The Price of Life

[MisterGrey]

Flash stepped through the doors at the top of the stairwell, back into the sunlight of the day. He had climbed to the top of a rather tall building to settle once and for all the question of superpowers. A breeze tugged at his hair and clothes as he walked to the edge of the roof. Perfect. Well, he thought, now or never.

Flash closed his eyes, focusing his mind entirely on the air moving around him, and willed it to stop. At first, nothing happened, and he felt like an idiot. But he tried a second time, doing his best to push all the doubt from his mind, and the rooftop came to a dead silence, the wind gone. When he relented, it began to blow again. His disbelief growing, Flash tried making the wind go left, then right, then blowing directly at him, and each time it obeyed. This wasn't beyond beyond the realm of coincidence, though. Flash had one more test.

Well, if that guy was telling the truth, then this won't be missed, he thought, pulling a Franklin out of the wallet and dropping it off the edge of the rooftop. He focused small puffs of wind at it from each direction, and each time it jerked in the expected direction as it fell, until the final test, something that wouldn't happen in nature, a gust coming from directly below the note, forced it back above the building, where Flash snatched it out of the air.

So it's true... I can control the wind... he thought with wonder. Then it hit him. If it's all true, then I'm really expected to kill one of those people! He didn't think he could do it. He didn't know what he had been in life, but he certainly didn't feel like he could take a life now. And even if he wanted to, how could he? They weren't allowed to use weapons- how the hell was he supposed to fight with blasts of wind? What had the others been given for powers? Things were looking more hopeless by the minute.

[babbies123]

"Ah." He quietly replied, and didn't hesitate to send his details back once he saw the message on his phone.

Jumping down from the tree and instinctively rolling out of the drop, he landed right next to Sparkle. The plant was really growing at an amazing rate. He tried out his power, he managed to lift a fair chunk of the earth in front of him up. It gave him an idea. Plucking an acorn from a tree above him, he planted it in the floating soil.

"Here, try growing this!" He said, moving the mound of earth with the acorn just pointing out towards Sparkle, smiling at her deeply.

[Amethyst]

"hmm." Sparkle reached out to touch the mound. Nothing happened when she did, but then, a tiny little sprout came out and slowly (to a human eye anyway) started growing up and out. When the tree was near 1/2 sized, she turned to Mousey. "I'm going to try shrinking it." She grinned and made the tree start to recede into the earth. She dug the left-over acorn out and handed it back to Mousey. "well?"

[babbies123]

"Bloody hell..." Gaped Mousey when he saw the speed at which the tree grew and shrank. A second or so later, when he realised what he had been doing all this time, a second "Bloody hell!" Escaped his lips, causing him to drop the soil he had been holding all over his left leg. Gingerly wiping it off, he felt the slightest signs of embarrassment shine across his face, as he began to speak "You know, you should probably take some of those acorns with you. Your power would be kind of useless if you couldn't use it." The shock of dropping the earth was slowly bringing back the reality that they were being hunted.

"Likewise, I should probably take some earth, but I don't really have anything to carry it with... I don't suppose you feel like some shopping?" He said, scanning for life beyond the borders of the park.

[Base Four]

"Aww...what the bloody hell...?"

The man awakened, feeling a dampened aching feeling in his forehead. Something must have happened last night, although he failed to recall the memories. He sat up and looked around.

He was in an alien environment, seemingly a hotel room. Through the lazy morning eye he noticed that there were others in this room-wait.

Other people? The presence of the strangers suddenly jolted him out of the half-sleeping state. What am I, like, kidnapped? He looked at the people. Seven of them, none of them he had ever met. It suddenly came to his notice that h was not being able to remember anything. Not just anything from last night, he searched but found no memories on any past events. It was an odd, insecure feeling. Slightly going into panic but trying hard to remain calm, he asked himself a few questions. What is your name?

Nothing came up. Now he's really panicking. The next thing he noticed was something metallic clinging to the back of his neck, already warm from the heat of his body, but distinctively metal. And that is when he finally decided to turn his attention to the TV set, which everyone else was staring at. A male voice was speaking, which only part of it he was able to catch:

"...kill one specific person in this room. ...yes, I'm asking you to either kill or die."

* * * *

Moments later.

Panting and struggling to keep a clear mind, he locked the door of the restroom he found somewhere on the streets after he ran until he couldn't. Probably not the most secure idea, but hopefully all the others are as clueless as he is. He spread out everything he had.

A thin wallet. It seemed to contain a astonishing amount of money, but he couldn't see the point of possessing such wealth when someone's out there preparing to chase you to the death. It might help if water or food runs out though...

A tarot card. He never knew much about tarot, but it seemed pretty obvious that it's supposed to be a deck of sorts, probably similar to common playing cards, he thought. Whatever this was, he had to protect it with his life now. How interesting.

A set of...what? A large item that took a while to pull out of his pocket. A pair of earmuffs was what came to his mind first, but it later turned out it was a set of headphones. Heh, earmuffs. Since I don't know what that is, I might as well go by that. Earmuffs.

A cellphone. Finally something he knew well enough. He fiddled with the system for a while, finding nothing else but one stored number and a message...

His heart almost stopped beating when he heard something moving. But there was nothing. No one outside. It was too soon for anyone to locate him anyway. Then what-

And then it sounded again. The pair of headphones somehow seemed to twich a bit. Curious, his eyes fixed on the text message on the phone:

"Your power is telekinesis; the ability to move things from a distance without touching them..."

He frowned, considering the possibility of the statement.

Meanwhile the set of Sony MDR V6s started to drag itself across the bathroom door.

[Iccriss]

Her eyes fluttered open, taking in her surroundings. People, seven of them. What is going on? She heard the man come on the television and listened closely. Killing people? Powers? Sounds like some kind of deranged Saw movie. She stood up and studied the others. Some took of, at least the majority of them. She didn't really feel the need to leave right away. Actually, she thought she was dreaming. She walked as far away as the others as she could and pulled the objects out of her pockets. Rabbit paw key chain? Is this for good luck or something? She realized she didn't have a name, or at least couldn't remember it, so she decided "Lucky" would be her best choice.

She looked back at who was all remaining. Checking her phone, reading her power, she decided to keep it a secret. I mean, this is only a dream, but she might as well play smart and win so she can wake up satisfied. She plopped down in a corner, debating on whether she should practice her power, or make allies. It doesn't matter either way. This is just a dream.

[frozen rose]

Killing People?... Powers? One of the woman in the room looked around, taking in all the people around her. She didn't trust them, true, but would she really want to kill them. She didn't feel like she could murder someone. Although she had no memory of her past, killing just seemed... wrong. Against nature. Humans aren't meant to kill each other. Some were already leaving. She stood and began walking away, not even caring to look at the phone in her pocket or marvel at the money. She walked calmly, noticing a weight around her neck. Her hand lifted up and there was a pendant suspended above the collar. It had a vivid blue sapphire at its center that reflected the light coming through the windows of the dingy hotel. It was beautiful in every way. She stopped where she was and just leaned against a wall, sliding down into a sitting position, arms around her legs in deep thought. These are people I probably never would've met before, never would've looked twice at. These were people who never would've been in my life. And I have to kill one of them... Could I kill one of them? What if I had the child? Although, would an older target make it any easier? She looked at the sapphire pendant again. "I am Sapphire now. And I will survive this.... I have to." She pulled out her tarot card from her pocket, looking up and down the hall to make sure no one saw. This was her tarot? It fit, in a way. She moved to the cell phone, checking it for half a second, stopping when she saw who her target was.

[Amethyst]

Sparkle grinned at Mousey. "Uh...sure. We need bags for our stuff, I want to look at seeds, and we probably need some food. I don't remember when they fed us last, but it was a while ago." she thought for a moment. "Do you want to get a hotel room or plant and earth-move our own place?"

[babbies123]

Mousey looked up. They hadn't been up long, and the sun was still high in the sky. It made sense for them to get a hotel room for saftey, but then again, they had just woken up. They could go shopping now, but if someone was out to hunt later, they would be easy to see. Then again, the assailants could be hard to see at night, and sneaking up on your enemy was generally easier than fighting. He didn't really know what to choose.

"If we stay up now, we'd have some chance of stealth through the night, and everyone else will probably be asleep, which will give us some safety. But if we sleep now, then it's less likely someone's going to sneak up on us while we're walking." He said, honestly betting on this 9-year old having better reasoning and decision making skills than him.

[Amethyst]

"on the contrary," Sparkle tossed an acorn from hand to hand as she thought. "If we sleep now, the other people will be so much more likely to sneak up on us. They just woke up as well, and if we go shopping now, then we'll end up maybe seeing other contestants....probably not good, they don't know we're allies, and we may want to keep that secret."