“Seulgi! Seulgi! Come on! Wake up! Seulgi!” Someone kept shouting.

I slowly opened my eyes to see Joy’s face centimeters away from mine.

“Oh my god! You startled me!” I shouted as my hand on my chest, trying to calm down.

“I am sorry. You didn’t open your eyes no matter how loud I called you so I..”  She began explaining but I cut her off.  

“No problem, Joy. Just remember, personal space, okay?”

She grinned. Cute.

I stood up from the sofa and walked to what’s left of the kitchen. I splashed some water on my face to freshen up a little bit and when I tried to go back to Joy I almost tripped because of Yeri who was chasing Irene.

Yes, I decided to call her like that. It suits her really well and I guess she liked her name because when I told her I could swear I saw something in her eyes, like the sparkles in the children’s eyes when you give them a new toy or candy.

I went back to Joy.

“I hope your cat won’t eat my mouse.”  I said, laughing at the two animals playing cutely with each other.  “It seems like they like each other.”

“Ugh, tell me about it.” Joy groaned. “They have been like this since I woke up and this was long ago.”  She added.

“Why didn’t you wake up earlier?”

“You looked so tired yesterday and I wanted you to get some sleep before we face again that stupid game.”  Joy replied. She looked sincere. I usually don’t trust people easily but she, I don’t know why but I think I can trust her. We will see.

“So what are we going to do? This people who we faced, the snake girl and the silver haired guy or whatever, seemed pretty serious about this game. Do you think they are actually planning to kill the rest of the players?” She questioned.

“I don’t know, Joy. We still don’t know the other two players. I had a plan before I met you. I was going to stay here and be safe for the rest of the game until only me and two other players are left but..”

“That’s brilliant. Let’s do this!”  She exclaimed happily like a little kid. Well she practically is. Joy told me she is 14. She looked young but I never thought she be would this young. She has pretty mature face for her age.

“Well, it is a good plan but there is a little problem.”  I said while she was looking at me with questioning eyes, waiting for me to continue.  “If the rest 4 players decide to pair up or play in teams, just like we did, this game will never end until one of us is dead. Literally, it’s one of us or one of them.”

“But we can’t be sure that this will turn out like this.”  She argued.

“I know. But we can’t be sure. I am saying it only because there is a chance of this to happen.” I  replied. She only nodded, showing me she understood what I told her.

We spent another two hours deciding if we will stay here, in the house, or we will go out and try to find some of the other players. We might not be really strong or our fears are not big dogs or poisonous snakes but we are two and they are playing individually or at least we hope so. So in the end we decided to go out and actually try to fight the rest of the players.

I told her the thing Wendy told me about Irene, to take care of her with all I have. Joy said something I never thought of. What if the “fears“ are the thing that are  “keeping us alive“ in this round. Like they are the bulb and we are the lamp. We won’t be shining if the bulb is broken. Now that she said this, Wendy’s words started