Chapter 1

“I built a massive isolation chamber! And we’re going to see if these two strangers can survive in this chamber for the next 100 days. They have never met each other, ever. Conner, this is Madee.”

And with that, I took off my blindfold…

To be in a Mr. Beast video was, how else do I say this––it was winning the lotto, 100 times over, except…except a million different things.

A drunken dare from my friend meant I applied to be a part of Mr. Beast’s videos. The king of Youtube - super awesome fun content that was just ~fun~ to watch, no matter what crazy thing he was doing this time––I’d seen his contestants do all sorts of wild, insane things, all at the chance to win truly unreal amounts of pure cash. To walk away from a Mr. Beast challenge was to walk away with tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, even half a million sometimes, just for winning.

I watched every one of his videos religiously. I loved them. The content was just too addicting, too fun, I had notifications turned on and the second a new video dropped I watched it.

I was almost a fangirl. I ate Feastables religiously because they were his own brand of chocolate bar, different flavors and combinations that were delicious and inexpensive and just a phenomenal guilty pleasure I could turn to any time. To hear him talk about the monopoly on talk shows about how big chocolate companies essentially had a deathgrip on the chocolate I knew and loved (sometimes a little too much, especially after halloween hehe) made me want to actually support his videos and his company.

So when I actually got selected, well, umm…it was the greatest news of all time. One entire evening was spent freaking out, screaming excitedly when in my tiny little apartment, checking the email over and over again, making sure it was real, it existed, I, me, little old me, was going to be on the show, going to be on his channel, have a chance at winning so much money, like truly so so much money.

There were details in the follow-up email, ensuring I was okay with the challenge ahead, given support, the whole team was awesome in getting me on board. I barely read them at first, too excited to actually give them any piece of mind.

I quit my job the next day, because filming was to begin soon, and that meant my dogshit manager at the diner I worked at could ***self and I could leave.

Then I read more about the challenge, and plans started to craft. I couldn’t be this Madee, the stupid-excited fangirl, no, hundreds of millions of people were going to watch this video, I had to be presentable, I had to be someone people would like. My Instagram was going to blow up, this was history. I got my hair done, put in some highlights, I ate as little as possible to be as slim as possible, and made pinterest boards of what I’d do with my money. God, I wanted to look my best for everyone to see.

And then there was strategy, complex ideas I had planned to make the absolute max out of this experience––all I wanted was a Tesla, as much money as I could stuff into my dwindling bank account, and to survive 100 days.

100 days. With a random stranger.

I didn’t think much about who the stranger would be, so when I took off my blindfold and found Conner, supposedly, looking back at me, I couldn’t help but smile. He was young, my age, maybe a little older, a nose ring in his left nostril, cute hair, some scraggle. He smiled softly when he saw me, a little flair in his eye, unreadable.

We’d both been given matching jumpsuits, athletic wear, not exactly flattering, but simple. Funny that he got basically the same thing––the only thing we were allowed to bring was underwear.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, eyes squinting as he extended a hand.

“Hi,” I said, my smile growing wider somehow. “Nice to meet you too.”

Before we’d even really had a chance to introduce ourselves, Jimmy (Mr. Beast himself) pulled us aside, opening an enormous, pristine, gold-painted vault, and in the most ridiculous, narrator type-voice, he said, “If the two of you can survive in here for the next 100 days, I will give you the half a million dollars inside this vault.”

The door swung open and inside were stacks of briefcases, presumably filled with cash. It was bigger than anything I’d ever seen, anything comparable…I couldn’t help but gasp. To see it all laid out in front of me was wild, motivating even.

“But if one of you leave, you both get nothing.”

And with that, he turned, a cameraman following him as he walked towards the singular exit doors, labeled with enormous red lettering that plainly spelled the word “EXIT.”

“Okay, bye,” he said, and without second thought, he was gone, and the challenge had begun.

It was…overwhelming. With Jimmy and the cameramen gone, it was just Conner and I, and the room around us.

“Umm…” he started, eyes searching across the room.

“Yeah…” I said, equally curious.

There was so, so little… in here. The room was a cube maybe 25 feet across, although it was way bigger than my apartment, it already felt small to be unable to leave for 100 days. 100 days!

There really wasn’t anywhere to go, anywhere to move, and I was already wondering about how I’d do in 100 days without my gym membership.

“Inventory?” came Conner’s voice from across the room.

“Hmm?” I asked, still looking at the tall ceilings, the lights on the wall, the futuristic design.

“Come on,” he said, gesturing with his chin. “Let’s figure out what we got.”

There was precious little––there was a singular shelving unit, stocked full of plainly labeled cans, with looked relatively healthy, at least, and there were two beds, small and comfortable enough.

There was a small bathroom as well, a private shower (thank God,) without cameras, too, so that meant true privacy, a place to be alone, away from the constant scrying eyes of the plethora of cameras in the cube.

Then there was the vault, stacked high with cases of cash that were surprisingly cold to the touch - I couldn’t help but crack one open and peek inside.

Eventually, we both sat in our beds, my back leaning against the wall, our meager inventory complete, unsure of what came next. There were no clocks, no windows, no simple way to track the passage of time.

It was painfully awkward…for a while…I just didn’t know this guy, and he wouldn’t meet my gaze, so when I finally asked him a simple question, a direct welcome into the conversation, he lit up, eyes meeting mine, and conversation flowed from there.

We chatted mostly about the challenge and the room, mostly, occasionally dipping into personal topics but never really anything more than surface-level conversation.

“I keep thinking about the feeling of exiting,” I said, glancing over to the enormous double-doors that marked the way out. “How good is that going to feel?”

He laughed, and we talked and talked for hours. He made for surprisingly good conversation, and I found myself admitting I was a big fan of Mr. Beast, and so was he. We talked about prior challenges, our favorites, whatever.

Eventually, however, tiredness took us, and though it was so difficult, I was eventually able to sleep.

I had no idea how long I slept, but when we both woke, we went for a quick meal, pulling cans from the shelf and cooking what was the most terribly bland meal I may have ever had. No spices, no hot sauce (a big part of my childhood), nothing, genuinely just veggies and chicken.

We ate on the floor.

And just like that, time began to slip.

Meals were the only thing that marked out passage of time, the same bland chicken or beef, served with veggies, over and over and over again. 3 meals a day.

Desperate attempts to entertain ourselves involved the chaotic construction of tent structures over our beds in trying to hide from the light, Conner made a deck of playing cards from the journal we were both given, to which I destroyed both him and Jimmy, who made a surprise visit to join in.

We were both given a camera with a microphone to document ourselves, and the days passed, one restless night after another.

There was a subtle kind of idiocy that grew day by day, the kind of delirious idiocracy that comes from boredom, but this had been multiplied to an extreme. I’d heard about a mental study that showed that men, bless their silly little hearts, when subjected to extreme boredom, would more often than not literally shock themselves with electricity than do nothing.

I could begin to understand. The same meals, the same card games, they grew old. My mind began to drift, crazy dreams of all varieties flowing throughout my subconscious both during sleep and not.

Somewhere in the first ten days or so, we took the 500k from the cases and split them evenly. Conner had decided barely touched his, well, I’d made it a goal to build a great fort of my money, a reminder to stay strong and of all that was on the line if we failed this challenge.

Both of us were in it for the long haul.

I knew this thing was going to change us. I just didn’t know how much.


On day 10, I knew something was different. Jimmy showed up, this time with some of his friends in tow, and with a grand opening, a door opened in our wall, one we didn’t even know existed, and light, real, pure, sun-born light poured into the chamber. It felt so, so good, a hole in me seemingly being patched back up.

Outside stood a chef, cooking the most mouth-watering mix of heavenly deliciousness I’d ever smelled. An entire kitchen, expensive and ornate and gorgeous and lethally efficient, was attended to by a well-dressed, fancy looking chef, because of course it was. It was a Mr. Beast video, it was probably some michelin star chef bought out.

And so it was explained that every 10 days, something could be given to us that would make the challenge easier, but it would cost us a huge chunk of the cash we’d already been given.

The chef was offered to us, for the rest of the 90 days of this challenge––and it would cost us a steep charge of $25,000 each, and to make matters worse, the chef had prepared a 3-course meal, almost perfectly timed. An entire table was brought in, fancy comfortable chairs, perfectly placed plates and glasses and silverware and napkins and champagne flutes filled to the brim––it couldn’t have been any more different than our meals on the floor.

My stomach panged as the chef explained in way too fancy of detail what had been prepared, lifting the covers from the plate. Bland chicken and veggies suddenly became the worst thing I’d ever had as we dug in.

We were given an hour to decide, just an hour, to which they left us alone.

I’d already made up my mind, no meals were worth $25,000, not when I had so many ideas with how I’d spend my cash. This was far too lavish to splurge on.

Conner agreed, nodding. “No way, no way, let’s just, enjoy ourselves I guess. Cheers.” He extended his champagne, and I met it with my own. I drank a bit too much of it before we’d even begun to eat.

We were silent as we ate, and God I didn’t know how hungry I was. It was our second meal of the day, my stomach already prepped, and I gorged myself. I knew this was going to be my last good meal for another 90 days, and I didn’t want a single bite to be left unwasted. It was so good, so many delicately, intricately sculpted items of pure deliciousness.

Alcohol, so it seemed, was an appetite stimulant.

Forkful after forkful I fucking demolished my plates, unbridled gluttony spurning every bite, and without even thinking or asking I reached for one of Conner’s dessert plates after he’d slowed down. I didn’t even let my stomach begin to complain as I devoured that plate, too. I didn’t even look up, didn’t think about anything besides just how good it tasted, how it would be my last good meal.

The bloat was intense, I’d never, ever stuffed myself like this. The already tight-fitting shirt struggled to keep the intensity of the bloat to itself, my stomach pressed tighter than a japanese subway, it pressed deep into the fabric of the simple shirt.

What I didn’t see was how Conner watched me, slowing not because he was nearing full, though he probably was, no, furtive glances became outright staring, watching me almost lustfully as I hunched, not giving my mouth a break between bites, breathing around bites. I didn’t see how his face flushed, how heavily he swallowed as he watched.

I finished everything, and finally, finally looked up, licking the final bit of chocolate sauce from the corner of my lip.

Bloated, stuffed, a little tipsy, I leaned back in my chair, groaning blissfully.

“Wow,” was all Conner said.

“I know,” I said, eyes meeting his, in a daze of food and wine. “That was so good. So fucking good, ugh.”

Another minute passed, and then another, my eyelids growing heavy.

“So,” Conner started, organizing his plates. “Still, we’re still not doing it, right?” There was an uncertainty to his voice I hadn’t heard before, hesitation, loss, some kind of wishful thinking behind his words. It was only something I could pick up on because he was my only conversational partner in the last 10 days, with the exception of the occasional Jimmy, and I’d never heard anything like it.

“Right,” I agreed, though it hurt to say. The pain in my stomach began to grow, alongside something else I didn’t really have the time to process or understand.

And, as if on cue, the secret door opened once more, natural light pouring into the cube once more. A decision was to be made, $50k to keep, or 90 days of a private chef…

“Conner?” I said, letting him make the decision.

The cameras flicked to him, but he hesitated, then turned back to me. “Whatever you decide, I’m okay with it.”

Then the cameras shifted to me, as did Jimmy’s focus, his friends, Conner, the chef, everyone… the pressure built. The weight of the cameras especially burned.

“So what’s it going to be?”

I glanced to my fort of cash, back to Conner, who was unreadable, and then back to the cameras.

I inhaled, exhaled, and on pure instinct, not a thought in my head, I blurted, “We’ll take the chef.”