A ray of warm, golden light shines down the frigid, moist, dark cavern. The beam of light slowly spread until I could take in everything into my sight. It had been over a decade since I first saw the first game played. This is the twelfth time. The game is always brutal and bloody, at least these are the most accurate words I found in my built-in dictionary. How do I personally feel? Emm…do I have the heart to feel them? All I do is record and describe.

The silver metal gate slowly opens inward revealing the sculptures of demons and angles from the dark ages. Six tributes emerge as the mist surrounding the gate eventually fades.

Six tributes, two girls and 4 boys. Their faces are so pale, lacking a decent redness of blood. Despite their inhumanly pale skin, they are physically fit and strong, each with a weapon. Names are embroidered white on the black shirts, Alexa, Theodore, Orion, Hadrian, Isla, Amethyst. Alexa holds a long, elastic bronze sword decorated with a diamond-shaped prominent emerald. Theodore wears a metal glove, sharp blades dispersing on the knuckles. Orion clutches a copper spear. Isla carries a bundle of rope on her waist. Amethyst grips a copper bow and carries a box of arrows on her back. However, Hadrian is the first tribute to participate in the game without any weapon.

A sound of gun firing diffuses across the atmosphere. The tributes run toward six different directions hoping to find the exit first. The tributes aim to be the first one to find the exit, hoping to be spared from the death penalty, but will the families of the victims allow it? In fact, they are the ones who control everything that happens within this cave. However, tributes are not acknowledged.

Daylight doesn’t last long, darkness covers a small community in the cavern. Foxture is a mixture of fox and vulture bred in the lab to speed up the decay of corpses in the cavern. They wail in shadow, reminding and following all the guiltiness. Alexa’s green emerald glows awkwardly in the dark. Amethyst sets the arrow on the bow and shoots in the direction of spark. Despite the environment being dark, Amethyst’s skill ensures Alexa just hears a twang and feels an arrow passing through his glabella, with no suffering before death. After a while, a clan of foxture wail loudly around the emerald and a copper bow.

Hadrian runs for about a mile in the caravan and suddenly stops near a source of water. He looks at the stalagmites and stalactites around a pond of water deliberately. He feels the sharpness of each stalagmit and walks toward the sharpest one. He jumps onto the head of the carbonated stone and pushes his chest toward it with force. Despite the nature of self-defense trying to stop the action, the force of gravity and cognition win. Blood shatters on the rock, and at the last minute of his life, he feels the same pain he imposed on the victim. He died with a relieved smile.

Light reappears. It lights up a girl’s body hanging on a stalactite above a pond and a swollen boy floating on the surface of the water. Like always, tributes died within 12 hours, except one, Theodore. When he is wandering around the cave, a white dove appears out of nowhere, leading him toward a warm, yellow light, the exit. Theodore knows he will be spared from the execution. However, he will never be informed he is allowed to relive his life with the victim’s family permitting it. Guilt will still follow him to his death.

Francesca
Hong Kong