Afterlife Games

It's a spacious lobby awaiting me behind the rotted wooden door.

It looks like a regular entrance hall of a company building, completed with a receptionist desk and a hallway leading to the elevators.

It's not a nice place though, everything seems to have corroded with time's passing. The place was covered in filth, the walls and the pillars also lacked structural integrity, looking like they might collapse at any time.

The environment outside doesn't differ much from inside the room I woke up in, they were both insufferable.

On the floors of the entrance hall, was around 30 or 40 people of all ages and genders, lying down on clusters of blankets, I could spot around 3 or 4 mattresses too.

Overall, it's a mess, no living conditions which I can survive over a week in.

"This is the group of survivors you are in charge of, consist of 34 individuals of all ages. When leading expeditions outside Diamonds territory, you are to bring all the male members of your group, distribute weapons for self defense appropriately and decide where to explore."

That's some grueling tasks to be placed upon the responsibility of me, an avid gamer with zero leadership experiences.

They all seem to be asleep right now, with a few men awake, doing nothing in particular.

Sunlight began pouring in the broken window panes of the entrance hall, it's dawn.

"Anything specific I should be doing right now?" I thought in my head.

"Head outside and towards the centre of Diamonds territory to retrieve food from superiors, then distribute them to your group of survivors." The earpiece in my right ear responded.

Though the earpiece is screwed right into my skull, it doesn't pose any discomforts at all.

I didn't want to be interacting with the people in the entrance hall. They looked unapproachable, they had tattered clothing and ungroomed facial hair, they're filthy, a terrible thing to say but it's the truth.

Instead, I followed the earpiece's advice and headed out through the main entrance of this building, which I've discovered as I exit to be at least a 40 story tall skyscraper.

To the left of the building, is 4 metre tall wire mesh fences, one glance and it's obvious that's the border of the Diamonds territory.

With that in mind, I headed right to get closer to the centre of Diamonds territory.

As I scout around the area, it seems every other buildings are in a similar state with the one I came out of, dilapidated, neglected for a prolonged period of time, signs of corrosion was very evident, it was difficult even just to find a single window still intact.

One hell of an apocalypse it must've been, it did wipe out nearly the entire human species after all.

"Yo Three, you're up early."

A voice came from behind, it was a man in similar attire as mine.

Asking who he is would be suspicious, I figured, judging by how I was greeted, he must be someone close to me.

"Good morning." I said when he arrived right next to me.

Since we were walking abreast, I managed to sneak an inconspicuous peek in his breast pocket, Four of Diamonds.

"Yeah, good morning." He said in a voice that indicates he's still half asleep. Then again, that could just be the default voice of a survivor in a post-apocalyptic world like this, no sane man will still speak exuberantly after such a traumatic experience.

He was completely comfortable with the silence between us two as we walk, probably because he doesn't have the energy for a conversation.

His appearance was messy, very messy, his pitch black hair covered nearly half of his face, and there's strange yellowish stains on his shirt.

"If only none of this ever happened." I wanted to know what kind of catastrophic event had befell humanity causing such tremendous losses, and this sentence was the best way I could think up to bait an answer without seeming suspicious.

I can never be too careful with my words, I don't think revealing the fact that I'm not the Three he knows will be the right decision here, I might just get executed for taking Three's face and identity.

"What do you mean?"

"You know..." I couldn't think of the right word, what if it wasn't one singular apocalypse that caused civilization to collapse, I can't just say something like "If only the apocalypse never happened." I'll be risking the chance that it actually did in fact never happened. In short, it triggers suspicions if I said the wrong thing.

"Nothing, forget what I said." That's what I ended up saying.

I walked closely beside Four, basically following him because I didn't know the destination we're supposed to be headed to.

Eventually we arrived at yet another deteriorating skyscraper, one of the tallest in my field of sight, 60 stories at least.

In the entrance hall of that building, was a group of people dressed exactly like us. There's exactly ten of us, from there I've deduced we're the ten cards in a standard poker deck excluding Jack, Queen and King.

After several minutes of waiting, yet another man walked into the entrance hall through the broken glass door. Best clothing thus far, he was wearing a maroon coloured blazer with the white shirt and black trouser. His slicked back hair looked tidy and not a speck of dust can be spotted on his stoic face.

He was pushing a heavy duty trolley loaded with 10 large boxes, I'm gonna guess that's for each of us. The earpiece did mention I'm here to retrieve food for my group, it's not a mystery what's inside those boxes.

What piques my curiousity is the identity of the man, is he the Jack of Diamonds, or maybe even the King?