When a young boy woke up he felt… funny. But who felt funny? He didn’t have any way of referring to himself. So he gave himself a name to make things easier. He was stuck between Justin and Chase but he was getting bored thinking about something so trivial. He just mashed them together for Jace.

Jace sat in a chair facing a white wall with two framed paintings. The people in these paintings moved but were repetitive about it. One of them was lounging while the other danced in a repetitive circle. Rather boring, those picture people. A ball hit the wall between them and bounced to the floor before returning to Jace's hand with an echoing smack. By measuring where the ball hit based on the relative position to the painting frame’s edges, Jace aimed for the same spot. Again and again, he hit it, doing so by throwing in unique ways.

Jace had tried talking to the other boy that sat in the sparse room with him, but he didn't get much of a response. He seemed plenty entertained by just sitting there shaking and scratching at his legs. What should Jace call him? Scratch n’ Shake? Shake-Scratch? Satch, yeah, Satch would work. There wasn’t much difference between Satch and the people in the paintings. They just did the same thing over and over. Well, Jace supposed he was too, but at least he was trying to keep things interesting.

After trying most variations of bouncing the ball off of things to hit the precise spot he marked with his mind, he got another idea. He moved over to Satch and slid him with his chair out into the room. Satch still didn’t speak, but he did look at Jace for the first time. His eyes looked terrified.

“Don’t worry, just cover your face. Like this,” Jace lifted his hands in front of his face.

Satch didn’t respond and returned to looking at the floor and scratching his legs. Oh well, it’ll do.

Jace sat back in his seat and ran some mental geometry, dribbling the ball on the ground. Then he threw the ball at Satch's face. It hit him square between the eyes and ricocheted to hit the wall in the perfect spot level with the frames.

Satch howled and flipped backwards over his chair. The sudden outburst shocked Jace enough that he almost missed catching the ball as it bounced back.

Satch scrambled on the ground in a sudden panic, like the hit to face unlocked the crazies. He rolled to his knees.

“Who are you and what do you want with me?” the boy cried, slapping the sides of his face and dragging his fingers down his skin while his eyes darted around. “And where are we? WHY are we?!”

This was a tough one. Jace squinted as he traced the Satch's movements relative to the spot on the wall.

“I don’t wanna die--” the ball hit Satch in the face again. But this time the ricochet angle was off and it hit one of the framed paintings, the lounging man in it waking with a start. Using something that moved was tough.

The frenzied boy screamed as he picked up his chair and hurled it at Jace, who dodged while catching the ball in a dive roll.

Jace slid to a stop and studied Satch, waiting for his next move. He felt his quickened pulse throb through his body, every inch of him ready to react. He wanted to react. But Satch did not attempt pursuing him. He just stood there with his chest rising and falling with exaggerated breaths. So, Jace stood slowly and began moving to position himself at a better angle to try his bounce again. Satch tensed as Jace lifted the ball to launch.

“What do you want from me?” The boy quivered, “please, I don’t understand what’s happening.”

Jace squinted as he lined up the throw. “I’m trying to bounce this ball off of you to hit a certain spot between the two picture frames.”

“What,” Satch said, taken aback, “why?”

Jace shrugged. “I’m bored.”

“Do you not know what’s happening either? Do you remember anything?”

“Not really.” Jace whipped the ball with a sidearm throw.

However, this time Satch caught it.

“How can you be bored at a time like this?” Satch said, his wild eyes gaining some focus. “This entire time that you’ve been bouncing this stupid ball, I’ve been thinking. Trying as hard as I can to remember... But I can’t dig up anything! Not even my name!” The boy’s knuckles went white as both his hands clenched over the ball. “We are trapped in a box with two paintings of people that move around. There are no doors, no windows, and I don’t even know why I know what those things even are!” He lifted the ball at Jace. “And for some reason, you’re trying to bounce a ball off my face?!”

Jace considered the situation back when he gained consciousness some time ago in the room. He didn’t know where he was, who he was, and why he was there, sure. But there didn’t seem to be much point worrying about something he couldn’t control. What good would it do for him to search around in his blank mind for nothing when he could be searching around the room for something. Granted, the room ended up being mostly blank, but he did find a ball and there were two moving pictures too.

“What else should I do?” Jace said, watching the ball and wishing Satch would throw it back. “Do you want to be crying partners? That seems pretty beta.”

Satch threw the ball, but sadly did so backwards, and instead hurled himself at Jace with a frenzied roar. They rolled to the floor in a flurry of jabs from elbows and knees. Jace felt a few hits to the side of his head and ribs before he managed to kick Satch off. The throbbing was back again but stronger, a feeling of power coursing through him. His mind went from dull to sharp like Satch's attacks were a whetstone on a blade. Playing with this guy was more fun than the ball. Jace counted the hits in his head. The boy got three strikes on Jace and Jace got only one on him. Three more strikes and he’d be in the lead.

“Why the hell are you smiling?” Satch panted, “do you not realize how bad this situation is? We could die in here!”

“Then shouldn’t we work together to find a way to escape?” Jace said as he crouched.

Satch pursed his lips for a moment, studying Jace. “Okay yeah, that makes sense… But why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” Jace asked while on all fours like a jungle cat.

“Like you might bite me.”

“I’m not hungry though.”

“So you’d bite me if you were hungry?”

“I don’t know, I’m not hungry,” Jace said, creeping forward.

If Satch's eyes looked scared before, then he was dangling on the edge of manic terror at this point. He mostly kept his composer together though. But like some thin paper bag holding in some popping popcorn, he was going to pop soon. “Can you stand normally so we can talk please?”

“After I win,” Jace said.

“Win what? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Jace lept forward and threw a punch to the side of Satch’s leg. But he dodged with a scream an octave higher than his speaking voice. Jace swung a low kick to chase him but Satch jumped over it and planted his kick to the side of Jace’s head. It felt like a dull thump that sent him into a roll at first, but when he got back to his feet he felt a stinging sensation quickly build where the kick landed.

Jace patted his ear and looked at his hand covered in red stuff. That was blood. Damn, not only did Satch get another hit but that hit was different. It felt like his brains were swimming around. He couldn’t count that like the other ones, this one was better. He had to count it as two points! So now he needed to score five hits to win. Or he could deal two big hits and one little one.

“That’s what you get!” Satch said with a shaky voice and an expression of surprise at his own reaction. “Now cut it out and let’s work together like you suggested.”

Jace stood up straight. It didn’t seem like a low approach would be effective. Satch was comically jumpy and screamed like a small animal but his reflexes were no joke. Since neither of them had memories should they have reflexes? Or did the memories programmed into their bodies stay? That could make sense, muscle memory was still around.

Considering that, all that the two of them had at this moment was natural unconscious ability. Well, and the ability to strategize, he supposed. So in this game of striking, Satch had the advantage. Logically, another straightforward attack would fail and give Satch more points. Jace needed to play on his unique strengths. He looked at the ball in the corner of the room.

“Are you even paying attention?” said Satch.

Jace darted for the ball and Satch cursed in surprise at the sudden movement. He scooped up the ball, skidded to switch directions and ran straight for the boy.

Satch's eyes were still a bit fearful, but some confidence made its way in after his last attack. There was some anger too. This needed to work or Satch would score another two-pointer.

About two steps before striking range, Jace threw the ball at the corner of the room past Satch with a bit of spin. It struck the wall to the right of the corner and then bounced to the left to shoot back. Satch must have thought the ball was meant to be a distraction because his eyes stayed locked on Jace, who had jumped into the air poised to kick.

Then, as Satch stepped to dodge, the ball struck him in the back of the knee. His leg gave out and his head dropped right into Jace’s foot. The kick connected with a crack, sending the boy to the floor. Definitely two points!

Jace landed and leapt back into the air to give some momentum to his follow up punch. He needed another two-pointer fast. Jace dropped his fist like a hammer into Satch's gut while he was covering his face. The boy gasped as all the air in his lungs rushed out.

Hah! Another two points! All tied up! All he needed was one more point to win but he’d need as many points as he could get to assure victory.

Jace straddled Satch about to throw repeated elbows when he saw water mixing with the blood on his face. Those were tears.

Jace hesitated as a sickening feeling struck him in the chest. It didn’t hurt the same way the hits did. It was different but it definitely hurt. Was Jace hit with some kind of secret attack?

Satch spread his fingers covering his face so that one eye peaked through while he wheezed, desperate for air. The look of suffering that met Jace made it feel as though his insides had dropped to the floor. He jumped off him. What was going on? This wasn’t fun anymore.

“Hey, uh, are you okay?” Jace said, shaken.

Satch responded with more desperate gasps as he curled into the fetal position. Jace had really hurt him. He didn’t want to do that. He just wanted to have fun.

He stepped forward to help, although he had no idea how he could. The damaged boy scooted himself away from Jace like a frightened caterpillar. The action triggered another jab of pain in his chest. The pain was like something squeezing his heart. Satch wasn’t causing the pain, Jace was causing it to himself. Why?

Suddenly his mind swarmed with thoughts of all the ways he could have behaved differently to have fun with this boy. Sure, he was kind of crazy and whiny, but he had great reflexes. They could have played catch, or dodgeball, or taken turns trying to hit the fat guy in the moving painting.

“Um, we can call it a tie,” Jace said softly, “once you learn how to breathe again we can do something else if you want.”

“F-f-f-ck-k, yer,” Satch takes another gasp for air, “e-elf.”

Jace picked up the ball from the floor and decided that he’d rather distract himself from this feeling until Satch could speak again. Hopefully, he could speak again. Jace returned to his original seat facing the space in the wall between the two paintings and threw the ball. It hit the same spot as before and smacked back into his hand without ever touching the floor. He threw it quite a bit harder than usual. But he didn’t feel any satisfaction from it anymore. Damn choked insides were like anti-fun. He threw the ball at the wall again.

But the portion of the wall between the paintings vanished.

Standing there instead was a tall man with grey hair and a salt-and-peppered beard. He was dressed in a burgundy uniform with gold and crimson accents. “Enough--” was all he could say before his deep and gruff voice quickly jumped in pitch as the ball hit him right in the gems.