Chapter 3

Another guy is the next to join us. Like myself, he begins asking questions. I ignore him and let Joe deal with it. After stuffing my face with some ribs, I pick up a pitcher containing an aqua blue liquid. I smell the pitcher hoping to figure out what the drink is as Joe does the same water routine he did on me. There is no smell to the drink, so I pour some into the drinking glass sitting next to my plate. As the liquid splashes into the glass, I wonder about what is occurring. I wanna care but can’t. Why can’t I care? Why don’t I care about what is going on? Damn these ribs are good, though.

“You hungry,” Joe asks the guy. “Come, let’s eat.”

When Joe comes over and sits down in the same seat he sat down in when he asked me the same question, I turn around to look at who he had spoken to, Keagan.

“Wha. . . what’s happening?” Keagan asks. “Tell me!”

“I will,” responds Joe. “After you sit down. It’s not a short story, and I can hear your stomach growling from over here.”

That’s exactly what he said to me. What the . . . I look at Joe, but his focus is on Keagan. He doesn’t seem to trust Joe, just like I didn’t. Keagan takes a seat on my right. I look at him as he sits down. He has overgrown straight black hair, the kind that the popular white boys sport.

“Wh . . . what’s going on?” he whispers to me.

“I don’t know,” I answer him.

Joe passes us up and sits back down on the couch to wait for the others.

“He said he would explain it when we are all here,” I continue. “He didn’t tell me anything else. Oh, and his name is Joe.”

I take a sip of the blue liquid. Expecting the drink to be good based on the color, I take a large sip. There is no way to describe how terrible the drink is, but it causes me to spit the drink right back into the glass. The taste is like of an awful tea or of water and leaves. The taste was not was I was expecting. I was expecting it to taste fruity at least, not leafy.

“Ah gross,” I yell. “Don’t drink that.”

Keagan does not find my distaste for the drink amusing. He merely nibbles on a roll he snatched from the center of the table and looks down at his reflection in the plate. He’s the quiet type of guy. I should probably not talk to him then. I don’t want to have an awkward conversation with him giving me one-word responses. That’s not even a conversation, and I hate people who can’t even reply with full sentences. Hopefully, he soon begins to develop an intense craving for food just as I have. The water trick worked on him, so I assume he will eventually start to crave all the food in front of him. Even if he wasn’t hungry, there’s too much food to just ignore it. All of the smells of bread, meats, and sides is too much to overcome. I reach for some more food, and in the process hear the next person arrive. This time, it’s a girl. I don’t turn around to see who it is because they are coming naked. I got a glimpse of Keagan when he showed up. I didn’t do it on purpose; it was just a reflex. I’ll try to not do the same for the remaining team.

I try to figure out which fo the girls is in the living room. The voice is not Heather’s. Heather has a demanding tone when she speaks. The girl in the living room has a soft and higher pitch voice. I think it’s Kaite. The voice sounds familiar, and it can’t be Zoey’s. The only time I have ever heard Zoey’s voice is in soccer. Her’s is lower, and she usually tries to avoid speaking, like Keagan. Actually, I think Keagan likes to talk. Only, he talks to the people he knows, and I’m not one of those. So, Keagan and Zoey will both be shy around me. The only difference is that Zoey will be like that with everyone, and Keagan will only talk to Liam and probably Leo.

We hear Kaite whining and crying, and Keagan almost turns around. I grab his head and turn him back around to face the food.

“She’s naked,” I say to him.

“Oh, sorry,” he replies.

He looks back down at his plate and finishes off the roll he was munching on. He finishes the bread and then looks up at the rest of the food. He looks at his options for a bit and eventually gets up and cuts into a barbecued chicken. He tears off a good chunk of the chicken and adds it to his plate. He then adds some corn, a baked potato, and more bread. His hunger is beginning to pick up. Kaite continues to freak out, but this time, she’s freaking out at the fact that Joe saw her naked. She yells at him to look away while she puts her clothes on. I look at Keagan to see his clothes and we wear the same clothes, white shirt and blue shorts.

I guess I have to be the one that stays calm for them. It’s still kind of unbelievable. I teleported into a different place. I just don’t know where I am. We were supposed to be testing new gaming technology. I wonder if this is part of the technology. I know Joe will explain it, but I want to know if this room we are in is part of that virtual game or if the teleporting was just to see if the teleporting part of the game works. I let Joe finish his routine which surprisingly works on her too. She calms down as I hear Joe drink the water. There must be something in that water. It really is hypnotizing.

I sit at the table poking at a piece of chocolate cake while Keagan continues munching on the food on his plate. If we all will exhibit the same symptoms, to the water, the food, and the drinks on the table, then he will be thirty in a bit. I look at our options, realizing I am still thirsty. There’s a cream colored liquid. It reminds me of pina colada, and I reach for it. Simultaneously, Keagan grasps for a lime colored pitcher.

“Pour a little,” I say to him. “Just to taste.”

We both pour a bit into our glass, and I wait for him to try his first. He spits the drink out just as I had done with the blue. I taste my own and like before it tasted awful. I got the same leafy flavor from the cream white colored liquid and the blue.

“What the hell,” says Keagan. “Tastes like leaves.”

This is weird. I begin to think about the liquids a bit. I grab the green pitcher and taste it, a fresh lime flavored water. The liquid didn’t taste disgusting to me, but it did to Keagan.

“It tastes good to me,” I say to him.

“How?” he answers.

“I think,” I begin.

I look at the different pitchers fill with liquid. I count them, and there are nine in all. Then I start to get the feeling that only one of the nine is supposed to taste good to each of us. I grab Keagan’s glass and pour some of the blue liquid into it.

“Taste,” I say.

He does and spits it out again.

“I knew it,” I say. “This is part of the game. You have to find the one that tastes good to you.”

He reaches for a red, an orange, and a pink colored liquid. He rejects all of them. I grab a purple colored one and tell him to try it. He does, and he doesn’t spit it out.

“This is weird,” he says.

“Try it,” he says offering it to me.

“No,” I reply. “This one tasted good to me.”

When Kaite finally joins us, she runs over to me, frightened. She pulls on my shirt as her tear-stained face sinks into my chest.

“J . . . Jay,” she cries out. “W . . . wh . . . wha . . .”

“I don’t know,” I say, cutting her off. “Look, just sit down. He said he will tell us what is going on.”

I stand to my feet pulling my own as well as her weight with me. Her fear immobilizes her, but I am able to guide her handicapped body into the seat to my left.

“Kaite,” I say when she is sitting.

She pulls her legs up on the chair and hides her face in between them. Damn it, what do I do. What do I do?

“Kaite,” I say once more.

“I’m gonna die,” Kaite says aloud to herself. “I’m gonna die. They’re gonna kill me.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask her.

She tries to cover her body with her clothes. I think I know what wrong with her. She’s probably embarrassed because she was naked when she arrived. She’s probably ashamed and feels violated because Joe saw her. But I don’t think he did. As I caught a glimpse of when Keagan arrived, I noticed that Joe wasn’t facing the direction where we arrive. He was looking down at his own crotch. He was holding the glass of water in one hand and the clothes in the other. Joe hasn’t seen anything. Right now the only ones who should feel shame are me and Keagan, me for seeing him and him for being seen.

“No one saw you,” say to her.

“I heard them talking,” she whispers to me.

“What did you hear?” I ask her.

“Something about getting us in quick,” she continues whispering. “Before it was too late.”

That could mean anything. She’s probably overexaggerating on that. The computer guy probably frightened her by rushing her inside the glass encasing.

“Is that all?” I ask her.

“No,” she replies.

I turn and look at Keagan. He’s too busy drinking his purple liquid and stuffing his face with food to listen in. Kaite looks up at me before continuing. Her eyes are huge. I’ve never noticed that before. She has big blue eyes. Even when she cries, they look beautiful.

“They’re not letting us out,” she says.

Her words send a chill down my spine. I think that fear I’ve been holding in and those warning signals in my head begin to go off. Her words are like a snap, and I too begin to think of the worst possible situation, not seeing my family again, being stuck in some virtual world, and even dying. I cannot. One of us has to stay strong. I can’t afford to let those thoughts overtake me. I have to keep it together and find a way to calm her down before the others arrive. I have to do it soon. Joe gets up and walks back to the sofa. He does not help me calm her down. He only walks by, sits down, and picks up the first glass and the next set of clothes. I have to calm her down.

I pick up Kaite’s glass and pour some of the blue liquid in of her glass. The sound of the liquid catches Keagan’s attention, and he looks at me like, “What are you doing?” I simply finish pouring the liquid and place the pitcher back on the table. Maybe the blue one will taste good to her, but I’m hoping it doesn’t.

“Here, drink some of this,” I say.

I am not completely sure how she will react, but if it tastes disgusting to her, I’m hoping that’ll relieve some of her worryings. I wait for her to take the glass from my hand. I push away from her as she takes the glass and gulps the liquid. Her face cringed, and she turns to her right to spit the liquid out. Well, it just so happens that when she did, Joe was approaching with the next person, Liam. He says nothing but goes and sits next to Keagan. Keagan begins the process with him. I only hear Liam spit the liquid out once.

“What the fuck,” is all I hear from beside me as I look up to see who had spoken.

“Jay, this is disgusting,” shouts Kaite as she begins wiping her tongue with a napkin as if it were on fire.

Well, that’s not hers. I pick up the next color, the creamy white colored liquid. I pour a little into her glass.

“Sorry,” I say to her. “Try this one.”

She does and spits it out again.

“No,” she says. “I’m not drinking any of that nasty shit.”

“You have to find the one that tastes good to you,” I say to her. “I think it’s part of the game. The green is mine, and the purple is Kegan’s. Try another.”

“I’m hungry,” she begins as she stares at the food.

She seems to have calmed some. She picks at some fruit in front of her, first starting off with just a little bit and eventually filling her plate with a different variety of fresh fruit and vegetables. As she fills her plate, I grab the pink pitcher and pour some of the liquid in her glass. She’s cautious about trying the liquid but drinks it. She doesn’t spit it out. She fills her glass and continues stuffing her face with food.

I take my seat at the table and notice Liam’s liquid color, black. All of us remain quiet as Joe continues his process. We all continue to eat, and I begin to think about what Kaite said. I start to freak out internally, thinking I won’t get out of this game. What if they lied to us about this game? Even if they didn’t lie to us, the definitely did not tell us the whole truth about the game.

Next Chapter: Chapter 4