The Dare Games

“Long after The Collapse, perhaps decades or even centuries of a global power vacuum wars, society has started to rebuild. Technology production and development has started up. Government has begun to reform itself. One global government. It’s not as big as you think. 60% of the planet is uninhabitable or just too troublesome to try and survive on with the limited resources and technology that is available. No one really knows for sure what year it is we know it was 2065 when The Collapse tapped its music stand and began to conduct the government through its own slow, ominous funeral march, but was generations ago. My father’s generation was the first one to not be drafted, sold into slavery, or otherwise have their lives uprooted. A sort of ‘beginning of the end.’ Okay I’m exaggerating; the slavery thing was a short time period like 25 years ago and the roving gangs responsible have been dealt with. ONE village disappeared sometime in the middle of it all. It could have just been bombed to ash instantaneously and no one noticed amongst well, everything. At this point you’re probably like ‘Okay okay okay.. Phineas. Dude we got it. Shit sucks.’ Trust me. You don’t know the half of it; I haven’t even gotten to The Dare Games.”

“You think society has been built back up this fast from the hell the world has endured on its own? Not. Even. Close.” Phineas Morgan said out loud as if talking to an audience. He knew very well that there wasn’t one; there never was when he went exploring the old city ruins. It never stopped him. Phin, as he preferred to be called, usually kept to himself that way. After taking a short dramatic pause, he jumped down off of the giant green hand that was upside down, the magnificent burning torch that once rested in it was cracked and the flame buried down in the dirt, the shadow of the torch falling across the giant stone tablet inscribed with a date in roman numerals: July 4, 1776. Below that someone generations ago carved in “-March 15, 2069” BEWARE the Ides of March scratched in deeper than anything else making it impossible to read the inscription under it.

“You see the dare games. Simple way to put it is: it’s a blood sport. It started about 10 years ago. Something to give the people hope. Yeah yeah I know blood sport giving hope? C'mon Phin. That doesn’t make sense. And you’d be right. It doesn’t make sense here either. Especially because no one has ever won before.

“I know I know. I haven’t explained. I'm getting there. There’s a lot so ill hit the important things. I'm already running late.” He said arms behind his back as he casually walked down the debris cluttered streets as if this was right where he needed to be. “the dare games are a compulsory game that your name is automatically entered into a drawing at 13. Just once. And only once. And it stays there until the day you turn 18. Every month, the refill the arena to have a total of 50 boys and 50 girls. Make it to your 21st birthday and you win. Fame fortune, jobs, technology. The broad cast the whole thing through undetectable hidden cameras that are everywhere except the bathroom. Players have a bio-tech watch grafted into their forearm. Why? Because this is where you get your dares. Viewers at home watch and pay money to dare contestants to do things. Murder, theft, drugs, sex you name it. Not every dare bloody, but that’s the popular stuff. Remember when I said it doesn’t make sense that this the games give people hope? I wasn’t kidding; kids must do this stuff just to survive. Nothing is free in the dare games.”

Phineas Morgan stopped dead in his tracks at the stoop to his family home. He could hear the TV going on through the door. The drawing was today. And today? Well today was Phineas’ 13th birthday. It was a blood heavy month because of the…

“PHINEAS!!!!” a blood curdling shriek jerked him out of his trance and he burst through the door to see his mother crying holding a picture of his father and seeing his own boyish face on the screen. He has been selected. His mother put the picture back and hugged him tightly as if it was the last time shed see him because well, it might be. Phineas stood there. Stone faced, and still. Utterly still. The sounds of his mother’s sobs faded, though the intensity of her hug seemed to I suggest they got worse. He looked over at the picture and saw the one of his brother. His sister, Alex, had been in the dare games for 5 years now. And her 21st birthday was next week. At least I can maybe try and help Alex. I won’t start out totally alone he thought to himself.

Soon there was a knock at the door, and it opened. The Enforcers stood there waiting. Phineas did the kindest thing he could think of for his mother: he looked at her, his face full of determination and conviction “I’ll get Alex home to you.” And wrenched himself from her grasp and followed the Enforcers to the car. A sharp pain in his neck arose and he blacked out. He woke up with his neck sore and his head pounding. A pale mousey girl with silky blonde shoulder length hair and ice blue eyes sat across from him. She couldn’t be much older than he was. How was she doing this job? She explained his starter gear and drop location and out the door he went.

He felt that, even though this was a blood sport and statistically 40% of the monthly casualties happen on drop day, they rushed him out of his escort a bit too fast and rude. First things first: buy find apartment location, secure weapons. He went through his gear being careful to look around for muggers. In it there was a canister about 6 inches tall. It was red and orange all over and seemed to sparkle and dance in his hands almost like he was holding living fire? He thought. He brushed it off hearing gun shots and chaos erupts amongst the ruins of war-torn buildings that are mostly piles of rubble.

He flashed his trademarked cocky smirk looked off to the side as if he was sure a camera was there (he wasn’t) and grinned “Show time” and took off in a dead sprint towards the woods. With any luck? Towards Alex.

There was a loud CRACK by his ear as he turned around and saw a body drop with the right half of his head missing slump to the ground. He gasped and stood there for a second shocked that he almost had his head blown off. He decided right then, stealth was his approach. He promptly took to side streets and back alleys to get to the woods. His right ear ringing and blood dripping out a little. “Well welcome to the dare games I guess?” he remarked disappearing into off into the tree line and straight into a girl about 5’6 with jet black hair. She was thin but lean with corded muscle. “Alex” he muttered.

“Hey Phin.”

A few days later.

Phineas was sitting around the base camp before the peace summit his sister had been organizing. He had found detailed instructions inside the canister telling him what it was, and to keep it secret and safe: it was a one-of-a-kind, top-secret prototype he was being allowed to test.

“Phin. PHINEAS! PHINEAS EUGIENE MORGAN!” Alex had full named him to get his attention. There was only one thought on Phineas’ mind as he came back to reality: why me?”

“Your middle name is Eugene?”

“Shut up Greg. Phineas, we need to go over the plan again for the summit next week.” And so they did. He would stay back on the rifle and put down anyone threating the peace negotiations amongst the gangs. “I said it was a lot, didn’t I?” he said not looking up from the strange canister he was studying.

The day before the peace summit was Alex’s birthday and 2 days before drop day. But she stayed anyways. She only had to go to the center of the city to be picked up. She would be the first winner. But she chose to stay and ‘maybe make life a little easier for a while for everyone trapped here.’ She has said. Everyone in the arena was there. This was the Dare Games Convention. Bring about the rules of war. There were only 83 people left this month 37 boys and 46 girls. Everyone a founding member to official player rules of the dare games. Anything goes so players make the rules.

A loud BANG went off and he quickly scanned through his scope. Just in time to see Alex clutching her bleeding stomach, pull out the locket from her shirt, look up toward him and wink before another round through her head. Phineas began cracking off rounds not caring where they landed. Bodies dropping left and right everyone digging in and fighting it out. Everyone stayed to fight, and no one ran. His watch dinging indicating that dozens of viewers were tuning in to his cameras, which he ignored, canister in hand he sprinted the 400 meters to building and started blocking off exits. He then climbed the fire escape and broke it standing in the center of the crowd, chest heaving, holding the canister. He knew what it was now. Everyone stopped to look at him as opened it and a loud hiss filled the air as a hermetic seal broke, revealing 2 vials. One orange and cool which he drank, one red and hot which he threw flames erupted from the epicenter, spreading like wildfire, consuming everything. Everything except him. The smart flames, as he called them, didn’t burn him. As he walked over to Alex’s body, he ignored the screams of roasting players, and brushed the hair out of her face. a single tear dripped from his face to hers as he closed her eyes grabbing the silver heart-shaped locket from around her neck as people were coughing and choking on the smoke and burning alive.

When he finally made it out of the building the fire had spread to adjacent ruins. Phineas Morgan walked out of the building clutching the locket so firmly his hand was turning white from the strain and pressure. His clothes were all but burnt off everything else untouched. Before him stood 12 other survivors. Some clinging to life, some broken bones as they jumped from higher story floors, and some so badly burned they were unrecognizable.

“Thirteen” he choked. “there are 13 of us left” a little louder this time. Looking at his open palm where the locket rested “for Alex. You get to live today. But I promise you. My goal is no longer survival; It’s revenge,” malice dripping from his lips as he turned toward the flames that seemed to swallow him whole without injury.

The survivors became known as the immortal 13. Phineas, being the only uninjured one and vanishing right after, became known as the Phantom of the Immortals. It would be 2 years before any other players saw Phineas; in fact, after that event, the cameras never gave Phineas any angles that would give his position away, no matter where he looked, it was always at a camera. The viewers LOVED him. The dangerous powerful and unhinged character, the Phantom, was heavily marketed to overlook how he single handedly killed over 60 players in less than 15 minutes. Only 6 other “immortals” remain aside from himself. At least that’s the number he wrote on the side of the building he left the bodies strung up in. Hunting Time.