I awoke at once and fought the urge to scream. My breath was quick and sweat had formed all over my body. I took a long, deep breath. It was only a dream, I told myself solemnly. Although I wasn't with The Monsters physically, they stayed with me. It was only when I'd started to forget about them that my subconscious took it upon itself to remind me of all the wrongs they had done. Of all the wrongs I expected they continued to do and would willingly pass on to whomever else they could taint.

After I had managed to get ahold of myself and go through the familiar emotions I experienced after these horrid dreams, I then got myself around. It seemed as though everybody was awake because nobody had been in their rooms. I walked out into the living area and saw my assumption was proven correct, because apparently I was the only one who hadn't adapted to our new schedule.

"She's awake!" Said Amberline in a cheerful voice. I was glad to see that she was starting to be herself, if not in public, at least around us.

"Finally," joked Duncan. "Can we open the letter now?" he asked in an anxious manner. Shocked, I looked to the table and saw the envelope sitting there.

"I've been asleep that long?" I asked, incredulous by how late it must have been. I had assumed that the letters would arrive at the same time everyday, and that the people in charge would have had some sort of organized system.

"We would've woken you, but you seemed deep in sleep," said Victoria dismissively. Little did they know, I would've liked to have been woken up. They all started to gather around the marble counter, I handed them the letter and saw that Parker had left his half eaten sandwich there overnight. I couldn't tell if I was upset or relieved. Either because he ate some of it or because he hadn't eaten it all. My concern for him seemed to grow constantly.

"I'll read it today," offered Parker. Nobody protested so he took it upon himself to open the envelope and read it. I noticed that he had dark lines under his eyes, signaling a lack of sleep last night. I was willing to bet that everyone else thought that those circles were caused by stress, but I knew the truth. "Today, the competition is going to be a little different," Parker had started reading. "You won't be fighting against any other teams, but instead you'll fight the computer. There will be no limits on life, but your damage will be recorded. Points will be given based upon effectiveness, level of success, how quickly you finish, and the condition your team is in at the end. This competition will be called Importance to The Story and the goal of the competition will be revealed to you in the lobby. Meet us there, same as last time. Good luck, gamers."

"It seems like they're starting to use different types of games," commented Amberline, still looking at the letter intensely.

"Not all games are the same," Victoria explained, looking grim. We had no idea the difficulty they's set us in, but knowing Victoria I'd safely assumed that wasn't her concern. Just taking a random guess, I thought her fear came from not knowing. Not knowing what we'd face, experience, and have to do. She was the kind of person who liked to be the best, and it probably made her feel nauseas not being able to prepare. She wasn't able to prepare herself mentally and strategize.

We noted how late it was getting and decided we'd rather be early. Not wanting a repeat of last time, we dispersed and started getting around. Before it was my turn to get suited up, Parker approached me in the living space. Amberline, Victoria, and Duncan were all in separate rooms while Parker and I offered to wait until they finished.

"Hey," he said. I could tell he had wanted to talk but felt it would've been inappropriate to start without proper greeting. He held his arm and looked anywhere except my eyes. He reminded me of a child who knew he had done something wrong.

"Hey," I replied, waiting for what he wanted to talk about. I waited in silence as he looked around and finally got the courage to speak up.

"I'm sorry about last night. I wasn't in a good place. I... I," he started to fumble with his words.

"You don't have to tell me anything right away if you don't want to. I'm here, you can talk but don't feel forced to tell me anything," I told him, trying to sound comforting and not like I was trying to information out of him. When in reality that was exactly what I hoped would happen because I wanted to help him.

He sighed in relief, all signs of unease faded as he said, "I'm sorry. About last night, that's all."

I fought the urge to frown because I knew there was more. He hadn't trusted me enough to tell me anything. I knew there was something up with him and wanted to help, I couldn't do anything without knowing what he was about to tell me. I could feel that what he was about to tell me would be the one piece missing in my mind to figure out the whole thing. A part of me felt terrible for not being able to know.

"That's all right," I forced a kind smile though I was filled with disappointment. I couldn't say anymore then Victoria left our room and I took my turn. Once we all suited up we all left for the lobby, wondering what was in store for us.

When we'd finally arrived at the lobby, it was a very long walk, we found our positions in our orange box that I came to love. Duncan walked over to me knowing we had spare time and said, "This game is more evidence to back my theory."

I looked over to him, smiling. "Which one?" I joked. I thought about how sad it was that I had to ask and clarify which theory he was talking about.

To this, he looked around, making sure there were no cameras watching us, "the one about them being able to control the games. Do you realize how easy it would be to make sure one groups game is easier than the others?" he pointed out. It made sense he had to make sure nobody else was listening. If this kind of theory were true, and the public found out, he'd easily be disqualified. And as a result, my team wouldn't be able to compete.

"I guess we should hope the people in charge are still rooting for us," I responded, though I wasn't entirely sure his conspiracy theories were actually true. It was an interesting thing to think about. Part of me thought that maybe he tried coming up with these ideas for humor, but he almost always seemed to have a serious edge to himself whenever he'd mentioned it.

"I think they want to cause tension between us and D3," Amberline noted, making our two person conversation expand to three. She had just been standing around and wanted to be part of something going on.

"More like us and the wildcard, isn't his name Jasper?" asked Duncan. He was still in a serious mood; he had never liked Jasper. It was like us mentioning Jasper's name had attracted the cameras to us. It occurred to me that they, too, had known about our issues with him and were more than willing to see drama unfold between us.

"That's his name? Jasper? Whatever, he doesn't deserve a name. He's just a wildcard," Amberline stated as the cameras came to hearing distance. She spun around and headed to Victoria. Instantly, her act was in control and I couldn't tell when we'd get the real Amberline back.

"Are you okay?" Asked Duncan, I must've zoned out thinking about what had just happened. His voice was saturated with concern. I could tell from the way his words and actions hadn't matched that he wanted to tell the cameras to leave. His voice sounded concerned but he was smiling, he hadn't wanted to draw the camera's attention closer to us. I understood that feeling completely.

Nevertheless, we both had to ignore the cameras due to our contract. That's just what we were gifted with for making it here early. "Um, yeah. It's nothing important. I can tell you later," I told him. He got the message, knowing later meant when we were in our flat and no cameras were around. As he had known that, I also knew that once we were in a position without cameras he would ask me about it.

"Alright," he said. "Thanks again for the sandwich last night, we all needed it." At first I was a little confused as to why he had thought to mention it now. Then I saw the cameras start to retreat in realizing that this was just going to be a boring conversation after all.

I was about to play along and give another boring response when the people in charge had started talking to us over the speakers. "Welcome, gamers," said the voice. "As you all should know, you will not be playing against other teams today. We assume you've already read the letter, so now we will tell only what you need to know."

There was a pause, and when we heard the next line it was someone new. The transition was smooth, it was as if they'd rehearsed it. Which, if you thought about it, made sense. I just thought they had a paper to read wherever they were, but apparently they had put more effort into the game than I had given them credit for. "This will be a story based game, a narrator will be heard in the background of the game and he will assign you tasks as you get further. There will be three of them, but they will not all be easy."

They then switched back to the original speaker, the one we've heard since the beginning. "The game will begin now. Good luck gamers," she'd said. I wondered momentarily why they had to switch speakers at all, but when smoke filled the floor I was reminded of the important issues then.

The ritual from last time began, only this time there was a green tinge to the smoke on the ground. I hoped it wasn't a sign as to what was to come. When we got the injection, I noticed that some suits were added and some were missing. When I saw things like "Plague Repeller" and "Nausea Fixer" I began to worry. In my own self preservation, I went for the Nausea one. I quickly picked a weapon and was sent to our waiting area, only now it was black instead of white. It felt as if we were standing in space.

The light began to flash and we all sat there quietly, admiring the changes. Suddenly the black room turned into a full scene around us. I wanted to walk closer to the action, but found myself unable to move past an invisible barrier. Someone in the room locked his door and began to dial someone on his phone. His hands were shaking and he paced around, always looking back to his door.

Whatever was outside the man's door was violent, the door shook at each pound against it, loosening more and more as time went. Finally, the door fell open. All I could hear was the ringing in my ears but I knew the man was screaming. He dropped his phone and backed to the corner. Coming towards him was a large group of what appeared to be zombies. They had sickly green skin that was already deteriorating, open wounds that hadn't seemed to bother them, completed with bubbles dripping down the sides of their mouths. The man had held out his hands as if it would stop them, he backed as far away from the zombies as he could. When he saw an opening he started to run the other way but tripped over the door that had fallen. The room went black again and the ringing in my ears had stopped. He was dead.

I have made a few changes, one is that I'm not splitting parts into chapters in Wattpad because the original chapters are too long. The next change will correspond with the other, I'm aiming to make the parts a lot shorter than the first two. (Even shorter than this one, to be honest) I hope the changes will enhance the reading experience. Anyway... how do you feel about new types of games being introduced?