Price of Love

Big Bang was a weekly game show and its host was notorious to do something outrageous, spectacular and thrilling every week. The show had continued for almost ten years but it was now getting monotonous and boring. To bring back the viewership and to boost its rating, producers of the show promised the next show to be astonishing, mind-blowing and breathtaking. This week, a large crowd was gathered in a stadium of a small town to witness the game of Russian roulette and there were several million viewers watching it live on television sets worldwide. Selection of the show site was done carefully to avoid intricate legal issues in the big cities. The game selected for the show this week was Russian roulette.  

In the actual game of Russian roulette, a person would be loading a bullet into one chamber of a revolver, spinning the cylinder, and then pulling the trigger while pointing the gun at his head. It is a lethal game of chance where a player bets his life to try his luck. In the Big Bang show however instead of a real gun, a digital revolver was to be used. The game will be played between contestants selected from the crowd by the host himself. The players getting shot digitally will be eliminated. The last person standing will be asked to play a solo game and win huge prize money with each pull of trigger having an opportunity to walk away at any time with the win.   

Stadium was filled with all sorts of people who had even come from adjoining counties. They were having a fun time. Few local performers were entertaining the public before the start of the show. Suddenly, with a loud bang and a multicolor flash of light, host came on the center stage. He was accompanied by two beautiful assistants wearing short and tight leather dresses with cowboy boots. The host himself wore an elegant black sartorial three piece suit with a flattering waistcoat. Whole stadium greeted them wildly and started cheering outrageously.

The host announced tonight’s game show to be spine-tingling and frightening. He requested the people with heart problem to leave now. He also asked the live television audience to avoid watching this show alone. The crowd went numb and deadened. However, nobody left. The host then asked for volunteers. Almost, everybody in the audience raised their hands. There were over one dozen cameras covering every single corner of the stadium from multiple angles.  Host asked the people to put their hands down and then announced the criteria in a cold robotic voice, which sent a silent icy breeze down the aisles. All hands remained down. There were some murmurs in the crowd including some loud sighs but most people had literally frozen.

Prerequisite for the participants revealed by the host was quite simple yet astounding – the contestants would be the ex-cons, the murderers to be precise. Everybody held his breath when the first person rose from his seat and slowly walked towards the stage. Some loud shouts came from one side of the stadium calling him the killer. He was followed by an old man wearing a bucket hat, and then a weird lady stood up front her seat hiding her face between the colors of her coat. The lady walked very strangely towards the stage. No camera could yet capture her face. It was not easy to accept heinous crimes publically but the prize money was massive enough for the people to unveil their darkness. The crowd never imagined that there would be murderers sitting between them. It further chilled the atmosphere and people started rubbing their arms with their hands to get some warmth in a cold autumn night.

The contestants of course had to give an account of their dreadful acts. Smith, the old man had killed a total stranger in a bar fight and served 28 years in prison. He just got out on parole couple of weeks back and had shifted to this town where nobody knew him. But now people could recognize him as they started pointing their fingers towards him and booed loudly. The host got them quiet and then asked the freakish woman to introduce herself. Her name was Isabel and she had poisoned her landlady five years ago. She had survived the trial on insanity plea. She was spending her time in a psychiatric facility and had recently escaped from the horrific company of real psychopaths who had turned her a little pscho too. Now the crowd was getting ecstatic. The research team had googled them and found their cases. The show contained many other entertaining acts too between the actual game of roulette. They were now broadcasting life stories of the convicts alongside the show.  

After a short break, the third person was brought on stage. His case was different then the first two contestants. His name was Oliver and he had killed his business partner Dave in a cold blooded murder. They lived in the same town where the show was being held. Oliver started narrating his story. Crowd knew him well but they did not know that he was the killer. Oliver’s confession created lot of hiss in the crowd. Oliver and Dave were best friends. Since their young age, they both liked the same girl Britney. Oliver as a child had asked Britney to marry him and she said that it can only happen if he had a million dollars. As they grew up, he could never muster courage to ask her out. Britney starting dating Dave and they soon got married. They now had a cute little boy named Harry. Few years back, Oliver and Dave started a hardware store together with all the investments they had. Initially they got good profits but then for the last one year they were hardly meeting their ends. Oliver had a lavish spending and with income getting squeezed he had started stealing from his own store. Dave found out the same and confronted him. Dave even threatened him to report the matter to police unless he brought on record all the money he embezzled. Oliver was left with no choice. He planned the murder so perfectly that police was still clueless. The guilt was though wearing him down. Pain which he saw in Britney’s eyes at the funeral broke him down. He needed to confess and he did so publically on the national television. Oliver knew that he will be arrested soon after the show and he had very little time left as a free man. 

Doors of stadium were locked. Local town police was unable to get in and there was enough time to finish the show before the state police or FBI intervened. Producers of the show had hired a big law firm in New York representing them in over a dozen criminal cases and there were many lawsuits already filed against them. No doubt the producers were making a lot of money through television rights sold to a huge media network.   

The game started. All three of them were given digitized pistols. Smith pulled the trigger and nothing happened. Crowd cheered out loud. Isabel pulled the trigger, again nothing happened. It was Oliver’s turn now. He pulled the trigger and a simple click. The crowd applause got louder and louder with each pull of trigger till the women trigger made a loud bang and she got washed out. It was now Smith and Oliver standing on stage facing each other. They both had pulled their trigger thrice. Smith ran out with his luck on fourth click and it was now Oliver left alone as the finalist to play the real roulette. It was a big surprise, which had yet to be disclosed.

After a short break when the curtains were raised, crowd saw Oliver standing motionless in middle of the stage with a small table placed at his side. The host came on stage and made announcements for the final round. Then a beautiful girl appeared cat walking and holding a covered tray. The host lifted the cloche to reveal a real shinny steel revolver. The host picked up the revolver, displayed it around and placed it on the table. It created lot of chatter in crowd since before this round only the digital pistols were used. The situation was getting tense. The humming noise had now turned into shouting and clapping. And then the second girl appeared with another covered tray. The host lifted the cloche and this a real bullet appeared from under it. The host lifted the bullet, held it high holding it between his thumb and index finger and showed it around. The crowd was getting mad. There was so much pandemonium that nothing was audible. People had guessed rightly what was about to happen.  The host showed the real bullet around which was adequately covered by most of the camera. He then placed it slowly and carefully with the revolver. There was now a pin drop silence.

Oliver was standing there gloomily with a racing heart and a hallow mind. His head was bent down. He knew Britney would be watching this show. The thought of her was killing her even before the start of game. He knew only one thing that he had to win the grand prize for her. This was the only way of redemption. It was now a do or die situation and there was no turning back. He did not want to over think. The host lifted the revolver, opened its cylinder to reveal the six empty chambers. He picked up the bullet, showed it to the chanting crowd and television cameras, and inserted it in one of the empty chambers. He then started spinning the cylinder and kept spinning it with growing roar of the crowd. He then walked to the Oliver and stood in front of him. The crowd now went silent. The host extended his hand with the revolver placed at his palm towards Oliver. Oliver looked at it, thought for a while and then lifted the revolver from the host’s hand. The local police was now knocking on the gates of stadium which were locked down from inside. Crowd had turned mad and cheering again. There were screams of ‘do it, do it’. Police warnings to stop the show were lost in the crowd’s uproar. The electric supply to stadium was cut down but show organizers had already catered for the same. The on stage lights and all television broadcast was already running on generators. Oliver was now holding the revolver tightly in his right hand.

With a loud bang and a flash of light, the host disappeared. It was now Oliver all alone standing there on the stage. The crowd felt the frostiness in air and fell silent. A computer generated voice announced the round one with one hundred thousand dollars for the first pull. Oliver with a shaking hand lifted the revolver to his temple, closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. A simple click. Crowd went wild again. Oliver had survived the first pull and won one hundred thousand dollars. He was given an option to walk away with the win or try his luck for round two and win two hundred thousand dollars. He opted to stay. He survived the round two as well and opted to play next round. He went on to play till round five and won five hundred thousand dollars.

Round six was the final round. The prize money for round six was one million dollars. Only one pull was left with one chamber and one bullet. There was a hundred percent chance of the bullet getting through his temple. 

The only thing he could lose in this round was his life. The amount he would win will be given to the person he had willed. At the back stage, he had signed a written consent for the game and had willed the prize money to be given to Britney. He lifted his hand and pulled the last trigger.

Written By: Nadeem Alam

Other short stories by same author:
Click 👇
Twins
Lost Girl 
Shadow
My World
Doomsday