[6:34 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
hello?
[6:35 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
yo
[6:37 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
who are you?
[6:37 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
you fuckin tell me ur the one who messaged me
[6:38 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
youre the first number i saw in my phone contacts. i dont know where i am.
[6:38 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
L
[6:39 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
where are you?
[6:39 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
what r u a cop
[6:39 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
i woke up in some house or hotel i dont recognize. theres no door out.
[6:40 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
dope
[6:41 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
are you in a room too?
[6:41 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
maybe
[6:43 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
i need help. any information you can give me would be useful.
[6:44 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
do you have a kitchen
[6:45 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
yes. theres a tv here too.
[6:45 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
then youre fine
watch some fuckin basketball or some shit
eat a hot dog
[6:46 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
i dont belong here. i need to get out.
[6:46 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
you need a fucin chill pill
find one in yur medicine cabinet
[6:49 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
how long have you been awake?
[6:57 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
hello?
[7:04 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
ill talk to someone else.
UNKNOWN SENDER[133-274-3437], UNKNOWN SENDER[133-883-6490]
[7:05 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
hello?
[7:07 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
are you there?
[7:10 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
i need help.
[7:14 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
there are a lot of numbers in my contacts i dont recognize and you were one of them
[7:16 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
im trapped in some kind of hotel. there are no windows and theres no exit.
[7:23 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
if you get this, let me know. my name is lennon.
UNKNOWN SENDER[133-274-3437], UNKNOWN SENDER[133-436-3822]
[7:24 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
are you there?
my name is lennon. i need help.
im trapped in some room and theres no way out
theres a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and living room. its like any other apartment
i dont know how i got here
[7:24 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
Whoa, slow down
[7:24 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
i tried messaging 2 other people but they didnt help
[7:25 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
I'm in the same boat. Just calm yourself
[7:25 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
where are you?
[7:25 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
I'm Geneva
I have no idea. I woke up in a room just like you
[7:26 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
do you see any way out?
[7:26 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
No
No windows or doors
There's a couple air vents blowing, but nothing I can fit my arm through
[7:28 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
what are we supposed to do?
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
[7:28 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
We could try breaking the walls
ALERT: ANY ATTEMPT TO FORCIBLY BREAK OUT OF YOUR ROOMS IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. FAILURE TO ABIDE WILL MEAN IMMEDIATE TERMINATION FROM THE GAME.
[7:28 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
what the hell?
[7:28 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
Guess not.
[7:28 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
what was that?
whos running these phones?
what is the game?
[7:29 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
Probably the same people who put us here
And your guess is as good as mine
[7:29 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
fuck. this is fucking weird. i need to get out.
[7:29 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
Calm down. We'll figure out what this is all about soon enough.
[7:30 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
how many people are in your contacts?
[7:30 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
A lot
Definitely over a hundred
[7:31 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
and my number is in them?
[7:31 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
Yeah
[7:32 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
and everyone is labeled unknown sender?
[7:32 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
Even I'm labeled "UNKNOWN SENDER"
[7:32 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
is there a way to change that?
[7:34 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
Yeah, I found it. If you hold down on your name in the contacts menu, you can change it
[7:35 A.M.] lennon bridger
do you see mine?
[7:35 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
No
Did mine change for you?
[7:35 A.M.] lennon bridger
no
[7:36 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
Could you try reloading the app?
[7:39 A.M.] lennon bridger
it didnt work
[7:39 A.M.] UNKNOWN SENDER
Damn. I think only you can see it.
Wait, you can change the name of your contacts by holding down on them as well
[7:41 A.M.] lennon bridger
oh
so should we try to get in contact with everybody else?
[7:42 A.M.] geneva
I've already started talking to a couple people, I can forward you their numbers
Tyrina Davis - 133-386-2424
Eliza - 133-293-7333
Jia - 771-2578
[7:44 A.M.] lennon bridger
what are the first 3 for jia?
[7:44 A.M.] geneva
133
ALERT: THE GAME IS NOW BEGINNING. YOU WILL REMAIN IN YOUR ROOMS FOR THE NEXT 150 DAYS. STARTING THE SECOND WEEK, ONE OF YOU 145 PLAYERS WILL BE ELIMINATED EACH DAY AS DETERMINED BY A RANDOMLY SELECTED CRITERIA RELATED TO YOUR ACTIVITIES DURING IT. THE CRITERIA WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT THE END OF EACH DAY. EACH OF YOU OPTED TO JOIN THIS GAME ONE MONTH AGO AND AGREED TO LOSE ALL OF YOUR OLD MEMORIES TO ACHIEVE FULL IMMERSION. ONCE ELIMINATED, YOU WILL GET THEM BACK. ALL OF YOUR FELLOW PLAYERS ARE IN THE CONTACTS OF THE PHONE THAT HAS BEEN PROVIDED FOR YOU. BY THE END OF THE DESIGNATED 150 DAYS, TWO OF YOU WILL REMAIN AND ONE WILL RECEIVE THE GAME'S ULTIMATE REWARD. FURTHERMORE, ALL FOOD AND DRINKS YOU WILL NEED ARE RESTOCKED EVERY NIGHT ONCE YOU FALL ASLEEP. ANY SPECIFIC REQUESTS CAN BE WRITTEN ON A STICKY NOTE LOCATED ON YOUR KITCHEN COUNTER AND PLACED ON YOUR BEDROOM DOOR. YOU HAVE FIVE MONTHS. TREAD CAREFULLY.
[7:45 A.M.] lennon bridger
holy shit is this blaring from your tv as well?
[7:45 A.M.] geneva
Yeah. Listen
[7:48 A.M.] lennon bridger
holy shit.
[7:51 A.M.] lennon bridger
are you still there?
[7:53 A.M.] geneva
Yeah, sorry. Everybody is texting me at once.
Insane.
[7:54 A.M.] lennon bridger
how do we even know they're telling the truth?
our memories are gone, they could have said anything and we would have no choice but to believe it.
how did they even wipe our memories? does that technology exist?
[7:56 A.M.] geneva
No idea
But if they were lying, this would be a very strange way to do it
If someone was going to kidnap over a hundred people, I imagine they would be upfront about it
The Iran hostages weren't exactly playing a Great British Baking Show ripoff in a bunker for 444 days
[7:57 A.M.] lennon bridger
how do we remember the iran hostage crisis and the great british baking show but not anything about our lives?
[7:58 A.M.] geneva
That's certainly a question.
[7:58 A.M.] lennon bridger
and whats the reward supposed to be? and why would we opt to get our memories wiped for it?
none of this is making sense to me. i have no idea what to believe right now.
[7:59 A.M.] geneva
Then believe what makes it make sense or believe nothing. I have nothing to offer in terms of reassurance because I don't have any more information you don't. All I can say confidently is that this is far cry away from anything truly sinister. There isn't much here to warrant concern for your safety or distrust in the people running this
[8:02 A.M.] lennon bridger
but why would they wipe our memory? thats an incredibly tall risk to take with such a giant pool of people, and leaving them with nothing but that vague announcement doesn't strike me as professional handling.
are we on tv? do you see cameras anywhere?
[8:03 A.M.] geneva
Maybe they're just lazy. We could be test cases for some study of human behavior. Like guinea pigs
I haven't seen any obvious cameras. There's probably some hidden in invisible corners around here. If they have the tech to wipe a part of our brains clean, they must have covert cameras
That doesn't necessarily mean we're on TV though
[8:05 A.M.] lennon bridger
i just havent seen anything to put me at ease. i cant see myself agreeing to that sort of experiment on myself.
[8:06 A.M.] geneva
Maybe that's what you knew you were going to think. The vagueness in the announcement might have been intentional to stir us all up. It adds up.
[8:08 A.M.] lennon bridger
fuck. i dont know. we can believe anything we want, but only one thing can be true. i just cant wrap my head around this. i dont know.
[8:09 A.M.] geneva
Are you religious?
[8:09 A.M.] lennon bridger
i might have been before this. i dont feel very religious now.
[8:11 A.M.] geneva
Well imagine that you are. You're stuck in that room in the same way all humans are stuck on this planet. You don't know why or how, and you're nowhere close to getting answers. So in place of those answers, you create your own. You choose what belief makes the most sense to you and keeps you at ease and live your life keeping that in mind. It makes existing much easier.
[8:12 A.M.] lennon bridger
if i was religious, that would certainly be where my head is.
[8:12 A.M.] geneva
And now it can. Your old life is gone for the next five months, so you decide what you do with it
[8:12 A.M.] lennon bridger
well ill at least try to not slip into an existential crisis.
[8:13 A.M.] geneva
Look at us, the researchers behind the walls are probably going nuts seeing what's happening here
[8:13 A.M.] lennon bridger
i hope it gives them a fucking heart attack if theyre there.
[8:16 A.M.] lennon bridger
so im just supposed to keep myself occupied alone for 150 days and thats it?
[8:17 A.M.] geneva
Pretty much. Better find a TV channel you can get used to.
[8:18 A.M.] lennon bridger
ill see what i can do.