Chapter 37: 14:27 – A Countdown to Second Death [09:33am]

[TIME REMAINING: 24 MINUTES]

G.O POV

“Mir?” I asked warily, watching those slim fingers grip the knife hilt with a kind of fanatical intensity. “Mir?”

He looked up, opening those brown eyes that in any other situation I would have called innocent. But those eyes had seen too many things in too short of a time to retain such a title. 

“Mir, talk to me.”

“What do you want me to say?” he said in a voice that could only be described as frozen and frost-coated.

“I want you to listen to me,” I said. “And to tell me what you’re thinking.”

“What’s there to think?” he said. “The rules are simple, and you know there’s no way out.”

“This isn’t going to end in death Mir.”

He stood up, knife flashing in one hand. “Is it not? I can’t see any way out G.O.”

“Call me Byunghee,” I interrupted. Enough of this G.O business; my name was Jung Byunghee and no matter what sort of terrible past I had wrought, it was still my name.

Mir’s eyebrow twitched with semi-curiosity. “Fine Byunghee,” he said, but there was no malice in the words, just restrained curiosity. “But it makes no difference. One of us is going to die, and Thunder and Seungho don’t deserve to be that person.”

“And you think I do.”

It was a flat response. A statement.

There was no reply from Mir.

I bent down to pick up my own knife. It was cold in my hands, a frozen piece of a heart that would never reanimate. That would never melt.

“Say what you want to say Mir,” I didn't need to look at him to know he was trembling from head to toe, a falling leaf in autumn bare. “Let it out.”

His lips parted and quivered. Breath ghosted.

“Speak.” I shifted my stance and tilted the knife in my hand. It weighed a ton.

He stared down at the knife in his own hands. “Byunghee,” he finally said in a voice like ice. “Did you kill Changsun?”

Mir POV

Byunghee stared back at me with a small lift to his lips.

“What does that mean?” I demanded.

A small chuckle escaped those lips.

“What?!”

“You still think I killed Changsun?” he asked, raising his eyes to meet mine. My gaze shifted. I just couldn’t look into those dark eyes, eyes that stared straight to my soul. Eyes that did not hesitate. "After all you learnt about our pasts, of us being the next closest thing to blood brothers, just without the bloody part." 

I couldn't meet his eyes. 

“You do, don’t you,” he continued relentlessly.

“I-“

I felt guilty.

“You were the last person with Changsun,” I admitted, letting it all spill out. “Who else could have had the opportunity to kill him?”

“You don’t think it could have been the Ringmaster?” he asked, a touch of bitterness present.

“I-“ I stammered. “The Ringmaster said he wouldn’t touch any of us. At least not directly.”

“And you believe him.”

“I-I don’t know what to believe in anymore,” I said truthfully. “Other than out of the five of us, he’s the only one who’s told us anything that could be believable.”

“How about me? How about us? All of us?” Byunghee was still staring right at me. “How about believing in what we promised at the beginning of all of this. To work together, to get out alive.”

“But we’re not achieving that!” I spat, a stronger ferocity than I realized escaping me like a vengeful ghost. “Changsun is dead! He’s dead! And I’m alive! And no matter what we do to get out of here, Changsun won’t be with us! He’ll be forever buried somewhere deep beneath us! What do you want me to believe in? What do you want me to trust?!”

Byunghee was silent.

“I-“ Tears rose to my eyes and I swiped them away. “Changsun is gone! And I don’t know what to do, who to trust. Am I supposed to believe one of us killed him? Because I don’t want to believe that, but I’m being forced to. And right now, all I can think of is how he’s dead, and he’s not supposed to be, and how there is awful, all-consuming feeling in my chest that is begging, just begging to touch him, hold him, feel his heart beating next to mine. But I can't, I can't! And so the next best thing I can do is find out who did, and make sure he pays. Make sure Changsun didn't die for naught..."

“And you think it’s me,” Byunghee said quietly. “And you want me punished.”

“O-only if you really did it.”

“And if I tell you I didn’t kill him, would you believe me?” he asked solemnly.

I looked up at him and finally met his eyes. Could I believe him?

“Because I didn’t.”

There was no hesitation in his words, no tremble in his eyes.

What was I supposed to believe in now?

G.O POV

I could see the indecision in Mir’s eyes. Mir was faltering. He had come this far because Changsun had been there to support him. And when Changsun had begun to falter, he became Changsun’s support. Changsun had, unknowingly or not, become Mir’s reason of existence. And now that Changsun was gone Mir was desperately floundering for some reason of existence to cling to.

He so badly wanted to believe it was me who killed Changsun, so at least there would be closure. There would be an answer, a criminal, someone to pay for the death of someone who did not deserve to die.

But once he found that 'killer', he would have no purpose left in life. 

What would he do then? 

I opened my palm which held the knife. It glinted menacingly in the half-light. To wield a weapon was to accept that weapon might bite back. To attack meant you either killed or were killed. But to hold it meant you held power.

Level 3 was an end game to one of us four. And it couldn't be Thunder or Seungho. 

I looked up to see Seungho gripping the bars of his cage, his face white with the effort of shouting. He was so high up that I could hear nothing but white noise. His expression was clear enough. Stop. Don’t fight. There’s been enough death.

It was the very thing all four of us were thinking. Joon’s death was too fresh in our minds. But it was also Joon’s death that was unhinging us all: separating the bonds we had forged, hazing our thoughts.

Despite that, I had never felt clearer.

Our childhood games. My sisters lying dead. My mother breaking down. Changsun and I standing face to face on a harbor. Awkening to a man called the Ringmaster offering me an offer I could never refuse. All of it culminating in this moment where I would stand with a knife in hand, facing off against Changsun's lover.

What would Changsun want me to do? 

Between that moment of the offer and awakening in the Coliseum, I wondered what had happened. The Ringmaster had done as he had promised – he had delivered Changsun to me – but back then we hadn’t known. We hadn’t known anything.

And in a way we still didn’t know anything.

Why the Ringmaster had brought us here? What the purpose of the Coliseum was for? Why did the Ringmaster bother to grant our wishes? Why he bothered to deliver us unto our deaths?

Could I live with these burgeoning questions?

Could I live with leaving it just like this.

Could I live without accomplishing anything? For Changsun? For myself? 

I turned to stare at the large floating red clock, the numbers ‘REMAINING TIME: 17 MINUTE' blinking relentlessly like a heartbeat. I felt my own heartbeat race.

What should I do?

Mir POV

What should I do? What should I do?

Time is running out, and choices are to be made.

Byunghee is staring at his knife, at Seungho in his cage, at the clock with its blinking red lights. It’s like a splash of blood, being thrown again and again in my face. Changsun is dead, and I’m alive. And that should count for something. But right now all I can think of is that he’s dead, and he’s not here, and how can I get to where he is. How can I get to a place where I can hold hands with him and hug his warmth close?

That place isn’t here.

And getting there is impossible.

But what more can I do in this world? The Ringmaster says I have a wish and that should anchor me here. But what is what wish? What importance does it hold? If I have forgotten it, it surely can’t have been that important.

In this scenario there are four of us and one must die.

For what reason am I alive, and for what reason should I continue to exist for? 

For what reason should I kill for?

G.O POV

The answer is clear.

There is only one thing left to do.

I felt a smile spread across my face. For the first time since Changsun’s death I knew exactly what to do, what exactly would make him happy.

I raised my knife so that it pointed straight at him. 

“B-Byunghee?” he stammered at my sudden movement.

I merely smiled mysteriously, bent my knees, and charged at Mir.

[TIME REMAINING: 13 MINUTES]