Toys of a Dangerous Mind-{Winner of Undiscovered, Watty Awards 2011} Under Edit

Chapter 1

A.N

I updated Chapter 1 as I accidentally published it before. Picture on side, is of Danielle.

Have fun reading and vote, comment, fan. Oh, and the trailer on the side is made by Brookeismy name, so massive thanks to her for going through all that effort!

I woke up, gasping and scared, looking around wildly. I was trying to see an enemy that wasn't there.

I'm not in the maze. I'm not there, I'm here. I'm not in the maze. I'm not there, I'm here, I chanted in my mind, trying to calm myself down. As I recognise my surroundings and the nightmare fades from my mind, my breathing goes down a few notches. I'm safe.

For now.

I never remembered ever being completely safe. Even as a baby, a dark taint fouled my mind, something I never understood. It was the reason that I cried for my mother those solitary nights. As I grew from an ignorant child, I had to change, and my mind needed to harden, to develop a shield against the harsh world which enveloped all that lived in this damned country.

The answer to our fear, and the shadows which fell across our thoughts, was, and always will be Raxis. Raxis: the man who was once thought a god, now deemed as a terrible master to us all. One hundred and fifty years before my birth into this sad reality of life, a man with golden hair, and eyes, graced with intelligence higher than even we could comprehend walked into the lives of everyone in this country.

A spell was bound around all of its people, a simple love radiated from them to this unknown but charismatic and powerful man. And the devotion they felt in their hearts had been real. And so, as time passed, and the man proved himself worthy of all the honours that they would bestow upon him, a new type of government was put to our system. In a way, it was a dictatorship, ruled by one over the many.

Dictatorships were looked down upon, always. They were unfair, cruel. But we didn't seem to see that. How could you, when he had taken us all into his power?

Not that that was how we saw it though.

So he took the leading role, and ruled over us, just as he had planned. A year of happiness and celebration flew swiftly by, and everyone felt a wonder and euphoria beyond anything they could have imagined. Because things seemed so perfect.

Perfection is eternally unattainable.

Yet, a rose may look beautiful, but that does not strip the pain from you as you run its fingers down its stem and feel the thorns cutting into your skin. Even though we felt those thorns, we just kept on smiling blindly. With the blood from our wounds trickling over our skin.

As the new year was rushed in with fireworks, laughter and love - our leader set forth a firework of a different kind. On live television, he made a chilling and heart-breaking speech to all of his people. Mocking us, taunting us, laughing at us.

The first scream sounded as his appearance seemed to melt away: the gorgeous, golden locks falling away and shrivelling at his feet, the gentle features of his face changed to a hawk-like structure, still as a human, but one of contempt and superiority. His hair had changed to an unnatural black.

That had only been the start.

Raxis, the name of our ruler, devised a game called 'The Games of Hell' where twenty people were chosen by Raxis to enter The Games. They consisted of a series of challenges where the only aim you had was stay alive. This was easier said than done, as Raxis had devised many clever and horrific puzzles, traps and... monsters. Terrible monsters with mutated bodies and a hunger for one thing - flesh.