The Game

I had done it. I'd survived five challenges in a row, and I'd made it all the way to the final, where 100 players had been whittled down to just 3. I was now genuinely in with a shot of winning the whole fucking thing... but first there was another small problem to navigate. I looked around at the stage's floor, which was completely empty, and now that all the other girls had left I suddenly began to feel very naked again.

"Err Mikey..."

I turned to look pleadingly at the club's owner.

"Yes love?"

"Umm... where are my clothes?"

*****

Well, that had been an experience. Still totally nude I'd searched around desperately for my stuff but not a single item was to be seen, including my brand new and annoyingly expensive lingerie. Mikey was apologetic but said that some of the more eager members of the crowd must have scooped my clothing up and taken it home, which was incredibly creepy, and there was nothing he could do to help.

I'd finally admitted defeat and wrapped myself up tightly in my coat, then ordered a taxi straight back to my apartment. When I got home it was almost midnight, so I just shrugged off my jacket in the hallway and then crawled straight into bed, where again I was tormented by dreams of stripper poles, gushing bottles and wads of singles.

Eight hours later I woke up with my trophy lying next to me on the pillow, and I had to spend a few minutes trying to work out if last night had actually happened. Eventually I accepted that yes, unfortunately I was now a former stripper, and more pressingly I had somehow arrived at the final day of The Game.

I spent the rest of the morning working in the café again, which felt slightly pointless given that there was roughly a one in three chance that by the end of the day I'd be a millionaire. Sadly nothing had been won just yet and for now I still needed all the tips I could get my hands on, so I completed my shift with the hope that it would be my last. After that I had a long afternoon of lectures, then an early evening working on assignments in the library.

I kept checking my phone for news of the final challenge, but to my increasing frustration I received no updates or any information at all. I trudged back home at around 6pm, and when I reached my front door there was a black box sitting on the welcome mat, wrapped up in a pretty pink bow.

Slightly weirded out I picked it up and took it inside, then opened up my mystery gift as I waited for the kettle to boil. Inside there was a football top, which was about a size or two too big for me, a matching pair of shorts, some nice Nike trainers, a sealed envelope, and a small note printed on a piece of card which I pulled out and read.

"Good evening Player 17, and congratulations on reaching today's final game: 'Battle Royale'. The winner of tonight's challenge will be crowned this year's champion, and the one million pound cash prize will be theirs. As you may be aware tonight your city hosts the final of the World Cup, the biggest and most watched sporting event of the year. You have been provided with a ticket for the game, and you've also been sent a football kit to help you blend in with the fans. The rules of the final challenge are simple. At exactly 30 minutes into the match you, along with your fellow finalists Player 25 and Player 78, will take off your clothes, run onto the pitch, and try to evade the security staff for as long as possible. Whichever player is the last to be apprehended will be the winner of The Game. Good luck."

Oh God... just kill me now. Personally I hated football, but even I knew that tonight Germany were playing Brazil in the final of the world cup, the international football tournament which only happened once every four years. The huge stadium that was just outside of my city had been chosen to host the game, and although I had never been there I still knew it was insanely massive. After a quick Google I discovered that yep, it had a capacity of 90,000 people, which was completely ridiculous.

Next I looked up how many people had watched the previous final on TV, and Jesus fucking Christ... during the last final 1.12 billion people had watched the game live. I thought it was a typo but no, not one million... it was actually over one billion human beings. I looked up another site to see if that was a mistake but no, it really was the most viewed television event in the world, by an absolute mile. And I was expected to streak it, live on TV, with my face clear for everyone to see. I was so screwed.

I think if I'd had enough time to sit and think about it all then I would have definitely bailed. Sure there was the money to think of, but this would also totally ruin my reputation, forever. Every guy I knew would definitely be watching the game, and all of my friends and family would see clips of me on social media even if they didn't see it happen live.

Despite everything I'd gone through so far this was just too much, this task had crossed the line, and deep down even I knew that. Unfortunately I didn't get enough time to sit and think about it because the moment I finished reading the card my doorbell rang, which made me jump out of my skin. I walked to the door and opened it to find the two masked guards from the gym hall waiting for me.

"Umm... hi?"

I nervously flickered my eyes back and forth between their masks as I stood there expecting a reply, but as per usual neither man spoke. Instead they just beckoned me forwards, then turned on their heels and walked down to a van which was parked on my street. With a heavy heart I quickly locked the door, hid my keys under a flowerpot, and followed them, wondering what on earth I thought I was doing. My feet seemed to know what to do though, so as if in a trance I let my body go numb and watched myself walking off to meet my fate.

*****

When I stooped into the van I saw that Player 25 and Player 78 were already there waiting for me, cowering nervously in their seats with their matching ribboned boxes perched on their laps. I recognised the first of them as one of my Triangle teammates, and I was pretty sure the other girl was the lone surviving Circle.

I gravely nodded at them and fastened my seatbelt, then the door was slammed shut behind me and just like that we were on our way. It was about a thirty minute drive out of town towards the stadium, but it took much longer than usual as the road was rammed with cars heading for the same destination.

When we were five minutes away one of the guards turned to look back at us, and nodded pointedly at our boxes. We all understood that now was the time to prepare for the final challenge, and after a moment of awkwardness we all began to strip.

We were still trapped in heavy traffic at this point and I noticed a few shocked drivers looking in through the van's windows as three young women unexpectedly got completely naked in their seats, but with the night we had in store for us I don't think any of us really cared.

It felt weird going totally commando as I pulled on the baggy shirt and tight shorts over my bare skin, but obviously there was no need for underwear where we were going. I slipped off my shoes and replaced them with the new trainers, and just like that I was ready to roll. The other girls had also got changed to the guard's satisfaction, then a few minutes later we had pulled into a parking spot and the doors were pulled open.

We clambered out into the crisp evening air, and I craned my neck back to stare up at the huge stand which we were stood next to. It was absolutely huge, and even though kick off wasn't for another half an hour the noise inside from the crowd was already deafening.

The guards led us through into a corporate wing of the stadium, where our tickets were checked by a security team, then we walked through a maze of corridors as the chanting and singing around us continued to intensify. The guards stopped at one final door and gestured that it was time for us to go on alone, so with a shaking hand I reached forwards and pulled down on the handle.

"Oh God..."

We stepped out into one of the grandstand which stood by the side of the pitch, right next to where the mangers and substitutes sit, and we were so close to the grass you could almost reach over the gantry and touch it. We looked down at our tickets and saw that we were in the third row from the front, almost as close to the action as possible, and we found our seats and sat silently as we waited for the game to begin.

For a while we sat there in stony silence as we watched the players warming up, then they disappeared into their locker rooms to get changed, before reappearing as the teams lined up for their national anthems. The stadium erupted with the sound of thousands of fans singing their hearts out, and the three of us just sank down in our seats and began the longest half an hour wait of our lives.

*****

It was actually quite a boring first half, with no goals to distract me from stressing about the magnitude of the task I was about to take on. I'll be honest I did consider just getting up and walking out about a million times, and I definitely should have. But every time I tried to I found myself unable to move, there was some irrationally stubborn part of me that simply couldn't walk away from The Game just yet.

I'd earnt my place in this final, even if I'd rather be literally anywhere else in the world, and for some unknown reason I didn't know how to cut my losses and just give up. I tried to think of my Dad, tried to imagine him and all of his friends watching my naked body on their huge flat screen TVs, but even that wasn't enough to dissuade me. The cash I could potentially win felt all too real, while the consequences for what I was about to do felt strangely abstract and hypothetical.

All too soon 28 and a half minutes had been played, so there were only another 90 seconds left before I had to take off all my clothes and try my best not to get absolutely demolished by a huge team of angry security staff. With my head resting on my knees I focused on taking deep, long breaths as I tried to stop my heart beating out of my chest but it was no good, I felt like I could pass out at any moment.

This was so much worse than anything we'd had to do before, this wasn't just flashing a lecture, or a strip club, this was baring it all to the entire world, and our naked bodies would be captured by a hundred cameras and uploaded to the internet in seconds. My mum would disown me, my sisters would kill me, and all my of friends and family would never look at me the same way ever again. And yet still I couldn't leave, I wanted my old life back, I wanted that money. I also wanted to scream.

As I tried my best not to totally freak out I was distracted by some rustling at my side, which was enough to make me open my eyes and turn to see Player 78 stealthily rummaging around under her top. She glared at me as I watched her raise her butt up off her seat a couple of inches, just enough so that she could slip her shorts down over her hips and then quickly tug her shirt down to cover her thighs before anyone around us saw what she was up to.

78 then glanced around before surreptitiously leaning down and pulling her bottoms down from under her football shirt, before kicking them over her trainers and bundling them up in her fist. As she stuffed the shorts under her chair she judgingly looked my fully dressed body up and down, then hissed at me.

"What, you already chickened out?"

It was a fair question, because I knew I had to do the same, I knew that now I only had sixty seconds left to go, but despite that my body had become completely frozen in place and I simply couldn't bring myself to do it. I could only continue to stare dumbly as I looked past 78 to the next seat along, where Player 25 was also starting to strip.

She too ditched the shorts first and stowed them under her seat, then sank down in her chair and pulled her arms inside her shirt, making good use of the fact that they were so baggy. With thirty seconds left 25 looked up impatiently at the stadium's huge display which presented the match clock, then she carefully tugged the back of her shirt up behind her spine and ducked her head down to pull it off entirely, leaving her totally nude.

It was impressively sneaky, and she managed not to flash even a nipple as she quickly draped the top back over her front, then sat there huddled back in her seat with her solitary item of clothing laid precariously over her otherwise naked body.

"A million pounds Laura... a million pounds..."

I now only had fifteen seconds to spare, and I knew that it was now or never, either I took off all my clothes right away or I threw away all of the progress, and all of the sacrifices, I'd made so far playing this stupid game. I muttered my now all too familiar mantra under my breath, and weirdly that seemed to do the trick as I felt my limbs begin to thaw and start to move again.

With a deep sigh I stood up, reached down, and in one smooth, deliberate action stripped my shirt up and over my head, then dropped it calmly down onto the floor. For a brief, totally surreal moment I stood there motionless, completely topless, as the fans behind me began to point and shout as they noticed my bare back, which made those around me turn to look up at my tits and stare.

I peered up for one last time at the stadium's huge scoreboard display and saw that there were only seven seconds left until we had to be on the pitch, and that after an entire week of competing, after all the hours of embarrassment and exposure we'd put ourselves through so far, now entirety of The Game all came down to the next minute of action.

If you've never been nude outside before then please give it a go this week, do it for me. You don't have to have an audience, just go into your back yard, it can even be at night if you feel safer, and take off everything you're wearing. Then you'll understand what it feels like to really appreciate the air flowing over your body, to unlock some deep primal reflex within your bones which screams at you that you're too exposed, too vulnerable, that you need to search for cover.

You'll feel more alive than you ever have before, more naked than you ever have before, and you'll be able to get just a little taste of all the conflicting emotions that were currently clouding my mind. My skin erupted with goosebumps as I shoved my shorts down and kicked them to the side, and just like that I was standing totally naked in a stadium full of 90,000 rowdy football fans. Player 25 also knew that our time had come, so she leapt up from her seat as her shirt fell away from her perfect body, and together we turned to run down the steps which led to the side of the advertising hoardings.

Player 78 followed behind us as she struggled to get her top off when it got tangled in her hair, but soon she too was undressed and our nude trio skipped past the three rows of stunned onlookers that stood between us and the grass. As the match clock hit thirty minutes on the dot we all vaulted over the waist high barriers which lined the pitch, and landed on the turf to an enormous cheer from the fans behind us.

"Hey, you girls, get back here!"

We glanced behind us as five men dressed in orange high visibility jackets clambered over the hoardings to try and stop the unexpected pitch invaders, and in a panic we all turned away and began to sprint as fast as we could towards the center of the pitch.

I had no gameplan, no strategy, no tricks up my sleeve to help me win, I was just going to keep running until my lungs exploded or my legs collapsed from underneath me. That familiar shot of adrenaline, which I had almost become used to from getting naked in public, was being supercharged into a potent, intoxicating cocktail by the extra burst of energy that you get from being chased, where an ancient caveman like instinct kicks in and your fight or flight reflex goes into hyperdrive.

If the crowd had been loud before now it was absolutely thunderous, streakers were always popular at sporting events but normally they were men, and unattractive middle aged men at that. So getting to cheer on a beautiful naked woman was an incredibly rare treat, and seeing three of them at once? Unheard of.

The mostly male audience clearly appreciated our desperate efforts, and I thought my eardrums were going to burst as their roars of encouragement blasted at me from every side. Even the players were now staring at us as the referee had called a halt to the game when he saw us rushing towards him, and even in the chaos I had the time to appreciate just how ridiculous it was that I was now streaking past some of the most famous and well paid sports stars in the entire world.

We had now reached the center circle and were heading towards the stand on the other side of the stadium, and as we crossed over the halfway line we were greeted by the spine chilling site of six more stewards running at us, this time from the front.

"Fucking hell..."

I swore as I realised we would quickly become sandwiched between the two lines of security staff, so along with 25 I turned to the right and headed down the middle of the pitch, towards one of the goals. 78 hesitated for a vital moment as she tried to decide which way to go, and at the last second she broke away from us and went off on her own, ducking away to the left.

Amused midfielders and defenders stepped back to let us dart between them as they shamelessly let their eyes roam up and down our bodies, but there was no time to worry about how I looked. I had one arm pinning my boobs to my chest while the other pumped furiously by my side, and 25 had given up any pretense of modesty as she kept her hands held out wide to try and keep her balance. From behind the German goalkeeper another set of stewards had leapt onto the pitch, and now we were quickly running out of space.

As we became penned in from three sides 25 and I turned right for a second time, heading towards the sidelines again. A couple of security staff anticipated our move and curved their runs tightly to try and intercept us, but luckily I was still light enough on my feet to jink past their outstretched arms.

"Get off me!"

25 wasn't so fortunate and got her forearm grabbed, but she used her fist to hammer down desperately on the offending steward's hand, which made him lose his grip and slip down onto the grass. My fellow contestant jumped over him and quickly caught up with me, but even though we were still going for now I could sense that the end was near.

My lungs burnt like they were on fire, my thighs felt like dead weight, and I could feel my whole body becoming coated in a sheen of sweat. I'd never sprinted this fast for this long in my life, and although my adrenaline had already spurred me on further than I could ever have imagined my body was capable of I could still tell that the effects were beginning to wear off.

As 25 and I fled parallel to the crowd of fans who mere meters to our left we saw yet another wall of security staff heading right for us. Again we turned to the side, and again we were lunged at. I feinted to one side and then ducked the other way, twisting left and right as I tried to dance through the heavier, less agile men.

"No!"

Out of the corner of my eye I saw 25 get grabbed for a second time around the wrist, and as she span around to try and wriggle her way free she was absolutely wiped out from behind by a flying steward. It was savage, a proper rugby tackle around the waist, and as she was slammed down onto the pitch a second guard, quickly followed by a third, immediately threw themselves down on top of her and pinned her arms behind her back.

I didn't have time to hang around though, and I used the momentary distraction of 25 getting taken out to dart back towards the center circle where there were slightly fewer orange vests. At that moment 78 suddenly cut across my path as we both desperately fled from the mob behind us, which looked like it had tripled in size.