“Well, just a few minutes until we begin.”

”Oh I know, I’m quite excited!”

”We all are my dear. After yet another seemingly long year, Professor Perry’s Labyrinth of Doom has returned!”

”Ooh, marvelous! I can’t wait even another few minutes, yet I must.

”I understand and share your anticipation, dear Callista. Blood, gore, saws, machetes, spike traps, pits, Professor Perry’s staff has really outdone themselves this year.”

”Do you think we should wake them? The contestants I mean. Only seven minutes till and they should at least be briefed on what’s going on.”

”Good idea, yes, let’s wake them.”

_____________________________________________________________________________

There they lay, six victims, sprawled out across the hard concrete floor of a confined cell. The cell had no windows nor vents, only a single hardwood door, which was locked up tight.
From above, in the high corner right of the door, a lone security camera hung, peering down at the six unconscious people, three males and three females. The six of them, unprepared and unaware, are about to embark on a deadly journey of horror and torment, the pawns in the game of a twisted mastermind.

Without warning, a sudden and ear-splitting alarm began blaring away, a moderately pitched yet high frequency wailing like that of a fire truck. It blared away within the confines of the cell, as a voice suddenly rang out in chorus with its blaring,”Up, up, and awake! Get up you lowly worms! You can sleep when your dead!”

The deafening alarm startled Yvonne back to consciousness. She quickly sat up, her heart just about to burst from her chest. The young woman was in such terrible shock, that at first she didn't quite register the voice talking through the loudspeaker. But it slowly came back to her, all of it. She was leaving work, heading down to her car, but she never made it. She was dragged into a van and taken goodness knows where.

"What the hell is this place?" she said in a low voice, mostly to herself.

Yvonne got to her feet, slowly looking around the room and staring at some of the other people that were in there with her. They had the same confused look on their face, and something told her they were finding themselves in the same predicament as her. But why? Why were they there? And where were they, to be exact? Yvonne then spotted a camera in one corner of the room. It appears that her captors were recording all of them, and she figured they too were taken from somewhere, possibly their jobs, school, or their very own home. Was it a random kidnapping then? But if so, why take the risk in an open space like they did with her?

Different thoughts plagued Yvonne's mind all at once. She took a moment to compose herself. Since the voice had spoken to them, she'd just have to wait to hear what else they would say since all of them were already awake.

It was common knowledge to all of Frederick Bern’s associates that he did not like loud noises; so to be rudely awoken by one was quite unusual for the first generation immigrant. He jolted slightly, almost completely curling up before his instincts thought better of it and stopped the motion in progress, reducing it to only a small twitch. His head was pounding like it happened been stepped on by an elephant; which was not possible to survive but if Fritz went against the grain of nature and did survive, than this would be how he felt. Back to the point though, Fritz was on a floor, and while that wasn’t unusual, he was on the floor quite often in his dorm, what was unusual was that the floor was both made of cement and completely filthy. He was not in his dorm.

Next observation, he wasn’t alone in the room. If he controlled his breathing enough and closed his eyes he could tell there were at least four to five other people in the room with him; and since no one had woken him up before with their noise, they had to be knocked out as well. Only to awaken, like him, by the blaring alarm and the rude male voice that sounded like it came from some sort of intercom; or a big telephone on speaker. Fritz was assuming he had been kidnapped, and for all he knew his kidnappers had giant telephones. It’s not like he could see from his position on his stomach, face grinding into the cement.

When he heard movement from one of the other people in the room Fritz had a dilemma. Should he look up and see the other? She sounded like a woman, despite how quietly she spoke. If she was awake that meant the others are now awake and that means he must look pretty silly. But a part of him, terrified of moving and anxious of making himself known, wanted to continue playing dead. Maybe they would ignore him and the kidnappers would leave him alone? No, that wasn’t likely; Fritz finally shifted slightly once more, so his face was off the cement on looking at where the female voice came from.

In the dream Eva was having the plane had taken a sharp turn straight into the side of a mountain, the large explosion within her thought only escalated by the blaring alarm that was coming from every which way. Evangeline's eyes opened wide as she found herself in an unfamiliar location; had she drank too much after work? Was this still part of a dream? Her thoughts faded back to the men that had taken her near the dumpster by her work. The bruises of their harsh handling still fresh as the woman explored her body to make sure she wasn't losing any limbs or any unspeakable events while she was knocked out.

Involuntary Eva vomited on to the cold floor in front of her, "I'm sorry." she said out loud, embarrassed but blunt to no one in particular, she noticed the others in the room but didn't know who they were or what they wanted from her. Removing her first layer; a sweatshirt she wiped off her mouth and placed the sweater over the vomit. She would get a new one, she wasn't worried about it in the slightest. She just wanted to find out what was going on and why.

“What’s going on, where the hell am I?” Came a female voice, a young brunette who was slowly standing up at the back of the cell. Her clothes were slightly tussled, her green shirt wrinkled and sloppy and her jeans ripped at the knees and thighs. Her face showed exhaustion, as well as fear and uncertainty.

Two other people stood to her left and to her right. One was a rather tall and muscular built young man, looking to be in his mid-twenties. The other was far younger looking man, and was built rather slim and was noticeably shorter than the other. He wore glasses and his face was clean-shaven, while the other man had a scruffy blonde beard across his face. They both shared expressions of concern and disorientation as they looked around the small, concrete room, glancing around at those that shared their confinement.

“Who are all of you? What the fu...?” Started the larger, blonde man.

“What is this place? Are we in jail?” Asked the smaller man.

”Not quite,” came a sudden voice, from an unseen speaker,”consider this ‘confinement’ or ‘detainment’. Hello there, allow me to introduce myself, I am Proffesor Perry, and you all, that’s right, you, have been randomly selected as contestants this year on my reality game show. Welcome to Proffesor Perry’s Labyrinth of Doom!”

A sudden chorus of clapping, cheers, and whistles could be heard over the speaker as the voice finished speaking. Thank you, thank you.” Said the voice as the applause died down.
”Now then, the six of you are this years contestants, as I’ve clarified, and your goal as contestants is simple; to survive! To live through the night, surviving the grand gauntlet of the Labyrinth, ducking it’s various traps, navigating its mazes, solving it’s puzzles, and not to mention the hunters.” He ended with a gleeful chuckle, which was followed in tow with a chorus of chuckles and snickers from an unseen audience.

”Oh, this is going to be fun,” came another voice, a rather pompous sounding female,”the excitement, the murder! Oh, and the bets of course!”

The smell of vomit is acidic and makes Fritz’s nose curl in distaste. Pushing himself fully off the ground and into a sitting position; there was no point in pretending anymore if everyone else was awake so now he took the time to scan the area more fully. He was correct in his assumption that there were five other people besides himself; they were spread out across the room, all in various states of alarm, but the young women who vomited is who took most of Fritz’s attention.

Vomiting was a rather common symptom of severe anxiety, was Fritz’s first thought; his second, third, and fourth were a list of other symptoms and causes of anxiety before coming back to the issue at hand. As the reality of the situation set in, largely due to the other captives reaction, Fritz could begin to feel a subtle, but rapidly growing crawling sensation eating away at him under his skin; followed by an increase of heart beats per second and an undeniable urge to move.

Following that urge Fritz stood up stiffly before moving to the nearest wall, inspecting it with both his hands and eyes as he searched for anything that could be useful. What did he expect to find? He wasn’t really sure, but it was a distraction; a distraction that allowed him to listen to the all seeing voice without shutting down completely.

“And what if we refuse? What will you do?” Fritz asks as he searches for something unknown.

"We will probably die anyway," Yvonne replied, taking a few steps back until she found herself against the wall. She then sank down to the ground, her breathing picking up a bit as the many possibilities of what could occur to them danced around in her head. The fact that they had to "survive" scared her the most. And the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. This wasn't some elaborate prank, not when the poor girl had already gotten terribly sick and nothing had been done about it.

Yvonne endured some more self-inflicted mental torture before finally standing up, her mood switching from terrified to pissed off. Who in the world thought it was okay to grab a handful of strangers, throw them in a room, and then tell them they had to go running around like animals if they wanted to survive? Obviously that was not the least bit okay with her, and she walked over to the door, studying it very closely.

"These motherfuckers aren't kidding around, not from the looks of it. If we want to survive, we need to figure a way out of here, or at the very least overpower them from the start." She then turned around to face the others. "Do any of you have any martial arts training, or something along those lines?"

Fritz hand clenched against the wall as the woman spoke, feeling the rough and untreated concrete grains rub against his fingers and tug against his nails. Were they really going to die here? What was the logic in that? What was the point of this entire performance? Fritz had never gone against a law, had never given a reason to be killed. The people running this were obviously unstable, a list of mental illnesses raced past his eyes when he clenched them shut, knowing that the people where unstable would do him nothing in this situation. He was no neogatior or psychologist, he couldn’t figure this out through talking.

Placing his other hand on the concrete wall Fritz braced himself against it; doing his best to think. Deep breaths in and out, focusing on the stench of vomit coming in and out of his nose; rationality was the only way to combat irrationality so he had to put his fears and doubts aside for the moment. What did he know at the moment? That two people, the male named Professor Perry and a unknown woman, were the ringleaders of the operation. There was also a supposed audience; why would there be an audience of such a large caliber? The prospect of having a large amount of unstable people in one place is as unlikely as it is daunting. They must have been organized from around the country, maybe even around the world over the dark web and various unsavory fetish sites. How did the police not get a hold of this?! There was-

The woman, the one who said they would “will probably die anyway", was talking again. Focusing on her instead of his internal analysis to see what she has to say. It was as if her emotions had done a complete one eighty from moments before to now. Her aura was intimidating, causing Fritz to take a step closer to the wall. Watching her for a moment he questioned her motives, what good would it do if anyone had any self-defense training? It was improbable that any of the people running the “show” would even enter the same room as them; and while more likely, the chance of grunts coming to attack them was still questionable. “Why do you ask?” Was his quiet reply.

“This is fucked up.” Said the stocky, blonde man in a dead tone of unsurity spiked with fear.

“This...this can’t be. What is this some kind of a sick-ass joke!?” Demanded the brunette in a tone of rising shrillness.

”Ooh no, it’s no joke,” came the male voice from the unseen speaker,”entertainment is a better label says I. Yes, far better. Now listen, only one minute more until the show begins. So I suggest that you all...collect yourself. Because Sack Head shows no mercy.” Laughter from both the male and female voices could be heard over the speaker.

“Why are you doing this?” Cried out the smaller man, shuffling about, his voice holding a cracked edge as his panic rose.

”Because we can.” Replied the female voice flatly, followed by a cruel snicker from the male.

The blonde woman who had vomited earlier now stood silent, a shaken and dumbfounded look on her face as she stood silent, her eyes darting around.
The husky blonde man was looking about as well, frantic and hopeless.
“There’s no way out accept that door.”

”Which will be opened in t-minus thirty two seconds.”
Announced the male voice in a sickly jubilant tone.

Yvonne was just about to speak up before she was interrupted. A dialogue had formed between some of the people in the cell and the voices over the loudspeaker, the latter informing them just how much time they had before supposedly, someone came for them. She then turned to the guy who'd last addressed her.

"I was thinking we come up with a plan, but it's too late now," she went on, her eyes desperately scanning every corner of the cell. She stopped when her eyes fell on the door once more. "We could have overpowered them, catch them off guard and possibly make it past them..." Yvonne sighed, her hands starting to shake just the slightest as time continued to slip from them. It was hard to concentrate, especially when they were mere moments from being exposed to psychopaths.

"Get back against the wall," she whispered as some sort of warning.