Chapter 1: White Mask

It's been a terribly hectic last few days, none of us are even sure how this happened in the first place but it's all or nothing now, there's no escape. Whoever is behind the scenes pulling the strings is untouchable and is orchestrating one of the biggest operations in human history, it's more likely a mega corporation of some kind, the kind of man power required to pull this off is incomprehensible. All I want to know, is why? 

"Joel, I've been waiting two days now for those budget sheets on our deal with FunTime. Where are they?"

"Sorry, Sir. But they didn't exist when you asked me."

"Do I look like I care? it still shouldn't take two days if you started them immediately. I won't refer you again Joel, because I'm a real nice guy. However I will ask you one last time to get them done and hand them over. You have till the end of the day."

"But sir that's in two hours?"

"Better get to it then, eh?"

Joel turned back to his PC. He didn't hate his boss, he just assumed that's the sort of attitude a boss needed because there was someone breathing down their neck as well, same as him. No doubt John would get fired as well if he didn't scream at him for the sheets that someone else probably asked him for. Joel wanted to stay out of trouble, his coworkers made that difficult to put it lightly. But Joel was forgiving, everyone was the way they were for a reason, including him and our response to these actions is truly what matters.

Some time later

"Hey!" someone shouted in the right of Joel's ear, his earphones managing to block 10% of the volume causing him to jump out of his skin.

"God, did I scare you that much? let's get out of here, I'll give you a lift home." 

"Lisa, Jesus Christ. If I ever have a heart attack in my 30s it's going to be because you keep appearing out of nowhere." Joel responded clutching his chest in the area where his heart was, his breathing becoming elevated from the jump scare.

"Why are you so jittery?" she asked confused

"I'm not jittery, you just thought it was a good idea to shout straight into my ear hole!"

"You were wearing earphones! I was playing the hand I was dealt." a smirk formed on her face.

"They were on low volume... but yeah I can't come with, I've got to get this sent away, John's gonna show up at any second." Joel raised himself in his chair slightly doing a scan over the computer monitors around the room seeing if anyone was heading his way.

"How long have you spent on that?" Lisa leaned forward scanning the document, her mouth agape with curiosity.

"Two days."

"Two days!!? you are definitely not trained in this field. You really gotta learn some excel tricks, I could do that in 5 hours."

"Five hours? what the hell?" his head hit the desk as he gave up trying knowing fine well that everyone else was out of his league in this department.

"Tell you what, we'll leave before he shows up then we'll present it to him finished tomorrow, he can't be mad because he wasn't here when you finished your day." Lisa grabbed his hand pulling him out of his chair, doing double takes around her to see if John was around so they could make a quick escape out the building. Both of them managed to break free from their 9 to 5 for the day, eventually slowing down and walking up the street towards Lisa's car. The street outside was nearly pitch black, lit by lamp posts with bulbs that were on their last legs barely managing to light up anything at all. Their warm breath visibly blasting through the winter air.

"So besides ball buster busting your balls, how was your day?" Lisa asked whilst crossing her arms and tightening her neck looking visibly cold in her grey blazer jacket.

"Is that even a question? do we ever have anything interesting to talk about in our field? it's honestly ridiculous how many people in the world do boring ass Admin & IT. I'm probably the only person in our office who gets grilled and pushed with deadlines." Joel stressed towards Lisa who looked at him with interest, visibly responding to his words.

"You sir, get bombarded with deadlines because you are incredibly slow as I've just proven back there."

"Like you proved anything, you're all talk for now. For all I know you made it up."

"Alright then, when you get home send it over to me and I'll have it done before tomorrow. You'll see how good I am at this stuff."

"Oh no honestly it's fine, don't bother yourself with it."

"Shut up and send me the file, I don't find any of this stressful because it's easy. So let me take care of it."

"You're too kind."

"I know, right? Us oldies need to stick together. All the kids in our office are weird."

"We're only in our thirties. We're hardly elders." Joel replied confusedly looking her in the face, jokingly shocked by her comment about their age.

"Correction, half way to forties for me. I'm old enough to be your mother."

"Not even close." Joel laughed and Lisa joined him. She pulled out her keys giving them a little jingle in the air, requesting for him to jump in. Her car turned out of the car park heading into the winter darkness in the distance.

Joel headed into his apartment, placing his jacket on the hanger behind the door. Making his way into the front room onto the sofa. Sitting back he thought deeply giving that he now had an opportunity to not think about work since Lisa offered to take over his supposedly easy administration work. He exhaled heavily, taking in the silence. Which was quickly disrupted by a small impact ahead of him in his dark dining room ahead. He quickly lunged forward lowering himself down towards the small table in front of his sofa as if taking a defensive position, he quickly scanned his left and right looking for a weapon resorting to a white coffee mug on his table that he'd used this morning. Lifting his arm behind him and placing his left arm forward ready to strike whatever approached him in the dark room.

"If somehow you've accidentally stumbled into my apartment just let me know and I'll move out your way." he spoke with a shake in his voice. Suddenly a masked black figure appeared out of the darkness, not charging him but just standing there. Joel stopped in his track pulling his head back in shock. Both of them standing looking at each other, taking a strong mental note of the mans eerie white mask which was in the shape of a baby's face with very little detail, just pure white.

"Hello? are you stealing from me?" Joel asked due to his observation in the mans getup which was all black with a mask for cover, likely to conceal his identity for some form of crime.

"This isn't personal." he uttered just as another black figure appeared behind Joel striking him in the back of his head sending him to the ground instantly.

Awaking suddenly with a killer headache he looked around frantically, dazed and confused. He was in a white sterile room. Looking down at his attire he noticed he was in a white tank top and white jogging pants, strangely no shoes or socks. Padding his pockets and chest for any objects he may have on him, maybe by some miracle a phone. To no avail, taking a walk around the room looking around, everything was drenched in white, the bedding was white, the bed frame was white, the walls were white, the floor was shiny and white, his clothes were all white. That man he saw at his apartment, he must have struck him, Joel struggled to remember fighting the man but it was the most likely outcome. The door had a strange design, it was also shiny and white but fit so perfectly into the frame of the wall that it was barely visible in the wall from a distance, it had no door handle either. Joel could do little else but wait in his bed to find out why these people required him and what his fate was to be.

What felt like an eternity had passed, Joel had been walking around and sleeping for an incomprehensible amount of time. He was passing the time by stretching on the floor, trying different body positions when a loud gush of air could be heard looking forward to see the camouflaged white door parting into the wall revealing a white hallway.

"EXIT" a robotic voice could be heard bellowing from the hallways.

Joel stood up slowly, inspecting the doorway as he approached slowly, his mind was shocked that the door was open, this timeless vault had actually changed, he thought it would never happen. Peeping into the hallway he saw others on his right at the end of the corridor, they looked less confused and more scared. On his far left he noted what looked like hundreds of people, the corridor was so immeasureably long he couldn't even ballpark how many people were here as the end of the corridor was too far away to see, white clothed people becoming dots in the distance. After standing in the corridor for ten seconds the person on his right emerged from their room, stood before him was Lisa, his coworker.

"Lisa??? you are here too?"

"Oh my god, Joel. I was sitting at my computer doing something- oh yeah, your- your- your sheets and then I don't remember what happened. I assumed I was drugged or something."

"They got me at the same time, they were already in my apartment when I got there. That explains why we are next to each other because they kidnapped us at the same time, we must've been targeted since you give me rides home all the time." Joel explained whilst looking at Lisa, his eyes rapidly darting from hers to everyone elses, his mind constantly surveying for danger in this confusing circumstance.

At the end of the corridor another camouflaged automatic door sat, before emitting the same air release noise, emerging from the door was a figure dressed in all black wearing the same strange white baby mask that Joel recognized from his apartment.

"That's the face I saw in my apartment!" Joel shouted at Lisa.

"It's probably not the same person... they are covering their face."

"ATTENTION" the robotic voice bellowed over the comms, echoing all the way down the expansive corridor, taking a full ten seconds to close out it's echo.

The guard lifted their arm, pointing down the corridor.

"TRAVEL IN THIS DIRECTION."

Everyone looked around at each other confused, unsure as to whether they should listen to this singular person. Behind him multiple black guards appeared all of them carrying what appeared to be a white firearm. Some of the guards were wearing black heeled boots as opposed to others who had flat black boots.

"DO AS ORDERED OR YOU WILL BE ELIMINATED."

People quickly started walking backwards whilst looking at the guards, as the corridor of people moved forward the guards followed closely behind pushing the crowd down the corridor with their menacing prescence. A man stood in the same spot becoming disjointed from the crowd, he held his head high as the guards approached him, the lead guard providing directions looked straight into his face with his baby mask.

"FOLLOW ORDERS."

The man who was acting bold as brass, stood his ground whilst profusely sweating. Looking down at the guard, able to look way over their head due to his height. Joel looked behind him watching these two people have a stare down, inspecting the altercation.

"DENYING ORDERS ALLOWS US TO ELIMINATE YOU"

The guard hovered their left hand outwards in the direction of another guard, palm up as if waiting for something to be placed inside their hand, which occured as another guard promptly handed their white firearm to the guard. They wasted no time pressing it into the tall mans chest and blasting him just as he began to speak, he instantly evaporated into this air. Joels body jumped in fear, his eyes wide as he watched a man being completely disintegrated, removed from existence by a small handheld firearm, clearly more powerful than the average guns on the street. What kind of sick place were they in. The guard who fired the shot passed the firearm back to the other guard, he began pressing forward again towards the back of the crowd. The other guards looking at where the tall man just stood before he was erased.

"Joel stop looking, you never know what they will do."

"They just did something to that man." Joel frantically stuttered whilst wiping the quickly forming sweat off of his head. 

"What? where is he?" Lisa asked after looking back, confused as she didn't see him.

"They- they- they hit him with something and he disappeared like- instantly. Like- like-. I was looking and he was there, then he wasn't!" he stumbled becoming shocked and scared as he kept repeating the scene in his head. Causing a bewildered look in Lisa's face.

The corridor crowd were now entering a large room, also shiny, sterile and white. Up ahead was a large white screen. Joel kept tugging at the collar of his tank top, frantically trying to get air into the space between his shirt and his body. Still shaken from the danger he knew everyone was very much in.

"WELCOME ALL." the robotic voice continued, the heads of the crowd looked upwards at the screen as it blinked on, simply displaying black text over a white background as opposed to any form of video call, the text reading what was being said.

"YOU HAVE ALL BEEN GRANTED AN OPPORTUNITY TO BE ON OUR GAMESHOW." everyone looked around confused, murmuring being heard in the crowd making passive comments about the words being read.

"YOU HAVE BEEN TAKEN AGAINST YOUR WILL AND THIS WILL NOT CHANGE. OUR PREMISE IS SIMPLE, THERE ARE 249 OF YOU IN THIS ROOM." The TV screen read 250 instead of 249, causing Joel to lick his incredibly dry lips whilst still panic breathing.

"ALL 249 PEOPLE WILL COMPETE AGAINST EACH OTHER FOR A LARGE CASH PRIZE OF 100 MILLION DOLLARS, GENEROUSLY AND COLLECTIVELY DONATED BY THE VIEWERS AND COMMUNITY SUPPORTING OUR SHOW." People began to warm up to the guards and robot voice, such an amount of money would make anyone excited.

"UNFORTUNATELY, SUCH A SUM DOES NOT COME EASY. ON OUR GAME SHOW WE CHALLENGE COMPETITORS TO BATTLE EACH OTHER IN SIZE BASED GAMES. GENEROUSLY PROVIDED BY AN EXTERNAL OPERATION, WE USE SHRINKING TECHNOLOGY TO SPICE UP OUR GAMESHOW. A GROUP OF YOU WILL BE CHOSEN, OTHERS WILL NOT."

Most people had heard about this tech, it had been talked about for a while and the company involved had explained that it was being outsourced to other parties for commercial use. Was this their intent? to use it for entertainment?

"WE WILL NOW SPIN A WHEEL TO DECIDE WHAT GROUP WILL BE PRESERVED. THE REST WILL HAVE THEIR SIZE DEPLETED."

A wheel appeared on the monitor, it appeared to have various groups labelled on it. Some races, specific age groups, gender & class. They were going to shrink everyone except the group that won? The murmuring amongst the crowd was rising in volume by the second.

"WE WILL PREFACE THAT THIS DECISION WAS ALREADY RANDOMIZED IN ORDER TO CHOOSE OUR COMPETITORS HERE TODAY, WE ARE SIMPLY REVEALING THE RESULT TO YOU NOW." the wheel began to spin, everyone's eyes were hooked on the big wheel as it turned, creating clicking noises every time it passed an option. Coming to a slow halt on a final option.

"Females." Joel uttered as he turned to his friend, both already looking straight at each other. "Lisa."

"IF YOU BELONG TO THE GROUP THEN STAND IN THE DESIGNATED AREA.

"Sorry Joel, I'm in the other group. But don't worry, we'll see each other afterwards, let's both try to win, yeah?" she said positively with a shy smile on her face as she walked away.

"Lisa, I'm- I'm getting bad vibes from this place. It feels dangerous."

"It's 100 million dollars, Joel!" she shouted as she distanced herself from him, unable to hear his voice over the chatter of the large crowd."

"Lisa!" Joel shouted at her back turned.

"This isn't fair, why did you pick those groups? Male wasn't even on there! How is that fair?" a man shouted from the crowd, he was large and strong. His body was granting him enough confidence to call out the game-show runners. He began storming towards the front where the guards stood, a guard held his hand out in a gesture that implied "stop". He turned and did another gesture with his hand to a guard in the back.

"PROCESSING..."

"Hey, I'm talking to" before the man could even finish his sentence, in the blink of an eye all the men felt their line of sight drop immediately, feeling closer to the floor. There was no charge, no process and no effects. Almost instantly they were reduced and tiny.

"200 MINIMIZED INDIVIDUALS, 50 REGULAR INDIVIDUALS. MINIMIZED ARE SET AT 1 INCH IN HEIGHT."

"EXCELLENT, LET THE GAMES BEGIN."