“You had your chance. Now it’s my turn” Richard said. “We’ve tried it your way and we’ve gotten nowhere. We’re probably going to die at this point, so it’s my turn to lead the group. You probably don’t even know what you’re doing. You haven’t even tried to lead!” Richard said, irritated by Victor’s nonchalant attitude.

“Do what you must” Victor said. “I never agreed to lead, rather it was a position that was agreed upon without me. You began to follow me without confirmation that I had agreed to be the leader of this group.”

Richard gritted his teeth and said, “Then why didn’t you say so earlier? You think you’re better than all of us. Don’t you? I know your types. You always think you’re superior to others. And look! You haven’t even made any progress or anything. It doesn’t even look like you’re trying. Do you even care if we all die?”

Victor sighed, “Richard, just lead the group if you want to. You should have done that from the beginning. I had said that I would do things my way and that you needed to trust me. If you don’t like it, then just do whatever you need to do. It hardly makes any sense why you are acting like this. This will only hinder us further. And besides Richard, let me ask you something. Why should I care about all of you? I barely even know you.”

Richard clenched his fists. He hated people like Victor. He turned away from him and looked at the group, “Well, who agrees with me? If you want me to be the leader then follow me. If we continue to follow Victor, we’ll probably die. We only have one week left to figure out how to escape from here and to do that we need to work together to complete the missions given to us.”

Someone meekly raised their hand. They had been here so long, fighting to survive, that they had forgotten what the mission had been. “Uhm, what was the mission again?”

Richard put his hand on his forehead. He felt like giving up on this group. “How could you forget this? We have to uncover the sinister secrets at this “paradise” resort. If we want to leave here and progress to the next level, we need to do this. We have already wasted too much time. Now we only have one week left, people. You know what happens if you fail to complete a chapter. You die or some suffer some fate worse than death. No one has ever come back alive or sane after failing a level. If you don’t want to end up like that, then follow me!”

The group shifted uncomfortably, eyeing each other. They weren’t sure what to do, but it seemed that it was best to follow Richard for now. They just couldn’t figure out what Victor was thinking. He never explained what he was doing. At least with Richard, they might have a better chance of surviving. After all, you never knew what would happen next. It was dangerous here. Someone in their group had already died a gruesome death and they did not want to be next. They got up and slowly walked behind Richard.

Richard smiled. “Good. At least you guys have some type of intellect. Alright, let’s go check out some of the rooms in the resort for clues. Remember, be careful. You don’t know what’s lurking around here, especially in the shadows. Never trust anyone else here, except for the people in this group, right here. If anything is off or someone starts acting strange, make sure to report back to me. Go off in at least pairs of two, never by yourself. We’ll meet up back here. Alright?”

The group nodded and began to disperse. Richard smirked as he looked over to Victor. “You see, it wasn’t that difficult. I’ll give you a chance. You could still follow me if you want. I bet you probably haven’t played any chapters before, but I have, so you’ll have a better chance of surviving. You do know that if you die here, you die in the real world.”

Richard leaned against the wall and looked at Victor, waiting for him to decide. He figured that Victor just hadn’t come to terms with all this yet.

“No thanks, I’m good,” Victor said calmly.

“Suit yourself” Richard fumed as he walked away thinking he should have never given Victor another chance.

Victor smiled. He finally was able to get some type of peace and quiet. Now he could really start thinking. He could not deal with that group of people. They had been here so long but were still too meek to do anything on their own. They didn’t even try. He didn’t see why he should help them. He worked better on his own. They only slowed him down. If they had followed his tactics, it would have been fine. He could only imagine what would go down now that they were stampeding all around the resort. It would bring up all the things that could have been kept down, making it more difficult to complete the mission. His way of moving quietly and pretending he did not care helped them from being targeted. He couldn’t tell them that because there are eyes and ears all over this “paradise” resort. It was so obvious. He at least knew that much by the second day here. He shook his head. He would be surprised if even half of them came back alive. He was a veteran at this “game”. They should have just trusted him. It was out of his hands now and he wasn’t trying to be a hero. He shrugged his shoulders and began to walk away. He only had a week to finish figuring out everything and make it out alive.