The week went like hell.
To assure you, I followed the rules for observation so I could hatch my plan.
It didn't went well.

Here's what I've known from my one week of observation:
First, the men, who are different every day are weird looking and absured with every visit. I have learned that conversations were prohibited. I wasn't allowed to engage in conversation of course, I know that now. They have always asked me the same two dollars. I think they will only ask for a much higher price if I mess a task up or I plan something or get curious. The first thing I did was try to find the store where I bought the phone but unfortunately I couldn't find it anymore. They must have known because the next morning , I was asked to pay 500,000 dollars. What I did to get out of that payment? Shoot one of the two men in the leg . Eventually I stopped looking for answers. I don't know how they do it, but they know if I'm up to something. They know if I start getting suspicious or strat digging for ways to beat the game. My fear does get to me, but as long as I do what they want, follow the tasks, that guarantees safety.
That leads me to the second thing, the tasks. The second task I received, I immediately obeyed considering how the past mistake turned out, and guess what, I was told to sit down at a park bench for two hours, without doing anything. Tasks were indeed simple. Over the course of one week, I was messaged to buy some bread and eat it, pet a streetcat, listen to a street musician play some music, and drink at a local bar in the middle of the day. With these tasks I tried hard to keep an eagle eye, tried to see if someone was watching me, but I didn't want to draw suspicion from these strange people involved in this stupid game. I think I get it now, how the game turns out. The game is made to simply bore one out. It's made by letting you do these mundane tasks for yourself, and if you take it for granted for even just a while, that's when the big punishment comes, by money or violence. I don't know if the strange people behind this want this to be a lesson to their targets or something else, but the only way to win is to do whatever they tell you, but you're not informed when it stops. Does this never end? Will the rest of my life be like this? The game was designed to bore people, make them go insane, and it might be easy at first but as the days go on, with each task different, it becomes more annoying and useless. It makes you more anxious, and less coping with the tasks. It drives what's left of your sanity. It makes you want to kill yourself.
I've thought about this one particular thing the past week. Maybe I can end it by killing myself, but I don't want to lose. Whatever these crazy men are up to, there has to be a way out. To win.
Finally, I can't let them know I plan to win. How do I do that? I still don't have the faintest idea.

•••

It's the weekend already. The night before I planned to just stay at my apartment, and try to plan things out discreetly, but that were to change.
The next morning I woke up to a knock on my door and thought it was a little early for those creepy men to show up.

I opened the door and to my disbelief, it was my sister.

Ruth.

"So you're alive?" Those were the first words she said to me.

"Ruth." I couldn't hide my surprise and anxiety.

"What's wrong?" She walked in instantly and surveyed the little apartment. "Nice place ."

"What are you doing here?" I asked .

"It's been a year, Christina. You never dropped a single message. You missed Christmas, and you never called to check." She said worryingly, but at the same time curiously, like she was trying to see between the lines, which I cannot let happen.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

Do not cry. Do not cry. I told myself. It can't be a year. It can't be. Maybe I miscalculated one year for a week. I'm definitely going crazy.

"You better start speaking up or I'll call mom and dad." She said, a phone in her hand.

"Everything's fine, I just don't want to embarrass myself." I told her proudly.

"You're not ashamed, you're inconsiderate. Those years in college being mean, that has to stop in the real world, in this real life. That will get you nowhere." She said.

"Just tell mom and dad everything's fine. " I said.

Ruth didn't move. She could sense something was wrong . I feared for it, because I might just blurt the whole truth.

"You're thinner." She remarked.

"First job in the real world sucks." I tried to snap back.

"Your eyes are darker than Business class, your room needs a little paint and scented candles. When have you stopped looking after yourself?""

The game. The phone. Crazy men. I killed someone. I wanted to say these things to my sister. My sister, who's in my apartment. I want to just tell her everything.

I just shrugged at her.

"Well?" She said. I was confused as to what she meant.

"Christina, you've been standing there not inviting me for drink, or a tour in your crappy apartment. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

Don't cry. Don't cry.

"If you won't, then let me take you." She started to say. "I've googled the best restaurants in the city and I honestly can't wait to try. Maybe that will get you to speak up. To be honest, if you're trying to hide that you're pregnant, or worse hiding a baby somewhere..."

"I'm not." I said . "We can't go out, yet." I said, trying not to sound panicky. Those men will be here soon, what am I going to do?

"I n-need to take a shower. My bedroom is a whole lot cleaner than the rest of the place, why don't you stay there?" I said to her. Ruth obliged.

I tried to act calmly, but it was impossible, considering that my nerves started getting to me. There was still time so I thought to shower first maybe that will clear my head a little.

I didn't close the bathroom door so I can hear if Ruth gets up from the bed. I suddenly hear her talking to my parents on her phone. She was talking to them about how unhealthy I became, how I was such in a poor state. Goodness I hate it when she does that.

I stood still under the shower for a while and started to think. But as I close my eyes, I see monsters and creepy men, and blood. It was enough for me to stop.

I open my eyes out of breath all of a sudden and closed the shower. The moment I turned it off and the sound of the water started to recede, I heard Ruth speaking, not from the bedroom.
Her voice was clear and strong .

"Who are you?" I heard her say.

No.No.No.No.
I quickly got out of the bathroom and walked out, dripping wet and still in a bath towel.

No.No.No.

"Tell me who you are or I'll call the police!" She said.

As I feared, two strange men with notes asking for two dollars stood at our door. Their emotionless eyes traveled from my sister, to me.

"Ruth." I started to speak, walking slowly to them, grabbing my wallet on the table as I made my way.

"What the hell is this? Are you on drugs? Why do you owe them money?"
Ruth kept talking but I didn't hear her. I locked my eyes on the two men, walking closer and closer as they stared at me.
I closed the door and handed them the money.

They accepted and left.

Ruth opened the door a second later, and I looked around at her. As I turned back to the hallway, the men were gone.

"Do you mind telling me what that was?" Ruth demanded.

"They have mental issues." I said, trying to play-pretend. "They come here, sometimes" I added, but Ruth didn't seem convinced.

"So, where do you want to go?" I asked.

Ruth looked at me. For a second I thought she was going to say something. Then she just brushed it away.

"Get dressed."

I know now of the great possibility that I will lose my mind. Apart from that I can only hope they pardoned me for what happened earlier.

As I made my way out the living room, all dressed up, I found Ruth on the phone hissing at someone on the other end, a hand on her hip.
She looked at me and I knew something was wrong .

In the distant, I began to hear it.

Siren wails.

They sounded nearer and nearer.

"Ruth, what did you do?" I asked, panic building up in my chest .

"I called the cops." She responded simply.

"No!" I shouted. "You can't do that!"

Ruth backed away from me, and spoke to whoever was on the phone to 'hurry up'.

In an instant, police barged in the room and took hold of me.

I was shouting. I knew that I was shouting. I just couldn't understand what I was shouting.

I heard a lot of commotion, a lot of words passing by one another.

"Dead body."

"Blood."

Police officers coughed.

I was crying, looking at my sister trying to make her see how she betrayed me . "Why did y-you call them Ruth?"

Ruth seemed afraid. I realized she was just pretending to be sister-like when she came here. That was all for this to happen.

I saw men go in and out of the bedroom. I wanted them all to go away.

"Why did you call them?!" I asked again, shouting. Police were restraining me now.

"Y-you have a dead body in your bedroom Ruth." She stuttered, trying to look away from me. In her eyes I saw fear. Fear of the monster I've become.

I was mortified. Then while I was restrained on the floor with my hands cuffed behind my back, few police officers cleared the way in my bedroom and that's when I saw it.

Under the bed.

A body of a dead woman.

Her dead eyes looking straight at me.

I didn't even know she was there.


Everything was a blur. Ruth tried to calm me down as I was escorted out of the apartment.

That's it then. I'm going to die.

And my sister will be the reason why.



© IllegnaTheScribbler
Part three (Final part) will be posted soon.