The Pit

 

I open my eyes. Then I close them again. This time I open on eye carefully, then touch it to make sure it's open. I poke my eyeball and spend about three minutes tearing up and holding my face in my hands. Then I open my eyes again. I do this about 6 more times. I'm definitely not blindfolded, I just nearly poked my eye out. Yeah, I'm seeing the same thing with my eyes open as I am with my eyes closed  pitch black nothingness.

Okay, I think. What a nice start.

I decide that sitting around doing nothing wasn't going to do jack, so I feel about on the floor – it seems like it's a cold, hard, natural stone ground, like I'm in a cave. I explore further, feeling about in front of me, and then my hand touches something warm and fleshy.

 

My skin almost jumps off me, and I fully expected to start vomiting my heart and sh*tting my stomach. My whole body was trembling. I knew in an instant what I had just touched was. To be honest, I really did not consider the fact that there might be more than one human being here. The other guy doesn’t seem like he's awake, at least not yet, because he definitely wasn't dead.

 

While I waited for my... roommate to wake up, I decided to do some more exploring. By measuring using pace and feeling around, I've surmised that I am stuck in a hole in a cave that's of unknown depth, almost perfectly circular, with absolutely nothing in it except one other person and a bunch of creatures skittering around. It's of about twenty feet in diameter, and the walls are rather smooth for a natural cave, with only a few small handholds and footholds the size of ping pong balls. I realize that there is a faint trace of chrona (short for Chronoplasma) in the air, from the occasional small blue spark that flickered out of nowhere and then disappeared. That was when the voice sounded in my head. I was sitting down to take a rest, when suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my head, like someone was poking my brain with a hot metal stick, and then a voice crackled on like there was a mini microphone embedded in my skull somewhere.

"Loading... registering user. Starting Project Pharo."

 

The pang of sharp pain from the voice yapping inside my head had obviously happened in the head of the guy in the hole with me as well, because he gave a short shout and then sat up, breathing hard.

"W-where am I?" He demands, obviously looking around in fear and bewilderment, although he probably couldn't see a thing.

"Are you awake?" I ask.

There's quiet whooshing noise as he flings his head around, looking for the source of the voice.

"Listen to me," I tell him. "We are trapped in a hole in a cave, without any source of light or food, and we don’t know how deep this place either. Please don’t do something stupid."

The ragged and convulsive breathing of my roommate calmed down, and he took a few deep breaths. A good start. He knows how to listen.

"Are you hear because of those clowns and that circus too?" He asks.

The f*cking what?

"The... clowns?"

"I was returning home," he explains to the darkness. "And then there was a guy wearing a clown costume and mask in front of my house. He offered me to take part in a show they were hosting called 'Project Pharo'."

A sinking feeling starts in my stomach, as a thought dawns on me.

"...something different happened to me," I say. "There was inhumanly tall man with every part of his body covered in black clothing waiting outside my house, and he offered me a contract for a science research project, also called Project Pharo."

"...what?"

"And the thing is, I'm a science graduate from Illya Academy."

"...ah," he says. "I'm a comedian from the Eastern Continent. Do you..."

The sinking feeling full sets in.

"Yeah," I agreed. "I'm positive whoever it is behind Project Pharo researched our backgrounds."

 

We converse a bit more, in the dark. I've figured out that he's about as old as me, and, probably best of all, he's actually a combat graduate, even though he wanted to be a comedian. And his name is Aaron Brown.

"Oh yeah," I say. "I should probably do this."

I ask him to help me look for two smallish stones on the ground, and then I rub the two stones together as fast as I can. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the desired result.

"Here," Aaron says, from right next to me. "Let me try."

I hand him the stones. Our eyes have already grown accustomed enough to the dark to be able to see each other's silhouettes by now, so we can at least interact with one another. Aaron rubs the stones together as hard as he can, and after about twenty seconds the sides being rubbed together begin to glow faintly blue.

"Wow," I say, as he hands them to me. "As expected of a combat graduate."

"It's nothing," he replied. "What's it for?"
"You'll see," I say.

I set up the rocks next to each other, with the sides glowing blue face up, then, I wait a bit of time, and the glowing increases ever so slightly. I count the seconds for five minutes, then I ask Aaron if he's ready to see again.

"What?"

Then, I clap my hands as hard as I can and every spark of chrona in the hole instantly illuminated, bathing me, Aaron, all the critters on the ground, and the walls of our prison in a ghastly blue light. It was a simple reaction I had been taught in the outdoor survival class. Me and Aaron stare at each other, seeing each other for the first time. I take in his features. If he wasn't a comedian he could probably have become a model. The light from the ignited chrona was reflecting off his eyes, making them glow a brilliant electric blue, and his blonde hair was a scruffy mess. He was wearing an old brown aviator's jacket (no fur) over a light grey t-shirt, with black pants and a pair of navy hiking boots. Then, our staring contest was cut short by a second pang of pain shooting through our skulls, making as both collapse to the ground as the same monotonous voice warbled into our heads.

"Welcome to Project Pharo," it said. "You have no identity, no free will, and no way out. Your mission is to escape this pit. From now on, you will never mention your identity, name, or family to any living person. You will only refer to yourself and others with the identification we have bestowed upon you. Failure to do so will result in instantaneous death."

Aaron glanced at me. I motioned for him to stay still and keep listening to his... broadcast,

"Your remaining time to escape this pit is 27 days and 13 hours," the voice continued. "There are 1,000 remaining contestants in total. Failure to complete the mission will result in instantaneous death."

Okay. No pressure.

"We will now give you your identification word.. Refer to yourself as only this word from now on."

I only hoped that they weren't using something like "random word generator" for this, since I had terrible luck with those things and would probably end with something like 'mould'. Or 'vegetable'.

"You, number 224, will be known as 'Sword'."

 

Reid, or Sword, sits with his new partner within their stone prison, listening to Project Pharo's broadcast. But little do they know, only a few tens of feet away from the gaping maw of their hole, there is yet another duo trapped within another stone place of confinement, awaiting their fate whilst receiving their new names. And then, past that one, there is another, and another... and so on.

"You, number 115, will be known as 'Airo'."

"You, number 034, will be known as 'Elemental'."

"You, number 276, will be known as 'Artee'."

"You, number 129, will be known as 'Luc'."

"You, number 014, will be known as 'Chris'."

"You, number 091, will be known as 'Ronin'."

And then,

"You, number 225, will be known as 'Neo'."