AHGKYYG, new chapter lol.
Have fun reading.

---

To put it into perspective, Annie didn't expect to ever get an envelope on the weekend.

No one has ever sent her a letter, or anything of any kind, so it's always a surprise when something arrived for her, at exactly 7:30 in the morning that day.

Oliver was out as usual, doing whatever he does best, which is being by himself, doing who-knows-what. Annie was in the house, alone and bored, when the envelope came. 

Which I might add, is the recipe for disaster.

"From: The Watcher's Entertainment and Containment Department?" Annie mumbled as she turned the letter around, "Is that an actual thing? ... Containment and Entertainment are two very different things..."

Has to be related to each other because otherwise why would the department even exist?

She pats her pocket to assure that the camera has not been left out somewhere for Oliver to find, before opening the letter.

[To: Andrea 
From: The Chief of the Department of Entertainment and Containment, 
Official name: Joyce Adler

Good day, citizens of the Rising City, and Outside, it is almost time for that day of the year when the annual Salem Trials are held.
The Parasite has been under control, and the leaders see no issue with continuing with our traditions as usual.
You will all arrive to the heart of the City for one reason; You were chosen. But you will all leave under the same conditions; You win the game, and survive the Trials.
The three factions are well-known: The Mafias, The Town, and The Neutrals.
They will be assigned different winning conditions, and should do their best to achieve them. Everyone has a side, even if you are chosen to be placed on the Neutrals; you will take your pick when the time comes.
Some are innocent, but given guilty roles, others are not.
Complete your winning conditions, and you will be set free. Fail, and you will never leave.
Your roles will be based on your history, and past alignments.
Do what you must to survive.
Good luck, you will need it

Find your enemies, and destroy them.]

Annie blinked slowly.

And then again.

There was absolutely no way, in the entire world, that she, out of all people, was chosen.

No way.

She have never done anything attention-grabbing, nothing flashy, nothing out-of-ordinary. There was no way that they wanted a perfectly typical person to be in the trials.

No. There has to be a mistake.

Annie falls back, and leans on the chair.

A second piece of paper falls out of the torn envelope.

She straightens up and hastily pulls the paper towards her.

[Instructions:

1. Arrive at the heart of the City in two days time, if you are unable to, we will arrange a transportation system for you
2. Your roles will be shown to you upon arrival, do not disclose the information, or risk being terminated for ruining the experience for others
3. The following week after arrival will be full of interviews, events and festivals. We expect you to dress accordingly, and act with dignity.
4. The Trials will commence after a week of social events, and another week of training. Use this time wisely, read the others' body language, make allies and prepare.

We will be looking forward to seeing your "play", Andrea]

Annie stares at the paper.

This was no mistake.

No, they wanted her to be in it.

***

What would you do first when you found out that your 90% chances of survival chances had suddenly dropped to anywhere from as high as 53% maybe even as low as 3%?

She wasn't that good with conditional probability, so there's a high probability that the percentage is incorrect.

But that's beside the point here. 

While most of us would be preparing or bingeing the last videoes of our lives, Annie is going onto the official forums of the Trials.

Yes, that's exactly what she was doing.

Why? It was simply because that's where you meet your possible allies and enemies, even before the game has even officially started.

[Sort by relevance]

[...Processing, please wait]

[Process complete]

Annie spam clicked the first link, labeled as "Contestants Here".

"Buncha idiots," She mumbled to herself as she skimmed past the rules, she had seen these all before, every year, she could probably even repeat them to you if you wanted to hear it.

After much scrolling, she finally arrived to where the game supervisors had introduced the contestants, or as the people on the outside called them, the breathing corpses.

Because they were practically given a death sentence.

... Their humor was quite dark out here.

"There's a lot of people from the Outside... Wait no," Annie squints at the screen, gradually leaning in, she was practically touching the screen by the time she finished, "Uhhh... 11 out of 32, I think? That's not a lot actually..."

"A lot more than last year though..."

Annie leans back for a good second or so, before snapping back to proceed to the chatroom for the soon-to-be dead contestants.

Or at least, some of them will be dead.

***

translatorlololol: Hiii, my name is Albert, I just hijacked a computer inside someone's home with my group but that's fine out here.

ThatOneQuietKid: ^ with him

JamaicanJedi: Lots of people 0~0

Iwasworkingonagoddamnproject: I'm Jake

Gigi_Rose2005: With Jake

IHaven'tStartedOnTheProject: With those two, how's everyone dealing with the news? 

Paulio: great

LilyEvans2.0: Paul's lying, he's literally sitting beside me, hyperventilating 

translatorlololol: oh

***

Annie stares at the screen, there has to be a joke about someone having problems with oxygen intake, right? 

A joke would lower the tension and awkwardness in this group chat, wouldn't it? Is it even a group chat? Am I talking with murderers?

She blinks for a few seconds, staying silent as the gears in her head turned around in pointless and useless circles.

What? The gears aren't connected to anything anyways, so it's obviously and undoubtedly useless and also pointless.

The clicking of the keyboard as unbearably loud. It's kind of funny how she had never noticed before that moment.

***

...AnnieWriteer is typing...

AnnieWriteer: Out of all the things for him to suddenly be terrible at, he just chose to suck at breathing.

SammyTheSwan: That's a terrible joke

Paulio: Can we not joke about my suffering

ThatOneQuietKid: No, I think it's rather entertaining

...Paulio, ThatOneQuietKid, thetranslatorlololol, xXCarlaXx, WhiteRoses, Mattpatfan, I'mSkippingThisDialogue, Beerito, and Iwasworkingonagoddamnproject are typing...

***

Annie glances at the sudden onslaught of messages that were appearing on the screen. People that hadn't even said anything were typing, and arguing.

It suddenly felt like she had started a civil war.

Maybe like that one game ending from the game that she did a short project on, back when she still went to school.

What was it called again?

Maybe "Tophats Civil Warfare"? She couldn't really remember. It was about stick people though, and fun to make a project on.

"Annie!"

Annie slams the lid of the laptop down as Oliver limped into the room with two bags of groceries, a fresh stab wound slightly visible beneath the torn jacket, "Could you run down to the hospital place and tell them I might have broken my leg?"

She raises a finger as her face morphs into confusion and disbelief.

"Nothing serious, I swear," Oliver explained quickly, wincing as he dropped the bags down on the ground, "I just got jumped by some people while trying to buy some food, nothing serious"

Annie points soundlessly towards the splatter of blood on his face.

"Oh that?" Oliver wipes the blood off his face, as casually as he could, all while leaning onto the wall for support, "They weren't good fighters"

The leg was definitely swelling, the more she looked at it, the more worried she got, it looked like it hurt, and she was having secondhand pain, just by looking at it.

She pushed herself up from the chair, leading him to sit on the chair, before heading out the house to inform the local doctor that Oliver had somehow managed to get a stab wound, and also a broken leg, all in one day, just because of some groceries.

The amount of blood that covered him, and wasn't even his. How he didn't even collapse at all, despite being severely injured, barely even made a face, except for maybe twice...

...

Oliver wouldn't have anything to do with the photo though, would he?

He does look rather like one of the people in the photo, if Annie recalls correctly...

Annie shrugs to herself as she opens the door to the local doctor's office, she'll just have to ask him about it later.

A boy about her age was clicking on the keyboard next to the counter, dark hair falling over his eyes as he exited the tab.

"Hey... I'm looking for Doctor Vight," Annie steps into the small area of the waiting room, peering at the posters on the walls, "It's kind of serious"

"Dr. Vight?" The boy looks up, tilting his head towards the door behind the counter, "She's back there, you can probably wait for half an hour until she's done her intensive cleaning, right?"

"Uh, no, probably not," Annie mutters. How long has the walk taken her? Oliver wouldn't be bleeding out would he? It's only been like a few minutes right? How long does it even take for a person to bleed out from a stab wound? It wasn't deep righ-

"I could fill out the form right now," The boy suggested as he clicks his pen, "Patient's current location?"

"A little down the street? The old sheriff office thing?"

"Name?"

"Uh, the injured or...?"

"Their name?" The boy looks up, slightly annoyed, "The injured person"

"Oliver Anderson," Annie replies, "The sheriff guy"

"Oliver?"

"Yeah, him," Annie nods as the boy opens the door to the backroom, "With a stab wound and maybe a broken leg"

"...I might be able to get her right now," The boy mumbles quietly, before switching his tone around, "Hey, doc! The dude that helped me before is kinda in trouble, could you go help him?"

The boy explains, seeing the confused expression on her face, "He saved me a few days ago"

"Oh!" Annie claps her hands together, suddenly remembering, "You were the kid from those bandits people!"

"Kid?" The boy joked as the doctor came out, "I'm older than you"

"I'm Annie," She offers him her hand as the doctor got some medical items from the counter, "You?"

"Hmm..." The boy shakes her hand, glancing at the computer for a moment, "Wait you're AnnieWriteer, correct?"

"Yeah," Annie nods, "Wait..."

"I'm in the game too," The boy smiled, "JamaicanJedi on the chatroom, also known as Brandon in real life"

"Nice to meet you?"

"Not really," Brandon waves as Dr. Vight heads out, "Considering we might be killing each other"

"Woah-" Annie snaps her fingers, "Way to bring down the mood, Mister. Doctor-In-Training"

"Haha, my specialty," Brandon jokes, he pauses before speaking again, "Truce?"

"Truce?" 

Brandon facepalms, "Basically we form a team, we tell each other our roles, and then we try to keep each other alive, basically, I've got your back, and you've got my back"

"Ohhh," Annie grins, "That'll be cool"

"I guess you're in then"

"Hooray!" Annie cheers, "Future-Doctor and Future-Sheriff, what a duo!"

He rolls his eyes as Annie does a little happy spin, nearly falling onto the floor in process.

Brandon smiles, "What a game this is going to be"