Faking Apocalypse (The Apocalyptic Games Book 1)

by Damien Steinfield

  I just wrinkle my forehead for an instant moment and then decide to get off the couch. This game it’s just nutty. But then some wired thought strikes me. Why would they wanna send this silly game to me? What was wrong with these people?

  I reached my phone and decided to ring Zoey.

  “Hey, babe, where you at?” I ask her.

  “At the mall, hon, shopping. I’ve decided to come over later.”

  “Well, that’s what I was meaning to ask for. Anyway, see you. Kisses.”

  “Love ya.” She says as she hangs up.

  So I’ve got another series of minutes ruminating on this weird mail by myself. I stay there, on the other part of the room, soundlessly for a while and then decide it’d be better off if I join my brother and play that weird game that has showed up all quirkily and unexpectedly on my door.

  “Can I play along?” I ask.

  “Sure,” he seems joyous. News flash: my brother loves some company while playing. I clearly don’t as of late. But what can I say. I find myself desperate and thoughtful this morning.

  As I start to get a hint into this game eventually, I realize that it actually is really involving. It grabs your attention in an instant and you wanna play for hours on its missions. It basically consists in you having to find a bunch of smart-pants and hoisting them to the alternate miniature world. I realize that my brother (and that is so unlike him) hasn’t actually taken the hint properly on this game. He has completed just a couple of missions but there are plenty more you have to reach in order to realize the purpose of the rally.

  It’s intriguing and mysterious. That’s why it’s gathering my attention without even knowing it.

  I just don’t realize that Zoey makes an appearance at the door. That’s how involved I was into the game. There’s just something about it. I mean, the coruscating tree and the made-up miniature planet.

  This game was really something.

  “What’s up?” she smiles, leaving the shopping bags to the front and crooking a little to give me a peck on the cheek.

  “It’s this mail I’ve got.” I say to her, getting straight to the point. I mean, I do not blame me. I’ve been waiting to share the news for hours now.

  I grab her hand and waddle her across the foyer. We reach for my bedroom and I take hold of the letter on top of the desk.

  Zoey looks at it and frowns for a moment.

  “It’s weird.” She says.

  I wait quietly, curiosity full to bursting.

  “I’ve got the same exact letter.”

  “Say what now?” I’m shocked. Of all the things I was waiting to hear, this was the least expected.

  “What’s this Resurrection team, anyway?”

  “It’s some kind of progressive entity or something.”

  “That much I’ve gathered.” I pore over the letter and for some reason am still befuddled by it. It’s just so inconvenient. “Why would this shit appear on my door, when I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Did you get the game?”

  “What? The game too? That’s crazy.” Like, what am I supposed to do with that? Zoey hates games and would never wanna get involved with one.

  “It’s intricate but intriguing.”

  “You played it?” I’m shocked. Officially.

  “Yes, I mean, it started as a joke at first, but getting into it, I realized it was so much fun actually and not at all silly, like I’ve been thinking all this time about all the games of this world.”

  I’ve begged her to join me playing a bunch of times and finally decided to give in, coming to understand that she would never be the bubbly, cool type of girl who was into gaming. So having to hear that she willingly started playing a game all on her own, I mean, it’s way past shocking.

  My phone is ringing on the other part of the house. We exit the bedroom and get at the room where Ethan is playing.

  “Hey, Cody,” I say when I see his name pop up on the screen of my phone.

  “Hey, man. The weirdest thing happened today.”

  I just prayed not loudly he wouldn’t say what I feared he’d say.

  “I’ve got a mail from some entity saying they’d be delighted to have me join their team by reaching the final level of the game they’ve sent to me. Ah,” he says after what seemed to have been a pondering point. “The game’s attached to the letter.”

  “No way!” I almost howl from the shock.

  “What’s wrong man?”

  “You’ve gotta drop by to see what is wrong.”

  “Hey, you’re making me nervous. I can drop by whenever you want. But you have to tell me first. I mean, should I be worried?”

  “No,” I say hastily.

  “No? What’s the point of driving all the way over there then?”

  “I mean, yeah. But not like worry-worry. It’s more of a mystique thing happening conjointly.”

  “You’ve got the game too?” He’s howling excitedly on the other part of the line.

  “How in the world do you know?”

  “Well, it’s just that Brianne told me earlier that she got the same exact mail sent on the door to her house. So that much I figured.”

  This was just getting weirder and weirder.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” I ask him.

  “I don’t know what this is. I mean, yeah, sure that’s what I first thought. But I gotta be honest though. The game is pretty fun.”

  “You played the game.”

  “Well, sure. Haven’t you?”

  “Nah. Why would I wanna play something strange delivered in my home? I don’t think it’s to be trusted.”

  I can almost hear him giggling on the other part of the phone.

  “Come on, man. It’s just a game. Nothing to worry about. I mean, it’s pretty cool. I’m getting at the last few levels before fetching it up.”

  That was weird. Ethan, as far as games are concerned, was unbeatable when it came to digital gaming. And yet, even I realized that he was doing so bad with this one.

  “Well, okay then.” I tell him as a sudden desire sweeps me to realize what that game that has captured everyone’s attention is. “Gotta hang up now.”

  “See ya.”

  When I turned around to face my brother while paying, I have the strangest view in front of me. I try to adjust that moment in my mind because it’s really confusing me. Ethan has just stepped back looking Zoey as she’s beating the shit out of this game. It’s became a while I’ve seen her being so interested in something, let alone a game. In no time I decide to join them and look at her while she’s found her latest passion: gaming.

  25

  It’s all fuzzy.

  I’m trying to adjust my eyes to the new atmosphere.

  God! It’s feels like… when you’re sleeping underneath a coconut tree and having a midday nap, while suddenly a misbehaving coconut falls off the tree and into your head. And you wake up unexpectedly holding your aching head with one hand, squinting and wondering what’s going on. That’s how I’m feeling.

  Eventually I’m familiarizing my eyes to the white, illuminated room.

  I’m only on my underwear.

  It’s confusing.

  A bunch of stems are plucked up all over my body.

  I pore over and look to find Zoey lying next to me. She’s also being encumbered by the same stuff though she’s having her long shirt on and that’s the only thing she’s wearing. God, her legs are so distracting. They’re being glinted by the lighting on the room and look so smooth and beautiful. On my other side, there’s Carter, who hasn’t become conscious just yet. Next to Carter Brianne has just woken up and is trying to determine whatever is going on with her. Next there is Colin and Avery.

  We cannot move. Since that’s the first thing I wanna do as soon as I realize we’re back at the Eatonii. At the place where we so desperately decided to escape from.

  “Zoey,” I mumble.

  She turns her head as much as she can and looks at me terrified.

&
nbsp; “Greyson.” She mumbled mildly. I’ve never heard my name sound so warm fuzzy on her mouth as now. It just links me to an instant of memories that disappear as soon and they come up.

  “What happened? Why are we here?” I try to gather up as much as I can from the last couple of hours, but there’s nothing I can remember. I’m just so perplexed.

  “I don’t remember anything.” She explains just as confused.

  “Guys, what is going on?” Avery howls as soon as she becomes conscious.

  Colin is the next one to wake up.

  “What is this place?” asks Avery.

  “Why am I clutched by these things?” Carter looks at them suspiciously.

  “What are these things?” Brianne follows.

  The entire posse seems to be awaken by now.

  “Does anybody know what we’re doing here? How did this all happen?” Colin asks again.

  If only I knew all the answers. I’m tight-lipped mainly by the fact that I’m just as befuddled as they all are.

  There’s just a little moment of soundlessness and shock in the room before we hear the door to the left open up.

  A man dressed in white appears.

  Wait.

  I remember him.

  He’s the guy that used to pinch us with the nutcracker thingy.

  They all come up in an instant.

  Didn’t Colin shoot him back at the cave?

  I’m still fuzzled, but memories come back at me piece by piece.

  “So I see you’re all awake.” He smirks and waddles across the room.

  God! I hate him.

  And I hate that smirk.

  He was approaching me and suddenly seems to make a cease. He looks so close to my face and the smirk keeps getting wider.

  “I guess you can’t escape from this one, now can you?” he tells me.

  He’s standing so close, I just want to punch him in the face. It’s just that I can’t move my arms. It’s like I’m all clutched to this very juxtaposition and something is keeping me from any latent movement.

  “And you.” He’s gone near Zoey now. “I thought you were the special one. We had great plans for you. But it turned out you were only a disappointment.”

  Plans?

  I could figure what their plans might look like.

  They were the most terrible people I had ever come across to.

  I was scared.

  We all were. I gathered just as much from the looks on their faces.

  “I guess you’re all wondering what is going on? Are you going to chase the fate of Cody?”

  Cody?

  How dare he mention his name?

  Where was Cody?

  A part of me just wished so bad he were still here. But that was just a wish anyway.

  “Well, turns out your friend wasn’t of much use to us. He faced a rather painful process on the transponder. But don’t worry. Yours is gonna be painful too. Just not quite as painful as his.”

  Why was he here?

  Just to scare the living daylights out of us with his crappy speech? He must be a doctor, a scientist or something. Didn’t he have better things to do? Like, experiments or something.

  Oh, wait.

  We were an experiment.

  A horrible one.

  I couldn’t just adjust to the idea.

  “If only you didn’t misbehave like you did. Could have saved yourselves a lot of trouble.” He proceeds.

  Next to me, I hear Zoey scream.

  “You’re a monster. How can you live with yourself?”

  “Well,” he doesn’t seem to be offended at all by the comment. “Maybe I really am. But anyway, unlike you I’m a neat one.”

  “Why do you do this? What’s the purpose of keeping us locked up here?” Colin howls from the other part of the room.

  “Well, I guess there’s no point in keeping it away from you anymore. After all, it’s not like you’d find a soul to tell when this ends.” He talks. He’s trying to make it sound so dramatic, though there’s something I’m delighted for; he’s about the tell us the final level of this game. I frown at myself. Why did I deicide to call this a game? Anyway, that’s not the point. He keeps talking. “You’ve all seen the tree in front of the lawn and how it’s coruscating brilliantly like a normal tree shouldn’t. Maybe some of you have figured by now that that is a digitally manipulated tree. It gathers data for us and it saves them in a way no hardware in this world would. This data get processed in an enhanced, generic algorithm and provides us what we’re looking for in all this.”

  “What is that?” I ask, drenched into curiosity after he decides to not go any further. I mean, what’s the point of telling this when he doesn’t explain the true meaning behind it?

  “Well, there was a game. And you all seemed to fetch it up magnificently. The data was linked up to the Eatonii which linked us up to you. We were looking for splendid minds to gather them to the tower.”

  “To what end?”

  “Well, I guess you saw the fate of your friend, Cody. That’s going to be all the same to you.”

  “I don’t understand. What do you want from us?” he looks like he’s willing to collaborate, that’s why I keep asking him.

  “We’re looking for your DNAs. We’ve created a software that gathers all your genetic material and processes it. The data is being collected to the tree. At the end of this we’re going to have all the information that we need. I mean, there’s plenty of you here to fetch up the program and give us what we’re looking for.”

  “And what does this give you?”

  “Good question.” He smirks. “I guess you’re not gonna be around long enough to witness the technology miracle taking place.”

  He stops for a second pondering of something I can’t comprehend. I want to ask him, though I’m scared that if I do he might not give me what I’m willing to hear. So I let him take his time.

  “We’re going to integrate this perfect DNA run into the manipulative electronic deception system, that is the tree, and enhance it into our own genetic material. We’re even in the process of creating a humanoid based on this DNA algorithm.”

  Wow, this was very sophisticated science he was talking about.

  I mean, I was startled, but terrified nonetheless.

  You cannot use other people’s lives to create a scientific prodigy, no matter how brilliant that experiment is.

  That was brutal.

  And unhuman.

  Which, I guess, both were to be expected by the crew.

  “So what is going to happen to us?” Zoey asks him.

  “It’s already starting,” he proceeds. “You see these electrodes you’re plucked at with? They are gonna do the thing for us. We’ll just wait while you suffer in pain and suffocation to give us what we need.”

  “You’re a monster.” She howls and tries to release herself from the conductors like a lioness roaring for her territory.

  He smiles, not a bit offended by the comment and waddles towards a router and presses a red button.

  Fuzzily, I drowse off in an imperceptible way.

  26

  It’s all blurry.

  I compel my eyes to slide open.

  Eyelids refuse to oblige.

  My head is so fuzzy.

  It’s like I’m on drugs or something.

  I’m lying in abeyance, a bunch of conductors plucked all over my body.

  This is starting to scare me little by little.

  “Greyson.”

  I hear a mumble. I recognize that voice.

  “Zoey,” I reply.

  “I’m scared.” She tells me.

  How could she not be at this point? We all are. Thing is it all started out suspiciously, but now that all the suspicions proved true, we were left at a terrifying state of feelings, having no doubt something ominous was about to happen.

  I mean, I didn’t want to be part of something so terrible. We all were horrified at these brutal events, but at some point I think that Zoey and
I were scared the most, since we’ve both witnessed the cruel way they got it over with our friend… just to scramble into his DNA code.

  We could all see into why we were so precious to them. I could understand why they didn’t do anything to hurt us at the cave. They wanted us alive. Because otherwise we were useless to them.

  I couldn’t take anymore.

  We had two of our friends being auctioned off just because of some stupid experiment.

  For the next couple of minutes, in a blur, I saw possemen and scientists entering and leaving the room one by one. They checked the electrodes, the intensity and our current condition.

  The experiment hadn’t just yet started.

  When there were no more foreign people in the room, I took advantage to tell Zoey what I’ve been feeling all this time. I might not have another chance to.

  “Zoey,” I whisper. My energizes are all drained, I cannot even make out a single word properly. My lips are tightened, worn-off, so dry and imperceivable. And to think that this was only the beginning.

  “Here,” she says, voice sounds just as drained as mine.

  “If we don’t make it out of here, I just want you to know that…”

  “Hey,” she stops me right there, just as I was trying to pour my soul out to her. “What do you mean we will not make it out of here? Don’t you ever think we will not make it out of here. I’m sure we’ll find a way.”

  It’s crazy how she holds tight to being optimistic even in the most bearish of circumstances.

  As for me, I was starting to lose hope at this point.

  What could we do after all?

  We were unable to just as much as make a single move out of these electrodes.

  But I didn’t want to tell her any of this right now.

  It’s good she kept up wishing for the best.

  At least one of us was.

  Another group of the crew members made an appearance. What this whole segment basically consisted in, is possemen scrolling through the room and checking whatever they came here to check for. But to me it was all so blurry. I couldn’t make out anything. It felt just like… say you’re on vacation and have had a terribly pleasurable and exhausting night and all you want to do for the next couple of hours is sleep and when you wake up it’s just so hazy and you’re so intoxicated you need a dose of minutes to adjust to the new reality.