And Then There Was One

And then there were four.

Number 5 went relatively painlessly. He was a victim of The Smash, a particularly devious trap that is triggered by the step of a foot. You trip the laser, a wide column of steel falls, smashing you into a pulp and killing you instantly. Messy, but quick. A lot better than getting killed by The Grinder like Number 14. That, in turn was a lot better than the fate that Number 17 suffered (Many of the survivors are still wearing remnants of her). And anything had to be better than The Wall.

No one knew exactly what The Wall was. You could always hear it getting closer - the sound itself was excruciating enough - but no one dared turn around to see what it exactly entailed. The thought of the death that one would face at the hands of The Wall was so frightening that it drove all of The Contestants forward, even if it meant heading towards their deaths.

Number 1 went into The Game confident. At the current time, his confidence was at an all-time low (although still relatively high). The Game started with a group of 20 invigorated souls; all thinking that there was no boundary that they could not break. Now there were only 4. One's own mortality always comes into question after seeing 16 other "immortal" people die.

Number 1's given name was not Number 1. In fact, all of the current players called themselves Number 1. It's more than likely that numbers 5 - 20 also labeled themselves "number 1." Everyone thought of themselves as survivors - the hero of their own personal story. Nobody would call him or herself Number 20. That would acknowledge one’s own mortality, and in The Game, a lack of confidence would signify a quick death.

Number 1 was positive of his status, however. Perhaps even more so than the three other "Number 1s." He had, in fact, already assigned the other competitors numbers of his own.

Number 2 traveled right beside Number 1. He had been next to him since the beginning, and had shown signs that he had done his homework on The Game. He had obviously studied The Course beforehand, and was very good at utilizing in the field what he had stored in his mind. The Guillotine, the trickiest trap so far, had taken out 4 contestants at one time. However, as Number 1 observed, Number 2 knew the exact moment to drop to a crawl to avoid the hovering blades. The Spikes took out not one but two overeager contestants. However, Number 2 was already prepared to keep his balance before the deadly obstacle even presented itself. And Number 2 was the only one who had totally avoided The Web.

Number 2 knew the field perhaps better than Number 1 himself. However, in Number 1's mind, Number 2 had a glaring weakness. Number 2 was black, and as many a movie had taught Number 1 growing up, the black guy is always the first or the last to die. That rule may be broken every once in a while, normally when multiple black people appear in said film. But there was only one minority appearing in The Game on this day, and he was Number 2. No, Number 2 would be the last to die in Number 1’s film.

Numbers 3 and 4 were interchangeable. They were both "followers," lagging behind to watch what everyone else did and then making a move of their own.