Meet The Respects

[ItzToxie]

It wasn’t a dream. Sure, you knew that in your gut, but your mind kept trying to fool itself as you woke up upon the cool wood of the yacht’s deck. It was early, very early and you almost went back to sleep again before that realization hit you once more.

You were cast in SOTF-TV. Not some prank show, not a school play, but the real thing. You were too anxious, scared, or excited to rest any longer.

There was another thing. Tied to your finger by a string was a note, passed to you at some unknown point while you were unconscious, sometime after you were dropped on the flotilla... You quickly open it up before you even check your baggage for your weapon, you had to know what it said. The exterior said “If you get chosen.” You open it up to read what’s inside.

*Meet me at the captain’s quarters on the yacht, we’ll talk there.

~F. Bateman*

Fisk was a pretentious blowhard with delusions of grandeur, but it couldn’t hurt to hear what he had to say. You trusted the note because you didn’t have much else to do, and the likelihood of it being a trap was much smaller than not. Better to trust the devil you know than the devil you don’t. You picked yourself up and made the trek up towards the supposed meeting point.

It was still dark by the time you arrived, but the sky went from black to navy blue, the sun would rise soon. As you entered the building you could hear voices in the distance, jovial banters and hushed excitement. You followed them to lead you into a homemade auditorium, couches and chairs strewn along the room facing the most expensive chair in the center, Fisk sitting in it. There were quite a few people here in the seats, and all were taken sans 1. That last chair was for you.

Fisk smiled that familiar smirk that all but said he was sure of himself. “All right, this is everyone. You mind closing the door behind you? We don’t want any unwanted guests sneaking in.” You close the door and flick the lock as you turn around and move toward your seat.

“We all know why we’re here, yes?” Fisk’s fingers drummed his leg, his lips still peeled back into a smirk. Some smartass in the crowd said “Because we got casted?” Fisk cocked his head, and put his hand over his mouth to cough laugh. “Well yes, but why are we in this room?”

“The note?” You chime in.

Fisk smiled and snapped his fingers. “Yes! The note! But why do some of you have them while most don’t?” Fisk paused and waited for an answer he knew wouldn’t come. He stood from the chair.

“Well I’ll tell you. Seeing as we’re on the biggest televised program of the modern era, I took it upon myself to lower the risks needed to take the reward we so desperately deserve. As you know, you make it home by being the last man or woman standing, killing ten of your fellow colleagues, or being the last team standing. Theoretically the last one should be the easiest, but there’s one slight problem to that tactic... Namely that the assigned bandannas are randomized, and the majority of our classmates are... to put it lightly... brain dead halfwits who marinate their well-done steak in damp milk bread. If I’m being honest, I wouldn’t trust them with crayons and safety scissors, let alone a gun!”

Fisk paced to the left and right. “So I have a proposition, a plan that’s been in the making since I was a wee little child watching season sixty five a few months ago. It’s an easy fix. One that takes out the random aspect and leaves it purely up to skill. I propose, that we make our own team!”

He leaned on the podium. “I know you’re skeptical about this, but just have faith for a moment. You had enough faith to come here on a note so let me grab your attention once more. You see whatever your moralities are on the stance of killing or not, it’s simply in your best interest. All the escapes have been done before, and even if they weren’t, none of our classmates would be willing to try, either through incompetency or the chance to kill off whom they consider undesirables... So by that logic, with the knowledge that we know we are currently being hunted, I believe we should take the proactive approach, and hunt them first! We shouldn’t let hunting our own classmates demoralize us, because as of right now, they’re planning the same things we are, with one major difference. They’re arrogant enough to believe they can do it alone. There are seventy or eighty odd something kids in this game, but one of them will be ‘the one’. Imagine that. On our own we’d be thinking the same things, only to ‘just be a victim’ to a bigger fish, or more realistically, and disappointingly a ‘luckier’ fish... As you are aware, I’m not going to be ‘just a victim’ because I’m Fisk Bateman goddamnit, I’m going to make them! Right now you should be thinking the same... Just y’know replace my own name with yours.”

His voice droned out awkwardly at the last line. He looked back up at the crowd, his bombastic attitude returning. “Anywho! If you’re still skeptical, don’t be! We have literally nothing to lose from doing this, and everything to gain! You can go to sleep, assured that one of your teammates is vigilantly at watch! The physical specimens whom are so strong that they are practically untouchable in a one on one fight will be felled when three more of us show up from behind! Making it to the end is assured, and one of us is guaranteed the ten kills. They said in the rules a team had to make it to the end, and as a team we’ll make it to the end, and if we put on the best damn show they’ve ever seen, they’ll have to let us go, it would be stupid of them otherwise. We won’t just be winners, we will be famous for being pioneers! Everyone will talk of us, we will be gods amongst men! We will be immortalized in one way or another! And isn’t that the one thing most important to your legacy? To be a legend? You’re all ambitious, you’re thinking the same things, I can tell. You all want to win, or at least go home. I offer you the best chance at that out of anyone here. So... what do you say? Are we all in? The door is right there if you’re not.”

Fisk stood. Everyone stayed. He smiled one more time.

“Good. Now check under your seats, I have a gift for each of you. Try them on!”

You checked under your seat and pulled up a pale folded cloth. It looked and felt like a pillowcase with something in it. As you unfolded it, you realized it was a mask, with a bizarre grotesque face painted into it just under it’s cut out eyeholes. In the middle of the mask was a glass shiv, with the handle wrapped up in extra cloth.

“I hope you all appreciate the effort I put into making these. Every team needs their color after all, and if you didn’t get issued a weapon before, now you have one, and if you did, now you have a backup!”

You look up and notice one of Fisk’s hands was bandaged around the palm, no doubt he had cut himself jury rigging the glass blades. You look to your left and right to see the others trying their masks on. You join in and wear yours. As you look back up you see Fisk put his on.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the winning team. Welcome to The Respects.”

Fisk spread his arms out in a flourish

“Now then... As a wise man and my childhood inspiration, Julius Caesar once said whilst crossing the Rubicon...”

Fisk pulled an old school looking Chicago typewriter styled gun from under the seat, and pointed it skyward. He squeezed the trigger, laughing as the roof was riddled in bullets.

“LET’S FUCK THEIR SHIT UP!”

The crowd joined in on ransacking the room. The tv was thrown out the window, the bookshelf knocked over. Chairs were strewn this way and that. The door was kicked open and you all walked down the hall back outside. You saw the sunrise and it was beautiful. You smiled behind your mask. This was going to be so fun!

Singing La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la~

The Respects Continued in F's in the chat...