The game stops

R O O M S

THE BEDROOM

Hansol stops himself from reaching for his hyung when Junhui steps onto the scythe. He finds a swing rhythm that matches the movements the scythe’s motor is already making, then jumps off it at the perfect moment. He flies towards the open door, finds the top edge with his fingers and grabs hold of it with everything he’s got. The door swings with the force of his impact and slams into the wall, splashing the water around. Hansol is convinced that it hit the power lines, but when the water calms down again it still has a few centimetres left.

Grunting with the effort it requires to hang onto the door, Junhui still finds the heart to look at Hansol and smile.

“Told you.”

“Be careful, dammit,” Jeonghan mutters through the speakers, obviously watching Junhui on his screens with unwavering eyes.

With arms already trembling from the weight and with no foothold, Junhui moves slowly but surely towards the doorframe. When he is as close as he can get and sweating, he carefully lets go with one hand and reaches into the Bathroom blindly. He knocks on the concrete wall, feeling around until he finds the electric box, and makes a celebratory sound when he manages to get it open.

His fingers find something that feels like a switch inside, and wires that connect to the live ones in the Bedroom. With only seconds left before his one-hand hold will slip, Junhui bravely flicks the switch.

Hansol watches in horror as his hyung goes tense all over before something like a lightning strike illuminates the inside of the Bathroom and both rooms go dark. He hears how Junhui loses his grip on the door and crashes into the water, the splashing movements as his body shakes violently, then the silence when he goes still.

“Jun-hyung! Jun-hyung!”

Nobody answers. Hansol doesn’t think twice about it—he jumps in the water too and starts wading towards where he last saw his hyung. The water is cold, but it doesn’t shock him. Junhui must have short-circuited the entire building, including the live power lines.

Hansol fumbles in the water and around him, and it doesn’t take him long to find Junhui. The older is floating face down by the door, unmoving. Hansol grabs him and turns him around, then lifts his upper body out of the water.

“Come on, hyung, don’t do this!” he grunts through gritted teeth and he pulls Junhui back towards the bed. He manages to lift the larger boy into the mattress and lay him down. “Hyung? Hyung! Wake up!”

He retains enough sense to feel for a pulse. Nothing. With racing heartbeat, he checks his older’s breathing. Still nothing.

Junhui’s heart has stopped.


 

THE CORRIDOR

“How’d you manage to break a key!?” Chan almost screams. Frustration has built on top of the grief and fear, too much for his young mind to handle.

“I don’t know,” Seungcheol snaps back, only a little calmer. “It’s fragile.”

That’s when the power goes out and the Corridor turns absolutely pitch black. Both boys lose their bearings almost immediately. Seungcheol thinks quickly and asks Chan to go find the touchpad. Chan fumbles for it and lights it up, and in the light of the screen Seungcheol tires to work Jisoo’s broken key. It’s impossible to turn in inside the lock or even get it all the way in. The countdown on the touchpad has frozen, and a notification that looks strangely normal tells them that it has lost connection to the internet.

Frustrated and disappointed in himself for breaking something so important, Seungcheol slams his hand down onto the door handle. To his great surprise, it moves and the door clicks.

How could the door be open without having turned the key?

Full of anticipation and also anxious, Seungcheol pulls the door open to reveal a second, pitch black room. He can’t see a thing. However, when Chan moves inside with the touchpad, its light reflects everywhere and endlessly.

Mirrors, of course.

“Hyung? Chan?” The voice is so soft and hopeful that it warms Seungcheol’s frozen heart.

“Seungkwan-hyung! Wonwoo-hyung!” Chan exclaims and runs into the room. He drops to his knees between the two, all three burying themselves in the others’ embrace. Seungcheol stumbles in too, and he wraps his arms as much around all of them as he can. He feels tears pool in his eyes, and he lets them soak into Wonwoo’s shirt.

“What happened?” Seungkwan asks. “Why’d all the lights go out?”

“I don’t know,” Seungcheol replies. “Either it’s part of the game, or something went wrong.”

Wonwoo’s mouth is open as if to say something, lips trembling. When all of them pull away, he looks at Seungcheol. “Jisoo... I was able to talk to him in my room before I passed out, but when I woke up... Do you know where he is? Can we open his room too?”

Seungcheol’s heart breaks for the second time as he tells Wonwoo and Seungkwan what happened. He and Chan take the shocked two to the corner of the Corridor where Jisoo lies, looking like he’s sleeping although the colour is slowly leaving his skin.

He allows his two friends from the Mirror Room to break down and grieve for as long as they need. The cries are horrible to listen to, and he realizes that more than half of his friends might not know yet. Are they even all still alive?

As Chan sits with Wonwoo and Seungkwan, Seungcheol does something he hasn’t had the time to do yet. With the light of the touchpad, he walks down the Corridor, around the corner and all the way to the other end. Nine doors—the Boiler Room, Butcher Room and Mirror Room doors that are open now, the Bedroom and the Classroom which he could see before. The other half of the Corridor has the Music Room, the Interrogation Room, the Control Room, and a second door to the Classroom.

Without having made a conscious choice, Seungcheol starts knocking on the door labelled 'Control Room'.

“Anyone in here? Hello?”


 

THE CLASSROOM

This isn’t part of the game. He has read the books and notes he got over and over for hours before he could talk to Jeonghan, and there is nothing about a power box or a blackout. He is starting to think that perhaps Junhui’s move was unplanned for—not a part of the kidnappers’ blueprint.

Either way, Mingyu is terrified that something bad has happened since the last thing he heard through the speakers was a weird electrical noise and Hansol’s raw scream before the power went away and the Communications System died. He wonders also about the countdown for using Jisoo’s key. Is that still going even without the power?

“Jeonghan? Sunyeong? Hansol? Anyone?” He says it over and over but it’s useless. He’s alone again, and he guesses that everyone else is too.

Not many minutes of total blackness pass before he hears an entirely new sound. It’s vibrations, he realizes, like from a phone. Quickly he starts rummaging through the drawers and shelves of the Classroom, every desk and box. He finds that the sounds are coming from inside a locked drawer in the teacher’s desk.

It stops ringing, then starts again. Mingyu decides that he has to answer and starts trying to break into the drawer. He pulls, bends, kicks at it with every ounce of strength he has. He flips the entire desk and goes for the construction itself, breaking fingernails and skin as he tries. The phone continues to ring, and when Mingyu finally manages to force the drawer open, he picks the small smartphone up and answers it without thinking.

“Hello?”

“There’s a switchboard above one of the ceiling tiles closest to the front door,” a voice on the other end says. It’s not one of his friends. It’s a man’s voice, but if Mingyu didn’t know better he’d say that he still recognizes it from somewhere. “Turn the power back on. If you don’t do it now, we’ll kill little Minghao first thing when we get the power on ourselves.”

Click. The call ends and Mingyu is left with the heaviest weight on his heart so far. That voice belongs to their kidnapper or one of them. He just talked to a man who killed Jisoo, and he threatened to kill Minghao too.

So Minghao is here. Mingyu wasn’t sure until now since his name isn’t on the statistics, Sunyeong’s lockers or on Jeonghan’s screens.

He looks at the phone in his hand with hatred. He’s sure now that this isn’t part of the game. If he turns the power back on, the game continues. If he refuses they might get the chance to turn the rooms in their favour and escape. But if the kidnappers then get the electricity back on their own, will they really kill Minghao?

Mingyu is sure that they would.


SHOULD MINGYU TURN THE POWER BACK ON

or

SHOULD HE REFUSE TO DO IT?

(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!!!!!