest, probably because of the sentries guarding them on the side.

"The Game of Dice is a game that has been going on for six and a half decades this year, I know you are all aware that this," He trailed his words for a second, "is a survival game. The game consists of four stages with twenty-five levels each stage, in a total of a hundred levels. Each stage was categorized with the level of difficulty, as usual, the first stage is easy, the second is moderate, third is hard, and the fourth is difficult. To cheer you up, there were people who have managed to survive, so claim that you have a chance."

She heard a scoff from the side followed by a low utterance of his remark, "Always saying the good thing but not the worst, typical rulers. We all know we are going to die inside."

"You are right, not more than ten have survived and they are bragging about that. Weren't they going to brag about how many lives they have killed?" The man beside him retorted, silently dissing the government.

"Except for level one, the rest of the levels have adversaries, either in the form of traps...or dangerous creatures." The whole place felt like it stopped because of the sudden stillness of everyone, if not only for the cold wind as it blew and moved her hair to the back while the clouds hid the sun behind, she would believe the world had stopped for a moment because of how frightening that announcement was, "The goal in every level is to find the dices that will make you move forward, take note that you don't need to win over the enemies designated on that particular levels. If you happen to find one easily, which I guess is impossible, roll it and you can move to how many skips your dice tells you."

The game sounded so simple, they made it like it was they were just playing the board game they made to sell, just rolling and controlling the toy players to move on the levels their dices told them to. But it certainly not like that in real life, it was more than just taking the dice and tossing it, once dice were equal to their lives, their lives were always at risk just for the sake of one dies.

"There are Flees everywhere. If you don't know about them, they are the huge brown birds that you would see once you arrived that will send you to your destinations, but you have to be minded that they are only limited, and it doesn't mean that once you used them, they are permanently yours, they're going to quickly fly away once you have landed. And, those who get them are lucky, while those who do not, will have no other choice but to walk on the dark path which will take days to reach a level."

"The first thing you have to do as soon as you get to be on the first level is to find for the dice, toss it and start your journey. Do not even try cheating like skipping more than what your dice tells you because there are eyes everywhere, and when you're caught, you're dead." The voice became threatening, but it was only for them to know how grave serious cheating was not advertised as the tone immediately turned into a normal deep one.

"About resting, you can rest, of course, but that's when you find the best place where the enemy wouldn't find you. You can sleep too, you can stop, eat, and plan, you may take your time, but the approximate time the game will put into a close is after a year, if there is a survivor or not, the fifth division will automatically close, and honestly, we do not know what's happening inside within those times." He stopped for a moment, they heard a turning of pages, probably his script, "There are foods available inside the game, it is abundant of fruit-bearing trees so you wouldn't have to worry about dying in starvation. The number of participants will be seen on top, written huge and in the red colors, you can see how many are you still inside, the days left to stay, and the time, you can also see the names of the top ten and what level they are already on. About your companions, you can have a team, you can partner up, can form a group, or go individually, it's all up to you, it's your strategy, and we do not really prohibit anything about it, just no cheating."

"Next, about the prizes, the winners would each have five hundred thousand bucks, and a chance to leave the country with their family, which also meant that the winner's family would be exempted to the game, unless of course, they go back to the country. That's the regular price, however, in level four, bets will arise, you can see on the top as well if someone placed a bet on you, and if someone bets on you on a certain level against the adversaries, and you won, half of the money will be yours, adding up to the award that you will receive if you survived."

Too good to be true. It was what they were thinking, however, those were really going to be given to the survivors, but for those who know they wouldn't survive, it was a 'too good to be true' prize because they were certain they wouldn't survive. And that was what Riley was trying to get out of her mind, she had to stay positive, she was trying her best not to be pessimistic like how the people around her think.

"I think that is everything about the game. So now, everyone, be prepared because the weapons will now be out now and your chance of getting one or more that you may use inside the game will be here. Also, as you may know, you'll be staying here for another nine days, you may use it for training, for your physical examination, and readying yourselves, but, needless to say, violence is still not allowed, if we have seen someone used the weapons against each other while still being here, a more serious penalty will be given aside from just being in solitude."

"They only want themselves to commit violence but not us," The same man remarked, a man in opposition.

"They're scared, we might beat them up if they let us." His companion replied.

All of them looked to the side when the door of the government hall opened, and a group of sentinels came out carrying three huge tables with the weapons covered by white blankets, they placed them in front of the participants. They didn't bat an eye as the white cloth was removed, various metallic weapons, gruesome to use or just petty weapons were all on the table, and there was a lot, it was enough to have one in possession.

Riley had to tiptoe because she was at the back, and there were already illogical people who were sneakily moving in to secure a spot until everyone was already brawling just to get one. She tried to push herself in and go through the front, but the sticking body that even air had no space like they were some sort of solid particles was not making her do what she wanted and grab even one useful weapon. She saw a few men grabbed several weapons just for themselves with a huge victorious smile on their faces as they exited the mass of people.

And just a few minutes, the chaos dissipated as all of them got weapons on themselves except her and the previous tables full of weapons were all deserted, except for the uninteresting wooden slingshot left alone.

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