The inside of the auditorium was dark and cool. Around the waiting area girls in that same simple black dress were stationed to answer questions. The line was filtered through a maze of velvet ropes to a pair of doors. One girl stationed on the left took the applications, removed them from the clipboards and quickly scanned them. She then handed the applicant a White, Black or Red card.

The girl on the left handed each person with a white or a black card a sheet of instructions before letting them through the appropriate door. The applicants with the red cards were thanked politely, then shown to the exit.

All together there were four dozen people let through the black and white doors, two dozen through each door. They found themselves in long halls with a single door at the end. Another black clad girl opened the door for them one at a time.

Inside the door was a black booth. Standing in the booth was a black robed man next to a table of small devices.

?Welcome to the auditions for ?Who Wants to be a Victim? where the person who lives through the most pain wins.? The robed man had a deep velvety voice, like a TV show host should. ?If you would, step into the circle please??

The hobo was the first person up. He stepped into the circle, looking dubiously at the array of items on the table.

?Now then, you have ten seconds to name a part of your body that you would like to have broken. Ready? One? Two? Three??

?Elbow! I can live without an elbow.? The hobo looked a little panicked now as he shouted out his answer.

The host grinned in the dark shadows of his hood. ?Excellent now be a good man and scream for me.? He fastened a vice around the mans elbow and began to turn the crank. At first the hobo felt nothing but intense pressure. But soon he was screaming loudly, and crying for his mother.

?Perfect! Congratulations and welcome to the cast.? The hooded host patted the mans uninjured arm, then handed him off to one of the black clad girls. "Bring in the next one please lucinda.?

The doors had been soundproofed so those waiting had no idea what was in store for them. One by one they were filed through the audition chamber. Those who failed to chose a body part were unceremoniously hit in the kneecaps with a lead pipe. The hooded hosts then stamped their foreheads with a special luminescent red ink, in large letters ?REJECT? before two of the black clad girls drug them out and tossed them in the alley behind the auditorium.

Only six people passed the audition tests. They were taken to a nearby hotel, given medical care and told to rest.

Tomorrow the real fun would start.

Once he stepped through, the door slammed shut behind him, leaving him at the top of a flight of stairs going downwards. There wasn?t much in the way of lighting, a gas lamp on the landing at the bottom, and a few spots of greenish light showing up through cracks in the stairs from below. Seeing little choice in the matter he started down the stairs.

?This is totally out of whack! What kind of sadistic freak came up with this crap?? He was talking mostly just to hear his own voice. The silence here was creepy. He didn?t expect an answer, so he jumped in surprise when a feminine voice whispered over the loudspeakers to answer him.

?Why Mr. Charles, I?ll take that as a compliment. I do wish you luck on your descent.? There was a hint of laughter in that voice that seemed to echo in the small space even after the talking had stopped.

There was a loud cracking sound as Thomas placed his foot on the next step, as the rotted board there splintered under his weight. He barely caught his balance, leaning up against the wall, but the splinters of wood tore into his ankle leaving ragged gashes and pieces imbedded in his skin.

?You should watch your footing Mr. Charles. It would be a shame to mar that pretty face of yours now wouldn?t it?? the voice whispered out of the darkness again.

He ignored the voice and extracted his mangled foot from the remains of the stair, stepping over the hole and carefully testing the next step. It held his weight but there was a sudden hiss from the left. Several needle like darts shot out from the wall and sunk into his cheek and shoulder.

?Tsk Tsk.. I told you to be careful Mr. Charles.?

?Shut up bitch.? Thomas growled and started yanking barbs out while continuing down the stairs to the landing. ?I don?t need your advice.?

?Mr. Know-it-all thinks he?s in control does he? Thinks that a broken step is the worst that can happen here? You have so much to learn Mr. Charles. So much.? The voice trailed off again, leaving him in silence once again.

He dropped the darts he could remove onto the landing then tore a strip from his shirt to wrap his ankle. The stairs continued down, the light on the next landing the source of the greenish glow, a single old bulb over an open doorway. Beyond the doorway was only seen blackness.

The room behind the door was filled with piled pieces of broken furniture. While she watched jets of flame shot up from the floor, and the piles caught fire. The voice came on the speaker again.

?Somewhere in that room Mary is the key that unlocks the next door. Find the key and you get a little closer to your goal. Fail to find the key, and you may just stay here until time ends. Your choice Mary.?

Mary squared her shoulders and surveyed the flaming piles of furniture. She pulled the sleeves of her tattered hoodie down over her hands and waded in, poking at the first pile of rubbish. The pile teetered and fell crashing forward and letting off a shower of sparks and cinders.

Several cinders lodged themselves under her eyes, searing into the skin. Her eyes welled with tears and a groan of pain slipped past her lips, but still she pawed through the burning rubbish looking for the key.

Under the third pile Mary found something out of place. A metal two drawer file cabinet in the midst of all this wood? Burnt and blistered fingers clawed at the edges of the drawers, the handles were missing. Mary was sobbing now, desperate to get the cabinet open, sure the key was inside. Finally she managed to pry the top drawer open.

Empty. The drawer was empty. Another strangled sob, and she pried at the bottom one. So intent on the drawers she was, she didn?t notice that the flames were dying down to ash. She also failed to notice, hanging on the far wall on a short length of chain, a single key.

Tom Thompson just finished his tour on Watch. Returning to his room on one of the middle floors in Station Five after securing his long arm, a magazine-fed shotgun, at the armory, he felt like a thousand pound man, staggering through his doorway and slamming the door behind him.

He shed his uniform like a snake shedding its scales, only faster. Clad in his underwear, socks, and T-shirt, he stepped over to the chiller and pulled a bottled beverage from it. Sighing at the cheapness of the beer, he sank into one of only five pieces of furniture in his room, which looked like a renovated broom closet.

Built into the chair was the remote control for the trideevision on the wall. With a sigh, he switched it on, looking for something entertainingly mind-numbing to drift off to sleep to, as he had to be back on Watch in a little less than eleven hours.

With heavy-lidded eyes, he surfed through most of the channels, which contained a bizarre compilation of "Iron Wizard" - a magickal cooking show - reruns, "Life With Little Draconis" - a sitcom about a precocious little wise-cracking dragon and his parent, and some reality tv program called "Who Wants To Be A Victim."

The "Viewer Discretion Advised" disclaimer at the beginning piqued his interest. It appeared to certainly be more cutting edge than the rest of the drivel on tonight.

The first contestant was a pretty boy actor Thompson had seen before in commercials.

"Hmm...they're using real talent. Must be all special effects," he said to himself.

The pretty boy didn't get very far before he started having problems.

"Wow, those are good special effects," Tom muttered in amazement as the man's ankle was shredded by breaking through a wooden step.

A few steps more, and the man got a faceful of needles.

"Wow," said Tom again. "He's a better actor than I thought. He really looks like he's hurting."

When the pretty boy started pulling the needles out one by one, leaving behind spots of running blood, Tom started to consider that this might not be special effects after all. He checked the program's description: "Reality TV."

"Oh WOW," said Tom. "That guy's REALLY getting hurt!"

For some reason, that both fascinated and disgusted him as the same time, and he could not take his eyes away.

The man staggered to a black door, and the camera cut to someone else.

The next contestant was a teenage girl on the skinny side. She looked familiar.

He heard the voiceover: "Mary Mary, Quite Contrary, How does a garden grow?"

He chuckled. Mary was his daughter's name. He thought about her and wondered if she was at home with her mother watching this. The more he looked at the girl, the more he figured she could be his own Mary's twin.

Then something happened. Mary's face changed into a very, very familiar expression, the sullen scowl his daughter always wore in his presence, the "I don't respect you Daddy" look.

"Bring it on, you blowhard!" Tom heard Mary say. His jaw dropped. There was no way to mistake that voice.

It was his daughter.

His blood ran cold. The beer he had been enjoying dropped to the floor and spilled; He didn't even notice. Adrenaline surged through him as he lunged to his feet.

He reached for his gun.

Before the shooting began, he ran his fingers over the creases of his suit. He had purchased it especially for this event. An event, he remembers painfully, was the result of having two fingers broken. He shook the thoughts out of his head - if that was the worse this show was going to do, then he could take it. He smirked with a condescending review of the others that had been picked and shaking his head slightly.

The lights came on, and the group was directed into the room. The others picked their doors, and he picked his. "This is your lucky day, Jonas." He said to himself. He walked into the middle of a empty room, only a door leading to the next step in this maze to fame. The door behind him nearly wrenched his arm clean off when it slammed shut and he refused to let it close. The locks sealed behind him with a hiss. As he struggled with the door back to the anti-room, he turned his sights to the next door.

It was time to move on if you can't take safe passage. He moved to the door and turned the knob. As he did metal rods folded down quickly, locking in place. He stopped moving the knob, and they stopped moving. He looked back and forth to the walls to either side of him, and glanced back at the ones behind him. He continued to move the knob towards the point it would release the catch and allow the door to open, only to find that the rods locked into place. He stopped when he heard a clink. This was now a challenge, he decided to roll the knob back to reset the rods into their closed position.

It didn't work.

The rods instead began to grid towards him! He released the knob all together like it was hot led in his hand. He looked at the door, looking at the seam, then back at the rod. He shook his head, and began pacing. He looked at the door he had come through again - It wasn't budging. Nearly an hour passed, he had looked the original door over carefully to find it wasn't going anywhere. There was no air coming through it either. This concerned him and he began to look closer, and it was becoming more stuffy in the room.

There was no air exchange. He looked frantically at the door again, his only way out and it had rods that were about waist height that were going to grind towards him. He didn't have a choice, maybe he could turn the knob and open it before they posed a threat - maybe that was the challenge. He slammed his hand back on the knob determined to rip the door open as quickly as he could and jump through it!

He prepared himself, taking a few practice pulls until he was finally ready. He turned the knob just a bit at first, and repositioned his hand better. His forehead was sweaty, and he was starting to find it was getting difficult to breathe. He twisted the knob as fast as he could and pulled as hard on the door as he could.

He couldn't have foreseen the results:

The rods dragged closer at the turn, only speeding up as he made the turn of the knob. Quickly he found out that the door wasn't going to open as quickly as he wanted it to - instead as he jerked on the door, the rods shot out. He screamed something fierce as he leaned all his weight on the door. He couldn't hold himself up anymore with steel rods nearly 2 inches in diameter were piercing each leg in different places. One went clean through his knee and remained lodged there. The second one pierced his calf. He clenched his teeth as he dragged his pained legs through the door, only to have it slam shut on him leaving him in pure darkness.

It took him a few minutes to build up the strength to pull his body through the doorway. He sobbed lightly - every inch of his upper torso was scorched by that fire. His knee was throbbing with the rushed pulse through his body. He had to make it now, if just to survive. Getting through the door, it slammed hard behind him, leaving the darkness in his wake. He forced his head up, the tears of pain and terror forming in his eyes as he saw another closed door in a simple and plane room. How much more pain could he take from these "simple" rooms? He shook his head, he was no quitter! He grunted as he pushed himself up, using the wall behind him as an anchor.

He continued to use the wall as a way of getting his body moving towards the door. It took several minutes, and he belted out curses of pain as he moved, but he got to the door on the opposing wall. As he got there, he reached for the doorknob, to see it was only a simple clasp. He looked around quickly to see if it was just that simple.

He turned it then withdrew quickly, to find that it was just simple paneling over a very secure door. Through the door laid four very thick bolts. He looked up to find that four ropes had been dropped from the ceiling. Carefully moving himself over, he took one of the strands of rope and pulled on it. It took everything he had, going completely dead weight, but the first bolt in the door moved. As the bolt settled back there came a faint "hiss" sound that lasted for but a second. His eyes widened as he looked around - What new torture was to find him!

He turned quickly to the next rope, now understanding what to do. He quickly put all his weight into it, pulling it down to hear the joyful click! But the joy did not last, as he heard not only the brief hiss sound, but he heard another click. If his eyes had opened any wider, his eyeballs would have fallen out and rolled around on the floor. The first bolt reset itself back into locked position. He frantically went back and pulled in the first rope again, looking over his shoulder to watch that bolt move back.

The hiss escaped once more, the second bolt returned to is locked position.

Hope turned to frantic as he pulled the second rope and held the first one down in place as best he could. The hiss sound escaped once more as the second bolt slid back, the first one staying back. There were still two others, he remembered. He noticed though it was becoming harder to move, and the burns were beginning to tingle again. He shook it away - He had to get out NOW!

He moved to the two last ropes and pulled on them with everything he had. He felt himself slowing down as he heard another hiss and heard the door click, but it seemed so far away. Inside he smiled to himself, until he heard the top two locks click once more. He struggled with his body and through the pain that was beginning to eat at his concentration before he got to the first sets of ropes. He pulled on them, releasing another hiss. He threw up, his head was so heavy now, so much pain. What was it, what was happening to him. It felt like the rod had engulfed his whole leg, the flames seemed to ignite once more on his torso. He looked at the four ropes and leaned into them, trying to gather them up to pull all of them at once. He was in so much pain now, there was no holding it back, he screamed at the top of his lungs. His last motion he remembered was pulling down on all the ropes at once, and hearing a loud click.

And that hiss came out again, but he didn't hear it, or he didn't care. He hit the ground so hard, his body wholly tense as he was wracked with pain, but his muscles wouldn't respond anymore. The burn patterns began to rip, the muscles beginning to harden against his body as it began to crack his bones, leaving only a pool of blood under him.

The door slammed so hard behind her, she thought she was going to go through the ceiling. She pulled her jacket a little tighter. Her hand had been bandaged gently in white gauze to allow it to heal correctly. She rubbed at it absent mindledly, remembering that during the "qualifier" she had five burning pins shoved clean through her hand.

Just remembering that seemed to send an ache clear up her arm. She looked around the moderatly lit room, seeing only a single door in the opposing wall from where she came. The door knob seemed to be "cut" into the door, becuase it was lower than the surface of the door - perhaps it should have been a hidden item.

She walked carefully towards it. Her grandchildren warned her not to do it, her son said that they didn't need the money that bad. But she only smiled and took her son gently in her hand and told him that this was for the best. If something happened, she had lived a long and good life, and the money would be put to good use. She took her jacket and made her way to the staging area, where she was greeted by a girl in a black dress and a plesant smile.

She signed another round of paperwork, it becoming so much she wasn't sure what it was anymore, but the lawyers there all seemed very nice as they explained things.

She got shuffled into the room with the other players, some of them so very nice, some not so much. She waited as another girl explained the details of the game: Survive each room until the end. She then walked out, the door behind her becoming sealed. There was no turning back now.

There was no turning back at all. She moved towards the door, reaching for the doorknob gently with her good hand. She began to turn it. It seemed to take forever to get it turned. She could hear things clicking beyond the walls. She heard something grind behind her and she turned as quickly as she could and found nothing. She pulled her hand from the door knob, and felt for sure that her fingers were a little warmer than they were before. She touched the doorknob again to turn it, feeling it getting warmer. She turned the knob again, thinking it was just her imagination.

She heared the clicking and grinding once more as she turned again behind her to see the noise, only to find nothing after she released the doorknob.

Once more, she turned the knob, and it was indeed getting hotter, to the point where she screamed lightly and pulled her hand away quickly. She touched the door knob again, trying to turn it a little more. She heard more grinding and clicking, turning back quickly while still trying to turn the new burning door knob to actually see the wall moving towards her. She grimiced sharply trying to bear the pain and turn the knob the other way, to only see the wall grinding faster towards her. When she couldn't stand the pain anymore, she ripped her hand from the knob, looking at her hand now bright red and starting to develop little bubbles on the flesh.

She looked carefully at the wall and then at the door. She hadn't felt the door budge, so she must not have unlatched it again. She took off her jacket, and quickly wrapped it around the gentle red glowing knob. She grabbed hold and turned it as quickly as she could to open the door, keeping an eye on the wall as it grew slowly closer to her. The door knob getting so hot, she could feel it through the layers of her wrapped jacket. The wall had covered the other door, and was getting closer, coming closer and closer to her as she tried to turn the knob to get it open. She was sweating so bad now trying to pull the door open, she was frantic in getting it turned. The smell of her roasting coat began to fill the room.

The door was no closer to opening, but the wall was now closer to her, but her hands couldn't take it anymore and she finally released the knob. Her hands surely had third degree burns, her tears stained her shirt. She couldn't do it anymore. Surely they would come to get her once they realized what had happened to her. She leaned back against the corner, trying to comfort and relax her hands. The jacket was wrapped in a ashen bundle either on the knob, or falling down in front of the door.

However, the grinding only stopped for a moment before it started again!

The sound echoed in her ears and in the small space for a moment before she looked at the door knob. She moved back over to it quickly, taking the door knob between her shirt tail and hands trying to open it. Still, it did nothing, though she felt a "click" behind the door. Her strength was begininng to fail, and the pain was starting to overcome her mind, joining in the panic that dominated her as she felt her shoulder touch the edge of the wall that would surly push her into the other one. She could feel the door opening, but it wasn't opening fast enough, and the doorknob couldn't be held any longer.

She resorted to pushing back on the wall. The pain in her hands would soon subside as there was a deft and simple "crunch" heard.

More lights came up illuminating other cases. Seven in all, all filled with writhing figures trying to get out. The humming was coming from the lights at the base of the cases, old fashioned fluorescents that gave out an eerie yellowish cast. She moved closer to the first case taking a closer look to the figure within. It appeared to be a man, middle aged and in tattered clothes. He appeared to be screaming in agony but Elinor could not hear a sound through the thick glass.

The voice came over the speakers again. ?Elinor, Elinor. You?ve spent your life caring for others, now its time to do something for yourself. The room you are in is slowly filling with a flammable sedative gas. Inside each of these poor souls is a key. Each key opens a lock.? A light came on over a low bench of tools. ?You have been given everything you need to find those keys. You have one hour before the concentration of gas gets heavy enough that you loose consciousness. But remember, one little spark and the game is over for you.?

There was a click and the lock on the first case opened. The man inside stumbled out snarling. His eyes were vacant and cold, nothing but madness and hunger there. He shambled right towards Elinor like a thing from a zombie movie. Elinor screamed and ran for the table, hands reaching for the tools. She desperately sought to grab one before the madman reached her. Her fingers closed on the blade of a saw, the teeth biting into her flesh. It was a weapon and better than nothing.

The shambling man got closer and made a grab for Elinor. He managed to get a grip on her jacket. She screamed again and swiped the saw down over his wrist. The man barely grunted. He was leaning in trying to snap at the tender part of her throat when she swiped the saw right over his throat.

Blood gushed everywhere. Elinor was soaked with it before the man even fell away to the ground. She knelt to examine the fallen man, looking for some hint as to where the key was. She found a small tattoo of an x right under his eye. She turned to the tool bench and selected a sharp awl, and then she set to work.

She had to get home to her kids.

Frances Cole used to be a preacher. He was a damned good preacher until the day he met Emily Smith. Her parents had approached him saying she was a troubled girl in need of counsel. So Frances had gone and seen the child. If troubled was spelled Demonic Possession, then Emily?s parents had been right on the money.

Frances lost all his faith in God the night Emily had died. He?d done everything he was supposed to, performed the proper rites, prayed with the family, Holy water, sacred vigils. He?d tried it all in His name. And still Emily had died. After that he?d left the church a broken man.

He had wandered the streets aimlessly until the day he saw the line below a sign announcing auditions for a new TV show. He didn?t know what the line was for. He was just hoping to get a free meal out of it. He was still searching in many ways for a spark of goodness out of mankind to restore his faith in God. He?d been turned away from so many places in his time on the street, especially places of God, where he had never gotten more than a grudging piece of bread and cup of water.

The hunger wasn?t the worst part of his self imposed exile from the comforts of man. The nightmares of Emily were far worse. He nearly fell into hysterics at the question about nightmares on the questioners the girls in black handed around. In the line around him, people pointed, whispering things like Transient, Good for Nothing and Hobo. His sadness grew with every whispered word.

When he was ushered into the screen test booth, and asked to select a bone to break he chose his elbow. His spirit had sunken so low that being injured thus seemed almost fitting. The only thing that worried him was the pain. He never had been good at taking pain. That fear showed in his eyes.

He was right about the pain. The vice closing on his elbow and tightening until the bone shattered had him weeping and calling out for Mother Mary?s mercy. But she had little mercy to give the wayward preacher. His elbow was splinted and he was fed and bathed at a hotel that night, just to be brought to the warehouse the next morning.

Elinor?s fingers had barely closed around the key in the dead madman?s cheek when two more cases cranked open. She flinched expecting something horrible to come from them, but instead heard only the sound of sobbing. Securing the first key in her pocket she cautiously moved to the first of the two open cases.

Inside was a bone thin girl dressed in rags. Her skin was pale and dirty, with dark sunken eyes. She was sobbing for her Mama. She turned those sunken eyes on Elinor and pleaded.

?Mama it hurts. Make it stop Mama.? The eyes she stared with were milky, and the fingers she reached up towards Elinor bloody from tearing at her own belly. Into her skin had been imbedded a lock, rusted and slimy with puss from the infected skin around it. The runs from the child?s nails went out from this as if she had been trying to claw it free.

Her attention was so focused on the child, trying to give her comfort, that she didn?t even notice the occupant of the other chamber move towards the tool bench on the far wall and silently lift a large kitchen knife. It was a woman in much the same state as the child. Her eyes had been sewn shut and her cheeks clawed bloody trying to open them.

The ragged woman raised her knife and screamed. ?Where is my baby! Give me back my Baby!? She swung the knife wildly around her, still screaming for her child.

Elinor didn?t react fast enough. The child hearing her mother gave out a cry, and the knife-wielding woman swung in that direction. The blade of the knife raked Elinor?s back leaving a long bloody trail. She gave a sob of pain, but leaned forward to try and shelter the little girl, pleading softly for her to stop.

The thud of the blade against flesh was enough to focus the crazed mother?s attention. She screamed again a sound of pure outrage, and sunk the knife in the direction of the pleading voice. It struck flesh, and with the momentum and weight of the mother behind it, sunk deeply. So deeply that Elinor?s next breath was a gurgle of blood. So deeply that the child under her screamed in pain as the knife tip protruding from Elinor pierced her own skin.

The ragged mother lay against Elinor?s still back sobbing quietly for her baby. The child lay under Elinor sobbing for her mother. A bloody sad reunion that continued until the gas filling the chamber took them both.