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I woke up in a cold sweat, my head sending me more pain than any other part of my body.  I knew I had a dream, but I could only remember a jumble of letters and numbers from it.  I laid on the bed for what seemed like forever until I realize something is off. I looked around the room, and quickly noticed this wasn't my house. In fact, I didn't think it was anybody's house. I've never seen it before in my life. Still pondering about how I got here, a word comes to mind.

Survivor

I don't know where it came from. I just suddenly thought about it, with no real context as to what it meant.  I finally decided to get up and walk over to the door.  It was closed, but thankfully not locked, and I walked into what appeared to be the living room.

Veronica was out on one of the couches surrounding a TV in the corner of the room.  Lukey was curled up on the carpet while Liza and Jo were sitting up on the second couch. I walk to the kitchen to notice Jackson was propped against the fridge, Ash was on top of the table, Lara was on the checkered floor, and Kees was laying down on the counter, his head rested against the same fridge Jackson was on. Was I the only one awake?  Nope, a few screams coming from the closet proved me otherwise.

"GET OFF OF ME!"

"AGH! I'M SORRY!"

I immediately recognized the voices as Sabrina and Thomas. Their screams had woken up everyone in the kitchen and the living room except for Kees and Veronica. After a large thud coming from the closet, Sabrina swung the door open and stormed off to the living room. Thomas was curled up on the floor, clutching his stomach and shaking. I walked up and kneeled next to him, tapping his shoulder. "Are you ok dude?"

"She hits really hard man..."  He wheezed out, probably trying to retain his breath.  Sabrina must've knocked the wind out of him, poor boy. 

"I'll go wake Kees up, you can come out when you feel better."  I said. Thomas nodded and I walked out of the closet, though I left the door open for him.

I noticed a few more people I hadn't seen before in the living room. Kai was sitting with Lukey on the couch now, Austin and Trey were trying to turn the TV on with Alicia, and Vinny was just beginning to stumble out of the bathroom with John, Dan and Annie.  I still felt like some people were missing, though.  I walk over to where Kees was laying and lightly shake him.  I'm assuming he tried to push himself up, but his arm missed the counter and he slipped onto the floor. 

"Ooowwww..."  He groaned.  "Where the fuck did I decide to lay down..?"

"Language!"  I said sternly.  "And you were on the counter."

"If you felt like all your bones were broken you'd be swearing too..."  Kees slowly stood up, rubbing his neck.  "Where even am I, who's house is this..?"

"Uh, I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know, it-"  He suddenly gets a look of realization on his face, like the memories of last night came back and hit him like a brick.  "Don't tell me we got fucking kidnapped."

"I think so."  I sighed.  "Where even were you last night?  Right before the whole thing, I mean."

"Oh I was just in our tent... doing... stuff... that's it."  I give him a suspicious look and he groans.  "Ok, I saw you and Ally hanging out and I was waiting for you to make a move."

"Kees!"

"What?  Everyone knows you like her, and we're all actually surprised she never caught on to that. Even Lukey did, and he can't take a hint for the life of him."

"I can't believe you-" I started to say until a loud static noise filled the room. I covered my ears and looked around for where the sound came from. Then it stopped, and a speaker crackled to life.

"Hello fellow contestants!" It shouted. The voice sounded male, but I couldn't be too sure. "Welcome... to Flicker!"

We realized the noise had come from the living room, and we all walked over to look at the speaker on the ceiling. "There is a list of all of you here on the wall right next to the clown painting. You may read it if you'd like. I'll give you 2 minutes to do so."

It turned off and we all looked to where the list should've been. Lara took it off the wall and read it out loud.

Charlie
Thomas
Kees
Ally
Jo
Alex
Ash
Mason
Jojo
Sabrina
Vinny
Lukey
Jackson
Kai
John
Dan
Annie
Alicia
Lara
Veronica
Austin
Trey
Liza

So Ally was still alive! Thank god, I hadn't seen her anywhere here yet.  After a bit of commotion about the situation, the speaker turned on again.

"You may have noticed that a random word had come to your mind when you woke up.  The reasoning for that random word is that that is the role you were assigned.  I'll explain those in a minute, and if you want a better chance of living, don't let anyone else know of your role."

So that's what it was.  Survivor doesn't sound so bad, at least I hope it isn't.

"The most common role is Survivor.  You have no special perks whatsoever, and are only here to avoid being killed or voted off.  Pretty useless."

"The Murderer is the main role.  They are allowed to kill one player every night. There is only one Murderer, and that person must kill all the other players to win.  If they refuse to kill or are voted off, they will die instead and the innocents will be free to leave."

That explanation earned itself a collective group of gasps and whispers.  I was pretty shocked myself.

"Hush it!  I'm not finished yet you idiots!" It scolded.

"Who are you calling idiots?!" Kai screamed back at it.

"If I had half a brain I would rip you out of this game myself! Now let me continue."

Kai rolled their eyes.

"Anyways, the next role I will explain is the Psychic. I couldn't give any of you the role but just in case you ever come back I'll explain it anyway. The Psychic can reveal one player's role every night. It is their job to figure out who the Murderer is and then share this info with the rest of the innocents. Again, none of you have this role."

"The Medic is allowed to protect one player every night. If they protect a player that has been targeted by the Murderer, that player will not die. However, they cannot protect themselves, and if they don't protect the targeted player, someone will still die."

"If you got the role of Twin, you may also have thought of another player's name. That other player is your Twin. The Twin's share a connected life link, so if one Twin is killed, the Murderer will be notified of the other Twin. However, if the Medic saves one of the Twins, the other will also be protected. Sort of like a gamble with your life."

"The Investigator will get to vote on someone earlier than the rest of the participants. Their vote will be public, though their identity will remain anonymous, and their vote will count twice. A little bit of advice as well, if the Investigator votes for you, you're royally screwed unless you want to risk giving away your role."

"The Muffin Man is the only role that doesn't need to remain a secret for your survival, and in fact I'd encourage you to let the others know. You are allowed to give out a muffin to one player every night, so it isn't that much more useful than Survivor except you may have better chances of not getting voted out. That is, if everybody collectively decides to not be stupid."

"The lights will shut off at about 2 am every night, and that is when each special role will be able to use their abilities. The goal of this game is simple. If you are any other role, your job is to find out who the Murderer is and vote them off. If you are the Murderer, your job is to kill or vote off every other player to win. You lose the game, you lose your life. And just to clarify, I am not among you. I am merely a spectator, and I have chosen the Murderer at random myself, just like all the rest of your roles. You don't, and never will know who I am."

The speaker shut off and everyone went back to talking among themselves. Most of us were genuinely terrified for our lives, and as the speaker had suggested, Vinny let everyone know he was the Muffin Man. I looked around and noticed Sabrina and Jackson were missing. They might've gone to talk in private.  Maybe they were the Twins?  Or one of them had an important role?  I'd doubt it'd be Jackson, usually he'd go to Vinny first.  In fact, I don't think I've ever seen Sabrina and Jackson talk to each other, much less about something this important.

A few hours passed. Ally had came out of a room with nothing but a chair in the middle of it and cold stone walls. I don't know why she didn't come out earlier, since Kai came from the same room, but we were all happy to see her nonetheless. Alicia managed to get the TV working, and it had a few consoles and games lying around, so they hooked it up to the XBox first and started playing Minecraft. They couldn't get it to go online for some reason, but Trey, Alicia, Ash and Jojo created a survival world and made a bet on whoever could defeat the Ender Dragon first. I wasn't watching them, though. I was in the kitchen helping Vinny and Jackson bake muffins. It was a bit crowded in the living room, so the three of us were just getting away from that. Lara was in the bathroom, Kees and Thomas were in the bedroom, and Dan wanted to look inside the closet for a little bit.

Then, all of a sudden, the lights went out. The TV turned off as well, and there was absolutely no light except for little red dots in the corners of the rooms indicating where the cameras were. Of course, everyone was thrown into a fit of panic, even though we all new it was gonna happen at some point. I sat behind the kitchen table, hoping this was all just a prank and that no one was really gonna die. I mean, we all knew each other. We were all good friends. We wouldn't kill each other.

Right?

Wrong. As soon as the panic died down, I heard a girlish scream coming from one of the rooms next to the kitchen.

Then it went silent for what seemed like forever until the lights came back on.