Hidden Crimes

Chapter Seven

Chapter 7

Daniel and his group started walking to where was headed. They could see a light towards the end. They did not notice that they were inside a tunnel and the distance that they had towards the end was still approximately fifty meters away.

Most of the people already reach the end. While Daniel’s group was still inside the tunnel, they heard a mic echoed throughout the area.

“Hello,” that was what someone on the end of the microphone said.

Daniel and his group continued walking towards the end of the tunnel. They could still hear the man saying incomprehensible things to his accomplice. He was away from the mic. Where they the one who abducted them?

Daniel and his group already heard shouting coming from the group of people who were before them.

“Why are we here?!” A woman who was on her thirty’s shouted. Just like the man earlier, she was wearing her corporate suit.

The stratifications of the population were very random. They were people who looked rich, they were people who looked poor, they were people who looked decent, they were people who looked improper, they were old, they were young, they were people who looked weak, and they were also people who looked strong. However, the majority of the people in the crowd were men and only a few were women.

“What are we doing here? We did not come here with our consent. This is abduction! You will all get sued!” The man where wearing the corporate attire earlier while pointing to those officials who were up above. They were on a high platform. The shouting that they were doing was useless. They could not hear them.

While the man who was wearing on his corporate uniform went towards the woman with the same look as him. They stay with each other since they thought they would only understood each other because of their stand in the society.

The man on the platform finished talking to his companions and faced everyone. He was wearing an eyeglasses and he had a clean haircut. Just like the two people on the crowd, he was wearing a corporate suit but something on his face did not feel right. His face was not moving and so as others.

“Good day,” the man said. The people from the crowd were already shouting.

“Why are we here?!”

“Why did you brought us here?!”

“This is abduction!”

“We are going to sue all of you once we get out of here!”

The face of the man did not project a smile but it moved. Daniel could now conclude that they were just wearing a realistic face mask. They were hiding their identity but it looked like it was only him who had noticed it because of the long distance between them and the platform.

“Good day,” the man asked again despite of the questions that were thrown to them.

The man cleared his throat. “We are the WIC Company,” he introduced. It looked like he was the leader of the group.

“WIC Company?” Dontrell asked to them. They never heard of it. It was the first time that they had heard of it.

Daniel was already exposed about the companies in their country. He had a list of it that his father forced him to memorize for a week when he was eighteen years old. He did not only memorize the names. He memorized the mission and vision of those companies, too. But WIC Company? He never heard of it. He could had use the information that he memorized.

“Have you heard of it?” Dontrell asked to Daniel, to Madison, and to Liam. They all shook their head.

Is it really a new company? What are their visions? Their missions? What kind of company are they? Are they abducted to test the products that they are going to produce? Are they abducted for the trials? Daniel thought.

“You may be all wondering why are you all here,” the man said.

“Clearly!” One man on the crowd shouted. It was a big man. He had a lot of tattoos all over his arms. He had a piercing on his ears and on his nose. His hair was also styled to spike. It was colored in blond but the roots were in black color.

“We gathered you all of here because we wanted to help the people who are in need. Your lives will going to change,” the leader said.

The man who was wearing a corporate suit shouted. “I am not in need! I have a stable job!”

The woman beside him nodded. Anyone who was on the same ground with him nodded. Those he did not agree to the man on the corporate suit looked at each other. They were in need because of the status of their lives. They were poor and some of them could only eat once a day.

“Are you all going to give us money?”

“You will receive money but only with one condition,” the man said. It looked like heard the question that one of the people in the crowd asked.

“You need to survive,” the leader plainly said. He looked like he had been kept repeating that phrase for him to sound so bored as he mentioned it again.

All of the people started making sounds.

Daniel looked at the others.

Does it mean he needs to win against Dontrell and the others to survive? Would surviving will give meaning to his life? Daniel asked to himself. He already lost his family. He became a mess after all of them passed away. He did not know if surviving and winning the money would mean anything to him.

“Anyone of you hear wants to back out?” the leader asked.

Everyone one looked at each other but they remember what happened to those who were left behind. To those people who were not able to get inside. It seemed like they did not have other choice but to accept the challenge. But what kind of challenge? Did they only require one man standing?