I look around the tiny empty dinner as I sit in the booths on my lunch break with my headphones in my ears turned up to the highest volume. My manager walks past me  “ You get up out of that booth, we need it for the customer's kid”, with a heavy southern accent. I sigh while rolling my eyes “ This place is the very definition of vacant, What customers could he be talking about?” I mumble under my breath. “Luna!” he hollers for the hundredth time today and beckons me over. 

I walk over with a hunch back just wanting to go home “ Yes Mr. Eddy”, “Kid it's Edward. E-D-W-A-R-D. Not Eddy, Not Ed, Edward.” he exaggerates. “ Yes, Mr. Edward sir” dragging out his name. “I have a very serious meeting to attend. I need you to hold down the fort.” He had a very serious meeting yesterday which included him flirting with the lady down on Fourth Street but I just nodded my head. “ Alrighty. Well, get home safe kid” while chucking the keys to the store at me. 

I shove the earbuds back in my ears, assuming no one will be coming in. The front opens, and a man dressed in all black, head to toe, with a black eye to match his clothes, and a mask adorning his face walks in. What a weirdo, I think to myself but getting up to serve him. “ How may I help you today sir?’ putting a kind smile on my face, noticing his bloody knuckles, but keeping the smile on my face. He looks up at me with wary, distraught eyes “ I’m sorry.” he whispers “ Excuse me, sir?” I ask “ You don’t deserve this but I have to get out of the game. I can’t take it anymore” speaking while he has tears pouring out of his eyes. “Sir, I think you need to go to the hospital. I can take you. We close in 20 minutes.” speaking in the softest voice I could muster up. “NO NO NO. You can’t help me. No one can.” his eyes become empty as he speaks, and abruptly stands up. 

I flinch away afraid he's going to attack me. “Luna?” he reads my name tag "That's your name?” nodding my head frantically, finding no point in lying. He walks toward me holding something in his hand. “ Please I won’t tell anyone what I saw. Just leave.”” I wish it were that simple” he sets down a gold chip and hurriedly storms out, leaving me speechless and confused. I walk over to the table where he left the chip, pick it up with trembling hands, and notice it has a candy engraved on it. “ And that's enough crazy for the night,” wiping tears that escaped my eyes.

Locking up and walking home, I see out of the corner of my eyes I see a black van recklessly pulling up next to me, in a panic I make a run for it, but they catch me aggressively dragging me into the vehicle. “HELP ME! PLEASE ANYONE! HELP ME!” but my screams fall on deaf ears. Still struggling to escape, they throw me into the van, injecting a needle into my neck. My fighting comes to an end as my vision blurs and I start to feel my heartbeat thumping in my chest. Everything fades to black.

Jolting awake the first thing I see is my right hand chained to a wall. Looking around the very small room it has white walls, a toilet that looks like it hasn't been cleaned in years, and the floor has dried blood that still looks fresh. I spot a window, standing up I realize if I can get my hand out of this cuff I’m free. Dislocating my right thumb I slid the cuff off, thanking my dad for teaching me how to get out of sticky situations. Carefully climbing onto the poor excuse of a toilet, I try my best to open the window but it's sealed shut.  The doors, which I didn’t notice, burst open revealing two large men who grabbed me ( AGAIN) dragging me (AGAIN) to another room, “For the love of god I can walk!” I say to a dark room.

The light flickers on showing other people in the room who are just as confused as me. Some girl with red eyebrows, red and black hair, long hair, and fair skin runs over to me. “ Um, m- my name is Serena and I-I am hoping that you know what is happening because I told my boyfriend that I’d be home before dinner and it's way past that,” stuttered a distraught voice.

“My name's Luna, I don't know what's happening either but we can get out of here”. “HA!” a new voice cackles” We are not getting out of here” another girl with jet black hair tan skin wearing shorts and a crop top. “How do you know that?” I question “It’s common knowledge. I mean look around no doors that open from this side, no windows and they injected a tracker in us. We aren’t going anywhere.” Suddenly an austere voice boom over the speaker “ Welcome contestants, we will start our annual game of human candy land. The rules are simple: A player will roll the dice first,  and pick a card if the card has a colored dot they’ll be able to ascend the board, if they pick one with a black dot they’ll have to challenge die,  their penalty will be on the back. If they win they live if not they die. With that being said, LET THE GAME BEGIN.” The lights turn red and the floor changes into a board game. My heart shatters realizing I could die today. 

 “You know what. I’m out. Y’all crazy if you let some white old man, who looks like he needs to be on life support, decide whether you live or die” an arrogant young boy announces, as he turns to leave the floors open and is dunked into a tub of water, he struggles and bangs on the walls of the tub to get out but he can’t. I watch with terrified eyes as I watch him stuff while Serena screams in horror. The stern voice calls out again” Did I mention trying to leave will result in immediate death?”.

“What a lovely guy.” The other girl from early on says “ What is your name?” wanting to put a name to her face “Freya”. “Nice to meet you,” he said in a detached voice. Serena says  “What are we going to do . We can't just stay here” “ We have to follow the rules or we will end up with that guy. Dead.” “ Freya is right. If we try to escape or leave we die. The game can’t be too hard. It's just candy land.” I know there is no way all of us are leaving here alive. “The first round will begin now,” a robotic voice says over the speaker. Nobody makes any moves to start.   

“Guess I’ll be the volunteer,” Freya pushes herself off the wall she was resting on. “Good luck,” Serena says enthusiastically. Freya rolls the dice and lands on a six, picking up a card. She takes a tiny gasp of breath revealing a colored dot. “ Oh my god.” She says taking six steps forward. “ Ok I’ll go next,” Serena says, grabbing the dice and rolling it and it lands on a four, She moves to grab a card, which has a colored dot on it as well. “ I’m safe!” She squeals. 

Knowing I’m following, I roll landing an eleven, “ That's a far! Good Job Lun.” Serena tries, and fails, to make me feel better. My shaking hands grab a card, turning it over, The dot is black. I look up and around the room, everyone is looking at me with pity. “Alright, what's my challenge”. I am speaking to whoever's running this god for the Shanken game. A woman walks in wearing sports attire, and a timer holding 30 seconds appears on the white walls. She bolts to me at full speed and it clicks. She's my challenge. I have to kill her.

 I begin to charge at her with the same speed. She goes for my face immediately, I duck my head to the side noticing her stomach is open, I swing my fist in her ribs hearing cracks. She recovers quickly though landing a right hook to my face causing my nose to bleed. The woman gets me to the ground with her hands around my neck, I flip us over now both of us are sucking the life out of one another. I prevail and watch her soul leave her body. 

“She didn’t want to die,” I grumble rolling off of her, resting on the floor trying to regain my breath. And then after my turn, we go on, and on and on with the game all of us luckily winning our rounds. As Freya is taking her turn I spot a man with salt and pepper hair watching over us like the godfather, but more importantly, I spot the man from my job. He looks so much healthier than what he did early, with no black eyes or bloody knuckles, he even ditched the all-black clothes now wearing a three-piece suit. The Godfather (that’s what I’ve decided to call him) says something to the man and he chuckles. I examine them a bit longer before I come to the realization. I need to kill Freya and Serena.

I need to get up there with that man; it's the only way I am free. Not even thinking of my next move I grab one metal bowl they left in here to feed us with and slam it over Freya's head killing her with ease. “LUNA! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Serena screeches. “It has to be this way. I have to get out of here,” I can help you. Just please don’t kill me .” Great, now she is full-on sobbing, sighing while walking over to her. I swiftly snap her neck, silencing her pleads.

. 

My target is to find some way up there with the men, but as I look around I come face to face with the diner man “ You come a very long way. You're a very smart girl, but now you have to deal with your consequences.” roughly grabbing by the neck applying pressure, as my vision blurs salt and pepper dude just watches. I keep my eyes on him as I start to fall out of consciousness. My world goes black.