Watchers

Chapter 16: The Descent

There are a dozen people downstairs, and they've all paused what they're doing to look at Daniel and Sasha.

The space looks like a normal house, a large living room with a huge, U-shaped sofa that looks capable of seating all twelve of them, and a kitchen in the space behind it. Daniel sees what looks like the front door to the right of the kitchen.

Some people are sitting on the couch, just waiting for Daniel and Sasha to make their next move, and others are in the kitchen, in the middle of preparing a meal. It looks like lunch - there are sandwiches on plates on the kitchen island - and that means Daniel and Sasha must have been unconscious for quite a while.

None of these people looks particularly menacing - at least not by Father Gary standards, or Watcher standards - so that's probably a good sign, but Daniel still feels very uneasy. He keeps holding Sasha's hand tightly in his as they reach the bottom of the stairs and stop there.

"Crap - there's two of them," someone says from the couch, and a large, muscle-bound guy in the kitchen sets his plate down forcefully.

Daniel flinches and instinctively steps in front of Sasha, ready for a fight. No one moves, though - they're all just staring at them - and after a minute he gets brave. He puts his hands up to show he's not a threat, then says, "Hey guys. Don't mind us, we were just leaving."

The guy who spoke from the couch snorts and says, "No you're not."

It doesn't sound threatening - just like a statement of fact - but Daniel would like to get out of here sooner than later regardless. He nods Sasha toward the door and she sticks close behind him as they go cautiously into the living room.

"What he means by that," the muscular guy in the kitchen adds, "is that there's only one way out of here, and that door ain't it."

Well that's comforting, Daniel thinks, but there don't appear to be any more options so he keeps walking slowly toward the door.

Sasha, on the other hand, asks the guy, "What's the right way?"

The guy laughs and says, "Ain't nothing right about it."

A young girl stands up from the couch. Daniel is alarmed to see that she's a child - couldn't be more than fourteen or fifteen. What's she doing in a place like this? Daniel doesn't know where or exactly what kind of place he's in, but he knows it's not a place for children.

She says, "You're in the Elimination Game house."

"The reality show?" Sasha asks.

"Yeah," the girl says. Everyone is watching them, studying them as they receive this news, and Daniel just wants to keep heading for the door because it's the only thing that makes sense, but Sasha has stopped in her tracks talking to this little girl.

"Come on," he mumbles under his breath at her, but she's preoccupied.

"Do you know how we got here?" she asks the girl, but this question is met with a shrug.

"We all get here different ways," she says. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Sasha shoots Daniel a glance, and he wonders if she's having a moral qualm about telling this child about the horrific things that Father Gary does in his shelter basement.

"I got knocked out," Sasha says after a moment of consideration.

"Whoever did the knockin', they're the reason you're here," the guy from the kitchen says. "Bounty hunters - make a good living finding contestants for the show."

"That's just rumor, Taylor," says a girl on the couch. She looks positively terrified by the sight of Daniel and Sasha, her knees pulled up around her chest. She won't look directly at them.

"Yeah, this show is built on rumors, ain't it?" Taylor shoots back. "We all know the truth, don't we?"

He opens his mouth to continue, but the young girl cuts him off.

"Quit it, Tay," she says. "You'll scare them."

"They should be scared," he answers, but he turns his attention back to his sandwich, layering too many slices of cheese onto it. "There's two of them - you know what that means."

Everyone looks uncomfortable now, and Sasha asks meekly, "What?"

"Back-to-back elimination," Taylor says, slapping the bread on top of his sandwich and taking a hearty bite. Everyone else looks like they might vomit or pass out, and he downs a quarter of his sandwich in a single chomp.

"I'm not getting eliminated," Daniel says, taking Sasha's hand. "And neither are you. We're finding a way out of this place, one way or another."

He practically drags her toward the door, the young girl following after them, and just before they go outside, Taylor says around a mouthful of meat and cheese, "Have fun with that, dude."