Yuugi was, quite plainly, exhausted. His entire body ached, even though the last ‘game’ hadn’t been physically taxing. Still, he’d been so tense, more tense than he could ever remember being in the history of his life. Listening as others around him were murdered, one after another, knowing that, if he wasn’t quick and careful, he’d follow them into the afterlife… Well, it left him in a daze.
However, he was slightly proud of himself. While the game had been simple, to remove the stamped out shape in a fragile, sugar based cookie without breaking it, it was that fragility that made the game so difficult, even with easy shapes. Yuugi had misjudged the game, ending up with the umbrella shape, the hardest of all to free from the cookie without breaking it. He’d been at a loss of what to do, until he held the cookie up, over his head, in a desperate attempt to get some kind of idea.
He’d seen the outline of the umbrella through the back of the cookie and it was then that Yuugi realized that if he liked away at the sugar, the weakened area of the stamp would give way, allowing him to break the shape free of the rest of the cookie. As he’d begun doing so, others had taken notice and followed his lead. Through that way, Yuugi had saved the lives of a handful of other players. In saving himself, he also saved others.
If that wasn’t something to be proud of, then what was there to be?
Yuugi couldn’t keep the happiness of that pride for very long. He sat down on his bunk, frowning, acutely aware of the missing beds that had once belonged to other players. He touched the number on his chest, 114. That was all he was there, just a number, just another player in a demented game. Orchid eyes then turned upwards, looking to the comically huge piggybank hanging from the ceiling. So many yen bills were sitting inside, he had no idea how that much money could exist in a place, all at once. It didn’t look real.
“What will the next game be…?” Yuugi wondered aloud, just as the heavy, metal doors to the dorms opened. All heads, including his, turned in the direction of the people making their way in. They were all dressed in red, each having a black mask with different symbols: Circles, triangles, and one person with a square on their mask. As far as Yuugi could tell, Circles were at the bottom of the hierarchy, then Triangles, with Squares holding the most power.
The Circles wheeled in tables piled with simple food, the Triangles holding high powered rifles, while the Manager oversaw them all. An announcement played over the loudspeakers: “It is time to eat: Please form two lines in the center of the room and receive your meal.”
Yuugi really didn’t feel like eating. He watched as others started to congregate, forming the lines, one line per each of the two tables. Yuugi only sighed. He wasn’t sure his legs would carry him over to get food, doubly unsure if his stomach would even accept the food.
Player 666 hadn’t recalled the last time his fingers ached this badly. Fingertips were sore to the touch and slow to develop callouses as they gripped the toothpick that slowly carved a shape out of a cookie. Not quite the physically taxing game, but the most nerve-wracking in terms of how many players they lost with every crack. He could faintly hear the ringing in his ears with each bullet left the guns.
Silently, he sat on his bed, a smuggled pocket knife twirled absently in his hand as the light of the piggy bank illuminated the ceiling above. Calculating the worth of the lives spent and adding onto the millions of yen collected, and while Yami had come to terms with the cost of a game, it didn’t make it any easier to know every single player was nothing but a stack of yen waiting to be added to the total.
Only when the large metal doors opened did Yami turn his attention away, glancing at the men glad in red walked through with what he could only assume was their evening meal. All the while, he wasn’t entirely hungry but as the lines began to form, he forced himself to join the parade. Like all the other sheep, he followed the shepherd to get little rations to help them survive.
Not too far ahead of him, he saw a small gang of thugs. Intimidating a fellow player into letting them cut the line to get another portion of food, and although the injustice wasn’t far to those who most likely wouldn’t get to eat, Yami said nothing. It was not his place, nor did he wish to make any enemies, but that seemed unavoidable in a deplorable place like this.
With his food acquired, he noticed one lonely player who hadn’t gotten up from his bed. They needed to eat to play the games, and while it did not matter if one died in the games or from exhaustion in their beds, none of them should go hungry. Approaching the bed cautiously, being careful not to scare the boy as he split the baked potato in half, offering the bigger half to the boy.
