Where am I?

I don’t remember how I got here, but right now, all I can see are beige walls, stretching as far as the eye can see. People –who are they?- are scattered in little groups, some standing off to the side, but no matter how hard I look at them, whether girl or boy, I can’t make out their faces. All I can see is a blur of brown or black hair, and black clothes.

I approach one of the groups of people, but I don’t think they notice me. They’re all talking quietly among each other, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. Eventually, I leave them alone.

Something tells me to move, so I walk down beige hallways and giant beige rooms. I pass by more people, until I see someone that catches my eye.

“What are you doing here?”

I turn my head, and a young woman in a red cape with fur lining approaches me. She has a scepter in her hand and a shiny crown atop her head. Her dark eyes stare at me distrustfully, and I don’t know how to respond.

“I don’t know.” I feel the words tumble out of my mouth.

As soon as I speak, I notice the young man following her, and I take a glance. He has an easy smile on his face, and deep purple zebra stripes over his skin. He smiles at me, but I feel as if he can’t actually see me. He’s just smiling for the sake of it.

“Who are you?” I ask, and she narrows her eyes.
“I am the Queen of Hearts. Who are you?” She responds.
It takes me a second to get an answer but nothing comes to mind. It’s completely blank.
“I don’t know,” I answer again.

She twists her red lips in that of a sneer, and makes a face of distain. Her heels click with every step, and she walks away before I can ask anything else. The young man jauntily saunters forward.

“I’m the Cheshire Cat. Walk with me?”

We step side by side, and the murmurings from the other people grow louder.

“I’m the Queen’s cat, and we’re here to play a game. As are the rest of you,” he says, and sticks his hands in his pockets. “Walk from room to room until time runs out,” he explains, and I notice a green digital clock on the wall that I’m sure wasn’t there before. Slowly, from 10:00, it goes to 9:59 and 9:58. It’s slowly counting down. I turn around, and the Cheshire Cat is nowhere in sight. I have this feeling to keep walking through the beige rooms and hallways, so I don’t stop. Slowly, the green numbers tick down to 1:32 and 1:31, before I hear a cackling laughter from behind me.

There behind me is a friend from school. She grins, but I can’t help but feel horribly uneasy. She starts running towards me in this long beige hallway, and I run faster. The clock ticks down to 0:09 and I hear her mad cackling getting louder. She’s closer this time. I see a bigger room up ahead, and something on top of the entrance catches my attention. A pale stone wall is slowly sliding over the entrance. I run faster and my breath becomes labored but as the clock reaches 0:03, I slide in the room, and the stone wall falls over the entrance with a loud banging sound, trapping us in.

There are other undistinguishable people around me, and I take a look around. This time, instead of an empty room, it has these giant lamps scattered on the sides, and tiny stones create squares in a variety of sizes across the room. This room is much larger than the others that I’ve crossed, easily being the size of a gymnasium.

Get in a square
Push the other people out of your square
And the time limit with start again when the game is over.

I don’t know how that knowledge gets in my head, but I step in a square with 3 other people and the sides of the square flares to life. An odd fire rises to the air, closing in the area. One other person in my square pushes a guy out. He stumbles, and as he falls over, he’s burned to ashes.

The flames rise higher, and the square gets smaller.

I think that the last person in each square ‘wins’ and the rooms will open again, until time runs out, and everyone stumbles in the next room. All the ‘games’ are most likely different from each other, and I wonder who is hosting this event. Who brought us here to play this ‘game’?

The King of Hearts

The answer comes unbidden from my mind, and I realize that the other people are staring at me with the blurry eyes. I can’t focus on their features, but for some reason, I can tell that their thinking of pushing me over next.

I need to kill them.