Hour 14

Emi's eyes opened with a lethargic squint, as if doing so was a function her body wasn't used to. All she could see was black, which caused her heart to skip a beat, but as she nervously sat up, she realized she was surrounded by blackness. The area looked like nothing they had encountered before, almost like it had been taken out of a dream. She currently sat on some sort of ground that resembled a giant tree root in texture but felt more like flesh than anything else. The entire space around her was pitch black, an abyss of nothingness, and the root structure under her was a deep, midnight purple that was only one shade away from black itself. Alex called out "Emi, how are you feeling?" She looked at him as he sat next to her, and she responded, "ok, I guess." She rubbed her stomach as she spoke, "Guess that pain negation is still working." It was then she noticed the time on her phone, which must've tumbled from her lap when she sat up. It read, "8:31pm." She asked out loud "8:30?" Her hour of avoiding pain should've ended at least 20 minutes ago. She leaned back, and as she supported her body she felt the structure they were on squirm beneath her weight, like it was alive. She asked, "How did I survive?" Alex responded, "I used your hours to buy you a heal." Her eyes were still closed as she tried to focus, "you did?" Alex explained, "Yeah, right as you passed out, we ended up... Here." He looked around them, obviously just as concerned as she was. "I tried to wake you up, but I couldn't and you were bleeding..." He looked visibly shaken as he finished his sentence "...really, really badly." He picked up her phone and gave it to her as he said, "I didn't think it would work if I tried to buy something with your app store, but I had to do something." As Emi accepted her phone back, she asked, "So, what did you do?" Alex replied, "I used your hand to buy the heal. While you were passed out I acted as if it was you using the phone, using your hand to do everything." Emi responded, "I guess I would've had enough hours after taking out Alice and Richard." She smiled as she admitted, "That was pretty smart of you, Alex." He blushed slightly as he scratched his head absently and said, "It was nothing; I had to make up for not being able to stop Cliff after I told you I would." In a somber tone, he added, "It cost Jake his life, after all." Emi wanted to say that she would've made sure they were the ones that won anyway but decided it wasn't an appropriate thing to say in the current moment. Instead, she mused over the hours she accumulated to make the heal a possible purchase. She initially had 22 hours after buying the pain negation, and after killing Alice, she had gained another 12 hours (Alice, who had been at 5 hours, had gained 7 hours from killing Cliff, who had himself been at 3 hours at first but gained 4 hours from killing Jake). That meant Emi had 34 hours when she shot Richard, who was at just under 24 hours after using a revive, meaning Emi had attained around 58 hours in the end, allowing Alex to buy the heal for 50 hours and leaving her with 8 to spare. She asked Alex as she stood up, "Any idea where we are?" Alex shook his head, "No, I thought your phone might be able to tell me something, but I didn't want to make any mistakes, like do something by accident, so I really didn't look." She took a moment to browse her phone for any hints but couldn't determine anything of value. There was no map like with the laser tag objective or the ability to see that they were IT like in the game of tag. There seemed to be only 2 real options: continue on down the root they were on that looked to stretch to eternity both in front of and behind them, or jump off of it and be swallowed by the blackness. The blackness around them reminded her of the shadow audience from Truth or Dare, and she shivered. She thought, "This doesn't feel right. The voice hasn't announced the next phase yet. Does that mean we aren't playing the game right now?" As she looked around, she thought, "No, maybe... is this a test? Or am I overthinking it?" She double-checked her phone again but was still unable to find anything helpful. In desperation, she tried looking back on her phone history to the number that had called her all the way back in their house to announce the app store to them, but there was nothing in her phone history. Frustration began to fester in her psyche as she thought, "What am I supposed to do? Until now, that damn voice guided us, but now what?" That's when she had a flash of inspiration; she thought back to phase 2 with the laser tag and how no guidance or clues had been given; all they needed to succeed was right there with their phone, using the video to see the beams. That revelation wasn't enough to unlock the answer she needed at this moment, but it put her on the right track. She thought, "think outside the box. If we aren't being told what to do, then we have to figure it out." She looked around her environment, and besides the strange, almost spongey ground they were on all was darkness. Darkness...  She fumbled through her phone, and her newfound frantic energy caused Alex to ask, "Did you figure something out?" She didn't answer; she was too focused physically on what she was doing, but in her mind, she responded to him joyfully, "I think so!" She activated the flashlight function on her phone and swiveled it around their environment. When nothing happened, she was stumped, "I was sure the light would do something," she thought, disappointed. Her thoughts jumped forward, "Maybe I have the right idea, but I'm doing it wrong. Light... Light..." She tapped away at her phone for a second, then started taking pictures, making sure her flash was on, prompting Alex to ask, "Uh, Emi...?" Emi responded, "I think I figured it out. Come here." Alex looked over her shoulder and was surprised to see a staircase descending from the structure, one that only appeared in the picture she had taken but not in real life. Emi unzipped her backpack, found one of their granola wrappers from a past snack in the waiting room before truth or dare, and bent down to where the staircase started in her photo. She placed it down in the empty space, and it floated magically in place. She touched the area around where it floated and it felt like solid ground. She nudged the wrapper softly to test the edge of the step and it silently floated down into the depths below, showcasing the step really was exactly accurate to the size of the one in the photo. She said, "I think I found our exit."

They carefully followed the staircase down, taking each step with a deliberate and purposeful slowness. She knew it was fine to step down, but her body denied that fact with all the adrenaline it could make. It was terrifying walking down on that invisible nothingness, surrounded by that suffocating blackness with only the photos on her phone to rely on. There was also no handrail or way to brace yourself, a simple misstep would send them down into the depths of whatever waited for them below. As Emi led the way with her phone, the path abruptly changed direction several times, but they were always descending in elevation. She made sure to keep a tight hold on her phone; if she were to lose it now, they'd be doomed. It had been about 45 minutes since they had started navigating the staircase, and though they had been maintaining a healthy speed, nothing resembling an end had presented itself yet. Emi was starting to doubt herself, "We've been at this awhile. Was this a trick after all? What if this isn't the answer? What if we needed to stay up there, and this leads nowhere?" It was then, thankfully, that the next picture she snapped revealed a door up ahead, the end of the nerve-wracking staircase. She reached out to the empty space in front of her and felt the cold, metallic handle rotate in her hand. This was the first time she had been happy to find one of these doors, absolutely ready to put this haunting realm behind her. She swallowed, her throat painfully dry, and Alex held onto her backpack as they entered the door.

It was too bright to see anything, and Emi instantly had a headache; her eyes had become so adjusted to their previous environment that this new well-lit area was like a sucker punch to the face. As her eyes slowly became aquatinted with the new lighting conditions, she realized she was right in the middle of a huge football field. She could tell it was dark out by the sky's dying color, but massive spotlights blasted down on them with incredible power, illuminating everything as if it were mid-day. Even though a slight chill punctuated the night air, she could still feel the heat from those lights assaulting her. The stadium cheered with murderous, animalistic screams that were so guttural it almost sounded like some kind of disgusting thunderstorm, and she realized the shadow audience from Truth or Dare was back and more aggressive than ever, their forms far away but obviously dancing in unnatural waves. That's when it hit her that there were more people on the field, and the voice that had narrated their past games screamed in an unholy rasp, "Who will win the final game of the country? 50 players have made it, let's see who comes out on top!"

New objective: Spelling Bee