“I wonder how much longer we’re going to be here for?” Alice asked, staring listlessly at the ceiling.
Without windows or a clock, tracking time in this place was impossible, but if Sam had to guess, at least a few days had drifted by since their meeting at the leaderboard.
“Maybe I’ll grab another plate,” she said, pushing yet another empty dish aside.
“Hey, Alice,” Sam said as she slid out from the cafeteria table.
“Could you do me a favour?”
“Depends,” Alice said, raising a sceptical eyebrow.
“What kind of favour?”
“I’d like you to train me,” Sam said, meeting her gaze dead-on.
“Teach me how to fight.”
Alice blinked, a slow, amused grin tugging at the corner of her mouth.
“Training, huh? Well, I guess I could. But I have to warn you, Sammy—I don’t have much experience with teaching others.”
“That’s fine,” Sam replied, not breaking eye contact.
“I just want to be as prepared as I can be.”
Looking at his determined expression, Alice couldn’t help but smile.
“Okay! Let’s do it! I know the perfect spot, too.”
Before he could even respond, she grabbed his arm and began dragging him down the corridor.
As they walked, the sterile, familiar hallways began to blur together, giving way to a network of heavy doors that Sam had never noticed before.
She was taking him deep into the underbelly of the facility, past stretches of hallway that looked as though no one had walked through them in years.
“Alright, here we are!” Alice chirped, finally letting go of his sleeve.
They stood before a massive, industrial metal door.
Wherever it led, it definitely wasn’t another contestant’s room.
She pushed the door open, revealing a completely barren, contained room.
Despite the gritty, industrial look of the corridor outside, the interior was pristine, lined with seamless white walls and a polished floor.
Alice strode confidently toward a sleek wall panel that housed a single, glowing button.
“One training dummy, please,” she said casually, pressing her thumb against the button.
A low hum vibrated through the floorboards.
In the exact centre of the room, a grid of blue light flickered into existence, weaving together until a solid, silicone sparring dummy materialised out of thin air.
Sam walked up to the dummy and poked it with a finger.
It was solid, heavy, and undeniably real.
“Stumbled across it yesterday when I went for a walk alone,” Alice said, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed.
“And you didn’t think to tell me about it sooner?”
“Well,” she grinned, “you don’t exactly strike me as the gym-rat type.”
“Hey, you don’t know that!” Sam protested, squaring his shoulders.
“For all you know, back home I could’ve been the type of guy who lived at the gym every single day.”
Alice slowly looked him up and down, her gaze lingering on his narrow shoulders and average build before she let out a soft chuckle.
“Sure. If you say so!”
Sam opened his mouth to protest further, but the words died in his throat.
He couldn’t exactly lie his way out of this one.
The truth was, his pre-apocalypse routine had involved way more sitting at a desk than lifting weights.
“So, what do we do with this?” he asked, clearing his throat and pointing at the dummy to change the subject.
“I want you to hit it. As hard as you can.”
“That’s it?”
“I need to see your baseline strength, so I know what we’re working with,” Alice explained, stepping back to give him room.
“Well, okay then…”
Sam took a breath, wound back, and drove his fist straight into the dummy’s chest with everything he had.
Thud.
The dense silicone barely even quivered.
Sam instantly winced, clutching his hand as a dull ache spread through his knuckles.
Alice stared at the completely unmoved dummy, then slowly looked back at Sam.
“Oh boy. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us…”
“Oh, come on!” Sam complained, rubbing his throbbing knuckles.
“It wasn’t that bad!”
“No, it really was,” Alice said, shaking her head.
“Step back. Let me show you how it’s done.”
She shrugged off her signature red suit jacket, tossing it onto the pristine white floor, and rolled up her sleeves, revealing lean, whip-cord muscles that Sam had never really noticed before.
A deafening CRACK exploded through the room.
The dummy didn’t just move.
It was launched.
It shot across the room like a silicone missile, slamming into the far wall with a violent thud.
It left a jagged crater in the plaster before sliding to the ground.
Within seconds, a faint blue light hummed over the destruction, and the wall began to knit itself back together seamlessly.
Sam’s jaw hit the floor.
He swallowed hard.
“Okay, but that’s not a fair comparison!” he protested, pointing a trembling finger at the self-repairing wall.
“You have literal superpowers and actual combat experience!”
“Exactly,” Alice said, turning back to him without even a hint of windedness.
“I’m stronger, faster, and way more experienced than you. And guess what? So are the other contestants left in this game.”
Her words hit him like a cold splash of water.
She wasn’t bragging.
She was stating a lethal fact.
Sam took a deep breath, setting his jaw.
“Okay. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
Alice clapped her hands together.
“Excellent!” Alice cheered, her eyes lighting up with a dangerously enthusiastic glint.
She immediately marched back over to the wall panel with the button.
And just like that, Sam’s personal hell began.
Alice was a merciless coach.
She started him on basic strength training, utilising a set of heavy iron weights that she materialised from the wall panel.
Unfortunately, Sam’s baseline was pitiful.
He struggled immensely even with the lightest plates, his arms shaking violently under the modest weight.
By the time two gruelling hours had passed, Sam felt utterly dismantled.
His muscles burned like fire, and his lungs screamed for oxygen as he collapsed flat on his back, staring up at the sterile ceiling, too exhausted to move a single finger.
“Alright, take ten minutes to rest, and then we’ll get right back to it!” Alice chirped, popping into his field of vision to give him a cheerful thumbs-up.
“I already regret everything…” Sam wheezed into the empty air, wondering if the next game would actually be kinder than his friend’s training regimen.