The game starts

R O O M S

THE CONTROL ROOM

He is very uncomfortable. That’s the first thing Jeonghan notices when consciousness drags him out of sleep. As he slowly sits up he realises two other things—he’s been sleeping on a cold concrete floor, and he’s very dizzy. It’s like the space he’s in slowly veers one way, then snaps back only to veer off again. As he sits there and waits for the spinning to stop, a heavy feeling hits him. He doesn’t remember falling asleep on any floors. In truth, he doesn’t remember almost anything from the night before. He has a vague memory of Seungcheol and him going out for a run, then nothing. Only blackness, and the concrete floor.

He fumbles around in the dark, his eyes struggling to find something to focus on. He feels along the walls carefully, across what he thinks is a metal door frame. Then his fingers find a light switch and the room is bathed in fluorescent light that burns Jeonghan’s eyes. When he finally adjusts to the brightness, his stomach clenches at what he sees. He’s in a quite large room made entirely of concrete, one wall covered in TV screens and below it a table with hundreds of controls and buttons. There are more tables along the other walls that hold computers and machinery that Jeonghan can’t identify. There are nine chairs but he’s alone in the room. There’s a reinforced metal door behind him and another to his left, and not a single window.

Jeonghan is too confused to be scared. He tries the first door, but there’s no handle and he can’t get his fingers inside the doorframe. The second door has a knob, but it won’t budge no matter how hard he tries.

“Hello? Is anyone out there? Hello?” He knocks on the doors as hard as he can. Nothing happens.

Locked up and starting to panic, Jeonghan looks around the room for anything useful. The computers are plugged in but they won’t start. He tries to open the drawers underneath the tables, but most are either locked or empty. One isn’t, though, and inside he finds a single key. It won’t fit any of the other drawers or the left-hand door. Jeonghan sighs in frustration. What the hell is going on?

Something catches his eye to the left. There’s a small alcove in the wall that Jeonghan thought was just empty, but now he sees that there’s something on the floor. He picks it up and dusts it off—it looks like a handbook. Curious, he opens it, and a piece of paper falls out. It lands face up and he reads it even before he picks it up.

실수하지마. 모든 시도가 중요해.
(Don’t make any mistakes. Every try counts.)

Nothing else, not even a name. Jeonghan looks through the handbook—first English, then German, Spanish, Chinese…—and thankfully finds a Korean section in it. It seems to belong to the control panel underneath the TV screens, so Jeonghan attempts to follow the start-up instructions. He’s careful about it, and it works. One of the centre screens buzzes to life, a still image from a bad quality camera, but it’s good enough for Jeonghan to see. It’s standing on a table in a small room, and there’s a young man sitting hunched on a chair across from it.

It’s Seokmin. And he’s not moving. On the wall behind him, there’s a TV screen with four numbers on it—60:00. Before Jeonghan’s eyes, the numbers switch to 59:59 and the seconds start ticking away.

It’s a timer. Jeonghan has an hour before... well, he has no idea. And it freaks him out.


 

THE LOCKER ROOM

Sunyeong woke up when the water started to reach his body on the floor. He’d heard the hard knocks on the metal door on the opposite side of the room, but he couldn’t make any noise back. He was locked to a floor drain with a short chain, and gagged so hard it hurt the corners of his mouth. He tried to cry out, to rattle with the chain, but whoever was on the other side couldn’t hear him. Sunyeong hadn’t recognised the voice because it was too muffled, but he has a feeling it might be one of his friends.

He is starting to feel really cold because the water is freezing. He can hear the faucets running full force inside the closed bathroom stalls, and the water floods out underneath the doors. He’s thankful for the drain, or else the room might fill up completely because the door looks almost bunker-like and there are no windows to break.

He struggles again, pulls on the drain cap as hard as he can. The cracking makes it sound like he could break it free, but he’s in a really bad angle. He looks around again for something to help him, but there’s nothing. He’s surrounded by tall changing room lockers, every single one locked with a combination, and the doors have weird, uneven number series scribbled on them.

Sunyeong is growing tired of the panic in his chest. He makes his hands as small as he can and pulls until it hurts. The cuffs are tight but he’s sure he can get out of them if he only ignores the pain. He tries, and slides a little out of them, using the water for less friction. But the metal is breaking his skin and he bites down on the gag when the pain becomes too much. He gives up when tears start to pour from his eyes.

He realises regretfully he’s doing exactly what he should be doing. Blood is slicker than water, so if he can just get his hands covered in it he should be able to get free. Biting down hard on the gag, he starts rubbing his wrists hard against the cuffs until he feels the warm liquid running. When he just can’t stand the pain anymore, he pulls again. It takes all his willpower, but eventually, his hands slide out and he tumbles forward into the water, hitting his head on one of the locker benches. He unties the gag and rubs the sore corners of his mouth, then inspects his wrist injuries. The cuts are shallow but bleeding badly, and sting like nothing he’s ever felt before. He tears the gag in half and uses it to bandage the wounds, then stumbles into the bathroom stalls to turn the water off. He swears out loud when he realises that he can’t because the faucets are broken on purpose. Instead, he goes to the metal door and starts pounding.

“Hey! Someone get me out of here! Are you still there? Can you hear me!”

Sunyeong hears a dull thud on the other side, and then the very muffled voice. This time he can make out that it must be Jeonghan.

“Sunyeong-ah! Sunyeong-ah! Is that you in there?”

“Yes!” Sunyeong calls back. “Open the door!”

“I can’t, it’s locked!”

Great, he thinks. “Are you okay, hyung? What is going on? Where are we?”

“I’m alright!” Jeonghan yells through the door. “I’m in some kind of control room, there are screens and I pressed some buttons and now I can see Seokmin on one of them! He’s not moving, and there’s some clock behind him that’s counting down and I don’t know what to do!”

“A timer?” Sunyeong’s heart sinks. “Is there anything else?”

“Not that I can see! Wait, is there a camera in there with you?”

Sunyeong looks around for the first time since he could stand up. The room is large with several rows of lockers, and in one corner he finds what Jeonghan must have meant—a small TV screen on the wall with some kind of webcam on top. Sunyeong feels it down until he finds a button and turns the TV on. The text ‘Locker Room’ flashes by quickly, then there’s a noise like feedback from a microphone and a timer just like the one behind Seokmin appears on the TV.

Jeonghan pounds on the door again and calls Sunyeong’s name, but this time his voice comes through hidden speakers clearly.

“Hey, hyung, don’t yell, I think I did something!”

“Right back at you,” Jeonghan said. “I can hear you too. And I can see you. Is that… water on the floor?”

“Yeah, I can’t turn it off. The timer, hyung. I found a TV and it’s on my screen too. Fifty-four seconds left.”

“It’s the same on Seokmin’s… wait, did you say seconds?”

“Yes? It’s forty-five now.”

With both their hearts beating out of their chests, they wait until the timer runs out. Sunyeong has a dozen scenarios playing in his head about what would happen, like a bomb or something, but when the numbers all hit zero, only a small click can be heard and one of the lockers behind Sunyeong opens. Carefully he looks inside—there is a key lying on a shelf, and a note.

한 • 훈 • 희 • 규 • 관 • 승 • 수 • 순 • 솔 • 석 • 지 • 정 • 준 • 철 • 찬 • 민 • 우 • 영 • 원
(Han • Hun • Hui • Gyu • Gwan • Seung • Soo • Sun • Sol • Seok • Ji • Jeong • Jun • Cheol • Chan • Min • Woo • Yeong • Won)

Sunyeong stares at the note for a long while—it isn’t hard to see that the syllables are just the names of him and his friends scrambled together, but why? It’s by chance that he closes the door of the locker and sees what’s written on the front. 8 and 18. The numbers of the syllables of his name in the order they’re written on the note.

“Jeonghan-hyung, I think these lockers are marked with our names.” He walks around, checks the numbers on the lockers. 12 and 1, Jeonghan. 19 and 17, Wonwoo. 1 and 9, Hansol. “Should I try to open one? They’re all locked with combinations.”

Before Jeonghan can answer, Sunyeong reaches for the combination lock on the door marked with Hansol’s name. It’s right beside the one marked Jeonghan. The numbers on the locks are randomised, and there’s a button to press when you think you have the right code. Sunyeong hesitates.


 

SHOULD SUNYEONG TRY TO OPEN HANSOL'S LOCKER

or

SHOULD HE TRY TO OPEN JEONGHAN'S LOCKER?

(Winning option marked in bold font.)

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HanSang #1
Chapter 19: OH MY GOD IT FEELS SO FREAKING GOOD TO KNOW NO ONE ACTUALLY D*ED LIKE, I DON'T ACTUALLY CRY BECAUSE I KNOW THIS IS JUST A STORY, BUT IT NONETHELESS STILL HURTS MY HEART THAT MY BIAS AND BIAS WRECKER BOTH D*ED
JustMe
#2
Chapter 19: For sake, you bastards had my emotions well played.
aegibyuts
#3
Chapter 19: IM SO HAPPY FOR THE ENDING I REALLY THOUGHT ID TURN INSANE READING THIS but on a more serious note though can I know what really happened then? Were they only in their room doing nothing, waiting to be saved?
aegibyuts
#4
Chapter 4: I question people's choice of choosing the bathroom YALL KNOW DAMN WELL SEUNGCHEOL IS IN CHARGE AND HES AT THE CORRIDOR FFS
aegibyuts
#5
Chapter 3: I somewhat believed that if Soonyoung used that key earlie Seungcheol can free all of then and the story will end like that
HaruAi
#6
Chapter 19: Holy cow, thank God for the plot twist cuz you eliminated my bias wrecker and ub (in that order) xD Good Lord I was not ready...
angelVKS #7
Chapter 19: Hmmmm ...that'd some story .. i can finally calm my heart down...
angelVKS #8
Chapter 17: PSYCO !!!!!! WHAT KIND OF HUMAN IS THAT? !!!!!! IF I GET MY HANDS ON YOU I'LL RIP YOU LIMP BY LIMP LIKE YOU ARE MADE OF PAPER! !!!!! THEY ARE DYING AND THIS IS A "GAME " . I WISH I COULD PUSH HIM IN TO IT AND SEE HOW HE LIKES IT !!!!
angelVKS #9
Chapter 9: Mind blowing !!!!!!! You are so good in writing. .... but if anyone dies I'll personally find who did that kill them with me own hands .....
angelVKS #10
Chapter 3: Oooooo man this is giving me goosebumps!!!!!