Simon Says

[Kibamaru18]

The silver pocket watch read 2:59. It had been 2:59 for over six months. It didn't really matter anymore though. The stars tell time better than a watch. Harry stared into the sky for several seconds. Nothing. He didn't know how to read the stars for time. In fact, he wasn't sure if it was the stars or the moon he should have been looking at. With a slight rise and fall of his shoulders--a shrug-- he made his way down the street. His destination: the old, abandoned Kennedy High School.

The time was 11:57 when he reached the school. As he approached, he noticed a small crowd gathered at the entrance of the decaying school. He leaned against a pole several feet away from the entrance and pulled a small crumpled paper from his pocket. On it was scrawled, in his rushed handwriting the instructions given by one SIMON. He had stumbled across them while browsing the internet, looking for something to occupy his mind. He had read the instructions about a hundred times, if not more, since he had come across them and jotted them down. In fact, if asked, he could probably recite the message by memory.

Come one, come all. Blah. Blah. Game that has no equal, a million dollars, abandoned Kennedy high school at 00:00. There. That's what he needed: the time. Midnight, eh?

He checked the watch again. 2:59. Perfect, right on time. He clapped the watch shut and as if on cue, Mr. SIMON began to speak and music began to play. It turned out he actually was right on time. The gates opened and the crowd began to spill into the building. He placed the watch into the front pocket of his coat and followed the crowd. Seeing how nobody had noticed him yet, he decided to stay just a couple steps behind the others.

The school was quite lackluster. In fact, it had no luster whatsoever. It was old, smelled of dust and urine and looked unstable to say the least. He attributed the odor of urine to the rats that attended the school now that it was abandoned. Almost everywhere he looked was a web; Large, small, intricate, sinewy. Simon really did this place up for us, he mumbled to no one in particular.

His attention was pulled away from his surroundings when one of the people up ahead slapped another in the back of the head. He frowned. Was that really necessary, he thought. He shrugged again and stepped passed the fat man and through the gym doors, wondering what Simon would say next.

[Professor Ven]

A callous frown on his wrinkled face, Karldin continued puffing, smoke rising from the bowl of his pipe. Damn kids. One hit on the back of the head is all it takes for someone to get killed. Then the intercom went off, and Karldin heard the mockery of humanity, the conductor of vanity, and this group's maniacal puppeteer. God be with us.

As 'Simon' instructed, the players began to move inside. He then dumped the scorched tobacco onto the unforgiving concrete, the heel of his shoes smashing the ill-advised substance between a covered foot and a very hard place. As he crushed the tobacco, he unfurled a handkerchief, cleaned the pipe bowl, and shook out any bits that had fused themselves to the polished wood. The handkerchief was disposed of into a trash bin, and he placed his pipe back into its respective pocket.

"Hopefully you youngsters can keep up with old me, eh?" Sir Ferrument remarked, antagonizing them a small bit, without losing his cheerful disposition. He took his gray fedora off, holding the hat in his right hand, allowing his left to remain free. His smile seemed eternal, forever fixed, pasted upon his face with super glue.

Until he finally entered the building itself. The cobwebs that hung about didn't bother him in the slightest - one too often ran into those when procuring books from old sections of a library, along with the spiders, who were usually only mad at being bothered, and were subsequently squashed - though the rats did. Icky things, rats. And the smell, ye gods. Worse than the London sewers after Christmas Eve. If I had a nickel. .

Sir Karldin Ferrument, Esquire, kept a wary hand on his cane's grip as he looked about, following the crowd.

[AxelYoYo]

Jack smiled back at her and Malina took another drag of the paper tube. She let out a long line of smoke. "Ouch," she muttered when some of the ash fell onto her wrist. The girl wiped the ash off. Always do that....She thought. Malina sniffed her wrist--the same spot where the ash had fell--and smelt the smoke. In fact, everything near her smelled like smoke. Well,DUH,smartie. You're smoking a freakin' cig, what do you expect? In answer to her own sarcastic thought,Shut the hell up. Malina glanced over at Jack. He's sort of cute. She thought,blushing a little. She turned away, a little smile and a blush on her face.

"Ah! Spider!" she suddenly cried out. She waved her hands frantically, trying to brush the spider web off her face and the small black spider crawling on her face. The black spider fell to the dusty floor and skittered,angry that some human had just ruined his web. Malina was breathing heavily, eyes wide. Jesus! That spiderweb cam out of no where! And at that same time, she had dropped her cig to the ground. While trying to get away from the web, she had stepped on it and crushed the paper tube. She looked down at the broken cig.

"Damn it...Hey,Jack? Mind if I have another? As you can see, I crushed mine." she asked, taking a web out of her messed up hair.

[KNightof5orrow]

Mailina walked into a spiderweb and she started freaking out a little bit. Jack couldn't help but chuckle to himself. Looking down to his cig, he noticed that he was forgetting to smoke it while watching her, so it went out basically unsmoked. He pulled his lighter out, but didn't relight it, just playing eith the lighter in his hand.

Mailina pulled a cobweb out of her hair and asked for another cig, since the one she crushed wasn't smokeable anymore. Looking at her with a smile on his face, he noticed another cobweb on her shoulder. Reaching over, he plucked it off while saying, "Missed one. Don't worry, I got it. Here you can have the rest of this one, I only took one puff off it and I'm not really in the mood for the rest of it anyways."

[OmniChaos]

Hyde slowed his pace down to a slow walk. Though he could still hear the other talking behind him, though could not make out what they were saying, he was sure that he had placed enough space between him and the others. He took a moment to look around the interior of the school. It was mostly the same as the exterior, only filled with the stench of rat urine and feces, though another odor entered his nostrils as he continued to walk, one that forced Hyde to raise his hand to his nose and mouth, causing his cigarette to fall to the floor, in disgust: the overwhelming stench of decay, likely from countless dead rats. He felt his stomach heave and Hyde used all of his strength to keep his dinner from exploding out of his mouth. A bit of vomit reached his mouth, unfortunately, and Hyde spat the horrid sludge from his mouth, the unsavory taste still fresh in his mouth. With his hand again firmly over his mouth and nose, Hyde was able to block out the smell.

As he continued to walk, Hyde noticed something that unnerved him slightly. Most of the windows were barred up, but he noticed that all the open windows led only to an enclosed courtyard, dead and barren like the front of the school. Which meant, if something were to go bad, their only escape route would be the door that they entered from, assuming it was still open when said something went bad. However, Hyde kept quiet about this fact. No need to get anyone else upset about the fact, especially if nothing went wrong. Besides, they were rattling on enough as is. But this fact made Hyde all the more cautious now, as his initial assumption of Simon's game being a trap just felt a lot more likely. Of course, he could simply be overreacting about the set up and being paranoid about the game in general, but still... The voices behind Hyde grew louder as the others began to catch up. Hyde, however, kept his pace, because, as much as he preferred not being around people, Hyde knew that he was better off with the others.

[Silverslide]

"Alright, here we go!" A husky dark skinned cab driver says with an accent in his voice. "Dat will be 29.75, sir"

Jeremy then turns from looking out of the window at the cab driver, then casually pulls his wallet out of his pocket. "Do you take credit cards?" Jeremy says.

"No, no. Cash only, sir." The cab driver says back. Jeremy then looks back at his wallet, fully knowing he has no money inside of it except for a bunch of coins. 'What do I do. I have no money on me, and I have no time to be arguing with this guy right now...'

"SIR! Dat will be 29.95!" Cab driver says.

Jeremy looks up at the cab driver with a blank emotionless stare on his face. He then springs up and grabs the back of the cab drivers head, then begins to slam his head into the steering wheel multiple times in an attempt to knock him out. After the man stops flailing his arms, Jeremy knew that he was out. He then casually grabs his backpack, and walks out of the cab toward Kennedy High School. "Who pays with cash anymore?"

Jeremy then walks towards the school, when he arrives he opens the door and heads inside.

"Congratulations, players, for choosing to participate in the Ultimate Game! The rules, introductions, and--of course--the million dollar prize all await within! Please enter the school facility and follow the fluorescent path to the gymnasium. Simon says, 'Welcome!'"

Almost completely ignoring the voice, Jeremy makes his way towards the gymnasium. As he walks toward the gymnasium, Jeremy takes a chance to look around this 'school' and notices that the window's are blocked off. Which gave him a sick feeling in his stomach. He then flicks his head to the side to get some of the hair out of his face. He then walks through the double doors leading into the gymnasium, wanting to win this game already.

[AxelYoYo]

Malina noticed the smile on Jack's face and blushed a little, feeling flustered and embarrassed. He reached towards her shoulder and pulled off another cobweb. "Missed one. Don't worry I got it." The girl nodded, but her eyes flickered to her other shoulder and her clothes in case there was any other webs to brush off. None could be seen. He handed her the cig he was smoking. "Here you can have the rest of this one. I only took one puff of it and I'm not really in the mood for the rest of it anyways." The girl took it and held it carefully, so that when she tipped it, no ash would fall out. She gave one last grin and said,"Thanks, Jack. You're pretty nice,y'know." And walked into the direction into one of the girls that looked lonely. She had noticed her while she was freaking out. Quite a weird time to notice something,but whatever.

"Hey, there. It's...Cecilia,correct? I noticed you while I was freaking out over a spider-web," she said,sounding sarcastic,"You look a little...lonely. Has anybody talked to you,yet?" She asked, settling into a walk next to Cecilia. While she waited for the girl to respond, she examined her surroundings.

Everything was mostly covered in a blanket of dust, possibly urine--ugh--,and webs,webs,WEBS. The school must have been pretty good looking before it became...Like this.

[IceBlueWings]

Haley glanced at the players, seeing their actions and hearing their words. Except for Jack and Malina, everyone seemed to be on their own. Well, they've only just met after all. She kept walking in pace with the group until she smelled a stench of decay, or whatever this stench was. She placed a hand over her nose, feeling sick. This was the first time she's ever smelled something this bad.

Malina shouted in surprise as she walked into a spider web. That was the least of their problems, she thought. Oh God... She stopped, her face going pale. She swore she even saw cockroaches crawling about. She didn't mind spiders, but cockroaches she could not stand. But seriously, her stomach was not feeling so well.

The stench was bad. Embarrassed, she stopped and walked away from the rest of the group, unable to hold it any longer. She threw up, although there was little in her stomach anyway. Blushing profusely, she calmed herself down, feeling her throat burn and as if her stomach was flipped upside down. She took a while to recover, not really caring if she was behind the group now. She would catch up...she will catch up.

[Ordeith]

(For optional accompaniment: YouTube - (Requiem) 33 - Apostle 3 - Jacob Hectic Version (He Who Touches Heaven))

Peter watched with eager anticipation as, one by one, the players filed into the modified gymnasium. Nearly every one of them--regardless of their age, gender, background, and preconceptions of the Game--wore the same bewildered expression as the brilliant strobe lights and pounding techno beat assaulted their senses. In addition, the entire floor had been newly replaced, now sporting an enlarged map of the United States, ending with a small sliver of Mexico outlining the foot of the bleachers. All of the exits on that side of the gym had also been walled over.

Simon Peter had also taken the opportunity to indulge in the midst of his renovations, and installed the descending platform upon which he now stood. The small white disc was just wide enough for a single person to stand on, and illuminated Peter from below with powerful LED lights that splashed his white suit with a myriad of colors. Considering his pivotal role in the Game, he had long since deemed himself worthy of a little self-gratification.

As the platform lowered into the players' line of vision, Simon Peter spread his arms wide in a gesture of welcome. Gradually, in perfect synchronization with his descent, the frenzied strobe lights focused their colored streams upon him, extending and expanding to form colored spotlights. The music heightened to a feverish pitch as he spread his fingers and tilted his head high; the intense spotlights caused his reflective mask to gleam like the face of Moses. Wait for it... The platform was less than a few yards above the ground when at once it shot back up into the air, propelling Simon Peter through an Olympic front-flip, which he stuck the landing of perfectly. With a fixed smile, he greeted them with a Shakespearean bow: "My dearest participants, welcome to the preliminaries!"

The mirthful grin of the mask lit up in a myriad of colors with every syllable, illuminating the face of the portly young man Peter had happened to land in front of. "I hope you'll forgive me for the less-than-welcoming accommodations," he began without any hint of apology in his tone, "but as I just mentioned...this is only the Preliminary Round! Here, we're going to comb through this motley troupe to see just who among you has the makings of a true winner in you. Now, I know what you're thinking, players--but let's begin at Point A, then move to Point B, shall we? My name is Peter--Simon Peter, as I'm called." He gave them all another nimble stage bow with this announcement.

"I'd love to meet and greet each one of you in turn, but I'm sure that you're all willing to skip past a few formalities to get onto the million-dollar prize, no? This game," he said, walking amidst the crowd of players, "will test not merely your strategy or reflexes...nor is it solely physical work, either. The Ultimate Game requires skill sets of all kinds, some you might not expect..." He added a note of importance to that last clause, the metallic synthesizer adding a sinister edge to his voice.

"...However, the rules themselves are incredibly simple: The Ultimate Game is based off of the ever-so-popular classic, 'Simon Says'!" Peter laughed and gave one player, grave-looking young man with an odd pair of eyes, an overly-friendly pat on the shoulder. "I deserve just a bit of ego stroking, don't I? After all," he said, moving back to the platform and spreading his arms in a grand gesture, "I'm giving you all the chance to win one million dollars! The best of luck to you all, gamers! Be awaiting your first instructions shortly!" The circular platform ascended back into the shadows from whence it came, and the spotlights rearranged themselves to illuminate the map on the floor.

It seemed as though an hour had been condensed into the moment of silence that followed, but only a minute lapsed before a synthesized metallic voice came over the sound system: "Simon says...'Run for the border!'" Another moment passed before the vague order became all too clear.

Beginning from the front of the gymnasium--the location of the only exit--the newly-refurbished wooden floor practically disintegrated, snapping angrily into a thousand splinters. Like the honed fangs of some awful beast, metal spikes the height of a single-story building shot up from the seemingly bottomless pit left behind. The only pieces of the gym floor that remained were Mexico and a few odd states in between, the southernmost being just within jumping distance of a relatively fit person.

Simon giggled triumphantly over the intercom, "Let the games begin, my fellow showmen! Simon says 'balance'." To emphasize his point, a dark shape plummeted from the ceiling and onto one of the remaining states. While it at first appeared to sustain its weight, the platform quickly pivoted on its supporting column, sending the obscure mass down and onto the waiting spikes. As the shape was impaled by more than five different spikes, it could at last be identified: Black cloth tore away to reveal a dead body, its face and chest horribly mutilated--as though the person had been inserted face-first into a wood chipper.

"Two at a time, m'dears! I sincerely hope you don't disappoint...especially since you only have two hours to complete the Preliminary Round. After precisely one-hundred-twenty minutes, this entire school--roaches and all--will light up like an angry birthday cake!"

_______________________________________________________

(For optional accompaniment: YouTube - Midnight Syndicate - Dark Forest)

Meanwhile, an email was simultaneously received at the nearest police station, from a randomly-generated address. It read as follows:

"To the Folks in Blue, a poem:

Good day and Salaam!

I'm not of Islam,
Or from Vietnam,
But you'd best call your mom,
Because I HAVE A BOMB.

You might think I'm a troll,
But the death knell will toll.
For if they leave whole from the deadly black hole,
They'll never escape from that old grassy knoll.

Two hours.
Simon says, "Search".

[Akans]

Ken blinked rapidly as the enigma known as 'Simon' appeared, in an over extravagant flip and flourish, with the accompanying lights more or less blinding the balls off him. As the man introduced himself, Ken got a good look at the place. It was a more or less normal gym, albeit with a few more lights than was normal, and with a massive map of the United States and a fragment of Mexico on the ground.

"Simon Peter..." Ken whispered to himself as Simon vanished again. Of course that give him next to nothing. There must be a few million Simon Peters running around in this world, though thankfully only one of them had turned into a crazed madman.

Following his strategy of not being the center of attention, Ken had placed himself further away from the others, just off of Texas.
Then that irritating synthesized voice rang out again, "Simon says...'Run for the border!'"

His view blocked by the crowd, Kenneth didn't understand for a second - until the ground almost collapsed under him. He saw a man, middle age, maybe in his 40's? turn and look with a desperate glimpse in the direction of Mexico before he suddenly shrunk -- no, fell, down into the collapsing ground.

Swearing, Ken jumped back in fright, landing just on Texas as the ground collapsed in front of him. There was a heart stopping moment of imbalance - and then Ken was upright, moving to the center of the Lone Star state, as far away from the edge and the now evident spikes that were protruding from them.

Kenneth was wrong. This was much worse than it was turning out to be. Death by chainsaw would have been preferable. At least he wouldn't be buried with a gravestone that said "Died while running the Border."

Whipping out his cellphone, Ken quickly turned it on and punched in 9-1-1, waiting desperately for the pickup. As he did so, the ground shuddered. Ken looked down and found Texas tilting beneath him.
Rapidly dropping into a low crouch to lower his center of gravity and increase traction, Ken crawled quickly towards the less dangerous side, staying as low as possible. If he started sliding, it would all be over. Good thing he wore nice shoes tonight.

[IceBlueWings]

Haley wiped her mouth with a handkerchief and without further delay she ran back to the group. The first thing she noticed was that the gym floor was different, she couldn't figure it out at first, but she realized soon after that it was the map of the United States.

She then looked up and quirked her eyebrow at the sudden flash of colourful lights and the techno beat which both added to what would seem to be an exciting atmosphere. But she wasn't so much in that mood, she was more curious and nervous about what would happen now.

She stood still as she watched Simon Peter make his grand entrance. So this is how he looks like...she thought as she kept her eyes on him, wary of his plans. He then finished his speech by returning from where he came from, while the spotlights illuminated the floor.

Haley had no idea what to do, but a voice, Simon of course, said, "Simon says...'Run for the border!'" Run for the border? She thought for a moment, until the floor suddenly collapsed and with a gasp she jumped backwards to one of the few areas which were not broken down. She stared at the spikes in fear, her heart beating wildly and her legs wobbly.

"Let the games begin, my fellow showmen! Simon says 'balance'."

A sudden mass fell from the ceiling to one of the states, falling down onto the metal spikes. When she finally saw what it was--a dead body--her eyes widened and stared at the state of the dead body. Her eyes darted around, glancing at each of the players. Some were not so lucky. Her whole body trembled, frightened by the sudden event. She had definitely not expected this, no matter how dangerous this so-called game was, but she was also definitely not losing now.

[madammina]

"Oh, Hi!" Cecilia turned to grin at the new girl. She seemed nice, even if she had spiderwebs in her hair. "Yeah, I'm Cecilia. Nice to meet you. No, no one has really talked to me yet." She fell quiet for a minute. "I don't like it here, the lockers are completely empty, not even some trash. You don't just clean that thoroughly for an abandoned school." She rubbed her upper arms as she walked into the gym, finally.

Simon came down from the top, and dropped a body. HOLY CRAP!! Cecilia freaked out for a second, just barely registering the Run for the Border Cecilia just managed to balance on New Mexico, thank goodness the second order was about balancing. I should have stayed in bed.
--
"To the Folks in Blue, a poem:

Good day and Salaam!

I'm not of Islam,
Or from Vietnam,
But you'd best call your mom,
Because I HAVE A BOMB.

You might think I'm a troll,
But the death knell will toll.
For if they leave whole from the deadly black hole,
They'll never escape from that old grassy knoll.

Two hours.
Simon says, "Search"

"Riddle Me This, Batman..." Jack started, not smiling. "you think it's a fraud?"

"No." Emily scanned it too. "It's been kept mostly kept out of the press. And this is similar to the other ones." She bit her lip, then printed it out. "And I'd be careful while we think about this."

"You ever see the Riddler?"

"Yeah-"

"The Jim Carrey version doesn't count."

"Then no."

"Well, then, you're missing out. Even in the 60's he could be scary."

"What does..."

"Booby traps, Dear Emily, we could be dealing with Booby traps."

"Harris! Price!" Their captain, was gesturing to them as he called their names out over the squadroom.

"We're up." Emily sighed, grabbed her copy - Jack printed his out- and walked to the conference room. "Let's go meet our crew."

[Keyblader!]

As Simon finally made his appearance King couldn't help but smirk at how over the top he was. He had on a reflective mask and spoke with a synthesized voice as if it really was that important that his appearance was unknown. It all seemed strange but King just shrugged his shoulders and listened. Their host explained the rules of the game and how it was based on the game of 'Simon says.' Seems simple enough. He thought as the host rose back towards the ceiling. It wasn't too long before Simon's voice rang out, telling them to run to the border. "Huh, What border?" It was then that he looked down and finally noticed the map on the floor. "Oh... that border." He was about to start running when the ground began to shake. The gym split open as splinters flew threw the air. "Whoa, what the hell!?" King yelled jumping back. His mouth dropped open as spikes rose from the pit.

Simon spoke once again over the intercom, his electric voice seeming quite a bit less humorless as a body dropped from the ceiling. It crashed into the spikes below, creating a mess of gore. "Oh shit, what have I got myself into?" King mumbled to himself as he backed further away. It was obvious to him what kind of game he was in now, and of course he thought of calling the police. But would that really be a good idea? There was no telling what Simon could do. "Looks like we have no choice huh, anyone got any ideas on how to get across this?"

[AxelYoYo]

"Oh,hi!" Cecilia said,grinning. Malina smiled back, happy that Cecilia wasn't bummed about no one talking to her. She slid her hands into her pockets, enjoying the warm--wait, was that another spiderweb? Disgusted, Malina flung the spiderweb out of her pocket abd brushed her hands together. Her ears perked up when she heard techno music. She turned around to see a man rising on a platform with lights shimmering around him. Malina laughed a little, "Simon" looked weird on his little show of lights. He talked for a while, actually, a long while. Malina began to get imaptient. She didn't come here for a dang intro, she came for money. The thought of the prize appeared in her head.

"Run for the border!" Simon yelled, and Malina's snapped down to see that the floor turned into a multi-color puzzle. "Not a puzzle...It's a map!" She cried, relizing that he was talking about the New Mexico border. The floor began to fall apart and Malina ran as fast as she could, ignoring the sick feeling that was erupting in her stomach. "Just run,just run,just run,just run," she told herself, skidding to a stop on the border. She was panting hard, despite the not-very far distance. She was leaning on her knees, breathing in burst of air. "Jesus...."

[madammina]

Well, looks like Malina was here too.

"Malina, what the HECK do you think is going on?" The two of them could barely fit on there as it was. Texas was free to the right, but Arizona was GONE. " I have a feeling the chicken exit will be a knife in the back. Do you have anything planned?"