Death and Corruption

It was a night, like every other. Dark, not cloudy and alarmingly silent. No one was seen outside at this time of night. People were sleeping, most having to go to work the next day.

One girl, however, liked the silence of the night. She always went out at times, others couldn’t be bothered to get up. She loved to be on her own, in the park, swinging, just thinking about everything and nothing.

Josie wandered around in the park, finally finding a swing set. One of those swing sets little kids loved to sit on, to just swing and laugh. Josie was a teenager, though she loved swing sets just as much as all the kids did.

Not bothering to watch out for anyone or anything, Josie made her way over to the famous swings. It was night after all. She had never seen a single person at this time, not during all the times she had been at the park.
The girl didn’t know, what she got herself into. She didn’t know, what was about to happen, something that would've changed her life forever.

Josie chose one of the swings, rocking back and forth, her mind wandering over the previous day.

Much too quickly, the girl's eyes had been blinded. Slowly, the girl lost consciousness, after feeling a stinging pain in her right arm. Everything was happening so fast, she wasn’t able to make out, not even to understand, what was happening.

While Josie was set into a deep slumber, the muscular man tied her to the swing, she
sat at, taking the girl and the swing with him.

"Where am I? Get me out of here! What happened?", those were Josie's first words, when she woke up, in an unfamiliar room. The room was dark, no light at all. Josie couldn’t see anything, but felt a sharp pain in her arms.

She had been bound to chains, chains that were stretched, she wasn’t on the ground. The girl was hanging. Her arms were both tied to the chains, that held the swing. The swing she was still sitting on. Of course, Josie tried to free her arms, only succeeding in feeling even more pain, and warm liquid running down her arms. Someone had tied her up with barbwire.

Her mouth had been filled with something, something that kept her from speaking. Josie tried her hardest to talk, she thought someone else might be there.

On the other side of the room, the girl was in, a young guy was placed. He was lying in a bathtub, his hands fixed to either side of it. Also, he was bound to it with barbwire. Whoever held them in this room, wanted them to suffer. They wanted them to be in pain, something they didn’t know, because they were much too happy to ever feel like this. They wanted them to scream for their life, before they died.

Both, Josie and Carter, were awesome people. They had never done anything wrong. They had never inflicted pain on anyone else, never felt it themselves. Both of them lived alone, had no family. No one would've cried about them, no one would've cared.

Carter and Josie hadn't felt pain before, was it physical or mental. Neither of them had been heartbroken, or had had a car accident.
They had to know what it feels like to be in pain, what it feels like to suffer. Everyone on this world suffers from time to time. Some people more often, some people less. Pain is something everyone needs to know. It helps to keep people safe, to keep on living.

That’s why they were tied up like this, to feel pain, to know what it's like having to fight for their lives.

Neither of them, was able to speak. Neither of them was able to walk. Both were tied up and had something stuck in their mouth. If they would've been dying of hunger and thirst, the man would've been satisfied, because at least they had felt pain.

Though, they were not getting away that easy. No, they had to suffer, to feel real pain, to lose what kept them alive. Blood.

When suddenly light came into the room, both Josie and Carter looked up in surprise, still blurred, but faintly making out a figure. A big figure standing in a door, knife in hands. The knife had been bloody, as have the clothes of this guy.

He was going to kill them, they were sure. Josie didn’t want to die like this. She wanted to fight, to go on. She didn’t have the best chances, though. Once being stuck in a situation like this, wouldn’t let you live on in happiness, not even if you got out alive.

"How are you doing? I see, you are still alive?", the man's deep voice echoed in their heads.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you, but there are some things you might want to know", he was smirking,
"First, I have to put up some rules. Everything I say, will be followed by you.
You will have some time, I'm not really counting, but the swing you're tied to will go up. The chains are fixed at the ceiling, as you may see, there are gears, which will make the swing slowly rise. Also, there is this knife. Can you see it? It will cut off your head, if you don’t get out of the swing fast enough.
For you Carter, you're lying in a bathtub, on your back. There's going to be blood filling the tub. If you don’t free yourself fast enough you will drown in someone else's elixir.
If you're both succeeding, there will be something else to do. I will look the door, as soon as I'm stepping out. There's no key, you won't be able to break it. The only way to get out, is to kill your enemy. No utilities, no knife, no saw, no nothing. Eating. That's the way you'll get out. Kill your enemy, only by eating them. You'll have to do it, to survive. I'm not going to leave you out, until only one of you is left. Whoever may be left, will be let out, you'll be free. I won't bother you again.
Now let the games begin."

The man left the room, as promised locking the door behind him. Not even minutes later the knife above Josie's head started spinning, the swing rising for about an inch.

The first few drops of red liquid were slowly falling down, into the white bathtub, Carter was in.

Still tied up, they had to do something. They had to free their arms, even if they cut them off.

Josie had the strength to survive this. She wiggled her hands inside the barbwire, cutting her skin open, leaving long trails of red on her arm. The girl was crying, screaming, begging, all at once. Only wanting to be free, she almost cut open her whole arm, when she finally got her right hand out of the fixation.

By now the swing had risen not less than two feet, only another two feet left, until her head would've been chopped off.
Carter was still in the same position. He hadn't lost a lot of blood, though he looked like it. Every inch of his body was red, because of the blood, that's been dropping onto him. The guy's arms were still stuck in the barbwire, his face was almost under the surface. Some more inches and he would've drowned.

Still crying out in pain, Josie went on fighting. She wanted to survive this, to say she made it. Her left arm, was almost out of the bandage, only the worst part was left, pulling her hand, through the even sharper end.
Her hair almost touched the ceiling, by then. The girl had to duck down, to escape the rotating knife, only inches over herself.

Carter, wasn’t one for fighting, though he didn’t want to end like this. The guy slowly started pulling out his hand from the barbwire-bandage, he had been given. Slicing his arm open, by every inch he pulled, Carter got it out. His hand was sliced open everywhere. Not an inch without blood, his own and someone else's. Probably the one's, who had been dying before one of them here.

By now, his face couldn’t be seen anymore, swallowed by the red sea. Carter tried hard not to lose the breath he saved. He also tried to get his second arm out of the wire.

Both of them were able to free themselves, which meant they had to find some way out of there. Neither of them, believed that they really had to eat each other. That wasn’t human.
Though, the rotating knife wasn’t human either, along with the bloodbath.

Not once, did the idea of killing their enemy even pop up. Carter and Josie weren't people to kill. They wouldn’t do anyone any harm.

So they were starving. They didn’t have water in there, nor was there anything eatable. It drove them crazy. You know what hunger can do to people. Everything started with Josie drinking the blood in the bathtub. She didn’t like it, but it wasn’t bad either. Not when you didn’t drink for a week.

Hunger, wasn’t that bad. They were living through it, though the blood didn’t satisfy either of them.

There was no other way, than doing what they were told. Carter and Josie both knew it, they wouldn’t have said it though. It would've given away their strategy of killing the other one while sleeping.

Both of them longed for doing this, neither of them slept. They found it weird, not seeing the other one fall asleep. Not once did the thought of having the same strategy cross their minds.

A human body, however, doesn’t survive without sleep. It's almost more important than eating.

Carter, needed a lot of sleep, he always had. If he didn’t get enough of it, he would've always fallen asleep wherever he was at that moment. It didn’t matter.

Josie, however, was more resistant. She had learned to live with little sleep, that's what her job did to her.

Though, the girl was disgusted by the thought of killing another human, her senses didn’t mean much anymore. Not after starving for so long. She would've eaten everything she could've found.

There he was lying. Her victim. The one, she was about to kill, to eat. Slowly making her way over to the guy, she almost fell, noticing something big and hard. It could've helped her. She wouldn't have had to eat him alive.

Josie took the thing, swaying it over Carter's head, before beating it with all force, she could bring up.

The guy was knocked out, it was her time to feed. Josie didn’t bother what or who it was, as long as she got something to eat. All the wild senses, that keep humans from dying, kicked in. The girl kneed down next to the body, leaning over, ripping part after part off his it. Eating with delight in her eyes, she hadn't felt that good in a while.
Blood was squirming out of the wounds she made, splashing her face.

When Josie was satisfied with her meal, she sat down in a corner of the room, knowing she would've gotten out soon. She only had to wait. It couldn't have taken that long.

However, even when the girl started kicking the door and screaming, no one came.

She wasn’t ever going to be let out. Josie was going to play this game again and again, until the day she lost.