Chapter 1

The white light faded.

My head throbbed, a dull ache left over from before, from the screaming and the blood.

I blinked, mud squelching under my boots.

Mist, thick and damp, clung to everything.

Giant cypress trees loomed, their branches like skeletal arms draped with Spanish moss.

The air was heavy, smelling of decay and stagnant water.

A Louisiana swamp.

The last game, the one in the desert with the shifting sands and the sun creatures, felt like a lifetime ago, but the raw scrape on my arm, still tender beneath my torn ranger jacket, said otherwise.

We' d lost so many.

A sound cut through the fog, a harsh crackle, then a voice, tinny and distorted, like an old AM radio struggling for a signal.

"Contestant. Status: Active. Choice: Continue or Perish."

The System. Always so polite with its death sentences.

I spat mud.

"Like I have a damn choice."

My voice was hoarse.

The radio crackled again.

"Contestant #22. Designation confirmed. Proceed to the beacon."

Twenty-two. Fewer than last time. Much fewer.

A faint, flickering light pulsed in the distance, barely visible through the oppressive fog.

It was my only guide.

I pushed a heavy, moss-laden branch aside and started walking, the mud sucking at my boots with each step.

The light led me to it.

A house, or what was left of one.

A dilapidated Bayou Manor, several stories high, listing precariously.

It seemed to float on the dark, still water that surrounded it, a rotting island in a sea of black.

The wood was gray and peeling, windows dark and empty like vacant eyes.

A single, weak light glowed from a lower window, the source of the beacon.

This was our new playground.

Or our new grave.