Wheels . District 3 Gamemakers ( back to my original style of writing, this one was really tough to write but im proud of how it turned out! ) The light vanishes the instant Wheels enters. Cold clamps down hard enough to sting. The door seals behind him, and the room becomes nothing but weightless black and biting air. Wheels keeps rolling for exactly two seconds then stops. He listens. The building hums. Low. Steady. Beneath it, something smaller. A mechanical cycle, repeating just slowly enough to be missed by anyone who didnt grow up surrounded by machines. Wheels lifts one paw and rests it on the arm of his chair. “Whatever you’re about to do,” he says calmly, voice carrying into the dark, “it runs on a loop.” Silence. He tilts his head, ears angling as the cold shifts. A faint pressure change brushes his whiskers. “Ten seconds,” Wheels says. Nothing happens. “Nine.” The hum deepens, barely. “Eight.” He rolls his chair half a turn, adjusting his angle to the airflow. The cold sharpens, then evens out. “Seven.” Somewhere ahead, something clicks. “Six.” Wheels smile. Not wide, not smug. Just sure. “Five.” The room changes. A vent opens overhead, dumping a harsher wave of cold that washes past him without catching. He’s already positioned himself where it thins. “Four.” Fabric rustles behind the glass. “Three.” The temperature spikes again, shorter this time. A test within a test. “Two.” He reaches down and flicks a switch on the side of his chair. The wheels lock, anchoring him in place. “One.” The system engages fully, cold surging, pressure shifting, noise rising and Wheels doesn’t move. The wave breaks around him, stolen by angles and placement, redirected by design rather than strength. When it’s over, he exhales slowly. “You’re measuring reaction time,” he says into the dark. “But the answer you’re looking for is anticipation.” He settles back, perfectly composed. “Next cycle starts in twelve seconds,” Wheels adds gently. “You might want to adjust it. This one’s predictable.” The loop never triggers again.
