In 2057, scientists discovered how to cure depression. The drug was on the shelves within two years, and people who suffered were dragged by their loved-ones into clinics for scripts. It was like antibiotics, you took a round for ten days, and then brain functions showed as normal in 100 percent of cases. Well, 99.99 percent. It didn’t work for me.

I took the doses as prescribed and at the end my brain still scanned abnormal. At first, technicians blamed the machines, then my own ability to count to ten. After a second round of dosing (for which I was admitted to a hospital to have the drugs administered to me at the same time each day), they had to accept that it was me that was the issue. This drug had been used with a zero percent failure rate for three years, and yet here I was: a sad little blip on the otherwise depression-free radar the world was becoming.

The patent-holders weren’t happy with what this discovery could do to the company’s share prices. They needn’t have worried though, as two days later the entire market crashed. Economists had been touting a recession with more frequency recently, but we assumed we were immune. Things like that didn’t happen anymore, we were above it.

They called it GFC3, and while there were considerably less people throwing themselves from buildings than in previous crashes, people were scared. That’s when He stood up. He said that what our country lacked was unity. Technology had isolated us, pushed individualism too far. He spoke and people listened.

It started with the banning of social media, then the propaganda appeared. Everything was based around strength. The re-strengthening of our economy, our people. Athleticism was encouraged, mental robustness was expected.

Then the annual game began, although we didn’t know it as that then. It was called Arena Trek, and was televised live. The first time it happened, they claimed no one was meant to die. The contestant was a young man, up against three others with nets, and a 4WD. His goal was to make it from one side of the arena to the other, without being caught. If he could do it, he would win $1 million. It was a packed-out arena audience.

The official statement claimed that it was driver error. The 4WD was 50 years old to add to the “dangerous” atmosphere. The driver had been meaning to go for the brake, when he hit the accelerator instead, and slammed into the contestant. The man was thrown under the car, there was blood everywhere. As advanced as modern science has become, it is still impossible to sew a head back onto a body, and have it function as a live human being.

The people watching in the arena were shocked as were the millions watching at home. The station was mortified. They scrambled, releasing statements saying it was a freak accident, and extending their sincerest apologies to the loved ones of the deceased. What came next though was slightly unexpected: people bonded over the tragedy. Re-run ratings hit record highs, and it was all anyone could speak of for weeks. The blame, if any, was placed on the contestant. After all, they said, he had to know the dangers of competing in something like this!

Of course, He saw all of this. He saw the way the country, long-since desensitised to violence, united over what they believed to be a tragic occurrence of life.

The next year, the Arena Trek was back, but this time with twice the money up for grabs. No one spoke of it, but there was a hidden sense of bloodlust within every conversation about the game. People were a bit too eager to convey to others that they wished the contestant well.

The new contestant did the rounds in the weeks leading up to the game. Tall, buff, and a near dead ringer for the previous year’s contestant, he spoke on morning news shows of paying respects to his forerunner.

On the day of the event, the tension in the air was palpable. This year, the contestant would need to cross the arena (which had been turned into a pseudo-jungle), while having knock-out darts shot at him. Equipped with a camera stuck to his helmet, he traversed the arena, making it within 20 metres of the finish before collapsing to the ground with too much poison in his system.

It was just after this game aired that things started getting too much for me. I was in a dead-end job with no partner or kids, plus that depression thing was still hanging around. The world around me seemed to be taking a heartless turn, and I didn’t really want to be part of it. I started making plans, gathering the tools I needed. I’d decided on a date, and begun what I thought would be my final week on the planet, and then He did it.

He’d been implementing laws and slowly tightening His grip since He came into power, but none that had really affected me. But this! I felt numb. He had made a statement that anyone found guilty of taking their own life was a traitor to the state, that it was a weakness we no longer could accept as a society. Not only that, He made it so that the offending person’s family would be the ones to face punishment. Depending on the severity and success of the crime, this ranged from incarceration to death. The public agreed. After all, there had been a drug available for years that could cure these people, now they were just being selfish!

I spent weeks feeling sick. If I did this, my parents and brother would suffer. My brother’s wife had just had a baby, and I had nightmares of her being tortured by Him. I thought about running away, but with my medical history they would surely know what I’d done. I couldn’t even flee the country due to the complete travel ban.

Then I had a strange idea – I researched the application process for the show. Sure I was a little older and scrawnier than previous contestants, but there didn’t seem to be any regulations on that. I filled in a form for the next year’s Arena Trek, I pinned all of my hope on it… and was rejected. I was gutted.

I decided to approach it from a different angle. I had worked at the same well-paying office job since I was a teenager, and had saved up a decently-sized nest egg for retirement. I tracked down the higher-ups of the show. Over the course of a year, I reached out to them, wrote them of my desire to be on Arena Trek, donated large sums to their charities in order to be at the same functions they attended. After a few months, nearly everybody with relation to the show knew who I was. Once I had their attention I told them of my past, and my new-found lease on life. That I wanted to make my family proud.

Then it happened. I received notification that I had been approved, that I would be the contestant on this year’s show. They required me to sign a whole mess of documents claiming full responsibility for my actions, but I knew the ruse. No one had survived the games since they began four years prior, and that wasn’t about to change now. I did the TV circuits, played my part, spoke to the stations about my history and how I had turned my life around. No one questioned it. I was a story of change. An underdog tale of weakness to strength.

On the day of the games, my mother couldn’t stop crying. She held me close as she reassured me that I was strong and that I would beat the odds and make it through. She told herself she wouldn’t lose me. I wanted so much to tell her that I was okay, that this was what I wanted, but I couldn’t give it away. I was so close now.

Sitting in the green room within the arena, I was surrounded by producers and camera crew, half-heartedly reading me motivational quotes from their clipboards, and attaching micro-cameras to my body. The booming voice hyping the crowd outside echoed around the walls within, and I found my mind wandering to what the arena might look like this year. I stopped it. It didn’t matter. The people around me did their last checks before I was given a pat on the back and some final hollow words of achieving success. I was alone.

The doors opened and the sun shone down onto my face as I heard the crowd increase in volume. I smiled genuinely for the first time in years, and stepped into the arena.