Chapter 3 – Chap 3

This is a lot to handle and will only get worse. If you’re just joining us please know you can read my experiences from part 1-4 without prior knowledge. Though it does help.

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“3. Training and Development: “Top tier members, or hosts as you will call them are required to engage in a mentorship program with all new recruits. They may have faced some of the same adversities in the past. They are your best friend, your guardian, your boss and the only one you are permitted to speak to in private quarters. It would be wise to listen to them as they hold your survival in their hands.”

“I-I can’t do it. This is wrong” I said in tears as I stared at the two black marbles in front of me.

Mr Rainbow slammed his fist down on the desk in front of him, silencing my objections.

“What is right and wrong, huh? The idea of it has served you well. But what of those that only know death and survival? Now that you only know desperation tell me what is so pleasant about being righteous?”

My eyes fell to the floor.

“You look away because you sense a grain of truth in my words. You were born with a fighting chance, and you pissed that away. Raised by a stable, loving family but still out robbing stores for a quick fix. Your wrong decisions led you to the den of wolves, the lake of piranhas, the fucking pit of snakes. We will tear your flesh from bone as we see fit. We do not follow right from wrong here. We follow pain and pleasure. Your pain and our pleasure. Remember that”

Mr Rainbow snatched the marbles from the desk and held them out toward me.

“Before I take you on set, I need to know you can do what is required of you. Put your morals away if you want to survive.”

Opening my hands, he dropped the marbles into my palms, and with a deep breath, I stood up. It was the first time I had really looked at him since I had been escorted into the room. Doof Doof had been tied to a chair in the corner of the room.

Blood leaked from the two holes they had carved into his forehead. A pair of antlers had been positioned in the holes to stand upright. How they achieved it was beyond me.

“I think the ‘Guess This Image’ segment is a waste of valuable props… But The Sculptor is a founding member so we do as he asks” Mr Rainbow sighed “Carrot Top come and film this behind the scenes action.”

Carrot Top, the man in a black morphsuit and ginger afro wig, settled his camera beside me and gave Mr Rainbow a thumbs up. Lifting Doof’s head, his eyes shot open and widened in fear as he attempted to struggle from his binds.

“Films are rolling. Make your choice, death or survival.” Mr Rainbow said, grabbing Doofs face and holding it in place. “Get to it, kid.”

Placing the first marble over his eyeball, Doof tried to close it, and Mr Rainbow pulled back his eyelids. “I’m sorry,” I said and continued to repeat as I pushed the marble into the socket of his eye. His muffled screams through duct tape and jerking movements still appear in my dreams.

Stumbling back, I looked at the blood on my hands, and Carrot Top angled the camera over just in time to record the contents of my stomach emptying onto the floor.

“The other one kid! Get it over with” Mr Rainbow growled through the wide rainbow coloured smile painted on his mask.

Doof’s remaining eye burned through me, there was hate, fear and agony radiating out of it. His short rapid breaths and attempts at moving away from the second marble made it hard. But in the end, I was able to push it through just as I had the first.

Doof fell silent, I wasn’t sure if I had killed him or he had passed out from the pain.

“I think you’re ready for the set. You performed better than I did on my first time. Now we need to find out whose idea it was to put the fucking antlers on first” Mr Rainbow laughed “I almost lost my own eye trying to hold the fat prick.”

I wanted to take my eyes off Doof, but I couldn’t look away, the blood ran down from his eyelids resembling tears, and the antlers fell forward as his body slumped over. Carrot Top stopped filming, and after a moment Mr Rainbow called for the guard.

One of the two men who had dragged me from my house returned to take me back to my small wooden cell with the subtle threat of a cattle prod should I try to make things difficult. Between cold sweats from withdrawal and the violent episodic sobs from what I was experiencing, I didn’t have any fight left inside me.

My attempts at sleep ended when the engines started, they reminded me of a lawnmower, the pull of a string and violent outburst as it came to life. Was it a wood chipper they planned to use on my corpse?

Maybe it was some kind of concrete saw ready to tear my limbs off. Before long it became a vibrating hum continually reminding me of where I was. Unsure if it was real or in my imagination, the smell of gas seeped into my room.

Each breath taken felt poisonous, and part of me wanted to believe they were trying to poison me, even optimistic about it. It was sure as hell less morbid than the other alternatives I had already imagined.

A voice in the back of mind urged me to let it enter my lungs. To allow this to be the end. But I couldn’t do it, everything terrified me, and the only thing I could do to distract myself was to count the red blinks of the camera watching me.