When The Past Becomes The Future

Do You Trust Me?

"In a little bit, it will be time for dinner. But Jason isn't going to just give you a bowl of dog food. No, he going to make you compete for it. The first person to complete his course will be the person who gets to eat." said Taja. "Except for you Ryder. He plans to keep you here so you don't go telling anyone, but this is a revenge story against Rocky, and you aren't important enough in his eyes to use. So, you'll just eat at regular times like a regular prisoner. He's not into hurting other humans...well...not yet." started Taja.

"Yeah, well, one of us has to win, so we'll just share what we get will the rest," said Rocky.

"Yeeeaaahhhhh..." drawled Marcus. "It doesn't work that way. You have to eat what you get right then, or he'll take it away from you."

"Please. Like he could take something from me, I'll light his ass on fire!" said Marshall.

"Yeah, he has some way of turning off our elemental powers. Something he's made the building out of. This is the only room that isn't made of Bloodstone." said Marcus. "But there's a deeper problem with the game, and it lies with the principle behind it. It teaches you 'survival of the fittest' and all that crap. But even worse, it destroys your friendship." he said.

"How?" asked Zuma.

"Because, Zuma," said Taja. "You are going to push yourself as hard as you can to get the food, because of your hunger. You cease to think about others. You think only about your material needs. You no longer care whether or not others get to eat, because you know that you need to eat. Soon it becomes a very horrible competition for resources, to the point of sabotaging the competition. I've seen it happen. Before my brother and I realized the trap we were in, Jason got us to begin physically hurting each other so that we could win. Jason doesn't care how you win, so you can go to the point of killing the other to win. Because Jason knows that when if we stand divided, he can make us fall together. We can't let that happen!" finished Taja.

"Okay. Thanks for the warning..." said Rubble.

"I'm not saying that you shouldn't try your hardest to be first, because at the end of the day, if you don't eat, you will die," Marcus said.

"But try to remember others, k?" said Taja. The overhead P.A system came on.

"It's time for dinner, pets! Come to room A immediately." came Jason's voice.

"Is the food any good?" asked Chase.

"He feeds you very well, if you can get there..." said Taja. "I haven't been able to get anything for the past four days. So I'm really going to try hard to win at this," she said, as they walked down they followed her down the corridor.

"Chase, how are you feeling," whispered Marcus. "I mean, have you been feeling strange lately?"

"Yeah, I feel like I should know something, but I don't. I feel like my brain is fuzzy sometimes. And when I do things, I feel like my mind is on autopilot."

"Chase, I don't know how to tell you this, but you're being mind-controlled, currently. Jason has powers, and he's forcing you to do whatever he wants. I'm working on a way to break his hold on you, but I haven't figured it out yet." Chase, however, didn't look surprised.

"I knew I never do anything like that willingly!" he whispered loudly.

"It'll be okay. I'll figure something out," said Marcus. The pups made it to the room, where they met Jason. The room was very long, and wide, and at the end was one smoking hot steak. The smell wafted over the pups, and they began to drool a little bit. They hadn't eaten anything since they left the Lookout.