They were seven.
Jinni, Haewon, Lily, Sullyoon, Jiwoo, Kyujin and Bae.

And they were all trapped.

...

The room was dead silent, a light, bright brown. Their clothes were all the same, identical to the room.

The seven of them stirred awake, some of them scratching their heads or rubbing their eyes.
Jiwoo woke up first, and stared around, mumbling her confusion.
"What... what is this? Where am I?"

She had no idea what anything was.

After her, everyone else stirred awake, displaying the same confusion.

They only knew one thing, though.

They knew each other. None of them remembered how they knew each other, but they did.
Something was very, very wrong. Why couldn't they remember who they were? It was like they were living in the present, and that life had erased itself before this point.

"Jiwoo, Kyujin, Lily, Bae, Jinni? Is that you?" Haewon mumbled.

Jiwoo turned to her.
"Haewon... where are we? Where have I seen you guys? How do I know you?" She asked.

Everyone shrugged. They, too, had no idea.

A screen, on the side of the room, bursted to life, showering the once dark, beige room in a bright luminance.

They all stared at it, giving their eyes a few seconds to adjust to the light.

They saw a man, who was much older than them, around his mid 50s. He was finely dressed, and his distinctive style popped out in both his voice and his clothing.

"Welcome to Utopia. You will be put in a series of games, and yes, only one shall prevail. You have no option to forfeit, other than losing a challenge. Also, these games aren't just any games, they have been carefully made and handcrafted by your one-and-only! Isn't that just amazing! Trod on ice, you lot. It's a game between life and death. Oh, and one more thing;"

Around them, a huge cluster of screens opened behind the translucent beige curtains, showing them in the room.
They were being watched.

"Choose your words carefully... You're live."

He clasped his hands together in excitement, ready to announce the first game.

"Game one, The Tempest."

A large hissing sound erupted around them, and a strange gas flowed into the room.

They coughed and spluttered, some of them trying to not breathe it in,
But at one point, they all went to the ground, fast asleep.

...

As the effects of the gas cleared away, they started to stir and woke up, and they were all laying on the deck of a ship. Some of them stood up in confusion.

There seemed to be a huge array of items onboard, like shelves and racks full of different commodities. Some of them, they recognised, and some, they didn't even know what it was meant to be.

Haewon tried moving to take a closer look, but she found that she couldn't move without great difficulty.
And she could see why.

There was a great metal weight tied to her ankle.
There was one on everyone's.

Haewon looked at her surroundings; there was a ladder leading up to the roof, to an open trapdoor on the ceiling, but it's was at the other end of the boat.

It would take forever to get there, even worse, trying to climb the ladder because of the weights.

"What..." Lily said in confusion.

"How'd we get here? What is this?" Bae asked.

None of them knew. First, they had been in a beige room, now, they were here. It was almost fake, like a dream.

Sullyoon even tried pinching herself awake, but it didn't work.
Because all of these things were really happening. It was, in fact, not a dream.

they start talking, wondering where they are.

"Careful, guys. There's a chain." Haewon said, pointing the the weight around her ankle.

"Is- is this still part of the game? What- what is this?" Jiwoo asked, confused and starting to panic.
She bent down, and tried to pry the lock open, which obviously didn't work.

Just then, a huge screen rose down from an opening in the ceiling. And it blared on, showing the livestream of them, and the commentator at the bottom of the screen, a smile plastered on his face.

His voice boomed over the speakers.

"Here is your first hint for the game; 'Seek, and you shall not find. Accept fate, and saviour you shall morn upon. Up is not the heaven, yet it is the hell'. Only six will make it, so, let's start!"

A large crash rustled the boat. They all clinged on the side of the boat to stabilise themselves.

"Oh my god, what was that?!?"
Lily looked down, the side of the ship was broken, splinters all on and in the water.
There was a gaping hole in the stern, and they were slowly sinking down.

If they couldn't get the chains off, they'd all go down with the ship.
And drown.

They saw their situation, and hurried, scavenging around in the piles of items around them.

"There has to be a key somewhere..." Haewon mumbled, sifting through items in her hands.

Everyone started searching around in the racks and shelves in desperation, and attempting to drag their weights behind them, but there was only little progress.

Kyujin started to shake, fear and anxiety flowing down her bones, chilling her right to the marrow.
"Oh my god, oh my god..."

They couldn't find anything, and the boat was starting to capsize.

Jinni tossed stuff overboard, in the hopes that they could stall for a bit longer if the boat was lighter.
Haewon saw her and started to do the same, picking things like rags and small empty wooden boxes up and off the ship.

Sullyoon and Jiwoo were both looking at the shelves, slowly searching their way up, but the ship started tilting to the side, and they had to grasp onto the side of the boat in order to not fall.
The weights tottered on the floor dangerously, threatening to drag them down.

Bae started helping to haul things off board, she tossed whole shelves, not even bothering to check its contents.
"IT'S SINKING!!! HOLY- WE'RE GOING DOWN!!"

The boat lurched again, as the structure creaked under its own weight.
It sounded like it was going to split in half.

Lily slipped over and nearly fell completely overboard, but Haewon caught her, and dragged her back on.
"No! Not today!" She grunted, clasping the other girl by the shoulder to stop her from falling.

"Oh, it doesn't look like a happy end for any of them!" The commentator blared, his tone not showing any sort of worry, just entertainment.

The boat suddenly swayed, and Sullyoon fell over a rack, tumbling down, but barely managing to get back on her feet because Jinni caught her.

Upon taking Sullyoon's weight, which had used up all her strength, Jinni fell backwards in the process, falling upon the wooden floorboards.

But, she felt something in her back pocket.

She grasped it out, and examined it.
Jinni gasped.
It was the key.

'Up is not the heaven, yet it is the hell. Seek, and you will not find me.' she remembered him saying.
Now she understood.
He was talking about opposites. The whole thing made them think they had to search for the key, but they had it the whole time.
They all had one, and they didn't need to search anywhere for it.

She shouted to everyone that the keys were in their back pockets.
They grabbed it out, and they quickly unbuckled their chains, freeing their ankles.

"There! The ladder! Quickly!!!" Haewon shouted.

She ran over to the other side of the boat, and grasped onto the ladder first to keep it steady, helping everyone up from the bottom.

Sullyoon and Jinni were last, Sullyoon started to go forwards, pulling Jinni with her hand.
"Come on, let's go. The ladder is on the other side!" Sullyoon said.

But Jinni didn't move.
Sullyoon turned back.

"Why arent you coming? Let's go! Quickly!"

Jinni shook her head. Her face was a white pale.
"I- I can't."

She looked down.
Her ankle was still tied to the chain and ball.

And in her hand, there was a broken key.
It had snapped when she fell on it.

"Use mine-" Sullyoon said, pushing her own one into Jinni's hands.

Jinni didn't even have to try it; she could just see that hers wasn't the same shape.

The boat rocked noisily, and jolted to the side.

It was starting to fully tip over now.
Sullyoon had to leave now, or else it would be too late.
Jinni pushed her away.
"Go! Sullyoon! Go!!!"

"No! You have to come!" She shrieked back, trying to yank Jinni with her.

"No! Go!!!"

Haewon understood the situation, and rushed over, pulling Sullyoon with her, with the girl kicking and screaming.

"HAEWON, LET ME GO!!!" Sullyoon screeched.

Haewon looked back, tears in her eyes, at Jinni.
She knew.

She pushed Sullyoon up the ladder, and they started to climb up into the trapdoor opening, where everyone else was waiting for them.

The boat violently lurched again, and Jinni had to hold on for dear life, practically hanging over the water, the boat was nearly at a straight angle.

She struggled, the ball was pulling her down.
And she could feel her arms growing tired.

Haewon was the last to go up, and she stared down at Jinni, and gave her a curt nod, signalling a final thank you.

Jinni now had tears in her eyes.

Her arms gave way, and she fell into the water, disappearing under the surface.

Bubbles arose around, and she kicked frantically to stay afloat, but she weight pulled her down deeper, and the air all came out of her lungs.
The ripples bubbling on the surface soon stopped, and Jinni was gone.

Haewon cried, and made her way up, through the trapdoor.

It closed behind her.
Haewon was about to tell the others the news, but saw that she didn't have to.

They were staring at a TV in the middle of the room.
They saw everything.

"OH! What a spectacle! Such a sad way to die, in fact!" The commentator blared.

They could see him at the bottom left of the screen, a small green-screened portrait.

He had a microphone to his face, and his attire was... peculiar.

It looked straight out of Alice in wonderland, or the rich citizens in Hunger Games, with the glossed, pointed facial hair, and the wacky and distinguished hair style.
He had a smile across his face, which was almost plastic, it nearly never moved from its position.
He was like a toy, or doll, with the eerie smile which never seemed to waver.

"Let's see that again, shall we?"
The scene replayed, showcasing Jinni's terror-filled face, when she was hanging by the side of the boat, suspended by only her arms.

It was so bad, none of them could watch it again.
They all turned away, and cried.
Jinni had saved all of them.

But she was the first to die.

And it was only the start of the game.