Fatal Debt

Winter Game 2010 by Reuben Pacheco and Brennan Lee Mulligan.
Lots of people dying. There were robots and Gameshow hosts and all sorts of stuff.
==Teaser==
Did you ever notice how your thoughts jumble when you’re surprised?
Keep going. Can’t stop. He’s right behind you. Lose him now. Lose him before it’s too late. That knife is going to hurt me. Please god, let me live. Just keep the knife away, please, please, I’ll do anything.
I’m running through snow. Every step could be my last. If I wasn’t so scared, I could laugh, maybe. Look at how silly I’m running.
I’m pulling my legs up high, yanking my feet out of the snow with each step. I’m galloping like a horse, trying to keep my feet up and out of the snow, hopping from one foot to the other. Funny. The same way I used to run, as a kid, in the snow, sledding. Snowball fights. Running so fast, scrunching up your legs so your feet didn’t drag in the snow.
Now I’m running through the snow, and through the trees behind me is a man with a knife. He’s got a long, sharp knife, and no matter how much I think about it, I know when it slashes at my arms or sinks into my back, it will hurt me. Scare me. It will surprise me and hurt me, and then it will kill me. It will be like nothing I’ve ever felt, and then I’ll die in the snow.
Off in the distance, spotlights rise above the tree line. I can hear far away music from the skybox.
Oh god, he sees me. I can’t tell how, but I know he just saw me. I slide down the hill, in the snow, my boots filled with snow, and I duck through trees. I’m soaked and freezing. Keep running. Keep bringing my feet up out of the snow. Did I lose him? Have to move on to the next level. I can make it. I can be the one. My odds aren’t great, but then again, they never were. I just have to believe in myself. If I believed in myself, I wouldn’t be worthless.
The music is playing. It’s fast paced and exciting. Lots of horns. People are cheering and booing. Having the time of their lives.
Run, run. Blood in the snow. Deep blood. The body’s already gone. Someone saved their own life here. I’m going to live. Someone’s going to die. Help, help, I don’t want to be here.
My brother’s here. John. Don’t know where. Hope he’s still alive…
… No I don’t. I hope he’s dead. Or I hope I die before I see him again.
No! No! He’s in front of me! How did he…?
“Whoa whoa!”
In front of me is a man. He has no knife.
He’s fat. Thick fleece sweaters. He operates a really nice machine, a rich people machine. It floats two feet above the snow with a deep buzzing rumble, and has lovely, luminescent lights on the front.
The evil-looking, black lenses swivel and move as he operates them. He sits on the machine, and makes the machine look at me. He looks not at me, but the image of me in his machine. The machine sends the image of me to other machines, far away. Music plays. People cheer.
All these thoughts happen so fast when you’re not well.
Nice hoverbike. I always wanted one, but could never afford it.
I’m not well right now. The man and his machine scared me, and I stopped running for just a second. Just a second.
Did you ever notice how your thoughts jumble when… when… when something bad happens?
This hurts.
John. John, you’re okay. You’re not going to die.
Ow, ow, ow. I can’t keep standing. I have to lie down. It’s worse than I thought it would be…
John, please take the knife out of me. You’ve won.
I wonder if I could go back, what I could change. So that I wouldn’t be here.
There’s nothing. I didn’t do anything wrong. I was always going to scream and run, looking silly. I was always going to whimper and drop to my knees in the snow. The shrieking, freezing painful hole in my back was always going to gush hot blood over my back and through my clothes before I died and everyone cheered.
It had to happen this way.
I don’t want to die.
I don’t owe anybody anything anymore.
At least I’m famous now.
Fatal Debt
~or~
The Greatest Show on Earth
==What Really Happened==
==Cast==
Category:Games