Splitting a Match

Inception

5.

[Time: 6:39am]

[Location: Castor Home, Seattle, Pangaea]

[2 years later]

Compared to right now, life two years ago was heaven. Back then, we didn't have Delta officers barging into our houses once a week, we didn't have public executions or whippings, we didn't have disease swarming through the community like wildfire, we didn't have The Match.

Ever since our new world government, Alpha, has come to power, there has only been one ruler called a General. Of course, he has advisers and counselors and whatnot, but there has only been one of them so far. Well, ten years after General Hector, our first and only General, had proclaimed himself ruler, Alpha officials have voted that there needs to be a new General every four years. The only problem is that they had no way to elect a new one. They didn't want the citizens to vote, because that would be too democratic. They didn't want Beta officials, smaller government bodies ruling under Alpha over a 1,000 square mile area, to vote, because Alpha saw them as too inferior. Delta officers were too crazy. They needed to make a new system.

That system was The Match.

About a year ago, Delta patrols found a tattered, burned booklet on the desert floor in what was once central Kansas. On its ancient cover, there was depicted a strange map of Earth, the land laid out flat and divided into sections with words in the center of each section. The map was laid on a table of orange-ish wood, and around the table stood several people who were smiling and seemed to be laughing at each other. Many small, plastic pieces dotted the map, clustered into tiny groups on each of the sections. Some cards lay on the table. Two white cubes lay on the map with dots on each side, one through six. Dice. Proclaimed across the top of the booklet in bold red letters read one simple word: RISK.

The instruction booklet made its way into Beta headquarters, then eventually to Alpha. The information in the book had taken the interest of General Hector. It had caused a deep burning in his chest--something like greed or lust or indescribable pleasure. Something unquenchable. He pored endlessly over the few pages of the book, an idea slowly forming. Then, one day, he had it. He would take this game's rules and take it to a whole new epic level. He would play the game with real, physical people as the playing pieces. This new battle would be played by the elites of the government: The General, and the General-Elects. Whoever won the game became the new General. He called this wicked election system The Match.

And we had no idea how they would do it. Rumor had it that they had an "Examination", where they test the physical and mental abilities of a person before sending them onto the game board, and that was where the inner workings of The Match were revealed. Some Delta officer had leaked that information.

The Match has two different purposes. One, to get a new General, and two, to create fear. Alpha has controlled its citizens by fear from the get-go, primarily through Delta, but apparently they think they need more. Idiots. As if we needed a reminder to who was in power.

~~αβδ~~

I woke up with a start. Who...what...knocking...door. My groggy mind struggled to take in the loud pounding that echoed through our small living space.

"Who is it?" I mumbled to myself. The pounding continued relentlessly. I opened my eyes and saw the smooth concrete of my bedroom wall. It was a dull gray in the morning sun, pockmarked by pits where air bubbles had sat in between the concrete and its mold. Some old duct tape was still glued onto the wall several inches above my head, torn and ripped, but the adhesive was stubborn with age. I reached up and touched it and my fingertip came away sticky.