"You have a lot of learning to do if you're gonna come back here unscathed, rather than with a broken body." The girl with the beanie, whose name I later learned was Nea, said to me.
I don't understand where I was, or how I was alive. Everything everyone said just further increased my confusion.
After over 15 minutes of introductions from around well over twenty "survivors," and after she showed me to where my own tent was, she and another girl named Meg showed me around the rest of the camp.
I was getting "The Grand Tour" as Nea apparently liked to call it.
Of course, all of that included nonstop questions from the others that I didn't exactly know how to answer, and after awhile an older man named Bill snapped at them to leave me be.
I couldn't really answer them, since I didn't exactly remember much of who I was besides how I... "died..."
Or how I was taken.
Not remembering my own name yet surprised them the most.
"You only have a week until you're out in the trials. As hellish and cruel as The Entity is, at least you get some time to settle in and let us teach you the ropes."
Meg spoke, running her hands through her long red hair awkwardly. She didn't meet my gaze as we walked, so I uncomfortably looked back at Nea.
Guess she was just awkward around new people. I let out a heavy sigh that catches Nea's attention, causing her to raise a brow and wait for me to speak.
"You've mentioned these... trials, but... what exactly are they?"
I slowly asked, which caused Nea and Meg to both just look at each other, pity for me in their eyes. Nea sighs as her eyes finally find my face, and we all stop walking.
"Look.. Dwight, he's our leader, will explain more of this to you. This is a hard and cruel life to live, but there's no way out. Might as well get use to it."
Meg looks down at her shoes, and hesitantly adds in,
"We're all trapped here. Our purpose to The Entity is to entertain it with our suffering... ours is just to escape the trials till the next, and try to learn what we can from each other. We're nothing but pawns in a game."
"Some sort of... death game?"
I shift my feet uncomfortably and just nod, too shocked to actually say anything. Nea motions in front of me and I look to see a tent, one much bigger than any of the other ones.
"This is Dwight's tent. It's better if he explains all of this shit to you."
I sigh and murmur my thanks to them as they walk off, speaking softly to each other and briefly glancing back at me. I head inside, the flap of the tent falling shut behind me and I take a quick look at my new surroundings. I see old notebooks, papers, and other items of the sort stacked up messily in one corner, and a small wooden table with strange charms laid out neatly it's surface nearby the pile. Before I could continue my examination of the area, a masculine voice clears itself.
I quickly look up to see a guy with black hair and glasses looking at me. He wears a white button-up dress shirt with a poorly tied tie. He sits at table, and motions to a wooden chair on the other side of it.
He honestly looked like a nervous wreck. Sort of like a freshman during their first day of high school.
The corners of my lips twitch upwards in the beginning of a smile and I push my judgements aside to the back of my thoughts, reminding myself that he was probably the "leader" for a good reason.
I slowly walk forward and take a seat across from him, the uncomfortable wooden chair making me wince a bit, my backside already hurting from the hard surface.
"Sorry about the furniture. We try to do our best while making it, but it doesn't always turn out great."
I look up at him to see him scratching the back of his neck sheepishly, still watching me.
"None of us are great carpenters or anything of the sort. You wouldn't happen to have any sort of experience with that, would you?"
He mutters his attempt to lighten the mood, looking away for a brief moment.
"I uh.. no.. it's alright..."
I awkwardly say and his lips curl upwards a bit into the beginnings of a small smile, but it quickly disappears.
Guess it was time for my new reality check.
"Look, it's a shame you got taken here. I wouldn't wish this life upon anyone, but there's nothing to do about it. All of us, we're stuck here."
He explains, talking a bit fast like he was in a hurry. I just nod like I usually do when I don't know what else to say. He takes that as his cue to continue.
"The Entity is what made this place. These realms. Whatever you want to call it. It is also what took all of us and trapped us here, both us survivors and killers."
I'm quick to interrupt him, shaking my head a bit and frowning.
I needed to get something set straight.
"Killers? People have been talking about these trials and killers... this Entity... but... what is it?"
He sighs, matching my frown with one of his own and looks down at the table. He began drumming his fingers on the wooden surface.
"The killers... they've had all of their humanity ripped away from them by The Entity. They're filled with hate and have undying determination to hunt down us survivors, and sacrifice us on... on... these terrible meat hooks to satisfy and please The Entity. I just can't imagine what happens to them when The Entity is displeased with their work, but I doubt those monsters care or feel anything besides bloodlust and anticipation for the next kill. They're nothing more than heartless animals."
He rambled on bitterly, throwing all of this information out all at once and barely taking the time to breathe between sentences. My heart was beating fast in my chest, pounding against my ribcage.
"They have not sympathy for us... so why have any for them? We were all take the same way..."
It seemed as if he mumbled that part to himself, rather than speaking with the intention of me hearing it.
This was difficult to process.
"We're... hunted?"
I slowly say, my voice breaking.
This snaps him out of his thoughts and he looks up from the table at me.
"Only during the trials, yes. When we do manage to escape, they are unable to follow us through the gates or the hatch. Nobody knows why, but at least we're safe here. The Entity blocks the escapes so they cannot follow us out."
"Isn't that just peachy," I thought.
That was the only thing that granted me the slightest bit of relief while listening to what was now my new life. I look around the tent again to distract myself and slowly ask,
"What else... about the trials?..."
"There's one every day... well every day excluding one day every week, that is. So there's only 6 trials per week. We never know whose going to get selected, but we've come up with the theory that the four in best health are the ones who are next to be taken."
He spoke pretty fast, and it was confusing and hard for me to retain every word he was saying, but I managed to cling to his sentences. Just barely.
"You'll be put in a trial sometime next week. This week you have will be used for you to learn from the other survivors. They'll teach you skills that you'll need to know, skills that will help you survive. Even if you die, you'll return here. Death is not an escape from this life. No matter what happens, we always end up back at the campfire."
I bit my lip and give a small nod. I couldn't tell if still being alive was a good or bad thing, but I can only quickly come to the assumption that it's bad. He continues once more when I say nothing.
"Even aimlessly wandering throughout the woods somehow leads you back to the campfire."
"An endless cycle of suffering." I thought and looked back towards him. He stared into my eyes, pain lurking deep within his gaze as I stared back in silence.
After a few minutes of neither of us speaking, he breaks it.
"Well... if you have no more questions... that's all you really need to know for now..."
He trails off and sighs, motioning to the door that I'm able to leave, and I slowly stand up, finally breaking eye contact.
Before I turn to leave, I pause, remembering something.
"The others are saying that I should've remembered my name by now."
I nibble at my bottom lip, and Dwight starts to drum his fingers on the table.
"Ah.. yes, about your memories... they'll slowly begin to come back. It just takes time and patience, alright?"
I stiffly nod turn away from him, and as I began to walk out of the tent, he calls out one last thing to me.
"Hey, uh just.. please don't lose hope, okay? Those who do... they disappear. We don't know where they go, but it seems to ruin the entity's entertainment if you willingly let yourself be caught. You'll be fine without a trace."
I pause in front of the tent flap and look back at him. I smile weakly without meeting his eyes and give a small nod, trying to show appreciation for his explanations and knowledge that he shared. Though the last bit of information made me sick to stomach.
"Disappear.."
I gulp, feeling as if that was somehow more terrifying than dying repetitively, and being alive once more just to face the same end. I force myself to look him in the face.
"Thank you, Dwight."