Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Bamboo Amusement Mountain Park. Or BAM Park, for short. The happiest place in Wild City.

Every child who grew up in Wild City had one simple wish – go to BAM Park. In the park, there were wonderful attractions that changed every couple of months, from the most thrilling, nausea-inducing suspended coasters, to calming boat rides that show visitors through the best views of the park. There was a ride for everyone, and even more in store whenever the park opened up a new area. Not to mention amazing food that consistently topped the Theme Park Food Rankings.

It was Little Lizzie's favorite place in the whole entire world. She was enthusiastic about all the rides she went on, throwing tantrums when she was too short for the scarier attractions, and always salivating at the sight of the juicy fried parrot drumsticks. She'd realize as an adult they were actually chicken, but there's no fun in marketing it as that. It wouldn't be false marketing if she read the description on the menu.

As for Grown-Up Lizzie, it's become her workplace.

A multi-colored ball was tossed into the sky. Then another, then another – making six of them – before the same first ball went up once again. The balls moved in a cycle, impressing everyone with eyes to see.

“Wow!” “That's so cool!” “How is she doing that?” The words of praise rang out like the loveliest sound.

Eventually, the balls would be collected in a bowl, one by one, by a pink-haired woman in twin braids and two tiny hats over her space buns, dressed in a bamboo-patterned vest and an adorable pink bow. She bowed to signal the end of that performance, receiving tons of applause from the children and adults who were watching.

“Thank you, thank you all!” As she got back up, her namecard shone under the light of the harsh sun. ‘Lizzie’ was written in marker, right under what looked like fonted text that had been scribbled out. 

She waved goodbye to the crowd and headed off to her next destination: the BAM! Crispy Hot Parrot. Lunch break, at last! There was a sufficiently large variety of restaurants and food stalls in the park already, but she couldn't help coming back to her junk food every week.

Due to how popular the restaurant was, it had a decently sized cafeteria that could seat around 120 customers. That meant the queue was going to be long and take up her precious free time when she could be anywhere else less crowded, but anything for her cravings. 

After making her order and grabbing her tray, she'd look around for any recognizable heads of hair. It was a little harder to spot this time, but she managed to find a particular blond leaning unenergetically on a mostly empty table while fanning himself with a map of the park. 

She got closer to him, raising her voice due to how loud their surroundings were. “Jimmy! Hi!”

“Hm?” The man, dressed in similar attire as the performer but concerningly red in his skin color, quit fanning for a second to see who was calling his name. He corrected his posture. “Oh, Lizzie! Hey! How are you?”

“Doing good.” She placed her tray down on the table, sitting next to Jimmy. “You, though…”

“Gosh, Jimmy. You're sweating buckets!” an approaching man with a wider build remarked. He sat down on the other open space next to the blond, adjusting the boater hat on his head when he noticed it was tipping, and let his cane lean against the edge of the table. “Must've been really warm in that suit.”

“The temperature today is nuts,” Jimmy complained. “Must be nice to be sitting behind a ticket booth all day, huh, Mr. Arthur Detour?” He pointed at the other man's namecard.

“Not for long,” he took off his gloves, revealing some healed scars beneath them, which were similar to the ones on his face and the rest of his body. Despite looking like he'd been through a lot, he had this charismatic aura around him that made him eligible to sell tickets out in the open. And convince them to purchase the more expensive deals they don't need, as well. “When the higher-ups finally realize that what I've been telling them will fix the park, I'll get my promotion in no time. And your superior, technically. You've got to respect what I've been doing to climb the ranks.”

Lizzie dipped her chicken in gravy. “I believe you said you were aiming for creative director. Wouldn't you still be working indoors, Scar?” There was an audible crunching noise as she bit through the chicken. “Give Jimmy a bit of sympathy. I imagine being stuck in that mascot suit in the summer is like being cooked alive in a brazen bull. But it is kind of funny seeing Jimmy this red.”

“I thought so too,” Scar cheekily grinned.

“You guys…”

Every lunch break, Lizzie would typically meet up with her friends, Jimmy and Scar. 

Jimmy was her friend even before she got into BAM Park. She went to high school with him. They went through… interesting phases in their youth, to say the least. Alt fashion, rebellious behavior, being so-called outcasts from society – that was how it was in that time. Between the two of them, Lizzie took school more seriously, and Jimmy was getting into all sorts of trouble, so she'd often try to steer him out of it. If not for Lizzie's strict tutoring sessions, Jimmy might never have made it out of high school. As a result, Lizzie tended to be bossy with him, and that kind of dynamic bled into their present day friendship.

And Lizzie got to know Scar through Jimmy. Most coworkers knew the guy as Arthur Detour of the ticket booths, but that was simply a ridiculous name from a fake ID. It surprised Lizzie when she first heard about it, but as it turns out, he had a criminal record, which made it difficult to land a job. There were several things, like pickpocketing, trespassing, and running various scams; sketchy, yet nothing she'd find outright unforgivable. It took a while to fully adjust to what kind of person Scar was, but she'd become certain that he didn't have any bad intentions towards her or Jimmy. He was just a guy with a pretty rough life to get through, and friends he absolutely wanted to keep.

Thanks to their proximity as coworkers, they were a pretty tight trio. They could even give themselves a group name, if they wanted. Except they weren't fictional characters from some whimsical show. Only average theme park employees who were getting by. Maybe this total mundanity was a refreshing aspect in each of their vibrant and noisy work lives. Ignoring the fact that one of those friends was a criminal. Surely unimportant.

“Hey Lizzie,” Scar attempted to get her attention.

“Yeah?” She responded, after chewing another chunk of chicken.

“You're still doing those comedy routines, aren't you?”

“Yeah. I've got a lot of good jokes written up.”

“I've got one for you, so write this one down too.” Scar snickered before he even told the joke. “So- What kind of fish can transform a pumpkin into a fancy carriage?”

Lizzie, with all her comedic genius, tried to think of the answer. She'd then realize thinking too hard left her mouth empty of food for longer than necessary, so she took the easy way out. “Ooh, who?”

“The fairy cod mother,” he released a laugh after revealing the punchline.

“Pfft-”

“Bahahaha!!!” Jimmy, who overheard their exchange, ended up being the loudest laugher. He bent down, slapping his knee. “That's a good one!”

In the midst of the laughter, Lizzie noticed a sauce packet fall off the table. “Jimmy, your-”

“Miss Shadowlady.”

Now that was a voice that didn't come from any of the three of them. Though, telling from the way they all shut themselves up when its source headed closer to the table, they all knew this person, and knew to be polite in front of them.

“Yes, manager? Were you looking for me?” She answered with neutrality, trying to appear professional.

“I'd like to meet with you after work. 6:10PM, in my office. Will you be able to come?”

“Yes, absolutely. I will be there, ma'am.’

“Great. Then I'll see you there.”

Moments after her manager left their table, it was back to panic and chaos.

“Oh my gosh.” Lizzie stared blankly at her food, and then at the other two. “What could she possibly want me to meet her for???”

“Lizzie, Lizzie, listen, what if…” Jimmy dropped his utensils on the plate before bringing both hands to his cheeks. “What if you're getting promoted?”

“Before me?!” Scar exclaimed in disbelief.

“Promoted? No…” The pink-haired girl denied, flicking her wrist. “That can't poossiiblllyy be the case… I haven't really done anything.” She said, yet, she could barely hide the smile on her face when she thought of it. She'd absolutely done things that'd earn her a raise, or bonus, or more.

She'd done extensive research on the corniest puns, even coming up with her own from time to time. She'd practiced juggling at home, adding one extra object to her hand every time she could. She even knew how to juggle with knives painlessly! Not to mention the magic tricks, and the gymnastics – whatever she could do to keep an audience entertained. And she enjoyed doing all this studying for her job, too. It was like she could pick up any skill as long as it's funny. She could've applied to be a clown in the nearby fast food restaurant or run off to the circus, but instead, BAM Park was the one place honored to have her as a cast member. If there was anyone in the world who deserved a promotion, it was Lizzie, and she knew it.

Jimmy and Scar silently agreed to pretend her humility was genuine.

“Whatever it is, I hope it's something good,” Jimmy encouraged. “You deserve it.”

“Can you put in a good word for me to the manager as well?” Scar requested, definitely not being sneaky.

“Sure, sure.” She wasn't paying that much attention to his request, though. Too busy daydreaming what more she could do if she had better pay.

Lunch break went by in a flash, and so did the rest of her day. She couldn't care about anything but the meeting in her current state. If this led to a more stable job, if this led to being able to settle her student debt… If this could open up a new world for her, she could overcome anything.

_

Below the splendid summer sunset sky was a shiny, black car headed to BAM Park, with windows brought down to invite cool wind. The road to the park was peaceful and picturesque, surrounded by nature and very few visual disturbances; only roads, lamps, and cars, and an isolated set of structures in the distance. No buildings would come into view until the car was close enough to its destination. There, visitors could finally make out the iconic castle that towered over everything else in the park, then greet the three massive parrot statues by the entrance, all while crowds of visitors were making their leave.

It was late – right around the park's closing hours – so the driver who had just arrived was never there to go on any rides in the first place. At least, none that were not in his car. He did hear a strange rumor that naughty visitors who go to the park after closing hours will get swallowed up by the park's animatronics when they magically come to life, though whether that was true or not, he absolutely wasn't going to test.

In fact, he was at the park because he needed to pick someone up. Particularly, the funniest, most amazing woman in his world. As his car drove into the pickup point, his eyes lit up when he saw that head of pink hair, freshly released from its braids, and that navy blue cardigan that he regularly saw.

The woman looked back, presumably searching for those hooded, brown eyes, and that brunette hair with its prominent green streak. Once she found someone matching those features, seated in a car she knew, she walked towards it. She noticed how he was wearing sunglasses that day, with a sleeveless shirt and vest to match the weather. Normally, she'd be swooning, but she had other thoughts in her mind.

“Good evening, my gorgeous wife.” He said so flatly that it could be taken as sarcasm, but he definitely meant it. It was just that a greeting of that kind came too naturally to him.

“Good evening, husband,” Lizzie replied, opening the car's door so she could sit on the passenger seat next to him. 

She shut the door. It didn't close right, so she shut it again before the car could be on its way. 

It didn't take a Lizzie expert for her husband to realize something was different with her that day. Other than the greeting, she didn't say much more, her eyes focused on her shoes like there was anything interesting about them. But no, they were the same Mary Janes with the left shoe's material peeling off slightly. 

“So… how was your day?” He wasn't able to pinpoint how Lizzie was feeling exactly, so he kept his expression neutral.

He shortly received an answer with the sound of a groan, and the burying of her head in her hands. “Terrible, Joel. I had a meeting with my manager today. I had my hopes up and- and everything, then she gave me a piece of paper,” she exhaled. “-about my pay cut.”

“What?” Joel had to internally compose himself or he'd be driving off the road after hearing that. “Isn't that the second time this year? Why? What's going on?”

“Well apparently, BAM Park's gonna have its very own luxury hotel, and that's taking up a lot of the budget. So now I've gone from 17 iron ingots an hour to 16.” 

Joel sounded disgusted. “That's barely minimum wage.”

“I know! Well, at least I didn't get laid off,” she shrugged. “It sucks, but I don't wanna start looking for better jobs so soon. I kind of like it here.”

“Maybe things will get better, or something,” he said, trying to be helpful. “Really though. I thought BAM was a multimillion dollar company. Surely it can afford to pay you well.”

“Guess not.”

Even though Lizzie said what she wanted to say, there was this unshakable feeling of unease that came afterwards. 

She spoke again when they stopped at a red light. “It's too quiet. I wanna play some music.”

“Sure, you can choose the song this time.”

The car ride continued with the evening breeze and small talk over Lizzie's usual music. Neither of them said a word about the pay cut after that. She wanted to focus on other less upsetting things. However, getting more sounds in her ear didn't mean that she could evict the worries inside her head.

_

Joel opened the door to his apartment, Lizzie following behind.

“Gem, we're back,” he notified the curly-haired ginger on his couch. 

“Hiii,” Lizzie greeted right after, waving at her.

Gem lowered her phone down, turning her attention to the two at the door. “Welcome home you guys,” she said pretty casually, not leaving her seat.

Something else in the room decided to leave where it was initially. The couple could already tell that the sound of scratching against the wooden floor came from the paws of their dog, Meri, who rushed over to meet them. Joel squatted down and lifted her up, turning to Lizzie so she could give her headpats.

“Hi Meri,” Lizzie smiled at the large dog. Though her expression would shift a few seconds later. “Ough, you stink.”

“Sounds like someone needs a shower,” Joel stated the obvious. “I'll take care of it for today, Lizzie. You can go ahead and relax.”

“Really?” She wasn't sure how to feel about her dog-bathing job being confiscated for once, but she quickly picked up that Joel was being considerate. “Okay. Thanks, babe.”

As Lizzie liked, she headed to the couch. It was what she needed after such a day of work. She sat one cushion away from Gem, sinking into the couch's softness. For this reason, she was glad to have married Joel and be living in his home.

Technically, the apartment was both Lizzie's and Joel's. It wasn't like there was anywhere else the two of them could call home. Regardless, Lizzie had always seen it as Joel's place. He was the one covering the rent, after all. Joel was a professional builder – someone who takes commissions for build projects, plans builds, orders the materials, and pieces everything together. A physically demanding, time-consuming job, but it came with great reward. Lizzie, on the other hand, was a job hopper who was mainly accepted into entry-level work, and in some periods of time, she wasn't employed at all. She helped around with cleaning, baking, taking Meri on walks and bathing her, and sometimes with the electricity and water bills when she could; other than that, she didn't feel like she did much to call the apartment her property. It was somewhere her beloved lived and she was there to make it better, probably.

And unlike Joel, she didn't have her relatives visiting the apartment often. They weren't the biggest fans of Joel due to some unreasonable grudge from years ago. Ironic since Lizzie was Joel's number one fan. On Joel's side, he had his adoptive sister Gem, and pretty much only Gem. They were a tight-knit pair, so it should be no surprise for her to turn up there every so often. She used to live there before she settled to a new place, after all. Thankfully, Lizzie and her got along nicely. 

Lizzie couldn't help but notice Gem's silent giggle. She tried to make out what was on her phone's screen, but she didn't recognize the app at all. “What game are you playing?”

“Oh, this?” Gem tilted her phone a little to give her sister-in-law a better view of it. “It's a new farming simulator game that came out recently. Sunflower Fields.” She rubbed her thumb against the screen. Now that Lizzie's gotten a better view, she could tell that there was an axolotl on the screen, looking happy and generating floating love hearts as Gem cheerfully continued the action. Once she was done, she looked back at Lizzie. “This is my yellow axolotl. I haven't given it a name, so it's just defaulted to Yellow Axolotl for now.”

Lizzie gasped, leaning a little closer. “They've got axolotls in this game??? Oh my gosh, it's perfect.”

“Yeah, you can have all kinds of pets in your farm,” she expanded. “Although you need bait to attract them to the farm in the first place. It's hard to find the right bait for rarer creatures, but if you have friends, you can be gifted the stuff you need to craft the bait.”

“Is the axolotl a rare one?”

“Sure is. And depending on the color you get, it can be even rarer.” Gem opened a menu, selecting an option that shows her what she can feed her virtual pet. “Ack, I'm all out of food. Well, I don't have much food in general… I'm gonna go foraging.”

It wasn't like Lizzie had anything else to do, so she sat by and watched Gem's gameplay of this app she'd never heard of before. There were cute, customizable avatars, it seemed, since Gem was playing as a 3D model that looked like herself. Lizzie watched her bring the character to the woods, collect adorable mushrooms, climb adorable trees, and shoot down adorable animals with a bow and arrow. 

“I need to have a word with whoever did these animations,” Gem said, a little bothered. “It's impractical to shoot with a horizontal bow. Why bother at all?”

“You'd sure know about something like that.”

Sometimes it was easy to forget that the short woman in overalls was an archery mentor. Lizzie remembered Gem being super into archery in high school, and she certainly made use of that skill however she could. For that, she admired her. She wished that she had more useful hobbies herself, in case she needed a new job after BAM Park for instance.

Lizzie hadn't been noticing, but in the kitchen, Joel was rummaging through the fridge and preparing something. She only picked that up when the blender made noise. Still, she was too occupied with her chat with Gem to really see what was going on.

She didn't expect to be approached with a cold glass touching her cheek.

“Joel!” She flinched back, playfully angered. Her attention went to the drink. It had this pinkish light brown color, foamy on top with a sweet smell. The glass was half-full, so even if she had reacted more aggressively, there was a chance it still would've kept the couch stainless.

“I made you a milkshake.” He offered the glass to her, lips slightly curved like he didn't want to be caught smiling too hard. “I wanted it to be kind of a surprise, but also not really, since I was literally steps away from you, so um… I didn't know what ice cream flavor you wanted. I used a little bit of each.” He didn't know where to go on from there. “Enjoy.”

Lizzie accepted the glass, the coldness she felt earlier on her cheek now on her right hand. She looked at the milkshake, then to her darling husband. She felt a bit fuzzy. “Thank you! You're so sweet.”

Ah, a delicious milkshake. She hadn't had one of those in a while, especially not from Joel. And since they only had Neapolitan ice cream, the flavors must've all come from there. In her 25 years of living, she'd never had a Neapolitan milkshake before, but it was worth a try.

While taking a sip of her drink, she overheard the other two speak.

“Can I have a glass too?” Gem asked.

Joel shook his head. “No, I only made one glass worth of it.”

“That's not even half in there.”

“Well I drank half of it since Lizzie can't have too much lactose.”

“How thoughtful of you.”

Lizzie wound up liking the milkshake quite a lot. The mix of vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate was fun. “Mmm, Joel, I love it! You should make more of these for me next time.”

“Really now?” Joel raised a brow. “You'll get some horrible digestion problems, you know.”

Lizzie rested an elbow against the soft backrest of the couch. “If it's for your milkshakes, I'll accept any consequence that comes my way.”

“Aww, babe… You don't have to go that far.”

“You really don't,” Gem cut in, looking fed up with their gross flirting.

“Anyways, I'm going to clean the bathroom now,” Joel used his thumb to point to the bathroom door behind him. “Meri made a bit of a mess, so it's wet everywhere.”

“Wait, Joel-” Lizzie placed her glass down before standing up. “There's no need. You already washed Meri. I can take care of the bathroom.”

“No, I'll clean it,” he insisted. “You'll probably lose your appetite if you do it, so, just sit down for now. Besides, it's not much trouble. All I need to do is dry everything with a paper towel.”

She couldn't think of anything to counter what he said. At least, nothing before he got his feet moving.

“We can watch movies later tonight,” Joel suggested. “Sounds good?”

“Yeah.” Lizzie faced away from the part of the room behind the sofa, picking up her milkshake glass once again. “Sounds good.”

There was the sound of the bathroom  door closing. Then nothing but the tapping of thumbs against a phone screen next to her. The uncanny silence convinced her to take another sip, then put the glass back down on the table, and stare into whatever distance there was in the small living room she was in.

“Joel's nicer than usual today,” the curly-haired woman finally voiced out. And here Lizzie thought she was distracted with her game. She should have known that Gem was more perceptive than that. “Well, nothing different with me, of course, but definitely with you. Did something happen?”

Lizzie retrieved her drink, sinking back into the backrest of the couch as she held it closer to her chest. She sighed. “Bad day at work. My wages are getting cut in two weeks.”

“What?” She set her phone aside for a moment. “That stinks. You're not even being paid much to begin with.”

“I knowww.” She groaned. “And it's unfortunate that BAM Park has a special place in my heart, ‘cause I can't really get… mad… but also I am. I really hope it's all just temporary.”

“It'll get better,” Gem attempted to reassure her, but even she didn't know.

BAM Park's investments were well-known to the Wild City public. It was the biggest thing the whole city had to offer, and expanding at an alarming rate. In addition to replacing existing rides and building new areas, there was side project after side project, and it was questionable if it was doing too much at once. The investments tended to pay off well. They might come at the cost of a couple of workers, though.

Lizzie didn't believe Gem. Gem didn't completely believe in herself, either. But it was nice to dream.

“And isn't Joel the best?” Lizzie continued. “He told me I could relax. Now he's doing all the housework I was supposed to do, and this delicious milkshake to boot.” She drank a little more, only to stare into the surface when she lowered the glass. The smile she made after that was bittersweet. “Gem, I think he's too good for me. I'm gonna want to be spoiled more at this rate.”

“You guys and your perfect marriage and your endless gushing about each other,” Gem rolled her eyes. “Joel would overwork himself to death if you asked him to, so I wouldn't advise asking too much of him.”

Lizzie drank a larger amount. “You're right. And that's the problem.” She proceeded to bring her arms down so they were on her lap, the remaining milkshake nearly flying out of the glass. “It isn't fair! He's done so much for me already, and I can only do so much… What am I supposed to do, just accept it and not feel bad one bit?”

If Gem never saw what was inside the glass, she would've assumed Lizzie was one of those drunks who suddenly become too honest. However, Gem wasn't a stranger. She was willing to hear her out; Lizzie was a part of her life, too. 

Holding onto the glass with both hands, Lizzie kept going. “You know this already, but I messed up my whole life on my own. If I hadn't gone to an Ivy and lost interest in my major way too late, or taken all those loans, then- Then I wouldn't be this walking liability. All this debt and barely any of the benefits... I don't know where I'd be now without you or Joel. Starving in the streets begging for money, probably. Or making friends with the stray cats so I can train them to rob banks. Actually, becoming an evil cat supervillain doesn't sound too bad.” Even in her most vulnerable moments, she'd somehow try to turn it into something to laugh at.

It was unpleasant to think of herself as someone who had to depend on others to survive. She used to be such a capable person before. She was once a top scorer, a hall monitor who lectured delinquents, and a free tutor for friends she didn't want to repeat a grade. She had what it took to get into the Ivy League, for goodness sake. She didn't like the phrase ‘peaked in high school’ but that was how she currently felt about herself.

“I'd rather you didn't turn into a supervillain,” Gem replied. “Jail doesn't sound nice.”

“More like free shelter to survive the winter,” Lizzie kept joking. “Really though, I… If I had the money, I'd pay for the nicest vacations, the most romantic anniversaries, maybe invest in something that'll give me even more money. If I could, I'd buy a house of my own with a front garden and a backyard with a grill… Oh, Joel and I could even have separate rooms! And I could decorate mine with whatever I want, and Joel could decorate his with all his car stuff. If I had the money,” she repeated, grip tightening. “If I didn't have my stupid debt, or my stupid job which, maybe I do have to let go of one day.”

Although Joel tried to ensure that she didn't lose her appetite earlier, all that venting she did managed to do the job. She hesitated from taking another sip, her hands getting wetter and colder. And in spite of the glass losing liquid each time, it sure was getting heavier to hold.

She didn't think Gem would place her hands over her own, lifting the milkshake up slightly.

“Personally, I think…” The ginger stared up at the ceiling before meeting eyes with her again. “It's the thought that counts. You're in a tough position, but you're always working your hardest. You use me as a practice audience for your corny cast member puns, that's how I know.”

“My bad for that.”

“I can tolerate a few more, it's fine.” Chuckling, Gem tried to get back on topic. “I also know what kind of person you are. You always think of others, and you've helped Joel and I a great deal in the past. Joel especially has changed a lot, thanks to you. I think it's totally reasonable for him to do things for his wonderful wife while she's down. And besides,” She gently swept a thumb through Lizzie's hand. “You have a special gift for making people happy. I'd never ask for a replacement in our family.

“I really do?” Maybe there was something running in the blood for these siblings to bring this comfortably warm feeling in her chest. Except they weren't even blood related, so there'd be no point in making that joke. “Well, if that's all I have. Thanks, Gem. You're great.”

Without realizing, Lizzie's glass had been snatched too easily. The younger sister-in-law had the tiniest taste of the drink before offering it back. “I get that a lot.” 

Lizzie couldn't even be mad as she took her milkshake back. The both of them giggled, ending the somewhat heavy conversation lightheartedly.

Gem stood up, looking back at the other as she did. “I'm gonna check if the chicken's defrosted enough. Be right back.”

“Okay,” Lizzie watched her head to the kitchen. Then, she was left with an unfinished milkshake.

She had another drink of it. It was as cold as it should be, and as sweet as she preferred, yet her face became solemn, the lonelier she was with her thoughts.

Gem and her lovely support. She wasn't sure if she deserved that, either. Even though Lizzie smiled at her words, she didn't feel like they truly got into her head.

The reality of Lizzie's situation was still apparent to her. She was a cast member in a theme park that could get rid of her if it was convenient. More frighteningly, she was too attached to that financially unwise job when she couldn't afford to be. In the worst case scenario, if she were to be laid off without a proper plan, what then? Would she be reprimanded for it? Both possibilities are awful. She didn't want comfort she shouldn't have or another insult to add above the ones she'd already use for herself. Either way, she'd have to live with the consequences of wanting too much from an ungenerous world.

Compared to monthly rent or weekly groceries, what's “making people happy” even worth?

_

The days went by. And it was another day of entertaining visitors as a BAM Park cast member.

The summer was unforgiving. Every couple of minutes after performing in one area, Lizzie would press the top of her head to feel how hot it'd gotten. Sometimes she worried about her hair catching on fire. For this reason, she wished her outfit came with a large boater hat instead of miniature ones. It wouldn't work for her current hairstyle, but surely she could think of some other look that'd work. Anything to get some protection for her poor head.

She hadn't been bringing her best mood to work lately. Every passing day was a countdown to lower wages, and there were some stunts she delivered more aggressively than normal.

“Okay so, tell me, what fish can push a nail into a piece of wood?” She asked the audience at the side of the street that showed up for her comedy routine. She made an expressive gesture, leaning down with a hand behind her ear like she really wanted to hear from them.

The audience was silent, waiting for her to answer.

“A hammerhead,” she answered herself.

She usually didn't mind who was watching her too much, but now she was fixated on the fact that only a handful in the front let out the tiniest giggle. 

“What did you say?” One of the kids in the middle asked. Maybe that was the problem – she didn't say it loud enough for the people in the back to hear.

“Hammerhead,” she said again. “You know, the shark?”

“What shark?”

“A Haaammeerrheeeaaaddd!!!” She wound up yelling.

Lizzie wasn't the type who'd yell very loud, so the crowd might not have picked up her increasing frustration. But that was bad practice. If she was going to raise her voice, she had to do it with good intent. She had plenty of time to reflect on that during her break. 

Speaking of break, she did meet Jimmy and Scar. She hung out with them as usual, refusing to mention a word about the pay cuts. It might come to them sooner or later, but if anyone was going to warn them, it had to be their higher ups. She didn't want to share this feeling of dread to her work friends who seemed to be doing well themselves. Just seeing them talk about silly things as always was satisfactory.

But after that, it was the usual work again. She did some magic tricks, challenged children to hula hooping contests (and somehow lost to two of them), and balanced herself on a bouncy ball while breaking into song. Then she took a break from performing to take on some other work – waving around a sign to tell people that a stage play was going to take place in the Little Lake City area on the Redwood Stage, 4PM. Since the plays always received such high praise, Lizzie wished she had the time to see how they were like, but alas. She's got to promote a show she'd never seen before.

“Little Lake City! Redwood Stage! Show at 4PM! Don't miss it!” She advertised to crowds of passing people, but nobody seemed to care too much, as expected. If that were her in the crowd, she'd ignore herself too.

The later it got, the cloudier the skies were. Work was much nicer at that time of day. Hopefully that was the case for Jimmy too, she thought as she saw a parrot mascot taking pictures with guests.

“Hello?”

Lizzie quit her staring when someone called out for her. She spun around and brought her eyes up a little higher, finding that whoever it was, they were much taller than the average visitor. “Yes?”

There were two women in front of her. The closest was a tall one, about 6 feet, wearing a hooded jacket and shorts, with brown hair dyed with blonde streaks. She might've seen her before.

The second was a shorter lady with a green shirt and overalls. She definitely knew her.

“Excuse me, but-”

“Lizzie!?” Gem – the second woman – widened her eyes.

“Gem???” The cast member was just as surprised.

“I didn't expect to run into you here! Hi!” Gem greeted her. “That makes things easier.”

Now that she identified one of them to be Gem, by association, the brunette must be her roommate, Pearl. Lizzie and her had met on a few occasions, but she didn't know that much about her.

Studying their faces, Lizzie could see their worry before they could even explain it. “What's going on?” 

“You see, well…” Pearl decided to be the one to talk. “It wasn't just us two roaming around the park.” She had her phone out, and an image in her gallery that she was ready to show. “Our friend Grian somehow vanished from our sight, and we haven't heard from him in an hour.”

Lizzie was then shown a picture of a dirty blond in a red jumper, standing next to the two people who were asking for her help. She assumed it must've been taken some time in the past since she recognized the background to be a bridge from a neighboring city. She'd never seen this guy before.

“He hasn't answered a single one of our texts!” Gem quietly complained. “I wouldn't take him for the type to just ignore us like that, though. Maybe something happened. But it'd still be nice to know.”

“Where did you last see him?” Lizzie questioned.

“Last I remember, we were queuing for the Explosion Coaster,” Pearl recalled. “We can't remember if he got on or off the ride with us at all. Sorry, this whole situation is really confusing.”

Ah, the Explosion Coaster. It was a massive roller coaster with hoops and upside down segments, and a ride that stretched out for a while, bringing passengers through bamboo forests and top views of the area. It was also the most popular ride in the park, with wait times averaging between 90 to 120 minutes. The coaster was a fun one, sure, but Lizzie could barely justify the wait times no matter the attraction.

If anyone got lost near such a crowded attraction, they would be incredibly hard to find. Frightening situation for a small child who could've been kidnapped. Maybe not so much in the case of this Grian guy, but it was still worth some concern due to the lack of contact.

“I see,” Making sure to keep the information in mind, Lizzie took out her phone and searched for a contact. “I'll tell security about this, and they're gonna assist you from here. If we do find your friend, he's gonna be brought to Guest Relations.”

“Okay. Thank you, Lizzie.” Gem nodded to show her appreciation. Pearl imitated her, muttering a thanks.

Lizzie could only guess what happened. Maybe Grian told them that he was going to the bathroom and they didn’t hear it, leaving him with the difficulty of reuniting with his party. Leaving and returning to your previous spot in a long queue was controversial theme park practice, but she’d seen many visitors do it as long as they had family or friends tagging along. Maybe he lost his phone in the process, or it died. Some people weren’t responsible with their phone batteries. Having just thought of that, she wasn’t too worried, and didn’t speculate much further.

She notified security, sending the relevant information. From there, she expected other staff members to start looking around for any recognizable faces. Her job in the meantime was to accompany Gem and Pearl until he was found.

When they stood there long enough, they were brought to Guest Relations. There, they waited even longer.

_

Lizzie couldn’t believe how a missing adult could be harder to find than most children. At least with children, they’d want to attract as much attention as possible to get back to their parents or guardians. There were no signs, however, of Grian.

She’d asked about security footage. Someone who matched his appearance was caught leaving the queue for the roller coaster when it was almost his turn, but other than that, he never appeared again. How strange. 

There wasn’t much that the staff could do with a complete lack of leads. Eventually, the sky turned orange, signaling that all fun in the park would be coming to an end and everyone had to go home soon. 

After a while of doing her own searching, Lizzie headed back to Guest Relations to check on Gem and Pearl.

She noticed the resigned looks on their faces. It must’ve been boring staying in one place. At that point, the shorter woman could be seen spamming texts to an unresponsive receiver while the other simply watched. 

“The park's gonna close before we find him at this rate,” Gem noted. “Where is he?”

Pearl observed the crowds of people making their leave, crossing her arms. “Even if his phone ran out of battery, we should’ve seen him come to the entrance by now.”

“Don’t tell me he just ditched us.”

“He’s not that kind of person. Surely not.”

A lot of things weren’t adding up for Lizzie. There was no way anyone could disappear like Grian did. Unless he was a magician, or unless the security people weren’t reading the footage right. Some terrifying possibilities were being crafted in her head. Even so, she didn’t want the pair to be thinking any of that. 

“It’s getting quite late,” Lizzie stated. “I think it’s for the best that the two of you go home now. It’s possible that he might’ve left the park without anyone’s knowledge. Even if that’s not true,” she held her breath, putting her hands together, trying to be hopeful. “The nighttime security will keep on searching. We can get the police to help if that’s necessary, too. Um, what I’m trying to say is, please don’t worry about it for now. We’ll take care of the rest.”

The two friends glanced at each other, then to the cast member. Gem finally spoke. “Alright. I think we should see if Grian’s home, and if he is, I have words for him.”

“We need to go. I've got to feed Tilly… I just hope nothing terrible’s happened,” Pearl expressed. 

“...Yeah,” Gem nodded. Perhaps for her, clinging onto the sillier possibilities for Grian’s disappearance was a way to avoid the worse cases.

Lizzie didn’t say much more. She waved the women goodbye, then headed back into the park under the darkening sky.

At this point in time, her job was done. Like everyone, she could go home. 

But there was this urge to look into the issue much more deeply.

Before she could go any deeper, a familiar greeting broke her out of her unease. “Oh! Hello, Lizzie.”

There was that gentleman with a deceptive namecard. Scar. She should’ve expected to run into him here. After all, he was working at the entrance.

She could hear the tapping of his cane as he walked closer. “Looks like you finished work later than usual. Are you off to the locker rooms now?”

“Nope!” she denied enthusiastically. “There’s a missing guy we haven’t found since 3:50PM. I’ve decided I’m going out of my way for him.” She opened up a map and took a turn, heading to a different section of the park.

“Oh yeah, I did get a notification about it.” Knowing that her destination wasn’t what he assumed it was, he followed her just because. “Usually, missing people are found pretty quickly. That’s BAM Park security for you.”

Now that he mentioned it, it might be strange if the night watchmen caught a staff member roaming around, still in costume, past regular work hours. Lizzie put her index finger against the side of her chin. “Think they’ll mind a cast member working overtime for a good cause?”

“They don't need to know a thing if we're sneaky enough. Besides, if we actually do find him, wouldn't that be something impressive to tell management?”

They exchanged smug glances, quickly understanding each others’ objectives.

“Yes, yes. We're gonna do good. Because we're such good people.” Lizzie looked more like a scheming villain than a well-meaning staff member at this point.

Scar snickered. “I know this park like the back of my hand. I can bring you to all my favorite places to hide.”

“Perfect. Let's go.”

After an excuse-filled text message to Joel, stealthily, the two traveled from area to area, making sure to avoid anyone who might be watching. Lizzie considered using her phone's flashlight for better vision, but realized it could draw attention. They'd just have to make do with the dark sky. And hope the missing person was still out there, or this would be one tedious adventure for nothing.

Thankfully, the park had street lamps in it, so the roads were at least illuminated. Scar preferred to avoid them, though. He only used whatever was visible as a guide to figure out where they were and how to keep going.

In some instances, they were close to a security guard. Someone familiar with disappearing acts like Lizzie was always quick to get out of their sight, while Scar would often try to blend in with the natural surroundings. The bamboo-colored vest he was wearing might have helped him with it.

After passing through a couple more places, however, they couldn't find anyone of note. Not that their chances were that huge to begin with – the park was massive, and Lizzie was told previously that the person of interest was really nowhere to be seen.

“I know what we can do,” Scar whispered while they hid behind a themed diner. “We grab a lot of candy, make a trail of them on the street… Then, at the end of it, we find the lost child and catch him!” He closed his fist as he said that, smiling mischievously.

“Scar, that probably won't work. Also, our missing person is a grown man. …I think a trail of coupons would work instead. I keep a lot of those.”

In the middle of their little talk, Lizzie noticed a shift in expression on the other staff member. He was looking at something in the distance with a brow raised, prompting her to look the same way.

And there they saw it: an individual just like the two sneaking around. He was a staff member, telling from the bamboo vest costume he continued to wear. 

“Wait…” Scar squinted. “Is that Jimmy?”

“Really, Scar? Not every blond man you see is Jimmy-” and then it clicked. “Oh my gosh it is Jimmy.”

Without a doubt, that lanky figure with orange armbands and a blue bowtie was Jimmy. Theme park employee uniforms were always slightly distinct in some way. Jimmy was rarely seen in that particular uniform while working; rather in his mascot suit, but sometimes he was in charge of other work than just being cute. For that, still having a uniform to wear so he could be recognized as a staff member often came in handy.

“What's he doing out here? He hasn't changed. Out of the parrot suit for sure, but…” With a hand on his chin, Scar tried to figure out why. “Is he also looking for the missing person guy?”

Studying Jimmy more intently, he appeared to be holding a light source, which helped the two to identify his features to begin with. Getting a better look, he was holding his phone, reading something from it. He was typing into a keyboard. A text conversation, likely. 

He stood there, in the middle of the street, waiting for a response. Neither Lizzie nor Scar could tell if he received a reply. He simply pocketed his phone after a few seconds and kept walking.

Although he could've been asking staff around for more information like Scar suggested, Lizzie couldn't be so sure. He had a handful of work friends. She'd seen him with one of the technicians and one of the actors before. Strangely, both were blond like him. She wondered if blond people had some secret code that made them all get along. That train of thought aside, she figured there'd be some discouragement on their side. At least if it were Lizzie he was texting, she wouldn't egg him on at all. She'd be telling him to go home in all caps because she doesn't want him to get in trouble. Thinking about it, she should be redirecting those hypothetical angry texts to herself. What made her think she was better at stealth missions than Jimmy, anyway? Probably because he was Jimmy and he was very much visible in a very visible location and he could get caught at any second.

“I don't know,” Lizzie said. “Maybe we should ask. I don't want to startle him though. That'll bring too much attention-”

Shocking the both of them, Jimmy began to move. He seemed unsure – not exactly sure of where he was going, but he had a destination in mind.

“Let's follow him,” Scar immediately decided.

As creepy as stalking was, Lizzie felt more curious than anything, so she just went along with him. They might be straying from their initial goal, but who's to say they won't accomplish that on the way?

They walked past a pyramid-shaped bakery, a lighthouse, an incredibly unattractive L-shaped building which Lizzie heard had a maze inside it, all the way to a different area of the park – a whimsical, tabletop-game-themed section called the Wild Zone. At that point, the streets all looked like spaces that were part of a massive board game. This gave visitors an impression that they were game pieces.

Scar inched closer to his partner in stalking. “Lizzie, have I ever told you how these are the best-designed roads in the whole entire park?”

Lizzie stepped forward, not keeping an eye off Jimmy. “Not now, Scar.” She felt a bit bad cutting him off at a topic he was clearly passionate about, but she'd be much, much happier to hear about it in a less tense environment.

Right then, Lizzie's elbow came into contact with a wall right next to her. Actually, that was way too calm to describe it. She practically hit her elbow. It made a sound. It was bad. Bad because Jimmy stopped his tracks right after that.

He turned his head to investigate the noise. 

He turned it back when he concluded it must've been nothing significant.

Thankfully, Scar managed to pull Lizzie into a blind spot just in time. They were in a bit of an awkward position, with Scar frozen in a tilt caused by bringing his friend closer, his cane being the only thing stopping him from falling backwards; and Lizzie, with her upper body leaning sideways towards him, only one foot on the ground and the other up in the air like some sort of sideways splits. If she lowered that foot, it could've peeked past the wall and made it obvious that someone was behind there. Good thing she was flexible.

How did they get out of this? They stayed like that for a while, estimating how much time someone would take to investigate a weird noise before walking away, and then Lizzie could carefully get herself standing again, catching Scar before he could drop. She helped him back to his feet, checking in on their target right after.

Jimmy was gone.

“Where did he go?” Lizzie wondered.

“I think he was going that way,” Scar pointed towards a certain road.

They walked and found a cardboard cutout to hide behind, looking through the holes in them. They were the kind that park visitor parties could put their faces behind to take silly pictures. Right then, they looked like human faces in the bodies of cartoon parrots. Not that anyone was there to see it.

“Found him,” Scar subtly pointed to the arcade.

The two watched as he stopped walking, took his phone back out, and entered the building. Once the coast was clear, they sneakily headed towards the same place, hiding behind random objects along the way like they were on a serious spy mission. What a way to waste time. However, that seemingly wasted time came in handy to add more distance between Jimmy and the others. If they were all in the same building, it'd be easier to unintentionally meet with each other.

By the time they reached the entrance, they caught a glimpse of Jimmy going downstairs, to the bumper cars. He wasn't there to have fun with the bumper cars, sadly. He went through an electrical room instead.

Lizzie and Scar were able to stand before the door after it closed.

“Authorized personnel only?” Scar read out. “Is Jimmy authorized?”

“Well, we practically have the same job, so I guess we are too,” Lizzie reasoned, yet her hand hesitated on the door knob. “...On second thought, something tells me we shouldn't be here.”

“Haven't we already been doing things we shouldn't have?”

“You're right.” That finally convinced Lizzie to go through.

The electrical room was as they'd expect: a bunch of weird pipes and boxes.

One thing that stood out was an electric switchboard that wasn't actually a switchboard; it was a door that was left open, courtesy of Jimmy. And beyond it was a hall that was approximately one Lizzie tall.

“Secret passageway,” the two whispered in unison.

“Sounds like Jimmy knows things we don't,” Scar grinned, excited to get in.

“Yeah… Let's see what all of this is about, shall we?”

With newfound interest, they entered the short passageway. Lizzie had no trouble going through. Scar was a bit uncomfortable as he had to bend his knees to go through, but it wasn't that long of a path, so it was more of a minor inconvenience if anything.

At the end of it was a room with a higher ceiling, and a door painted like a domino. Just that the dots of the domino were replaced by hearts. One on top, one on the bottom.

“I can't believe it.” Scar brought his hand close to his mouth. “For years, I've never known BAM Park had a secret room like this. You'd think that if even one person knew about it, there'd be news articles surfacing online, but I haven't seen a thing.”

“Maybe those articles are for us to write.” Lizzie inspected the door, eyeing it up and down. “How do we get in? Do we really just… open the door?”

Without warning, Scar gave the door two audible knocks. 

Lizzie's soul almost jumped out of her body. “I don't think we should've-”

When the door was actually being opened from the other side, both of them stepped back, frightened. What if it was Jimmy answering the door? Although, Lizzie appeared to be the only person worried about that. Scar seemed to have an excuse prepared.

What a surprise it was to see not their friend, but a shorter man in a suit greeting them with a joyous smile.

“Welcome to the Wild Room!” 

The stranger had one foot forward, the other right behind it, as well as one hand keeping the door open and the other behind his back. He was wearing a red vest over a white dress shirt and black tie, along with pants that were a darker shade than the vest. He came off as someone quite professional, like a butler.

“Please come in. I'll lead you to the waiting area.”

They were taken by so much surprise that neither of them knew what to do. What were they getting into? What was Jimmy getting himself into? A secret room, a fancy suit… Lizzie looked for more hints with her eyes. They met with a pair of pure black ones, locked in with hers when he noticed her stare. She felt like she'd seen them before, paired with a particular hair color… which this person had…

“You both look really confused,” the well-dressed man pointed out. “First time playing?”

It took a while for Lizzie realize it. “Wait, are you… Grian?”

Those black eyes widened when he heard the name. “I'm sorry, have we met?”

It later clicked for Scar, too. “Lizzie, are you saying… our lost child is right in front of us?”

“Lost child?” He sounded baffled by the inaccurate description. He might be shorter than both of the theme park employees and a somewhat youthful impression, but a look at his facial features and how he carried himself should've determined that he'd lived many more years than that.

“Your friends were looking for you. Gem and Pearl,” Lizzie explained, reaching for her phone in her pocket. “You were here all along? There was a whole search a-and everything-”

“What?” Grian widened his eyes. “Did I not tell them- Wait, you can't use your phone! Didn't you read the invite message?!?”

“What invite message?” Scar questioned.

“Yeah, what invite?” Lizzie followed up.

“What do you mean ‘what invite’? Were neither of you invited?” Despite his polite first impression, he now looked like he was on the verge of a frustrated panic. “Why'd you knock twice, then?”

At that point, it was apparent that both parties were confused. Questions were met with additional questions, and it was going nowhere.

Then came a fourth person, standing by the door next to Grian.

“Why the stress, G-man? Isn't it better when things don't go according to plan?”

It was a man with a buzzcut, or something a bit longer than that. He had black hair with a couple of grey strands. Similar to Grian, he had a white shirt, red tie and black vest, but his sleeves were short unlike the other guy's. 

Grian didn't seem that much calmer. “That's not how it works, Skizz. How in the heck did they find this place?”

“Skizz?” Lizzie muttered, her expression puzzled.

“Let's not overwhelm them. We don't want to drive them away.” Skizz placed a hand on Grian's shoulder, stepping up for him. “Sorry for all the confusion. Welcome to the Wild Room! My name is Skizz, and this dude's my good coworker Grian. You've just entered a sort of, let's say, special opportunity to play games for money.”

Lizzie stayed silent for a few moments, maintaining eye contact with Skizz, before commenting. “Isn't that just gambling?” She turned to her friend. “Scar, I think we might've just stepped into an illegal gambling ring.”

“Oh my gosh, really? I don't have any betting money…” Scar said, as if he'd be in on it if he did.

“Gambling? Um,” Skizz raised a finger, but it bent back down as he thought about it more. “You might call it that, but, well, you don't exactly bet with your money. All you need is yourself, and it's smooth gaming from there!”

“So it's just… play games for money?” Lizzie wanted to be sure.

“Uh-huh!”

“Like one of those TikTok… YouTube shorts things?”

“Yeah, like-” Skizz raised a brow. “Like what now?”

“You know,” she tried to think of all those million-view-worthy short form content she'd seen before. “Like the trivia challenges where you have to hold more books for every question you don't answer, or identify 5 Pokemon for 5 diamonds, or… what else has Jimmy sent me again?” She asked herself, tapping her chin.

Noticing Skizz's puzzled expression, Grian decided to answer that for her. “Yyyyes. Play games, win prizes. It's as simple as that.”

“How charitable of you!” Scar beamed. “What's the game gonna be about?”

Skizz turned around in a way that he could still see the newcomers. “Just come inside and we'll explain everything for you. We've got cookies and other snacks you might like.”

“Cookies?” It made Lizzie remember she hadn't eaten dinner.

Needless to say, Scar and Lizzie were pretty convinced to enter the Wild Room.

The room they went into was a lounge of sorts. Some of the walls were in a diagonal checkered white and light red pattern, with white motifs of dice and hearts in some of the red squares. Some other walls were simply a solid red to balance everything out. There were green, spherical, cushioned chairs to sit on; as well as three round glass coffee tables that were spread out, each having a vase holding bright yellow flowers, along with snack plates that took up the rest of the space. The placement of all the chairs, while guaranteed to be close to a table, were disorderly, in a way that each of them were almost equidistant to two or three other seats. It eliminated the idea of having a singular seatmate, allowing for more conversation with adjacent people, or so it seemed.

“Please leave your mobile phones and other devices you don’t need with me and take a seat.” Skizz gestured towards the lounge. “This is a super secret space, so we don't want any of you taking pictures so you can share it to your friends!”

As they were told, Scar and Lizzie took their cellphones out and left them behind. Being separated from a phone came with some insecure feelings, but that could be a product of addiction.

Even though the room was secret, Scar was impressed by the similar effort made into styling the room as with anything else in the theme park. “Woah… Can I just say I love the interior work here?”

“It's so colorful,” Lizzie chimed in. “I love it.”

“The Wild Rooms are designed like this to give people a true sense of joy,” Grian switched up his mood to be a merrier one, though his wording was a little strange. “Don't you feel how perfect it'd be to play games here?”

“Mhm,” Lizzie nodded, trying to move on to the next thing as she wasn't the biggest fan of his tone. He'd been a bit harsh with them earlier. She wondered what was up with that.

And she would've better realized the oddness of her situation if it weren't for all the distractions. The interior was one of those things. The sight of a certain someone on one of the cushioned chairs was another.

“Scar? Lizzie?!?”

Alerted by the name-calling, Lizzie looked left and right. Further to her right was Jimmy and his wide mouth, who she and her friend had been tailing the whole evening. To her close left was Scar, smiling and waving at him like it was nothing. “Hi Jimmy.”

“H-Hiiii!” Lizzie also waved, much more awkwardly than the other.

Jimmy stood up from his seat. “What are you two doing here? Did- Did you also get a weird invite from one of these guys?” He directed their gazes to the men in suits.

As it turned out, there were three of them. Aside from Grian and Skizz, there was a Wild Room staff member with slicked back hair and a nicely curled moustache. When he realized he was being pointed at, he quickly pretended not to see anything, keeping his eyes on a wall as if it was interesting to him.

Both Scar and Lizzie shook their heads. “No, but…” Scar kept his expression still as he unleashed his totally foolproof excuse. “You know about the animatronic rumor? The one where the park's animatronics come to life if you stay after closing hours? Well, Lizzie and I-”

“Actually, we were gonna look for the missing person, found you instead, followed you around, and ended up here,” Lizzie gave up the truth. There wasn't much of a point in lying to Jimmy.

Jimmy stepped back. “What? You guys were- you guys were following me? And I didn't see you???” 

“We made sure to be super quiet about it,” Scar explained like it'd help.

There was some questioning here and there, some descriptions of how each of them got to the Wild Room. Somewhere along the way, they were all seated and facing each other. It was convenient how the chairs could be rotated.

While Scar and Jimmy were busy discussing whether a word Scar brought up was made up or not, Lizzie's vision was occupied by a nearby coffee table, contemplating on which snack to take.

Churros, heart-shaped donuts, chocolate chip cookies… Hold on, she recognized them and the exact BAM Park stalls they came from. Were they all leftovers? If so, this was certainly a way to prevent food waste. She didn't have any qualms about it; food being left over didn't make them any less yummy.

She set her sights on one of the cookies, but it was taken right before her eyes. Oh right, there were three more people in the room. She raised her head up, only to find…

“BigB?” Another person she knew, apparently.

“Lizzie?” The man with coily hair said her name in surprise. “I didn't know you played these kinds of games.”

BigB was seated somewhere adjacent to Lizzie; that much was clear when they could reach the same table. He was dressed in a button-up shirt with a navy blue cardigan on top of it. The last time she saw him, his beard was longer, so it must've been trimmed recently.

He was once a classmate of Lizzie's, and was in the same friend group as Jimmy and Joel, who continued to hang out with them in the present day. And there was another guy, though…

“The… Wild Room kinds of games?” She picked up a different cookie. “This is the first I've heard of it, in fact. How about you? Do you play them often?”

“So you're the same as me. It's also my first time.”

Lizzie became perplexed. “It is? I kind of thought you implied-”

BigB waved his hands in denial. “Oh no, I was just saying that. It's good to see you here, Lizzie. I didn't know I'd be seeing so many familiar faces!” He took a bite out of his chocolate chip cookie.

“Yeah.” She took another round look at her surroundings. “That makes three out of four of you Rejects?"

They both glanced at Skizz, who smiled and waved at them.

“Looks like it.” BigB leaned on his chair. “But it's weird. We haven't seen Skizz in a while, and suddenly he shows up in a nice fancy suit. Though I must say, his biceps are as toned as ever.”

“Joel's been saying he's only been out with you and Jimmy for a month now.” She completely dismissed the bicep comment. Wasn't her focus. “What was he up to? Have you talked to him?”

“We had a nice chat before you came here. Me, Skizz, and Jimmy,” he giggled. “We were all pointing at each other. It was funny.” He continued to munch on his cookie. “So apparently, he's been working on some big project related to the Wild Rooms, and he couldn't tell any of us obviously, since these games aren't meant to be publicly known. That's pretty much why he keeps saying he can't turn up when we ask him to go somewhere with us lately.”

“I see.” That made sense now. She supposed games that gave out money like this one might have to lay low. If more people knew about it, surely there'd be a suffocating crowd in the small room. It reminded her of the long lines waiting for the theme park attractions.

At least, that was how she would rationalize it. Her mind was still a little fuzzy, but it should be functioning somewhat.

“Lizzie, Lizzie,” Jimmy called out twice until she turned to face him. “We gotta check with you. Is horserve a word?”

“What?”

“Horserve. You know, like the tiny bites you get at a party!” Scar elaborated.

It took Lizzie a second to understand what they were saying. “You mean hors d'oeuvre? As in, appetizer?”

“Yeah, hord-ders!” Still wrong, but Scar was getting closer. “That's what I meant.”

“That- That doesn't sound like a real word,” Jimmy proceeded to deny.

“That's because it's French.” Lizzie chewed on the cookie she picked up. Once her mouth was empty, she spoke again. “So Jimmy, you said you got invited?”

The sudden jump of topic made Jimmy stare to the side to recollect his memories. “I did, yes. It was Grian who sent it to me. I'm still shocked he was the missing person report.” He drank water from a paper cup he'd filled some time ago when his two coworkers hadn't arrived. “I met him in an arcade. There were still a couple of chips in my arcade card, so I went in because I had nothing else to do that day. I was just taking a look at the Street Flighter game, thinking about how expensive it is compared to the basketball game. And then he turned up and asked me if I wanted to challenge him since both of us went to the arcade alone. I said yes, since I used to be pretty good at Street Flighter.”

“Did you win?” Scar shifted his sitting position so he could lean closer to Jimmy.

The embarrassed face the blond made afterwards gave the answer away. “Well… Genuinely, no. He kicked my butt in every time we played. I kept asking for a rematch until I ran out of chips, and I didn't get a single win.”

“Oh…” Lizzie showed him some brief sympathy. “That's really pathetic.”

“Oh, stop it, I know,” Jimmy rolled his eyes. “He had the stupidest laugh too every time he won. That really hurt me. He got disappointed when I couldn't fight him again, though, since I was all out of money. I kind of told him about my… financial situation at the time. Like… That was a few days after a burglar broke into my house. I told you guys about that one before, didn't I?”

Both Scar and Lizzie nodded, slightly frowning. That was about a month ago. When Jimmy talked about it one day at lunch break, it was hard to ignore, especially considering the impact it had on him. While there wasn't much to notice behind a mascot costume, outside of it, he'd be either resigned or easily aggravated to a threatening degree. It was not a Jimmy that anyone wanted back. It took a lot of cheering up from his closest friends to get him back to his normal self.

“Yeah, I told him about all that, and how I was in a tough spot. It was then that he introduced this Wild Room stuff to me. We exchanged numbers, he told me more about this place, I asked a bunch of questions… and he kept leaving me on read and saying basically the same thing, giving me reminders of when the game's gonna start.” He placed a hand on his head. “Seriously, what an enigma.”

“The reminders are automated,” Grian, who was right behind Jimmy, spoke without warning.

From the angle Jimmy was sitting, he couldn't have seen Grian approach him, so it was quite a shock for him. He jumped in his seat, his back now resting on the side of the chair instead of the backrest. “Where'd you come from?!?”

“Wild City,” he answered very literally. Anyone focusing on him would see that he was waving around some stapled documents in his hand.

Aside from Grian, the other Wild Room staff headed closer to where the people were. Skizz in particular stood at the very center, raising a similar document towards the ceiling. “Attention! Listen up, everyone!”

Everyone in the room ceased their idle chatter as soon as they heard Skizz. All eyes were on him now.

“A lot of you have already heard about the game from the invites and text messages, but let's be clear as to not miss anything. Also, we've got some absolute newcomers, so we're gonna have to explain it anyway.”

The newcomers in question were looking at Skizz in anticipation. Hoping whatever game it was would be easy to win, probably.

Skizz cleared his throat. “This game is called Nine Ninety Nine.” He took a card game package out of his breast pocket. “What you do is play against an opponent, draw 3 cards each, look at your cards, and after that you can never look at them again until the end. You can only see what numbers are on your card at the start and it's gonna be from 0 to 9,” He emphasized. “Your goal will be to arrange a 3-digit number lower than your opponent's by the end of the game. Each player can only swap cards with the opponent's thrice, and you can shuffle the cards in any order you like. You can only end the game by running out of swaps, or after a mutual agreement. You can propose this agreement at any time, but no swapping or shuffling or anything of the sort while it’s being proposed, or it doesn’t count. The prize money is 50 diamonds. Any questions?”

Scar and Lizzie were shocked to hear the prize money amount. 50??? That was far too generous for a simple card game! Nobody else appeared to be surprised, likely because they already knew how much they were getting.

During the explanation, Skizz made sure to speak audibly, slowly, and clearly, as if he was talking to kindergarteners. He needed to make sure he got the message across. After all, if someone loses out on the money, it could be because the rules weren't explained well enough, and the blame might fall on him. He even went out of his way to recite the rules until everyone was fine with it.

“Okay? …Okay!” Skizz flashed a smile once he got affirmation from the soon-to-be participants. “Now all you need in order to participate is to fill in a form and sign the contract. We'd like to know how you prefer to receive the money, whether you agree to the game rules and other terms and conditions, stuff like that. Nine Ninety Nine is a two player game, and there are six of you, so we really hope everyone agrees, haha. Take as much time as you need!”

All three staff members proceeded to distribute documents to the six other people in the room. Lizzie had the member she hadn't talked to before approach her, wordlessly handing her the papers she needed, followed by a pen to write with.

“Thank you,” she said, and the man simply nodded and left. It felt like he wanted to be out of that interaction as soon as possible, even if it'd only be brief.

She did catch a glimpse of his face, though. What was he feeling, guilt? She couldn't put a finger on it.

Lizzie pinched the stack of papers, feeling how thick it was. Then, she flipped through the pages. Mono-spaced, arial font, with bolded headers and indentations for better readability. Not that the people here needed that; when she observed the other five people in the room, they were already put off by the sheer length of the contents.

Although Scar appeared to put in some effort, he gave up after the first page and just went looking for blank spaces he needed to fill in.

Jimmy resigned much quicker. “I'm not reading all that,” he complained. Had Lizzie not been sitting close to him, she wouldn't have heard that near whisper.

As it turns out, Lizzie didn't want to spend too much time on the document, either. She could already hear the others’ pens coming into contact with their papers. It would suck if she held everyone back, so she decided to skim through it.

‘Introduction…’

‘...entertainment and charity…’

‘...all Wild Rooms are surveilled…’

‘...(ii) Penalties for cheating…`

‘... If ...bodily harm…’

‘...compensation…’

‘XII. Confidentiality’

One damning part of the contract that she was primarily fixated on was how entering the wrong information could mean prize money won't be delivered at all, which would destroy any effort she'll put into the game.

‘Full name:

Preferred method of payment:

Enter relevant details:’

She made sure to write everything down, triple-checking for accuracy.

‘I have read this contract in its entirety.’

Tick.

‘I consent to all the terms and conditions listed in this contract.’

Tick.

‘Full name and signature:’

Lizzie Shadowlady.

The moment she looked up from her paper, she could see everyone looking at her. She was the last to sign it. There were only a few lines, two checkboxes, and a signature. She could've gotten it done a lot quicker, she realized. She submitted her filled-in contract to the moustached man, grinning awkwardly at the others who were waiting.

That awkwardness faded with a deep inhale, however. It was replaced with a sense of confidence. She'd just signed herself the sweet chance of winning 50 diamonds! And even if she doesn't get it, at least she played.

“Alright! That's six of ‘em,” Skizz confirmed. “Now, we're gonna start assigning some partners.” Once those words left his mouth, he began to rethink them. “…No, actually, I'm not gonna be your homeroom teacher today. I'll let you guys decide by yourselves.”

Now that the six were left to choose, there were eyes drifting here and there. Who knows what thoughts were going on in their heads, determining which participant would be their best match?

Lizzie, Jimmy, and Scar's eyes landed on each other.

“We're not gonna compete against each other, are we?” Jimmy asked to confirm.

“Oh no, we couldn't possibly,” Scar shook his head. “That'd guarantee that one of us won't get the money.”

“Yes, that's true,” Lizzie pondered about that alternative route with worry. “Wouldn't want you walking out empty-handed, Jimmy.”

“Of course, of cou-” Jimmy cut himself off as he processed precisely what she said. “Wait, why me specifically?”

Someone tapped on Jimmy's shoulder. No one with a bamboo-patterned vest noticed the approach until the mascot turned to check on who it was.

“Hey, Jimmy,” BigB addressed, swaying to the side. “You wanna play the game with me?”

“BigB? Me? Well…” The tall blond scratched his chin.

Perhaps it was troubling to think about competing with BigB, since they were both long time friends. Unfortunately, the theme park trio had already openly expressed their lack of desire to challenge each other, and it was impossible to add another person into the mix. In that case, someone familiar was going to lose, whether they'd like it or not.

Although, Jimmy switched up like the idea was never something he'd refuse at all. “Sounds great!” He pointed at his friend. “You're on, BigB! I'm not gonna lose against you!”

The dark-haired man chuckled. “Hehe, we'll see about that.” He gave him a small smile, but the way his lower eyelids lifted made it seem like he was holding back a great amount of amusement.

Viewing it with a different lens, perhaps it'd be a wholesome rivalry between good friends. Matching Jimmy with BigB might've been the best outcome after all.

That left Scar and Lizzie with the two remaining strangers.

“Let's snatch them before they can interact with each other,” Scar advised, wasting no time coming to one of them.

“Right, we should separate them before it's too late!”

After a bunch of topic-switching, introductions, and smooth-talking, they managed to get the opponents they needed. All the while, the Wild Room staff took note of everything that was going on.

“Checking in! Is everything settled?” Skizz figured it was an appropriate time to ask. Once he received a couple of ‘yes's from the small crowd, he moved things forward. “Okay, good. Everyone, I want you to stand next to your opponent, and give us quick introductions. Starting with…” He pointed a pen at the mascot. “...you, Jimmy!”

Jimmy pointed at himself. “Hey, that's me!” It felt redundant to introduce himself when a good chunk of the people in the room had history, but he did it anyway. “I'm Jimmy.”

“And you?” Skizz moved the pen towards the next person.

“My name is BigB. Nice to meet y'all.”

Then to the next person, and the next… The two strangers in the room definitely said their names, but Lizzie didn't care enough to remember. The prize money was in her head.

With the roll call done, Skizz shoved the pen into his pocket. “Now each of you pairs will be brought to a play room. We've got plenty of them in here, thankfully, even with the unexpected guests. Gotta be prepared for anything, don't we? Let's start with…” He held two fingers up to point at a pair. “Jimmy and BigB, go follow Grian to the first room.”

The dirty blond arrived at their side, urging them to come with him. Attached to the seating area was a hallway with four doors, which was only lit up when Grian stepped into it.

“...and Scar, you follow Mumbo over here.”

Mumbo. So that was the name of the other staff member.

“Please come with me,” he could finally be heard saying, leading Scar's duo to the next vacant room.

“And you two,” Skizz glanced in Lizzie's direction. “You're coming with me.”

_

The room Lizzie was taken to was small. It was about the size of a regular bathroom. The walls were a plain coral color, and the floor was checkered red and white. In the center was a square, wooden table and two chairs, and on the table was a stack of cards.

The design on the back of the cards had intricate framing and a dice logo in the center. It reminded her of the wallpaper in the lounge.

The staff member directed the participants to the table. “Please take your seats.”

The stranger went first, taking the side of the table that faced the door they came from. Lizzie joined shortly to take the other one. 

“Alright,” Skizz stationed himself to their side, picking up the deck of cards. “Do you all remember the rules of Nine Ninety Nine or should I re-explain them for you?”

“We draw three cards and arrange them to make the lowest number,” the opponent recollected. “Is that it?”

“Yes,” Skizz shuffled the cards in a mesmerizing manner. “And you can swap cards amongst yourselves only thrice each person. If one of you asks to end the game, it would be very polite not to move the cards around when that happens, or no agreements can be made. Got it?”

Both contestants nodded. “Got it,” they said at slightly varying times.

“I'm going to distribute the cards,” Skizz announced, picking cards from the shuffled deck.

Now that Lizzie was seated where she had to look directly at her fellow contestant, she saw brown skin and darker brown hair. The man wore a teal shirt that might not have been washed in a few days. He didn’t come off as someone who worked, but that'd be rude to point out.

The placement of cards on her side of the table silenced her overly curious brain. Feeling lucky, she had a hunch that one of her cards would be a 0. One by one, she brought the cards to her hand.

6. That wasn’t a good start.

5. Better than 6, but only by an inch.

Surely this meant her final card would be lower than 5. Picking up the remaining one, she read…

8.

‘Oh dear,’ she didn’t say out loud, otherwise she’d be admitting to being in a bad position. How was her opponent doing?

Calm, apparently. He hadn’t seen her yet, thank goodness. She had time to put on a poker face. She could manage a straight mouth, but it wasn’t perfect. Her eyes were a bit too wide.

“This is the only time the two of you can look at your cards. You’re gonna need that hippocampus of yours to win the game.” Skizz tapped his temple with his index finger. “Are you guys ready yet?”

“I’ve got them memorized,” Lizzie said, yet her eyes remained on the cards.

“Same here,” the man with the teal shirt replied.

“Awesome. Put the cards back on the table face-down.” Face-down was implied, but being more specific doesn’t hurt anyone.

Lizzie lowered down her cards with invisible dread. Things were not looking good for her. Her head was so clouded in doubt that she didn’t see what cards she put down, and in what order. 

Oops. She was even more doomed. Although she was sure they were in the order she peeked at them and that the right card was an 8. Possibly. Probably.

“The third stage of grief is bargaining, kind of like this stage of the game,” Skizz joked. “If you have any swaps to make, do it. You wanna shuffle your cards? You can only shuffle your own. And if you ever want to end the game, just say the magic words: ‘I’d like to make a deal with you’.”

It was relieving for Lizzie that Skizz was such a helpful host. A paragraph’s worth of explanation alone could only do much for her to visualize how the game was going to work. With a clearer idea, she could ponder on what to do next.

Her cards were awful. That much was certain. There was a good chance that the other guy’s cards were better, so her best move should be to try her chance at swapping one of hers with his, preferably eliminating her worst card.

She studied her opponent. There was hesitation, on his side, to lay his hands on any of the cards. Could it be that he had a good hand? Hold on a second…

Swapping so soon, she realized, was a sign of a troubled hand. If he could use that information to his advantage, he’d simply swap those cards back and end the game, knowing she’d have a very good chance of losing. However, if refusing to swap was a sign of confidence, Lizzie would rather look strong while she was weak.

The next thing she did was cross her arms, resting them on the edge of the table. There came the tiniest upward curve of her lips. “Are you doing well?”

“I’m fine, what about you?” he asked back.

“I’m fine too. Fine with ending the game right here. What do you say, we flip a coin and find out?”

She unleashed her bluff. It wasn’t her most cleverly-crafted one, but enough to draw fear. Even though it didn’t show on his face, she doubted that her words had no effect on him.

“Personally, I think that’d be boring.” He smiled back, swapping both their left cards with each other. That must’ve been her 6.

Immediately, Lizzie could sense that it was a bad card. Before he could pronounce another word, she shuffled her deck so that the card she just received would be on the right – the ones digit in a three-digit number. That put her second card in the hundreds place, which she believed to be a 5, if her memory served her right. Wasn’t that just wonderful? That was her lowest number, and still was.

“Wow, you’re… quick.” Her reaction time seemed to blow him away, even as he maintained his neutral expression.

“Ha,” Lizzie mocked. “I knew you were gonna take out your rubbish. I can’t risk that.”

“So, what’s on your left?” He asked without actually expecting an answer.

Lizzie looked down at her deck. From left to right, she had a 5, 8, and something bad. She thought it’d cause some confusion to swap the places of what she believed to be her 5 and 8, and so she did.

“Something else now,” Lizzie innocently responded, before sliding her 8 away and swapping it with his card in the middle. According to her calculations, his left card should be her 6, and the one on his right sounded like bad news. Middle sounded the safest.

She managed to catch how still he got when she took that.

“I’m sorry, was that a good one?” Lizzie taunted.

“Yes,” he nodded. “Yes it was. In fact, you should keep it. It’s yours now.”

Based on how he didn’t change the positions of his cards, maybe her suspicions about his right card were correct. If the middle card was truly his best, she might be able to rely on the chance it could be lower than 6. With that in mind, she could end the game, just like that.

She was about to open her mouth when she reassessed her situation, as well as his anxiety-inducing gaze. He was watching her, hoping she would make a move. After all, Lizzie knew what cards were on his deck, didn’t she? If she proposed to end it now, that would mean…

She shut herself up again, making a troubled expression. She refused to look directly at him.

It sounded like it sent a message to him. “Are you worried? You don’t have to be. I think you’ve got a good shot at this.”

“Do I?” she let out a nervous giggle.

“Then I’d like to make a deal. How does that sound?”

Those were the words she wanted to hear. Perfect. She dropped the timid act and went for what she wanted. “Sure, let’s make a deal.”

“Alright!” Skizz clapped. “I see we have a game coming to its conclusion. Let’s see what we’ve got, shall we?”

Right at the worst moment, a question entered her train of thought. ‘But what if my left card really is worse than a 6?’ Her opponent did act like it was something he wanted – which she could assume meant the opposite thing, since anyone who plays this game would really benefit from lying, obviously. To either her horror or comfort, she could no longer make a choice. The results were going to be served on a platter for her anyway. Still… ‘Still, there should be a six-in-ten chance I get this right! That’s better than a coin flip!’

The host arranged both decks so that the resulting numbers could be viewed from the side of both players. He placed his hands on the cards that’d represent the ones. Then the tens. Though, they didn’t matter too much. The most important cards were in the hundreds.

“Moment of truth, everyone!” With a graceful flip, Skizz revealed the final digits.

His number turned out to be 687.

Lizzie’s was 359.

“Looks like we have a winner! Congratulations, Lizzie.” Skizz gave her a round of applause.

“I won?” Lizzie widened her eyes in disbelief. “Oh my gosh, I won!” She got up from her seat and threw her hands up in excitement. “Ha-HAH! I didn't know I was so good at this! Shouldn't have fallen for my bluff, huh?”

She was so caught up in her own victory, she wasn't able to read her opponent's face. When she finally did, without any game in the way, without any poker faces to put on, she discovered what truly lied behind it.

Fear – one too intense for losing a simple game. 

Since the game ended, his vision was stuck on the revealed cards. As Skizz approached him, the main subject of his fear shifted. 

“Stay still,” Skizz advised, holding the guy by the shoulder. 

With one swift movement of the arm, the host chucked a syringe into the losing participant's shoulder. 

“Agh!” he grunted. Then the needle was removed as quickly as it went in. 

Lizzie stiffened, her full attention on the scene before her. From what she could tell, the injection induced a great deal of weakness. Her opponent clutched onto his injected shoulder, but he couldn't hold it for long as his arms were giving up. His head lowered closely to the table. He looked like he was going to pass out at any second.

Terrified, she took a step back. “Wh…What's going on?” She turned her head. “Skizz, what did you just d-do?”

“Man, this potion takes a while to kick in. If only it can be instantaneous, that'd make things much easier.” Skizz spoke to himself, before getting back to the concerned winner. “Do you remember the contract, Lizzie? The part where it said that people who lose Wild Room games may be subjected to bodily injury or in worse cases, death?”

In the background, the loser was mumbling gibberish, growing quieter by the second.

Lizzie listened to his noises in horror. “There was what in the contract? It was so long, I didn't even-”

“Didn't even read?” Skizz clocked. “A lot of our new participants tend to do that. In the end, it's better to read, isn't it?” He sighed. “If you'd done just that, maybe you wouldn't be so shocked right now.”

Really? Because she didn't read the contract in detail? Alright, maybe that was on her, but it still felt unfair.

“I didn't agree to you drugging the guy,” Lizzie argued, voice unsteady. “That's too far for a punishment!”

“The punishments are not up to you, lady. They're just how they were intended to be for a place like the Wild Rooms.”

The cast member might've caught the very moment that man fell unconscious. She took more backward steps, aiming to be as close to the exit as she could go. “Skizz… Why would you help with hosting sick and twisted games like this…? What are you going to do to the poor guy?” She gasped. “Are you going to kill him?”

“No, no, no. Of course not.” Skizz placed one hand on the table, leaning against it a little. “Killing an unconscious dude isn't very entertaining. Also, this is one of our low-stakes games. The reward isn't high enough for that. For how much the Wild Room gives away, we sometimes need ways to earn back, which will be paid by the losers. And this guy,” he pointed at the set of numbered cards that initially belonged to the competitor. “He'll be owing this many milliliters of blood to us.”

687 milliliters was more than one pint. It wasn't a huge cost, and a person would probably be fine after having that much extracted from them. There were still bigger issues to worry about, however.

“Couldn't he cooperate with you without getting drugged?” she asked, her bewilderment struggling to leave her. “Surely that wasn't necessary.”

“We'd prefer that no one who owes a part of their body be conscious during our procedures.” He walked away from the table, walking in a semicircle around the knocked-out participant. “We typically send them to another facility, so there's like, security reasons and stuff. Gee, I shouldn't be telling you this much.”

“Mhm. Okayyy.” Lizzie walked back until her hand could reach the doorknob. “Can I get out of here yet?”

“By all means, go ahead. The game is over and you're free to go!” He placed a hand on his hip. “But a few more things, since you love asking questions, and forgot to ask more about the contract.”

“Y-Yes…?”

“I'm gonna run it down for you just in case. And you'd better not let it leave your mind.” He walked towards Lizzie. “First of all, the Wild Rooms are 100% confidential. You can't tell your family, friends, coworkers, can't text it, can't write about it, can't post it online, none of that. And especially not the cops. You can't tell anyone who's not affiliated with the Wild Rooms. We'll know if you do. We'll know, okay?!?” He raised his voice, using two fingers to point at his eyes, then to Lizzie.

Lizzie shook in fear. “O…kay.”

“Second of all,” Skizz was close enough to the door to put his hand on the doorknob behind her. “You played well, Lizzie. I was rooting for you.”

Of all sentences, she didn't expect a compliment from him. Or that the door behind her would swing open.

“Woah-” Lizzie caught herself before she could fall. Since Skizz was in the way of the room she was in earlier, the only place she could go was out. And so, she sprinted away, into the hall, where there was space.

It was empty when she got out. Everyone else's games must still be ongoing.

She spent the next minute in that hall, filled with paranoia despite the vibrant surroundings. She watched the doors of the other game rooms, heart racing rapidly. The only reason she hadn't sprinted out of there was her friends. She wanted so badly to see that they were okay.

With time, the next door opened. Mumbo came from it, holding the door.

And out came the tapping of a cane.

“Scar!” Lizzie frantically rushed towards him. It looked like she'd seen things, which she definitely did.

“Lizzie…” As the pink-haired cast member held his elbows in distress, she could see a similar shock on his face. They didn't need words to tell each other what they'd experienced after winning the game. While in different rooms, both of them saw what they did.

“I'm so glad you got out of there,” Lizzie caught her breath, releasing her grip on him. “This place… I have no idea what we signed up for. We should've- We really should've read the contract.”

Scar didn't directly reply to that statement, but that didn't mean he disagreed. “Hoo… That was so scary. I really thought I was next. I fell out of my chair when he-” His gaze shifted to Mumbo, and so did Lizzie's. Mumbo turned his back on them, refusing to meet their eyes. “...That was one of the scariest moments of my life,” he reiterated with further exaggeration.

Immediately after he said that, another door opened. Grian walked out, his expression pleased. 

And out came… not their mascot. It was BigB.

When BigB and the other winners locked eyes, no one moved. The door closed behind him, and its creaking could only be heard in the absolute silence of their meeting.

Surprisingly, BigB didn't look fazed at all. He held his regular smile, as if he had a good day. “Hi Scar. Hi Lizzie. Looks like we all won.”

Lizzie was relieved to see BigB there. She knew him, after all, and wouldn't have wanted him to get hurt, yet… “How's Jimmy?” she asked, pure worry in her voice. “Is he…”

“Mhm. Same as the people who lost to you.”

It pained her to imagine Jimmy in that room, having his arm pierced by a syringe, facing the very same thing her opponent did.

“Oh no,” Scar frowned, imagining something similar. The truth of what happened to his dear friend wasn't easy on him either.

“Relax,” BigB advised. “It's only a blood donation. Nothing irreversible, or anything like you're acting for it to be.”

Something about that wording made Lizzie's brow twitch. “BigB, why are you saying it like that? Why are you so nonchalant about this?”

“Because it's a low-stakes game,” he answered as easily as breathing air.

“Because it’s-” she wasn’t satisfied by that. “What?”

Among the stiff crowd, BigB began to walk forward, slowly, through the hall. “The Wild Rooms have different levels of difficulty, different degrees of cooperation, and different consequences. The prize money is the biggest hint about the stakes. 50 diamonds isn’t a whole lot – well, far from the biggest prize, anyway, so the punishment for losing isn’t severe.” He walked past Lizzie, whose brows were tented. Scar, who stood beside her, didn’t show any identifiable emotion. “Ah, one thing I really like about the Wild Rooms is how flexible it is. You get notified about the games beforehand, and you get to see if they’re for you. It helps pretty much anyone who needs it, as long as they’re willing to take even the slightest risk for the money.”

“Huh,” Lizzie paused to think. “You said it was your first time participating.”

“Yeah, so, I lied about that. It helps in mind games like Nine Ninety Nine. Sometimes it’s easier when people don’t think you’re experienced.”

Lizzie clenched the end of her shirt. Before she could speak, though, Scar asked BigB a question. “Really? How experienced are you, then? How much have you earned from playing these games?”

BigB stopped walking, thinking of what to reply. “Enough for my daily needs. Enough to start up my business and keep it alive as well. That’s a whole other risk I have to take. But what’s life without taking a bunch of risks? My bakery may not be the best performing thing in the world, but it’s still my dream.”

Lizzie knew of BigB’s bakery. Cookie Castle was a humble little store, and she’d go there with her husband every now and then. She liked it, even if it was often empty whenever she was there.

Knowing the truth now, she could no longer see the bakery the same way.

BigB stepped back to face his friend. “I hope you don’t hate me for this, Lizzie. If the penalty was worse, I definitely wouldn’t have competed with Jimmy. And… I’m sorry I didn’t warn either of you. I just needed the prize money, if that meant pulling total newbies into this kind of game.” After he said that, he walked away, heading for the exit door.

How conflicting. Maybe BigB meant well, or maybe he didn’t, and he was sprinkling excuses over something he knew his friends wouldn’t be okay with. He made his actions sound like a mercy, almost. Though, it wasn’t as if winning a card game was a crime. He had his own situation, too… Regardless, she couldn’t help but be mad at him. A simple discouragement dressed in lies could’ve been enough to drive her and her friends out of this, surely, since he was so good at it.

However, BigB was Joel’s friend, along with Jimmy’s, if that’d still apply. She didn’t want to make any trouble, especially since there was no way she could explain what happened in the Wild Rooms, let alone what they were to Joel. If it was hard to think how her perception of BigB should change, maybe she was better off pretending it didn’t.

“How ruthless,” Scar commented as he watched him leave. 

Lizzie had nothing else to say, though. She needed time to process everything she’d just seen and heard.

Mumbo, who hadn’t moved far from the door he came out of, approached the two winners when he detected how quiet it had become. “We’re going to clean up now,” he politely informed them. “The game is over, so you’re both free to go home.”

It proceeded to be quiet after that, making the host feel bad for even opening his mouth. Thankfully for him, Scar would begin to talk. “Alright. Thank you, Mumbo, and uh, Wild Room staff, for everything.”

He brought forth his cane, heading for the door, and checking if Lizzie was coming once he was halfway. Not wanting to be in the room for longer, Lizzie came along. The last thing she saw from that room were the three hosts waving goodbye. 

She went home by train.

_

It was another morning. Lizzie woke up to the normalcy of being in her and her husband's comfortable bedroom, surrounded by plushies of cute animals, pink and green wallpaper, and picture frames on the walls. 

Her husband was not by her side when she opened her eyes. He usually woke up before her. That was normal.

She got up, put on her fuzzy slippers, and opened the door. Her nose was met with the smell of breakfast. Joel must be cooking. That was normal, too.

“Good morning, my beautiful wife,” Joel greeted her as he tossed the omelette he was cooking from pan to plate. “Did you see how clean that toss was? Are you impressed?”

Showing off so early in the morning. It was so stupid it brought a smile to her tired face. “Wow, that was really good.”

The moment she took a seat, Joel put down the plate he just prepared. “Breakfast is served.”

“Aw, thank you.” 

Lizzie put a spoonful of omelette into her mouth. It was seasoned to her liking, perfectly cooked without any browning, and most importantly, delicious. She'd told her husband enough compliments about his omelettes that words weren't necessary. All he needed to hear was an agreeable hum to know he'd done well.

Once she'd finished her food, she rinsed the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. Because she was typically in charge of that.

What an exceedingly normal morning, she thought, as if it wasn't. Well, until…

“Lizzie, is something wrong?” Joel questioned. He wouldn't miss it if his wife was acting a bit differently than usual.

Which was just great for Lizzie, because there was nothing she could tell him. “Nothing. It's nothing, really.” He wasn't going to buy that, so she switched strategies. “Okay fine, I didn't sleep well last night. I was itchy all over and I couldn't stop scratching myself. I think there might've been a mosquito.”

“A mosquito? That's terrible.” Good for her that he was buying it. “You could've woken me in the middle of the night and I would've killed it for you.” He did a swatting motion with his spatula. “Like this.”

“No, I possibly couldn't. Being bitten by mosquitoes is worth it as long as you get to sleep peacefully.”

Yuck, they sounded like newlyweds. They were only a year into marriage, so maybe it counts.

Snapped out of the romantic vibe, Joel remembered what he needed to do for the day. “By the way, babe, can you do a favor for me and check the mail? The bumper stickers I ordered should've arrived yesterday, but I forgot to check.”

“Sure,” Lizzie accepted without a second thought. “I'll be going downstairs, then.”

“Thanks in advance.”

She exited the apartment and took the elevator down.

Out of her home, she could hear only the dings of the elevator, as well as her lone thoughts. Last night was too bizarre for her to believe. Betting games? Syringes? Must've been her wild imagination at work. Skizz wouldn't be a host for games like that. Who even was Grian? Or Mumbo?

She made her way to the mail room, finding the box with her apartment number. She found two items inside: the package with the bumper stickers addressed to Joel, and an envelope addressed to her. 

Her heart almost stopped when she saw the sender's name. The Wild Room. Ah, so it wasn't her imagination. Very well then. It is what it is.

She fumbled with the envelope before actually being able to open it, pulling out a cheque. Her preferred form of payment. 50 diamonds, as promised. It was almost like compensation for all the shock.

Wondering how it was on Scar's end, she kept the mail with her, then pulled out her phone.

She didn't turn it on when she suddenly heard footsteps.

“Are you going to call the cops?” A particular dirty blond asked. She nearly flinched.

No longer in the Wild Room, Grian was dressed in casual clothes – the same red jumper she'd seen in the photos Gem and Pearl showed her. He stuck out like a sore thumb in the light grey mail room.

“Grian?!” She furrowed her brows. “What are you doing in my apartment complex?”

“Well according to the contract, you consented to being surveilled even outside of the Wild Room for security reasons,” he justified his stalking.

“My goodness. Does that contract have every human rights violation in them? Why'd you make anyone sign that thing?”

“So you can cash out. Don't like the 50 diamonds we sent you?”

If Lizzie was a better protagonist, she'd be ripping the cheque into pieces and say some memorable line like ‘I don't want your dirty money!’ Sadly, Lizzie was not that kind of person. She needed that money. 

“No, um. I'm keeping it, actually. I won the game fair and square,” she defended herself.

Grian smirked, taking pride in the fact that someone of Lizzie's character had been introduced to the games. It was like finding an actor made for a certain role. “If you want more, you can always play more games.”

Lizzie was dumbfounded by the suggestion. “What?”

“There's going to be a new game soon. Different venue from last time, with higher potential risk… but you get to form a team to complete it. I'd say it's a pretty good deal for someone who has friends they can invite.” ‘Bring your friends from last time into another potential death game,’ was what Lizzie knew he was implying. “How does that sound?”

“Um…”

“We can exchange numbers so I can share you extra details,” he took out his own phone. “I'll give you mine.”

“No,” she firmly said, shaking her head. “I don't want to play any more of those freaky games! You're not gonna hurt me or any of my friends.”

“Oh,” he sounded the tiniest bit disappointed, keeping his phone. “That's too bad. But I understand. The Wild Room isn't for everyone. You weren't an intentional invite, either.” He sighed, putting aside the game host persona. “I really should've texted Gem and Pearl beforehand. I also… have no idea why in the world you guys followed me after dark. Aren't you a cast member? Isn't that overstepping?”

“Overstepping? Ha, noooo….. I was just,” she didn't complete her sentence, mind occupied with another query. “Wait, why'd you go missing?”

“We had a Wild Room host defect from us. He stole a ton of diamonds that were meant to be in the prize pool for a harder game, so I was urgently ordered to chase after him during my free time, mind you. And it actually helped because I caught the guy and-” He averted his gaze. “You don't wanna know what happened to him, but it'll happen if you break your contract.”

“Oh.” was all she could say.

Lizzie thought he'd push the game offer further, however, he decided to get going just like that.

“Anyway, it was nice checking in with you. My job here is done.” He waved his hand. “Byeeee!”

“Byeee,” Lizzie mindlessly imitated him.

Welp, guess she had enough to pay off the student debt she owed for the month. She went back to what she was doing earlier; opening her phone.

She checked her notifications first. There was an email from her employer, one from the cozy game she downloaded not long ago telling her to feed her pets, and…

“Jimmy?”

_

Like clockwork, Jimmy returned to his regular life. Aside from his panicked texts to Lizzie first thing in the morning, he was video calling Joel as usual, pretending to give him a smooch over the screen, even; and arranging meetups for next weekend. Below the surface, Lizzie knew he was just as shaken up as she was, yet restrained by a vow of silence.

A proper post game conversation was arranged by Scar, who invited the two to a trendy cafe he'd always wanted to visit. It'd be later in the afternoon.

Due to bad timing, Lizzie had to refuse Joel when he asked to take her on a ride around the city, but that was the least of her problems. He did make a face that reminded her of her dog Meri when she gets sad, which made her feel bad, so she gave him a peck on the cheek before she left.

Getting to the cafe wasn't too hard. It was only 7 stops away by bus and a 10 minute walk from there. The place was called Cloudy Day. It was known for its atmosphere, adorable 3D latte art, and popcorn chicken. Ever since it became popular, the prices kept going up until enough customers thought it was ridiculous, preventing the massive crowds that used to form. 

When Lizzie got there, to her luck, there wasn't a queue at all. She sat with Scar and Jimmy, who had seated before her.

“This is quite a lot for a latte,” Lizzie commented as she read the menu. “What are they putting in it?”

“I think it's for the 3D art,” Jimmy supposed. “It takes skill to pull off something like that.”

Lizzie reread the text. “No, actually, it says here it'd cost extra for 2D or 3D art.”

“Are you kidding?” He looked at the page she was on. “Oh my gosh this place is a scam.”

“You guys don't worry about the price,” Scar assured. “I'll pay for everything.”

“You will?” Jimmy's eyes sparkled. “Thank you, Scar! I'm taking the 3D latte art, then.”

“Just because Scar's gonna pay, doesn't mean you should pick the most expensive options,” Lizzie gave him a disapproving glare. “Anyway, I'd also like the 3D latte art.”

Scar let out a chuckle. “Sounds like we're all getting the same thing.”

Once they had made their orders, the three of them chattered idly every now and again while they waited. To kill time, Lizzie turned on her phone to play Sunflower Fields, the mobile game Gem was obsessed with nowadays. She was just going to do her daily tasks, like harvesting crops and feeding her virtual pets. She was going to go fishing, too. At least, until their drinks arrived. 

For Lizzie, she received a foam calico cat coming out of the cup. Jimmy got a very round bird, while Scar got a llama, which stretched up longer than the others’ foam artwork.

They made sure to take pictures before regrettably having to destroy the beautiful art in order to drink. The latte itself was pretty average. Though, that wasn't what their meeting was about.

Every now and again, Lizzie could be caught glancing at Jimmy's upper arm. He was wearing a jacket with long sleeves that day, only rolled up to his elbows. She wondered if she could see a puncture wound. As for his wrist, she could spot a band-aid under a few bracelets.

“So,” Lizzie started. “The Wild Rooms. That's what we're here for, right?”

That singular key phrase was what thickened the lighthearted air from mere seconds ago.

“Yes,” Jimmy nodded. “Yes it is.”

“How are you feeling, Jimmy?” Scar eyed him with concern. “You did just get tranquilized and lost a lot of blood.”

“I'm fine, but I definitely do feel like I'm missing something that was part of me. Like, constantly,” he attempted to describe. “I'm more bummed out about losing to B, though. He got me good.”

“Skizz told me that the amount of blood the loser gets taken from them is related to the number they made,” Lizzie recalled. “So it should be between 0 to 999 milliliters. Which…”

“Which isn't necessarily dangerous,” Scar completed the sentence for her. “Your heart might beat faster, but that's about it.”

Jimmy ate a piece of popcorn chicken. “Yeah, I was told that when I woke up in whatever facility they'd taken me. Man, I was so shocked when Grian stabbed me like that, and he's convinced me that it's entirely my fault it happened to me…” He didn't have a pleasant time talking to the staff after regaining consciousness, it sounded like. “I think my losing number was 482. I got a brief rundown of the contract, an invitation to play another game, and then I got the syringe treatment again and I was home by the morning.”

“You got invited to play another? That happened to me, too.” Right off the bat, Lizzie was critical. “You're not gonna do that, are you?”

“Psshhh, nooo, no…” Jimmy flicked his wrist. “No, um… though I might,” he said more quietly.

“What? What do you mean, you might?” Her hand fell to her end of the table. Lizzie feared she might've put too much faith in that man. “The Wild Rooms are extremely sketchy. We shouldn't get anywhere near them ever again! I think we have a lot to worry about, like… Where does all their prize money come from? How are there hosts who are totally fine with the participants getting hurt? And why in the world is a place like that built under BAM Park? They're probably also monitoring us right now, seeing if we're going to mention the Wild Rooms to the wrong people. Why should we be playing any more of their games?”

“Well,” the blond paused, wondering how to express his thoughts. “I lost the last game. I was… hoping I could win the next.” The reasoning was so simple in contrast to all that Lizzie voiced out.

Her feelings were completely valid. With the Wild Room being so against police reports, what they were doing was definitely breaking the law. That much was true, yet…

For someone like Scar, it didn't bother him too much.

“I was also given an invitation to the next game,” he said. “I heard it'll be an escape room that requires team effort, and that it can be cleared without injury. Winners get to share a prize pool of 120 diamonds. I don't think it'll be a bad idea to try for a little extra cash.”

“Hey, that's the game I was told about!” Jimmy pointed out.

Lizzie looked at the two judgmentally. “Not you too, Scar! You're being baited into thinking you can win. That's how casinos get people to gamble!”

Regardless of how reasonable her words were, they couldn't get through Scar. “You don't have to join the next game if you don't like it, Lizzie. But me? I'm willing to clear that escape room with Jimmy if he wants.”

“You will, Scar?” Hope filled the blond man's face.

Quite badly, Lizzie wanted to convince them not to go. She didn't like the idea of them re-involving themselves with that place and those people. She cared about them too much for that.

Even so, no matter how many red flags they disregarded, it was their choice whether they wanted to keep going. They were already being stalked and silenced all because of a contract they signed. Having tested the waters, the choice of going deeper felt plausible.

Lizzie had to remind herself who her friends were. Scar was an irregular guy who went to work with a fake name. He wasn't afraid of criminal activity, and that might be the one big con in an otherwise splendid friend. Jimmy, while having a clean record, wouldn't pass up on an opportunity if he was convinced it was achievable for him. With the two of them declaring their unopposed stances, that left Lizzie alone, unable to control how they happily talked about winning a game together. 

“An escape room sounds tricky.” Jimmy scratched his ear. “But I'm gonna do my best!”

“We have a month to prepare,” Scar informed. “We can sign ourselves up for a bunch of other escape rooms for practice.”

Jimmy's face brightened. “You're right! That's such a brilliant idea.”

“Respectfully, the most brilliant thing you can do is not accept the invitation,” Lizzie argued.

In the pit of Lizzie's stomach, she could feel an unsavory future coming. Based on her personal judgments, these two don't fare very well in situations where they'll need logic or reasoning. That wasn't a way to call them idiots, but… Okay, maybe she did take them for fools, and maybe she really feared for the worst, but there was no way she was jumping off this bridge with them. Just no way.

Knowing how against it Lizzie felt, they quit talking about the very thing they met up at the cafe for. Well, aside from the trendy lattes. Switching topics didn’t pull her out of her barely hidden distress, though it didn’t make it much worse, meaning it might’ve helped. To distract herself, she hopped back onto Sunflower Fields and continued with her tasks. That was one game she'd rather play than anything from the Wild Rooms.

On the way to her usual fishing lake, she saw that something had interacted with bait she'd left the day before. She took her avatar to that spot and clicked on an icon. She wondered what she had lured.

And there it was, an axolotl. Not just that, a blue one. One of the rarest pets in the game, in its rarest variant.

Freaking out at the rare occurrence, she almost screamed, shutting her mouth before she could. As far as she was aware, neither of her friends played Sunflower Fields. They'd think she was insane for reacting like that over a game. She had no idea how nobody noticed her.

How incredibly lucky of her to have a blue axolotl as a pet so early into playing. If she could do that, and she won Nine Ninety Nine, then what if she tried her hand at…

No, she shook her head. There was still no way.

The rest of that outing was a blur to her. Mentally, she was switching back and forth between two realms. They finished their drinks and the popcorn chicken, Scar paid the bill, ‘thank you’s were exchanged, and they walked out of the cafe to view the beach from the elevated part of the city they were in. Anyone driving by would be met with a beautiful view. However, Lizzie wasn’t in the mood to be amazed.

The trio walked through the pavement until they found a comfortable spot to take pictures. Scar and Jimmy were the most enthusiastic, positioning themselves right behind a railing. Lizzie stood behind them, staring into the distant beach. 

Because Scar was holding his phone with only one hand, he almost dropped it, and it would’ve fallen past the railing and into the forest below. Jimmy let out a sigh of relief. The next thing they did was look behind them, at their pink-haired friend. Even though Lizzie watched the whole thing unfold, it was odd how she didn’t bother to scold Scar for being so careless. 

Instead, she made a statement.

“Jimmy, Scar, I’ve decided… I’m joining you both in the next Wild Room.”

In the end, she couldn’t leave them alone. For that, perhaps she, too, was an idiot.