Cassius the 1st

Cassius awoke, his surroundings were dark.

His last memory was laying down in his bed after a long day of celebration after winning a $20,000 cash prize online, much different than his normal routine of being a shut in.

The floor he was resting on was hard, but his large jacket made resting better than nothing, he stood up shakily.

He rubbed his eyes and tried to make out his surroundings.

Other than himself, the room was empty, albeit for a small mirror positioned in the wall in a far corner of the room.

Cassius stumbled over to it, nearly falling over, how long had he been out for?

The reflection before him was covered in grime but he could still make out his appearance. Dark skin, green eyes and messy blond hair, that was him alright.

With a quick glance from the mirror to the wall next to it, Cassius noticed an indent in the wall.

Before he could reach out to it, a loud metal bang sounded out from behind the door, he jumped back as the frame opened into an entrance.

Cassius’s eyes were blinded by red, a flashing series of lights were being displayed from monitors in a circular room.

Shielding his eyes, he took a step forward and noticed a group of people huddled around someone laying on the floor.

The room was large, with monitors above metal doors which were all opened, in the middle of the room illuminated by the light was a series of black notebooks resting on a table with pens next to each of them.

A quick count of the room yielded ten of everything, ten doors, ten monitors and ten people, all but one of which were huddled around a man laying on the ground who was violently shaking and wearing a strange frilly outfit.

“HEY, One, are you a doctor?!” A woman wearing a pink dress called out to Cassius, who stopped in place.

“What? You talking to me?” Cassius mumbled

“I’m shouting in your direction, who the hell would I be talking to? Four is having a seizure, are you a doctor?!” the woman yelled out

“I’m not a doctor.. Why the hell are you calling me a number? Where the fuck am-”

Cassius was interpreted by the group being pushed backwards as the fancy dressed woman rested the man on the floor.

His shaking from before had subsided, his head had a jacket underneath it.

“Wow, great help you dumbasses were, next time I say move, you move.”

“Backoff, we’re stressed right now and your attitude isn't helping!” A man in a leather biker jacket spoke up.

“Try me Seven!” Said the dress wearing woman, standing up and threatening him with her fist.

“Why.. are you referring to yourselves as numbers? Do you have names?” Said Cassius

“Not in here we don’t, Two on the floor was shot by somethin’ from the roof after saying his name, the lights started flashing too.” Said the biker. “Just go with what’s above your room man, don't want this shit happenin’ again”

Cassius looked above the doorway he walked through, the monitor above his was still flashing red, but now he noticed that the color wasn’t filling the screen, but making up a massive amount of red number 1s.

The same was true for the other doors, all with small red numbers from 1 to 10 flashing on their respective monitors, not in order, every number from 1 to 10 was accounted for.

“He’s fine, probably can hear us too” said the same fancy dressed woman that the biker referred to as 3.

“Will this impact the game at all? I mean, he can’t really participate while like that…” spoke a dirty looking man in a trench coat

“No, it should just default to a vote for himself, right?” Said a girl wearing a hoodie

“HEY!” Shouted Cassius, “Can one of you explain what the hell is going on?!”

Everyone went silent for a few seconds till someone spoke up, a man wearing a white beanie leaning against the table who had not been noticed by Cassius

“It’s a game of course, could you not tell?” The man responded.

“We write in these books like the announcement before said, and that decides our fate. Quite simple really.”

“...Books?” Said Cassius, stepping forward and picking up a pen.

Nearly the entire group yelled out as he did so, making him stop.

“WOAH WOAH, alright, let's calm it down a notch ‘ight?” The biker referred to as Seven spoke up. “Lets get Two back into his room and we can explain to One ‘ere”

The group lifted Two back onto the floor of his designated room, his frilly prince-like shirt and blond hair staying stiff as if it was made of plastic.

Gingerly, they placed him on the ground, and walked towards the center table.

The man wearing a white beanie took a notebook and a pen from the table as everyone gasped.

“Calm down, its fine, it would be unfair to leave him without it.”

“It should play again now that ev-” Spoke the man in the white beanie, before he was cut off by a loud robotic voice.

“Hello, welcome to LBB, or Little Black Notebook. In this game, you will write a number in your book after a 5 minute discussion, this can include your own number as well.

After the 5 minutes are up you will get 60 seconds to write in your book, failure to do so will result in punishment.

If a number is written more then once in a LBB then that number will expire.

The game will end when only 2 numbers remain in play,, they will be granted a large prize upon winning. The game will start once all standing players have gathered at the table.

Every standing player must be holding a LBB for the game to begin, if you do not write you will be defaulted as if you wrote your own number ”

The room was silent.

“I.. guess we should re-introduce ourselves huh?” Said Seven

“We can go around the room. You already know me, I'm Seven.” He tossed his black mane of hair to the other side of his head, making his gold neck chain move as well.

The room was silent for a bit till a man wearing a dirty trench coat spoke up.

“Well come on, waiting’ isn't gonna do much good, is it? I’m 6 apparently.” 6 tipped a bowler hat he was wearing, which was also filthy.

Next up was the girl in the hoodie, who looked displeased at being beckoned at by the group to speak.

“I’m 10.. I’m guessing you’re all also winners right?”

Everyone looked at each other after, no one said a word, but it must have been understood between all of them.

“Guess so.” Said a man with glasses and an apron.

“Figures…” said 10, as she looked back to the table with pensive green eyes barely able to be seen through her dark hair.

A few seconds of silence later, the woman in the fancy dress spoke after

‘I’m 3, and I don't normally dress like this, when i find the bastard who did this to me, i’m going to CUT them i swear.”

She angrily tossed her red hair to her right to lead on the introductions

The man to her right walked over to Cassius and held out his hand

“I’m 9, nice to meet you” Cassius hesitantly shook it, noticing his bright red hair and eyes along with his pale skin which seemed sickly up close.

He gestured to the man on his right as he positioned himself near the table in front of his door.

“I’m 8, nothing else to say.” The man was wearing glasses and an apron, clearly the tallest out of the group.

To his right was a woman who was distracted trying to get her phone to work.

“Ugh, stupid thing… Oh yeah, I’m 4 or whatever.”

The woman instantly went back to going through her phone, her shades held on her beach blond hair.

“Well… Just me then, I’m 5, nice to meet you.” A completely ordinary man with a tan complexion and brown hair.

“Then, I'm 1 I guess.” Cassius spoke.

Instantly after this, 3 grabbed the notebook placed in front of her along with the pen. “Great, now that we got that mess out of the way, lets see if this is real huh?”

“Shouldn’t we at least try to be careful? You did hear that announcement right, about expiring?” said 9, almost in a mocking tone, picking up his book as he said this.

“We might as well get this over with, right?” Said 8, doing the same as the others.

The rest followed suit, taking their notebooks and pens form the table, with 4 taking longer as she put her phone away first.

The second everyone had them in hand, the lights on the monitors changed from red to green,

A 5 minute timer showed up on the monitor in green and started counting down.

In an instant, the doors to all of the rooms shut, making a loud bang and obscuring Two from view.

“ ‘Ight everyone, i’ve got it figured out!” said 3. “There somethin’ we can do to bypass everything, if everyone votes for themselves then there’s no need for this “expire” stuff, eh?”

The group looked around at each other, with no interjections.

“What about that puffy shirt dude in there?” Said 5, looking back at his door.

8 Looked back as well “He’ll default to his own number, so it works out either way.”

“Well if we are all in agreement… i’ll just write my number in here then.” 9 spoke, flipping open his notebook to the first page and scribbling in it.

The rest followed, opening their respective books and writing inside of them.

Cassius opened his book and looked inside, flipping through the pages as 9 did before.

They were all blank, no signs of any writing or markings of any kind.

He wrote his number in one of the first few pages and closed the book.

Everyone placed their books back on the table and waited for what had to be the longest five minutes of their lives, no small talk was had among the group, just silently waiting for the timer to stop ticking down.

Something noticed by Cassius was 9, he hadn’t stopped looking at him since he put the book down, he locked eyes for a moment with him which caused 9 to smile.

Everyone was startled as a loud gong went off, the timer hit zero and was now flashing.

The monitors above them suddenly displayed a counter, the group scrambled to look around at the one above them.

Cassius looked up at his which displayed a single line under the word “tally”, that must have represented the amount of people who wrote his number.

His eyes were drawn away from his screen by a scream, 7 had stepped back to the table and nearly knocked it over. His monitor displayed two notches under tally.

“Which… one of you voted for me?” asked 7, his voice was slightly shaky.

The room was silent.

“What happens now? What does expire mean-”

7 was cut off by mechanical screeching, the roof about the table opened up to a machine that looked like a turrent.

3 shouted “GET DOWN!” and jumped under the table along with everyone else.

It was a mad scramble as the device led out a series of whistles, each of them seemingly connecting with 7 with every whistle.

They watched in horror as 7 was impaled with needles over and over again, eventually passing out onto the floor.

As they got out from hiding, Cassius looked around, everyone was in shock.

7 lay on the ground, impaled with countless needles.

This game was much worse than they thought...

TO BE CONTINUED -