Fun and Games

Van

Opal spends the next few days considering the man's offer to take part in the other games and how she could make a little more money. She doesn't want or need much, just enough to keep her going until she can get another job, hopefully one that sticks. A few nights late, after another unsuccessful day of job searching, she finds that she can't sleep, her eyes don't even want to close. She toss and turns in her bed, as she thinks back to her night with Sang-Woo and if he'd be awake at this hour. She shakes her head, thinking two things. One she's crazy for thinking of calling up a one night stand and two he's a businessman so if he is awake at this time on a weekday it's because of work.

She sits up and looks around her room, it's small and cramped even with the full-size bed she has in the room. Most of the time she considers herself lucky, she's seen many apartments that aren't even big enough to hold a twin sized bed and here she is with a separate bedroom. She hasn't had to worry too much about rent, since she had saved up before leaving and was able to pay for her rent one year at a time. Totaling to about 8,712,000 won a year or about $8,000 back in the US, which is about what she'd pay in four months if she was still in New York. But she always made sure she had money for the next years rent. But since she only left with about $24,000, she only had enough to cover her housing for three years, and that time was slowly running out. Her rent would be due again in two months and she was worried she wouldn't be able to last long if she had to go to paying monthly without a stable source of income. Going without food for a few days was nothing, one of the positives to her previous eating disorder, but how long would she last out on the street?

As she ponders these questions and more, the man from the train station pops into her head, as he had off and on for the past serval days. His offer sounds almost too good to be true. Win money by playing games. That sounds like the line they'd  use to get people on to games shows and that's the last thing Opal wants. Her family doesn't know where she is and she'd like to keep it that way. But if it is something like that surely she'd be able to back out, right? With a sigh, Opal caves to the offer and called the phone number on the back of the card. The line only rings once before a man answers the phone, "hello, who's calling?"

"Hi, uh, you gave me your business card earlier," Opal shakes her head, just now thinking about the fact that she probably just woke this poor guy up for no reason.

"Do you wish to participate in the game? If you wish to participate, please state your name and birthdate."

"Opal Walton, April 12th, 1993," after this there is no response and Opal grows slightly concerned that she just gave this person a way to steal her identity.

Eventually the man speaks again, "meet us outside your apartment, we will send a car to pick you up. Your password is red light, green light," with that the line goes dead.

'Great, so not only do these people know who I am and how in debt I am, they know where I live,' Opal thinks to herself. She rubs her face before getting up, since there is no point in backing out before she finds out what all this is about. She throws on some jeans, a leather jacket, and some boots before heading outside, waiting up the bus stop that's close to her building.

After about twenty minutes standing in the cold Opal is ready to chalk this all up to a scheme and head back inside. But just as she turns to head back, a pair of headlights shine on her and a van pulls up. At this moment everything her parents had ever told her about strange vans comes back to her mind. The passenger window rolls down and there is a man in a red hoodie with the hood pulled over his head so she can't see his face, "Ms. Opal Walton?"

"Yes?"

"Password?"

"Red light, green light." The door then unlocks and opens. Opal looks inside before stepping in, she notices a couple of other people already in the van, but they are asleep. This puts her mind to ease a bit, given the late hour it isn't surprising that others who are going to compete in the games would be asleep while they get others. She gets in and sits down, buckling her seat belt before she hears a hissing noises. As she looks around she sees smoke start to feel the van, "hey!" She coughs, undoing her seat belt, "let me out!" She shouts weakly before passing out like the others in the car.