Author's note: Not much to say this time. As of sending this in (two days late) on Monday, July 15th, Part 3 still hasn't been posted to the site, so there's no correspondence or reaction to speak to. While this story is nearly done (1 scene to finish and one to write), the sheer mountain of work ahead of me is crippling my resolve. I'm trying to soldier on, but lord it's tough some days.
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Death Game – Part 4
When I woke up, others in the room were already chattering. Something had happened overnight that had gotten them even more agitated and on-edge. It didn't take me long after opening my eyes to understand.
While we slept, all of our clothing had been removed, and we had been dressed in the same thing, then tied back up. Nude from the waist up, we all had on what looked like rubber briefs, except that our dicks were all wrapped in pouches with tubes coming out of the tips. And to be more invasive, there seemed to be something in my ass, and it was locked into place. Part of me wanted to be offended, but another part thought it was kinda hot. As my dick stiffened, the sheath around it stretched. Just from that, I concluded that the setup was for collection, and not for chastity.
"Cameron, you awake?" It was Jason speaking. Since Jonathan had told the group about what had transpired on the dance floor, I decided that Jason was on my list of good people. Now it was Jason, Conrad, Jonathan, and Billy. I wanted to get all 32 of us out, but those four were especially important.
"Just waking up now," I replied. "I see the fronts of our outfits are the same, but does everyone else have something in their butts?"
"Yeah, so far," Jason said. "Do you think it's for the next challenge?"
"I'd put money on it," I told him. "There's no way of knowing what the challenge will be until we see it, though. What I'm hoping to find is some hole in his plot – some opening we can exploit to escape. Hopefully before our numbers are cut in half again."
"Anything we can do?" Jason asked.
"Keep checking for loose things or items you can use to escape. If even one of us gets loose, he can get the rest of us out." At that, everyone who was awake, myself included, started working at our restraints.
After a short while, everyone was awake, and each person had gotten the message to try and get loose. All but two of the men were testing their straps. Those two were the ones who had been wheeled into this room after Billy. They had been active participants in round two. Only their failure had kept them alive. Did they honestly think this was a real competition they could win?
"It's time now, servant," the Host said over the loudspeaker. "Wheel the competitors in and hook them up in the places I tell you. In left slots one and two, hook up Cameron and Billy. They're my top picks to survive. Beds 31 and 32 are expendable, so put them into right slots one and two. Those will be easy wins for Cameron and Billy." The two beds he listed were the two men who weren't helping, who thought this was still a competition against the rest of us, even with all of the evidence pointing to the contrary. "In left slots three and four, hook up Mr. James and his love interest. I don't want them up against each other. I've lost my taste for splitting up couples. Put them up against 12 and 27. Those should prove less of a challenge, and hopefully will allow for the two of them to move on together. Also, I think Jason in bed ten should go up against bed eight. Jonathan's story about him makes me want to keep him."
On and on the Host spoke, listing off pairings, letting the left people know why they were more desirable, and the right-hand people know why they were the leftovers. I knew the information would be important for the challenge – I just needed to figure out why.
The robed man emerged from the curtained area and walked straight to me. It made sense, since I was the first one the host had listed off. This was good; it would give me time to formulate a plan once I saw the set up of the challenge.
He wheeled me through the curtain and down a hallway that was painted black, then through another curtain into another, warehouse-sized room. The only things on the floor were what looked like large glass fish tanks. My bed was still near-vertical, so my sight line was decent. He wheeled me to the left side of the first tank. The tank itself reached the center of my torso. Leaving me, the man moved to the side of the tank opposite the entrance. I was able to tild my head far enough to see a control panel.
There was a lever that was in a neutral position, neither up nor down, and he pushed it all the way down. Chains lowered from the ceiling, with leather straps on the ends, slightly in front of me. When they reached the height of my bound hands, the man put the lever back in the neutral position to stop them from going down. The robed man fastened the chained straps to my wrists, and then took a rod that was lying atop the tank and fastened it to each wrist, providing a brace too keep my arms apart so I couldn't detach them myself. Then he released the other set of straps from my wrists, the ones that were holding them to the table. I lifted my arms to test the movement, but they were tight to the rod and the ceiling chains. I didn't have very much time to try anything, because he moved the lever from neutral to up and raised the chains until they were above my head. He stopped before they would stretch me.
The robed man returned to me and unlatched the side panel of the tank closest to me. He pulled it back and out, and I saw that part of the top surface was attached – wide enough for a man's torso to fit inside. From a small locker at the foot of the control panel, he pulled out a leather cushion, curved to fit perfectly at the edge of the groove on the top panel. It was obvious that he was going to slide me into the opening, yet I was still getting surprised by the lengths they were going to keep us comfortable.
As I had suspected, he tipped my table the rest of the way to vertical and moved me into position. With the wheels locked, he moved behind me with a second cushion. A couple of clicks later and a hatch was opened on the bed behind my back. I chided myself for not having noticed that. He hooked the second cushion to the first, and it made a seal around my torso, with more padding on the outside to make a seal against the other side of the side panel once he put it back in behind me.
Now the setup made sense. He would secure my feet inside the tank so I couldn't fight and kick, , then take the bed away and secure the back wall behind me. There was another hold in the top of the tank across from me, for my competitor. With the top holes sealed, they would be able to fill the tanks with liquids or gases, and not have them escape.
Knowing the mechanics of my prison, my brain moved to something else. "What's your name?" I asked the robed man.
He opened a flap on the bottom of the side that faced the entrance and crawled inside. "Rafael," he said in a whispery voice. I hadn't been expecting a response.
"Why are you helping the host?" I asked.
"I have no choice," Rafael said. "My actions are not my will."
"You're a prisoner?"
"A construct would be a more appropriate term."
That threw me. This guy was a robot or something. My idea of using him as a means of escape were dashed immediately. "So the robes and veil are to make you appear human to us?" I asked.
"Correct."
"What are you made out of?" I was starting to lose focus on the predicament I was in out of sheer curiosity.
"A corpse," was his response. As he continued to touch my bare ankles, my skin crawled. There was a dead man working between my legs. He crawled out but left the latch open. He would need to get back in for my competitor. Leaving it open showed great logic. Either the host was controlling him directly, or Rafael had conscious thought.
"Why do you have to obey?" I asked. He was removing my restraints from the table he had wheeled me in here on.
"The liquid he uses to animate me contains a controlling agent as well. I have to follow any order he gives." Some sort of a hypnotic drug, then?
"How can you answer my questions if he's controlling you?" I asked.
"Nothing you have asked is classified," Rafael replied. My heart sank. Nothing I was getting out of Rafael would help me. In fact, I realized that the Host knew I was going to dig for information, and told Rafael exactly what I was allowed to know and not know.
"Why is he doing this to us?" I asked.
"I am blocked from revealing that at this time," Rafael said, clamming up for the first time.
Something came to me. "Will you be able to reveal that later?
"Yes."
"When?"
"When there are fewer contestants."
Another surprise. We would know when more of us were dead. A few things crossed my mind.
"We are getting the beauty and the life spans of our competitors," I speculated. "Is that relevant to why we're being put through this?"
"Yes, but that's as much as you'll get on that train of questioning." Rafael secured the back of the tank and wheeled the table to the edge of the room. Then he walked out. Everything I had learned so far was taking my mind down an interesting path.
Minutes later, the curtain opened again and Billy was pushed in. "Good, I was hoping you'd be next," I told him. "I need your brain."
"Considering the circumstances," Billy replied, "you could see where that choice of words would concern me."
"Oh yeah, sorry," I said. "I need to bounce ideas off of you. First, I need to dig for more information. Rafael, when did you die?"
"The end of my life is hazy," Rafael said. "I'm told that it was 1986," the corpse replied.
"Excuse me?" Billy asked. "This guy can't be dead. That's impossible."
"At this point, does reanimation really surprise you?" I asked. "We've already been through the impossible with the first two challenges. What's a little more crazy added to the mix?"
There was a pause, then Billy sighed. "Fair enough," he said.
"Was Rafael your name in real life?" I asked the dead man.
"Yes."
"What do you look like under there?" Billy asked, interrupting my line of questioning. "Can you show me?"
Rafael stopped his actions. He had just finished raising Billy's arm into the air with the chains and rod. He reached to his head and unclipped his veil, then removed the hood. I had expected worse. His skin, obviously tanned in life, was still as dark as Billy's and intact as well, albeit very dry looking. His eyes are a little sunken, as were his cheeks, but not to horrific levels. His black hair was thin, but still there, and brushed back. I had to admit, he was still a little attractive.
"Whoever our host is, he's kept you well-preserved, especially if you've been dead almost 20 years," Billy told Rafael.
"Thank you," Rafael said softly. "I miss being...appreciated."
He had been attractive in life and he missed it. I got that. I was lucky and was born with favorable genetics myself, but I knew it was going to fade to normalcy one day. All of the attention I now received would eventually dwindle, and I knew I'd miss it. That's why I made it a point to be as kind as possible to people, to compliment them on their strengths. I wanted everyone to feel they were desired in their own way. The looks on peoples' faces when I recognized their individual beauty was a blessing to me, and something I'd never tire of.
Rafael pulled his hood back up and covered his face with the veil. "My instructions are to only show those who want to know," he told us. Then he resumed his task of securing Billy to the tank. "It stings a little," he added. "I know what I once was and what I am now. I've seen all of you. Being the ugliest thing in the building – being a monster among angels – it hurts."
"I don't think you're the monster here," I told him. "Tell me, do you want us dead? Do you approve of what your master is doing?"
"No to both," Rafael said sadly as he continued binding Billy to the tank.
"Then the man controlling you is the only monster here," I concluded.
"I...cant think that," Rafael said. "I know more, and I can't hate him. I'm sad for him, and for me."
"Enough, Rafael," the Host commanded over the loudspeaker. "No more speaking until this round is over. Understood?" Rafael nodded. "The fact that you two were able to move Rafael's emotions like that is the reason I know you're my top contenders. You both move me."
"Does it hurt you at all that you're killing people?" Billy demanded.
"Billy...," the Host started, then stopped speaking. Eventually, he resumed. "I'm sorry I had to hurt you. I'm not sorry that your fiancee was killed. "He was cheating on you...a lot. I won't insult you by saying you're better off without him. That won't make you feel any better. Nearly everyone dying in this competition deserves it. A few don't. I will mourn those few who have to die, just because it's too late to release them now."
"The consolidation," I said in understanding, but not in support. "All of us are four people strong now. You need all that power into one person, and there's no way you'd willingly let any of us out into the world the way we are now."
"Dear god, you're smart," the Host told me. "Billy is too, but not at your level. I'm going to be honest. There are seven of you here it will hurt to lose. I had to choose a number of viable candidates, just in case I was unlucky and lost someone I wanted. All the rest were brought in to feed the winner's power. I needed men who were attractive, young, and healthy. Everyone except for Ryan fit that profile, but I made sure that what he had couldn't be passed on to the final man. Still, I'm going to lose six people I care for in this competition, and it hurts my heart."
Billy's eyes narrowed. "You've designed these challenges to keep your selected few alive as long as possible," Billy snarled. "You've stacked the deck. Those men didn't vote to drop me last round, you did. What would you have done if I'd gotten a key?"
"I would have mourned you," the Host replied softly. "I have to lose six of you. If you had gotten a key, that would have been fate taking you out of the picture and forcing me to focus on the others."
My blood ran cold. Billy could have already been dead last round if not for blind luck. That told me that the Host had expected all of us, all of his chosen ones, to choose down at the elevator, and to bottom in the first challenge. "So you're looking for a bottom who isn't willing to kill for money," I surmised.
"Rafael, gag them," the Host said suddenly. "They're figuring out too much. I can't have them warning the others."
"Fuck," I swore.
"Here we go again," Billy said. In less than a minute, the two of us could no longer speak. Rafael finished securing Billy into the tank, and then went to bring in Conrad.
As the actor was being bound, he tried to fight, but it was useless. Any movements he could have made to escape had been planned for and prevented. He only had the power to rattle chains and make noise. All the while, he peppered us with questions we couldn't answer. I could see Billy getting frustrated with the questions.
After a while, Conrad was secured and Jonathan was brought in. "Good," Conrad said to him. "These two aren't very good company right now."
Jonathan looked at Billy and me and chuckled. "They know too much, just like Billy with the last round," he noted. "Gagged to shut you up and keep us riff-raff from knowing what you know?" he asked me. I nodded. "Anything we could learn from yes or no questions?" I shrugged, then shook me head. "I'll take that as meaning 'probably not'."
It took a good two hours for Rafael to complete securing all of us into the tanks. None of the others tried to talk to the dead man. That disappointed me. The man across from me was the last to be brought in. Considering the order, I guessed that the first seven of us were the ones the host wanted to protect, and the last seven were the ones we would be most likely to beat this round.
The Host had chosen most of the men in this room, along with the ones who had already died. He had picked gay men to die. What had they done that was so awful? I remembered Darren. He was only a little bit of a douche bag, but that wasn't worthy of death. The whole situation made me indignant.
Onto the tanks in front of us, Rafael placed control panels of our own, plugging them into the side panel. On the control panels were a dial and a big red button. Over the dial was the word "give" and over the button it said "lock". Rafael then crawled back under the tanks and hooked up tubes to our rubber shorts. Everyone's dicks were linked to their partner's asses, and more wires connected the tubes to the control panels. I was starting to get a feel for the nature of the devices from what I knew so far. We were probably going to be pumped into each other, most likely from one person's dick into the other's ass.
Everyone was eventually connected, and Rafael pressed a button on the pedestal, and a gray fog began filling the tanks from the bottom up. "The gas filling the tanks right now is a sort of tenderizer," the Host said. "If you breathe it in, it will liquefy your insides in seconds. However, when it comes in contact with your skin, it strengthens and toughens it. Your internal organs are slowly being absorbed and rebuilt in a cyclical fluid motion.
"What?" Conrad asked.
"The gas is slowly melting our insides, but our bodies are rebuilding them just as fast," Jonathan said. "Advanced biochemical studies." That answered what, besides being adorable, Jonathan was here for. Where Billy and I were deductive and clever, Jonathan had some major science knowledge.
"Servant, start the pumps." Servant? So the host didn't want the main group to know Rafael's name. Interesting. Rafael pressed another button on the panel. A humming started inside my body and pleasure started to build. In a few moments, I started cumming, constantly. The orgasm was weak, but unrelenting. More time passed and there was a buzzing in my ass as I felt it start to fill. We were cumming into each other's asses.
"As you can tell, the machines are milking you at a very low power," the Host told us. "What is coming out is your liquefied insides. Your partner's insides are flowing into you to replenish what was lost. Currently, the rate is equal, but the dial in front of you can change that. I will give you multiple opportunities to adjust the flow rate. The higher the number, the more you will lose, but the orgasm you are experiencing will get stronger."
"And if we leave it alone?" one guy down the line asked.
"You will continue to remain in balance...for a time," the Host replied cryptically. "The big red button in front of you is an override. If you hit it, you will lock out your partner's control panel, taking away their option to decide how the game goes."
Every time he'd given us an option so far, taking the selfish route had been fatal. There was nothing telling me otherwise this time. The red button, I deduced, would kill whomever pressed it. My eyes were wide and I shook my head at my partner, trying to convey the message to leave the button alone through my gag,
There was a sudden loud buzz and a thump from all around as our shackles released and dropped our hands to our tanks. I went for my gag as quickly as possible, but not fast enough to stop my partner from pressing his red button.
"You idiot!" both Billy and I yelled at the same time. His partner has also pressed the button. Several of the men in the right side positions looked over to us with terror in their eyes.
Before any of them could ask why, a large number of the men threw back their heads, bucking with orgasm. All of them started screaming with a pleasure that bordered on pain. Shortly after that began, the other side of the tube, the one in my ass, started pounding. It was fucking me hard, but filling me with energy at the same time.
My partner's gaze became vacant and he calmed down. I realized he wasn't there any more. There was nothing behind his eyes but a hollow shell, and even that was starting to deflate. The powerful sensations – those had lasted for under a minute, while the machine had basically vacuumed out his insides and fed them to me. Once his body had deflated and retracted into the gray fog, Rafael put a cap over the hole in the tank his torso had come through, then over the other holes, twelve out of sixteen tanks in all. Down at the other end, there was even a vacancy on the "winners" side.
Of the four pairs of men left in the round, all eight men were strangers to me. I only knew their faces from seeing them here. My guess was that all of them were doomed anyway. I knew it was heartless of me, but I didn't want to know who any of them were. Strangers dying was less painful.
I realized that all eight were looking down at me for guidance. "I'm sorry," I told them. "I don't know how to get out of this. The only way to detach yourselves from the machines is to get your arms down there, and the only way to do that is to go all the way in, which would kill you.
"I have an idea," Billy said. The men looked to him, which relieved me. "It's a risk, though. If someone were to drop down in, while holding their breath, then pop their heads back out, they may be able to detach themselves, then slide back up and out."
"It depends on what the ankle straps are fastened with," I said. "Buckles and straps can be undone, but locks can't."
"It's worth it," one of the men who was still in play said. "I'm going to try it." If he failed, he would die, and his insides would still be pumped into his partner. I wondered what would happen if someone who was alone tried it. Where would they be pumped if they died? Would the gas get shut off? Surely the Host wouldn't want all that accumulated power to be lost.
The man tried to slide down, but the cushions, being leather against his naked skin, were sticking. No locks were needed there, just simple friction was doing the job of holding him in place. I thought that that would be the end of it, but he kept trying. He pushed down and let out a sharp cry when he forced himself down an inch.
"Did it rip your skin, Andy?" Jason asked. So Jason had learned the man's name at some point. It was something I hadn't wanted to know.
"He'd be dying fast if it had," Jonathan answered.
"It'll leave a nasty burn where he pulled back, though," I added. I wanted to tell Andy to stop, that it wasn't worth it, but I couldn't. The situation was dire enough that risks had to be taken. He pushed farther, screaming out each time he made more headway. Finally, he managed to force himself down to a point where his arms were raised above his head and his chin was setting on the cushion.
"Wish me luck," he said, then did a few deep breaths to increase his lung capacity. With that done, he did a final push and popped his head through, pulling his arms in quickly after. A pumping noise began almost immediately, but I couldn't place what it was. He was so far down in the row of tanks that I couldn't see inside. I could hear him, though, thumping around inside. It was his tank partner, though,, that realized what was happening.
"The cushions," he said with a gasp. "They're inflating closed. He can't get back up!" There was a loud thump as Andry tried to come up for air, then even more thumping on the sides of the tank. "He's touching my ankles!" the man exclaimed. "He's loose and trying to free me. One of them is free now...Ah!" I could see the man's face show signs of pleasure, signs of his ass being pounded by the machine. Andy had taken a breath and his remains were now being pumped into his partner.
"Damn," Conrad sighed. "Poor guy."
"Not a complete loss," Billy replied. "Now we know that the straps aren't locked, and that going down there is a one way trip." While insensitive, Billy wasn't wrong. Two of the men in a tank together down the way started arguing in a language I didn't recognize.
"Do they know each other?" Jason asked.
"Yeah," Conrad replied. "We were the first three to wake up earlier. They work together at a software company. They're Filipino if you're wondering."
"I recognized the sound of Tagalog," Billy said. "I don't understand it, though."
"Alejandro, Paolo, is everything alright?" Conrad asked.
"Paolo wants to sacrifice himself for me," one of them said. He was obviously Alejandro, by the process of elimination. "He thinks he can set me free. We weren't invited here like you all were. We were in line outside and picked to fill the spots of people who didn't show up. Paolo thinks that its his fault I'm here and he wants to save me."
"Not to be mean," Billy said, "but if it was his idea to come here, then he signed your death warrant. Neither of you were selected to live, just to fill the spots of people to die."
"What does that mean?" Jonathan asked.
"Our host only cares about seven of us who are still alive. The rest are fodder for the winner to absorb," I told them. The games are rigged in our favor. Even with that, six of the guys he's chosen to win will die, and we have no idea what he has in store for the winner."
"So we really need to get out of here," Jason said.
I paused. "Alejandro, tell Paolo not to give any sign to us if he succeeds, you don't give any indication either, ok?"
"I don't understand," Alejandro replied.
"I do," Billy said. "We're being watched and listened to. If our captor knows we can get out, he'll stop us somehow. Keep it a secret, and no one can give it away. Does that make sense?"
"Yes," Alejandro said, and then started speaking in Tagalog to Paolo. Paolo nodded, took a deep breath, and then dropped effortlessly into the tank.
"How did he do that?" Jonathan asked.
"He's very flexible," Alejandro replied. Aside from the cushions closing, all was quiet for nearly a minute, before Alejandro began bucking in his tank. The process had begun, and Paolo was being poured into Alejandro's ass. He kicked his foot out in ecstasy and I saw that there was no restraint on it. I know Billy noticed it as well. Alejandro collapsed forward in spent pleasure and grief. I think we all wanted to give him a moment before anything would happen.
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