She woke, naked and stiff in the middle of a hard wooden floor. There was a single window, centered high up in one of the walls with a finger of silver moonlight poking through. No doors. She felt nauseous and there was a small red dart sticking out of her right forearm. She plucked the dart from her arm, stared at it a moment, then dropped it to the floor. The room was empty of anything other than her, the moonlight and a wireless speaker on a black pillow a few feet away.

She sat up, knuckling bleary eyes. The speaker spoke.

"You will be dead in sixty seconds." Throughout the room, quiet clicks. Tiny doors slid aside to reveal a dozen metal mouths. They began to hiss a thick white mist into the room.

There was a moment, the merest fraction of a second during which she doubted this, any of this was happening. Then the training took over. She rolled lithely to her feet, aches and dizziness disappeared in a controlled rush of adrenaline. Reassessment of the room took a second: walls thirty feet high, sloping inward to peak overhead, window, five feet square set at twenty feet, total room square footage approximated at three hundred feet. Floor, walls and ceiling all composed of wood, varying thicknesses. Contents of room: herself, black floor pillow, small red dart, eight inch speaker, heavy white mist just beginning to billow toward her.

The heel of her foot crashed into the floor at one of the board junctures. Nothing. Again. The floorboard popped up a quarter of an inch. Again. Nothing. Again. A full inch rose now, enough to get her fingers under. Another second and the board was out. Beneath the floor was a one foot gap, then black earth.

"Forty seconds."

Stepping to the speaker, her foot lashed out again, it exploded into shards. The heavy magnet in its center was in her hand and then gone in a backhanded fling. She bent to the pillow. The window burst outward as the magnet hit it dead center. Gripping the pillow in hands turned to claws she ripped it down the center. Yellow clods of stuffing flew as she began tearing the covering into strips.

Six seconds later, she had a ten foot rope made from the strips, one end tied around the board.

The white mist curled around her ankles and carried the scents of gasoline and almonds with it.

She leapt and threw, the board lodged itself in the outside corner of the window and she began to scramble up the wall. Twelve seconds remaining.

A series of clicks from below and she knew that they were going to cheat. She looked back over her shoulder as she climbed and got a glimpse of sparks coming from the metal tubes emitting the gas. Then the world went white and red.

It didn't matter that she couldn't see, it didn't matter that she couldn't feel the makeshift rope in her hands. She acted without thinking and at no time did she think that any of this was unfair. Her fingers found the edge of the window, muscles bunched and she hurled herself out of the room.

Vetis stirred the black water with a hand and the display darkened, then disappeared.

Sameal leaned back in his chair, templing his fingers together. "The cook?"

Abaddon pursed fat lips, then shook his head, "No. We've chosen that one."

Lilith laughed like the breaking of crystal bells and the others turned to her. "She'd make a perfect concierge and we all know that. Let's move on to the next one rather than dally over decisions already made."

A ripple of assent passed through the small group and they sent servants to prepare the next one.

"Lethe?" Sameal's tone made the question into a command.

The small black thing scurried from the room to where Sarah was being taken, a "Yes master." trailing after it.

The next one was a petite brunette. A table was set in the center of the new room, the walls made of mirrors. Three babies lay sleeping on the table, a seven foot long blade suspended above them, held by a series of intertwined strings, knotted together.

Abaddon stroked his beard and smiled greasily, "Ah, the bartender position. This should prove interesting."