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The CSO is right about one thing, human fear breaks people. I know they have simulators to train people to adjust to fear, and to get over it, and I assume this is similar in design. It is playing on Mason’s fear of tight spaces.
Knowing his idea is useless but wanting to at least look like I’m doing something useful, I go towards the nearest wall and push. It doesn’t seem like anything is happening, the walls just keep getting tighter and tighter and Mason’s breathing keeps getting louder and louder until suddenly the lights go out and we all fall to the floor with a thud.
I can faintly hear Mason’s crying. Aubrey and Crusoe are murmuring comforting words to him. I get up and run till I hit the original walls of the room.
We need light, I tell myself. Find the light switch. My fingers search the wall until I come in contact with the switch. I flick it on and a single yellow light glows in the middle of the room. “You are welcome, everyone.” I say to no one. They are too busy comforting Mason, who is curled up into a ball.
“You’re a real jerk. I hope you know that.” Tyler says glaring at me. Mason stands up and approaches me. His eyes look so drained of colour, so completely, utterly human.
“It will come for you,” Mason says, “and it will get in here.” His fingers are positioned in a gun as he places it to his temple. “And it will destroy you,” he pulls the trigger on his finger gun and his arm drops to his side limply. I follow him back to the circle, wondering what is going to happen next.
Suddenly I hear Crusoe’s blood curdling scream.
I hardly have time to turn around to see what he is screaming at before I feel something go through my stomach. It doesn’t hurt, but I do a double-take and fall over anyway. That’s when I see her. My mother. Our mother: looking the same as she did when Crusoe and I found her lying over our father’s dead body. That explains the dim light; it is exactly like the lights we used to have at home. As if this simulation knew how to set the scene perfectly to inflict as much pain as possible. Crusoe kneels over me and starts crying, everyone staring at the situation in absolute shock. I try to tell him that I am alive and ok, but I can’t talk; I can’t move.
“How could you do this?” He says through sobs. Those are the same words he said when my father died, and I cannot help but feel exactly like my father. Dead. Helpless. Lost.
“We disagreed too often. I thought you would appreciate the house being quieter, less arguing. Now you have it.” I don’t even have to look to know that she smiles at Crusoe as if she has done everyone a big favour. She did the same thing on the night of his death. That night, I jumped over my father’s body and slammed her against a wall.
I can’t turn around to see them, but I hear a slam and I can only assume that Crusoe has pounded my mother against the wall, just as I did. I can hear gravel falling in heavy droplets to the ground, and only then can I move. When I am released from the invisible bonds that restrain me, I breathe the air like I have just been saved from drowning.
I stand up to check on Crusoe, but he is already running towards me and scooping me up in a hug. He holds me so tight that I can’t move. I have never liked physical touch, but I know he needs it, so I put my arms around him and hold him for as long as he needs. Because it’s my job; to be there for him. “It’s okay,” I tell him, “I’m here.” I shrug pretending like I’m not shaken up by the whole experience. But honestly, seeing my mother again is bringing back so much hurt that I have to step away and focus on readjusting my hair to stop my hands from shaking.
“I think we are in a simulator similar to The Cuffs,” Pretty Boy says, breaking the silence.
“The Cuffs?” Mason asks.
“It’s a fear simulator.” I say and everyone looks at me questionably.
“Like Mason’s fear of tight spaces and my fear of losing Hayden to our mother,” Crusoe says slowly.
“Then how do we get out?” Aubrey says, swaying and looking as if she is going to pass out at any minute. I make a mental note to stay as far away from her as I can in case she vomits. I don’t want vomit on my leather jacket, that stuff reeks.
“Yeah, Pretty Boy, how do we get out?” I look at him dead in the eyes. He is fiddling with what seems to be a pencil, and I wonder why in the world he would be doing that. “Stop fiddling and answer? HOW DO WE GET OUT?” He pauses and looks into the distance like his brain is on another planet.
“I don’t know,” he answers. “No one ever has gotten out that I know of, unless someone from the outside lets them out.”
“So, you have no idea?” I ask sceptically.
“Well-” he pauses, and his face contorts into a horrible frown, “The only other way that we will be able to escape is,” he goes back to turning his pencil over and over in his hand. “After the simulator has cycled through all of our fears.”
I look at the people surrounding me, seeing their expressions of horror. Fear. Fear is what kills people. And their fears are what is about to kill us.
Chapter 16 - Emerson Clarke
Isit silently, watching the dark cement of the underground tunnel outside my window. After a while, I notice the car rising above the ground again and stopping at another gate that is protecting a simple-looking building.
The building is only a single-story house with a plain brown brick and random scribbles of graffiti that litter the exterior. It wasn’t at all what I was expecting, which makes sense as to why it would be the best place to hide terrible secrets.
“Sit back,” Albert whispers to me with an angry look on his face, “and only look forward. You don’t want to be recognised, okay?” I am about to reply when he rolls down his window and greets the person at the gate.
“What can I do for you today, Mr. Cunningham?” I hear the deep voice of a man as it shoots through the humid air.
“I am here to check on security and see how Annabelle is doing.” Albert seems like he is trying to sound polite, but the permanent sneer on his face tells a completely different story.
“I will just check with Miss. Annabelle,”
There is a crackle and I hear a lady’s voice coming from what I guess is a radio transmitter. “Hello, is there a problem?”
