Jason was having trouble keeping track of time and he couldn’t tell if days or weeks had gone by. There just seemed to be endless night that went on and on from what Jason could tell. His phone had told him that several 24-hour periods had gone by, but it had died after the second “day” and he had no way of charging the phone again. Not that he would want to use it anyways; the thing was useless in another reality and Jason had no way of contacting anyone he knew.

Jason was alone. His parents had both died in a car accident six years ago and after his girlfriend, Cindy, had dumped him last month, his only friend had been Samson. His emotions were scraped raw and now Jason couldn’t even talk to Samson. Samson had helped him through his parent’s death and Cindy leaving him and now, Jason was alone. Sure there was Tom and Misty, but Jason barely even knew them and hadn’t had much time to talk with them, much less discuss the emotional crisis he was experiencing in another dimension.

He sat at one of the tables that had been left in the circle of lights staring off into the distant, alien jungle. He felt isolated; so alone. Even when he had been at his lowest, Samson, had been there to help him. All those nights spent drinking, commiserating with Samson about how life was unfair, had helped him cope. Now here he was alone in a crowd of strangers in an alternate reality.

How did this all go wrong? Jason thought. It was supposed to be just a simple tryout for some freak game-show. And here I am sitting alone at this table trying to figure out what the hell happened.

Jason sighed. He would not let himself fall into a funk like when Cindy had left him. He had drunk for six days straight, showing up to work completely wasted. It was a wonder that he had even kept his job. His manager had sent him home early and told him to take some personal time to get through the breakup and the next few days Jason had wallowed in alcohol and self-pity.

It was only the timely intervention of Samson that pulled him out of the funk. He had shown up the fourth night and had sat over the weekend with Jason, drinking. It was on Sunday that Samson had finally gotten Jason to shower and leave his apartment to go out. They had only gone to a nearby grocery store, but that had been the first time that Jason had gone out in five days.

Samson had stuck with Jason for the next week, showing up at Jason’s office when he was leaving and spending the next few nights with Jason to ensure that he remained sober enough to return to work. That had cemented Samson as Jason’s closest, and only, friend and they had been thick as thieves after.

And now Jason had no way to contact Samson. He hadn’t realized until now how much he had relied on Samson. The last few “days” had been rough and Jason was really missing his best friend. There had been several other teams that had gone in through the portal and only about half of them had returned with the power stones. A few teams had come back without the stones and some had not returned at all.

Jason was surprised when Tom sat down at the table with him while he was musing. Tom tossed a military ration to Jason that was the standard fare for food in the camp; it was difficult to have a professional chef prepare food in an alternate dimension.

Jason looked at the ration that Tom had tossed him and grimaced, “Beef Enchilada. Sounds…. Awful.”

Tom chuckled and tore open his ration. “Trust me. The only good MRE is the Mac and Cheese, and they ran out of them after the first forty eight hours.”

Jason glanced at Tom and gave an incredulous look, “There’s good rations? And what do you mean by MRE?”

“MRE: Meal Ready to Eat. Sort of. Spend enough time in the Complex and you’ll know which ones are good to eat and which ones are to be avoided. I remember coming across several of my men using the good MRE’s as betting fodder when I was deployed. Even won a few of the spaghetti and meatballs and mac and cheese MRE’s from my men. I remember one of them ended up with fried rice and chicken MRE; spent the day after in the bathroom with the runs.

“Some friendly advice: avoid anything remotely close to rice and beans in these things.” A short gesture to ration brought Jason’s attention to the abomination before him. “Rumor was in the Complex that they were secretly putting chemicals in the MREs to perform experiments on the people that ate them.

“There were several guys in my squad who came down with some mysterious… “illnesses” is what we called them. They went off to the medical section of the complex and we were told that they were medically discharged due to contracting a foreign illness. Only thing was that when we reached out to their families, we found out they had never made their way back home after being discharged from the medical area.”

Jason found himself hooked on Tom’s every word and leaned onto the table, his MRE completely forgotten. “So what did you find out?”

Tom leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. “Nothing. We couldn’t ever prove anything and I left the Complex before I advanced too high to learn anything more. Of course, there were things that I followed up on after getting out of the Complex but I was stopped before I could get anything definitive.

“I did spend several more years looking into the MRE’s and other various odd things that I noted while working for the Complex, but that eventually got me locked out of every government facility from here to the edge of the continent.” He gestured grandly, “Or the continent that we were on before.” Tom grinned wryly at Jason. “Y’know because we’re in a different reality now and Saltana knows where in the universe this hellhole exists.”

Jason nodded, thinking to himself, and suddenly came to a realization. “Why are you telling all of this to me, Tom? You’ve been very standoffish and haven’t spoken more than six or seven words to me since we met?” Jason was suddenly suspicious with Tom providing any information about his past. There were things that he had guessed at, especially with Tom’s attitude and general lack of trust, but this was extremely suspicious.

Tom nodded once at Jason. “Good. You’re as sharp as I thought.” He pointed at Jason. “I’ve spent my time in the Complex and over the two decades that I was in that military complex, I saw many good men and women go off to their deaths. Many more disappeared from my company under the guise of being “sick.” Over those years, I began to develop a sixth sense about people. A feeling about who they really were and what they were capable of.

“I can tell that you’re overall a good man, stubborn to the core, and sharp as a tack. But there’s a ruthlessness in you that has yet to come out. Maybe it’s just that the world hasn’t beaten you down enough, or maybe you force it down for that cheerful nature, but know that it’s going to have to come out in this competition. If you’re going to be leading this team, you need to make ruthless, tough decisions.

“I already saw that you don’t believe everything that Kingson has been shoving down our throats. There’s no such thing as a free lunch and too many teams have come back missing a member or having been horribly maimed. Far more than there should have been, especially for the first round of a competition like this.

“There’s something screwy going on here and I know that you can see that too. I’m trusting that you’ll be just as suspicious as I am and I’ll watch your back as long as you watch mine and Misty’s. She seems like a nice enough girl; a bit dreamy for my tastes, but we all got put on the same team and I don’t think that was an accident. You lead us right, and I’ll back you up.”

Jason sat for a moment, stunned. Tom obviously had some deep seated mistrust of this contest, not that he didn’t as well, but it was bold of him to bring it up to someone that he didn’t know. As Jason thought more on the matter, he realized that what Tom was saying made sense. There was an unusually high casualty rate with the games, and he had noticed Kingston and Eggburton having frantic conversations with one another when several of the teams were missing people. Jason continued to ponder what Tom had said until his mind caught up to what he had heard.

“Wait, you want me to lead the team?” His voice almost broke.

Tom nodded, “I have seen you calculate and watch intently what Kingston has said. You file it all away and you don’t let details slow you down. I saw how long it took you to complete that initial application; you read through damn near most of the entire thing. I want someone like that leading me and Misty as you’ll get the details of the situation. I’m more of a big picture kinda guy.”

Almost as if summoned by the mention of her name, Misty ran up to the table breathless. “Guys!” she panted, “They’re calling our names! We’re next to go into the portal!”