When his vision regains consistency and the ache in his temples subsides, a different feeling of hollow settles at the pit of his stomach as he finds himself at a place he holds no recognition of, an area stretched over as far as his eyes could make out, mixing with the bright blue hue of the cloudless sky, with small shelter like structures scattered here and there, each one lined with huge trees, the leaves strikingly green.

Movements in his periphery alerts him, instinctively making him stand on his feet and hold a defensive posture as he turns towards the direction of motion.

He sees a boy holding his hair and pulling it with all his might while repeating the word 'stop' over and over again.

The settling hollow at his stomach deepens when he looks around and sees multiple boys across the area, some unconscious, some groaning, some looking around with the same expression of fright as him.

"Please," his attention gets back on the boy who's still on the ground, body crawling into a ball, "stop."

He takes a skeptical step towards the boy, taking a closer look. He notices that the boy has his eyes closed and is noticeably shivering.

"It's hurting."

He hears him say. "It's hurting so bad, please stop."

He takes another step towards the boy, and then another, the reluctance in his movements clearly evident. He lowers himself down slightly and extends his hand to touch the arm of the boy.

He gets no alarming reaction, after which he holds both of the boy's arms trying to steady him as he says, "open your eyes."

The boy doesn't do so, seeing which he exerts more force to hold him and says in a much louder voice, "open your eyes!"

The boy suddenly opens his eyes, and takes a sharp intake of breath, with his eyes rolling to the back before he starts to calm down, his breathing still ragged. He shuts his eyes, pushing down hard before opening them and trying to adjust his vision.

The boy slowly let's go of his hair, feeling the grip on his arms. His breaths become moderately calm, his gaze lying on something on the neck of the guy who's still holding his arms to steady.

"Kim Yohan."

Yohan's grip loosens slightly on the boy as the name hits a sense of familiarity. Surprise and confusion mixes with his already frightened expression seeing which the boy points towards the left side of his neck. "It's on there."

Yohan visibly sighs when he hears the boy speak calmly, stepping back and helping the boy to sit up.

While he does so, he notices that the boy has something written on his neck too.

"Song Hyeongjun."

"Yes?"

Hyeongjun acts a little too fast on his instinctual reply, as the two of them realise that their names are -Yohan takes a closer look at it- in fact tattooed on their necks with dark purple ink.

A sudden scream sounds, making Yohan and Hyeongjun turn towards the direction, Yohan's gaze meeting another guy's before helping Hyeongjun get up on his feet and moving towards the same direction with the other boys around.

A small crowd forms around the two boys fighting -more like the guy on top attacking while the one underneath screaming for help.

Nobody steps in. Everyone being highly skeptical and anxious of the situation itself, let alone meddle with the one-sided fight.

The one being attacked lets out another menacing cry, which ends with a whiff of coughs, blood running down the corner of his mouth and the side of his face significantly swelling. A few voices try stepping in because of how inhumane the hits are, but seeing the attacker be so beastly makes them reluctant.

However, one boy decides otherwise and lunges himself towards the guy on top, hitting him on the side of his head, wrapping his arm around his neck while his legs wrap around the guy's abdomen.

That momentarily restricts the attacker's movement, taking which as a cue, others jump on to hold down the attacker.

Hyeongjun runs towards the injured lying still on the ground. There's blood on his temple, also clogging his mouth as one of his eyes is blackened and shut. Hyeongjun's arm gets pulled by Yohan, practically dragging him away from the guy, his name -Lee Midam; bright red- glows on the side of his neck.

Yohan looks back at the attacker, the ones holding him back looking at the said guy, his name -Yoon Seobin; bright green- glows on the side of his neck.

A thunder sounds, so loud that the sky feels like tearing itself into half, a huge black raven accompanied by a white one appears out of nowhere, attracting the attention of everyone on site, except Hyeongjun who's still looking at the bright red Lee Midam on his neck.

The two ravens slow down and settle on one of the hugest trees in the area, following which a huge fabric screen rolls down the lowest branch, with writings in black.

One of the boys next to Yohan -Lee Jinhyuk- walks briskly towards the screen, some following him shortly, while some stay grounded where they are.

Jinhyuk stands a few feet away from the screen as he looks up at the two birds, sitting still, almost like stone sculptures. He feels someone stand next to him, turning towards which he sees Kim Wooseok looking at him with a concerned gaze, as if asking him to not move any further.

With a nod of reassurance, Jinhyuk turns towards the screen, the heading itself making his hands cold.

'Welcome to Inferno!'

The added exclamation mark at the end makes him even more aggrieved.

'The show has started. You will be given some tasks to perform. All you have to do is compete and win. The winner is confirmed when his name glows a bright green. As for the loser, it is bright red.

The final eleven surviving are collectively announced as the winners. The rest are eliminated.

It is as simple as it sounds.

Impressively, you have exceeded our expectations within the first few moments of your presence here. We hope to see even better results.

Until the next update.'

A scoff sounds some feet behind Wooseok, a small visible frown forms between his eyebrows.

"Wow," someone says, probably the one with the scoff, making Wooseok turn back to look at him -Song Yuvin, "they really expect us to believe this?" he points towards the screen, looking upwards as his eyes go over the text for the second time, the scoff making a return, "is this a hidden camera?"

Yuvin looks around him, at all the petrified and hesitant faces, "which one of you is the crew member? Can we just get over this ty prank already? I need to go back home and..."

The colour from his face drains.

He doesn't remember what he was doing before he woke up at this unreasonably bright arena. He doesn't remember his address, or his family, his friends.

He doesn't even remember his name.

There's an extreme ache at his temple, making his vision dot with black spots, his knees buckling as he falls to the ground, the ones around him rushing to help him.

Yohan watches the commotion from a distance, while some run towards the said direction.

"Yohan."

He sees the black ink against the screen disappear, a moment later where new writing appears, the characters not readable from his position.

"Yohan."

He doesn't turn back to look at Hyeongjun as he calls his name for the second time, his eyes still at the crowd in front of him quieting down as soon as something new appears on the screen. "Yeah?"

Since Hyeongjun doesn't reply anything to his 'yeah', Yohan turns back.

Hyeongjun is crouched next to the injured -Midam- his eyes on the side of Midam's neck.

The bright red has turned to black.

--

At the same time, Jinhyuk immediately turns back and starts running towards Lee Midam as he sees a picture of the injured boy across the huge screen with the word 'eliminated' below it.

--

Yohan lowers himself slightly to hold Hyeongjun's arm and pull him back and away from Midam for the second time, but stops a moment short when he hears Hyeongjun speak.

--

Wooseok is looking at Yuvin, more specifically to the side of his neck, his name glowing a bright navy blue, while the boys around Yuvin are trying even harder to help him, the blue making them even more desperate.

Two new words get added to the screen below the word 'eliminated'.

Status: Dead

--

Jinhyuk is next to Midam as he places his fingers in front of his nose. Noticing he has stopped breathing, Jinhyuk presses down on his chest, afterwards lowering his mouth to blow air into the airway.

He checks if there's a shift in Midam's chest, but there's none.

Moving to press down on his chest again, Jinhyuk yells since no one comes to help him. "Why aren't you guys doing anything?"

Yohan takes a step back and then another, while asking Hyeongjun not to react to anything for the time being, and runs towards the crowd around Yuvin.

"There's no use," everybody, except Jinhyuk, looks towards the voice, the source being the attacker -Yoon Seobin- while the one still holding him back -Lee Hangyul- takes a sharp breath, tightening his hold on Seobin, "he's already dead."

Jinhyuk stops, he sees no movement in Midam's chest, even his pulse stopping, while Jinhyuk's own heart rate increases as he falls back and horror fills his nerves, his own hands cold and face pale. The sound of Yuvin screaming in the background adds to the monstrosity of the situation as the boys realise that the arena asks for only one thing: kill or get killed.