Warehouse Rock

Ulrich got Breakfast, and breakfast was uneventful. Nobody really cared about Akemi, so her death didn't exactly set anyone into a panic. Everyone just ate breakfast casually. Amber was next to him, not saying anything. He figured she wouldn't be next to him after yesterday, considering what happened. But there she was, eating toast like nothing happened.

"So, what was with yesterday?" Ulrich asked.

"What, with the codes?" Amber sighed in response.

"Uh, yeah." Ulrich replied flatly. "What was the deal with that?"

"Don't take it personally, man." Amber groaned, turning to him. "I just wanted to make sure me and Aurora were safe. You get it, right?"

"Pretty sure she could look after herself." Ulrich snapped back, as politely as he could.

"What's this about me, darling?"

Ulrich looked up from his cereal, and the actor trio were there.

"Just explaining why I screwed him out of a code yesterday." Amber replied calmly.

"Oh my gosh, I get it." Aurora replied, putting a dainty hand on her weird excuse for a bra. "But these are the things you do for love, you know?" She made kissy noises with her lips that sounded like an octopus tentacle hitting glue after a while.

"I think he gets it, Aurora." Gemma whispered. "But Amber? Maybe you could…do something nice for him?"

"Such as?" Lloyd asked. Gemma looked at Amber, who turned to Ulrich with a relaxed smile.

"You want half my coins?"

"Sure." Ulrich sighed, standing up with his bowl.

"Cool. I'll give Micah the other half while I'm at it." She nodded, tapping her watch a few times.

Ulrich took his bowl to the desk, waving goodbye to the smilers manning the kitchen, one responding by waving so ferociously it ended up falling. He got the notification about the coins being deposited into his account, with a small message attached.

'Don't read this out loud. Don't trust Lloyd.'

Ulrich was about to attempt to casually walk to another table, but was stopped by the "Good day, everybody!" Leonie yelled out, walking into the room with Kalea. Leonie was back in her torn wedding dress, and Kalea was back in her suit. Nobody was replying to her hello, and she just yelled "Helllloooooo!" louder.

"Hi. You doing good? So are we, now shut up and take us to the next challenge." Silvia screamed back, throwing a carton of milk at just the right distance so that it wouldn't hit her.

"Now now, Silvia" Leonie replied, glaring at her with a murderous intent, while a glimpse of panic snuck onto Kalea's face. "I got an announcement first. We are pleased to announce the NeoBunny store is now available! Be sure to check it out after the challenge, and see what our wonderful sponsors have provided!"

Ulrich took a quick glimpse at his watch. The hexagon was now a store icon, which he clicked. And once he did, things like clothes and other general items were there. Including whatever a 'VoxBox' was. Looked like a games console of some kind, and that 'Dissolvey Haemoglobin: Actor Repeat' game Leonie mentioned during the tour. He'd keep that in the back of his mind, after surviving.

"Okay, everyone get an idea on what you're gonna buy later on? That's great, now let's make our way to the challenge site!"

After a quick walk, with everyone glancing through the city, the eighteen of them were brought towards what looked to be a warehouse. Ulrich couldn't tell what kind of warehouse. It was a big and short building, with a small tunnel next to it leading downwards.

"Welcome to the game site." Kalea said with forced enthusiasm. "If you make your way inside, we can begin the game."

Once the eighteen of them stepped in, Leonie placed a hand on the open doors, causing the chunks of solid metal to melt almost instantly.

"Watch your footing!" She yelled out, with Kalea directing everyone away from the liquid metal seeping through the floor. Leonie then took some slender looking white gloves out from under her dress, put them on, and laid her hands on the puddle. She took part of it, making a small trail leading to where the door was. She breathed in, and within a few seconds, the metal was back where it belonged, only without any handles. It was just a chunk of metal attached to the wall.

"Anyway, on to the main event!" She smiled, taking the gloves and putting them underneath her dress, turning them towards the warehouse. Several giant metal containers on top of slightly smaller metal containers. All of which with muted colours such as metallic grey, but in fairness, there were also some metallic blues and reds in there. Guess even the audience had enough of the colour palate of an industrial sweatshop. Some had doors on them, and the boxes seemed haphazardly placed around without much in terms of order, looking like some kind of really bizarre art project, stopping just shy of the ceiling. And above all that, was a giant screen of some kind. One showing eighteen blue circles on top, two green circles in the middle, and twelve red circles at the bottom. And before each of them, were eighteen coffins.

"Now, as for this challenge, the eighteen of you will step into the coffins provided." Kalea said.

"Morbid." Lloyd interrupted with a finger snap.

"Once you do, you will have to avoid the…execution parade." She finished that sentence by sighing.

"The…the what?" Gemma asked, shivering slightly.

"The execution parade, little miss! What, too much blood in your ear or something?" Leonie yelled out.

"Blood?" Micah asked.

"Not like that, blood boy." Leonie replied while wagging a finger. "She just killed a man."

Micah looked at the meek girl next to her. She...wasn't denying it.

"Leonie." Kalea said through gritted teeth. "If I may continue?"

"Oh, right." Leonie said. "Continue."

"Anyway, as you could probably guess, the blue dots represent you, the green ones represent us, and the red dots are the execution parade."

"And here they are!" Leonie sauntered over to one of the metal containers, melting it away with a few seconds of touch. Inside were two smilers, both starting to aimlessly wander about.

"That's…the execution parade?" Valentina asked.

"Hey now, they're more impressive in action!" Leonie yelled, trying to look offended. Good thing her acting was awful.

"As you can see, both are wearing watches similar to yours." Kalea started, holding up the hand of one of them. "It's goal is to grab a hold of you for five seconds."

"And be warned, the grip strength is tough!" Leonie yelled.

"It is." Kalea nodded.

"So what happens if we can't make it out in time?" Ulrich asked.

"Allow us to demonstrate!" Leonie yelled out.

One smiler grabbed a hold of another one, and a beeping noise was emitting from one of them. After the fifth beep was heard, one of them exploded. Amber managed to stop anyone from seeing it by creating a shadow wall around it, but once it was undone everyone saw the two smilers reduced to a pile of chunks. There was blood pouring out of them, as well as some kind of black ink rising to the top. Two red dots faded from the screen.

"And that's what the watch does!" Leonie bellowed; her tone unchanged.

"Can you cut the happy bullshit?" Silvia screamed out.

"Eh, maybe if my favourite loses." She shrugged.

"So…we just have to avoid the smilers." Eric mumbled out.

"Pretty much." Kalea nodded.

"That's one way to do it!" Leonie yelled out. "However, seeing as we're introducing the store today, if you take out a parader, you get a hundred coins! If all the execution parade are taken out, that's five hundred coins for everybody, and the loser will be voted out! Now, with that explanation out of the way, please make your way into the coffins!"

Ulrich stepped into the coffin with his name, as instructed. Leonie closed it, whispering something he didn't hear with a delicate smile on her face, and then hearing some kind of locking noise. He began counting the seconds he was left there. Ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds. After around fifty seconds, he felt the coffin move. He tried not to breathe, just in case, until Kalea told him over his watch he could, and that he wasn't alone in doing that. He felt himself get violently dropped onto the floor and left alone, as the air around him felt more and more stale. Until a few minutes passed, and he finally heard a robotic female voice.

"Coffin unlocked, let the challenge begin."