Chapter 62:  02:00 – THIRD DEATH [10:00pm]

Mir POV

The sky was a smudge of blue-black when I opened my eyes. The walls were grey. Or maybe they were also blue. I couldn’t tell. They colors kept shifting and blurring with one another, creating a dizzying myriad of shades. The world around me kept changing shape as well, one minute square and four sharp corners, the next smooth concaves, and then mismatched dips and bumps that swarmed and dispersed in my vision.  

My lids felt heavy. They begged for me to close them and leave the world that I could not understand behind.

But there were these voices, far in the background, faint and indistinct. They were what tethered me here, this rope about my heart that said, you can’t go just yet.

I closed my eyes and tried to focus on making out what they were saying.

One sounded, angry perhaps? His words were sharp and ragged. The other spoke so calmly that his words muddled with one another, making it hard to tell what he was saying.

I closed my eyes and tried to focus. There was a throbbing in my chest, something heavy weighing down on me. It was literally all that held me down in this world.

What was it, I wondered.

I tried to look but my body seemed to refuse me. My neck was unwilling to crane upwards to have a peep. My legs too seemed unresponsive. Only my hands twitched when I tried to move them, and so I reached out, left hand fumbling its way up my chest, clumsy as it crawled.

Never before had my body felt so cumbersome. It was as if every limb was tied down with lead, my ears water logged and my eyes unfocused.

What was wrong with me? Had I hit my head? Was I dreaming?

Then halfway up my torso my fingers came into contact with it. Cold was my initial thought. The object was cold and sharp, the edges pinpricking the tips of my fingers like nips of icy water. I flinched at first, but tried again, and my fingers responded, adjusting. They curled around the object, careful not to cut themselves.

It was long, the object. It was at least the length of my forearm, cold and hard and unyielding when I prodded it with the tip of my index finger.

Unable to see, I could only guess as to what it was. The more imperative question was why was it in my chest? How had it ended up there? For what purpose was it-

In a rush it all came flooding back: my vision, my hearing, my senses.

“Why though? What would you gain from killing us?” one of them was saying in a harsh whispered voice, the sound resonating off the mirrored walls. He sounded hurt, distraught. It wasn’t solely for my sake though. “I thought we agreed that no matter who was the wolf our goal was unchanged. To get out of here, all of us – alive.”

“That’s because we didn’t have our memories then hyung,” the other one spoke, his tone level, his demeanor calm and collected. “We made an agreement based on our judgement. With our memories returned, things have changed.”

“How?” the first one snapped. “You want to save your sisters, so does Cheolyong, and I want to save my brother. What part of trying to achievethat necessitates killing Cheolyong. I know he may have nearly caused your sisters harm, but he didn’t mean it and it doesn’t warrant killing him!”

Oh. The image came back. Sanghyun standing in front of me, a long sliver of blue-black glass in one hand. I barely got a word out before he stepped swiftly forwards and slid the glass shard slid right between my ribs.

I had given a sharp inhale, my body curving over as if it was inhaling the weapon. At first I couldn’t comprehend what had just happened.

He had stabbed me. But his eyes, they were not filled with anger.

“Sang…hyun…?” I had whispered and then collapsed. He had grabbed me at the last minute, turning me so that I slid onto my back and briefly, the pain that had exploded in my torso had made me black out.

But now as I reviewed those memories I couldn’t help but think, had he really stabbed me in revenge for what I had done in the past? Or was there still something more that Sanghyun was hiding?

“I had to,” Sanghyun said softly.

Why? I wanted to ask.

“Why?” Seungho said for me instead.  

“I can’t tell you,” Sanghyun said. “Not yet.”

“Why?” Seungho snapped, frustration getting the better of him. I’d admit, my curiosity too was growing, but it was hard to vocalize it when I could feel the seep of blood growing more by the minute, enough for a puddle to collect in the concave of my chest. My fingers twitched and I felt it dip into the liquid, the blood disconcertingly warm to touch.

I couldn’t help my gasp.

It wasn’t much it brought their attention. Their heads turned and one set of footsteps rushed closer. The figure was shadowy and toweringly tall, the expression from this distance, smudged. I blinked and gasped for air and the figure knelt. His hands hovered above the wound, the long sliver of the glass standing proudly like a javelin thrown far past the winning line.

“Cheolyong,” Seungho murmured. “Hang in there. You’re going to be okay. I’m going to do something. I’ll save you-“

“You can’t,” Sanghyun interrupted him and then he was there, standing tall and even though he looked miles away I could make out his eyes, dark but unmoving. He knew what he was doing and he stood firm with his resolution.

Seungho tilted his head up to stare back at him. “I can,” he said firmly.

“No. You can’t,” Sanghyun repeated, his words equally as firm, but somehow they stuck and sunk in deep. For some unfathomable reason of the two of them, I found myself believing in Sanghyun’s words more.

Seungho paled.

“Sanghyun,” he tried to say, “you can still turn back. You can help me save Cheolyong. We can still get out of here, the three of us.”

No, I thought. No we can’t.

“We can’t,” Sanghyun said softly, echoing my thoughts. “Haven’t you realized what the Games are for yet? Winning the games will grant out wishes, but of all our wishes it can probably only grant one. The Games are the narrow us down to the final one.”

Which meant-

“Are you going to kill me next Sanghyun?” Seungho said shakily.

“Not yet,” Sanghyun said quietly. He looked upwards and I understood. Not on this level at least, was what he was trying to say. From the tenseness of Seungho’s hand pressed on his chest, he understood it as well.

“W…hy…?” I managed to croak and my ribs protested as I in a lungful of air to make it work.

Sanghyun looked down at me. His mouth was twisted with something akin to pity.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, his lips barely moving. “But this has to be done.”

Without even looking at him, Sanghyun’s hand came up, a foot away from Seungho’s chest, and I saw it all in slow motion: Sanghyun murmuring something and then a small wispy white ball appearing at the palm of his hand, and then like an explosion gone off, Seungho was thrown forcibly across the room.  

Air caught in my throat as I heard Seungho land harshly, the breath knocked out of him. He gasped and coughed as he scrambled to his feet. Out of my peripheral vision I could not see how he was faring.

But the one in immediate danger was not him. It was me.

Sanghyun looked down at me. His eyes were dark glass and I could see myself reflected in them. “I’m sorry,” he said again as he leaned closer, the palm of his right hand twisting and positioning just right so that his fingers curved around the glass shard. It was as if they were made for one another.

“You…“ I choked and felt something wet bubble at my lips. The metallic smell in the air was overpowering. The walls continued their shifting dance.

“What are you-“ another voice yelled but I knew. I could see it in his eyes.

The voice was lost to me as Sanghyun’s grip about the glass tightened and he pulled the shard out, twisting it this way and that to pull it free and the pain was unimaginable. I felt my body flop limp to the floor as the glass was pulled free. There was a gurgling in the distance. Belatedly, I realized the sound came from me.

My mouth hung open as I tried to breath. Blood dribbled down one corner. My chest rose and fell erratically. 

Above me the lights continued to dance, white and black and blue taking hands and twirling. And the last piece to the image was Sanghyun, his face still built handsome even when covered in blood and twisted into a grimace. He was poised, the glass gripped so tightly in one hand that it cut into his palm, his blood and mine intertwining.

“Don’t-“ Seungho begged somewhere far in the distance but the curtains were closing on this stage.

“Goodnight,” Sanghyun said softly, his eyes glittering with determination, his mouth a firm set, and then the shard came down right through my heart and everything shuddered to a halt.  

The lights, they stopped shifting. The pain, it ceased to throb. My anger, confusion, the tumultuous whirlwind of emotions, they all fell to the floor.

It was silent and there was just Sanghyun and I, staring at each other.

Then Sanghyun closed his eyes and his lips softened. The tenseness in his face suddenly all gone. I understood then. He didn’t want to kill me anymore than I wanted to die but there was something he had to do and he would go to any lengths for it.

“Save... them… for me… okay?” I whispered, the blood sliding down my throat and threatening to drown me in my own fluids.

Sanghyun blinked once with surprise, his eyebrows lifting slightly, his lips parting. Then, he dipped his head. “Of course,” he said quietly so that only I would hear, and like that, all my worries faded.

In the first place we had similar goals. Both of us wanted to help our sisters. The circumstances in which our siblings were in were vastly different, but at the end of the day our desires and the means to it were parallel. We both wanted to free them from the System and if Sanghyun could achieve that through winning the games, then so be it: let him be the winner.

And if not him, then I had no qualms with Seungho-hyung.

I closed my eyes, tasted the blood trickle down my throat. The pain was fading and everything was growing numb.

Seungho-hyung and Sanghyun. It felt bad just leaving them like this but I had a feeling that whichever won at the very end would still make the right decision. Therefore, it was okay. I let the worries slip away, fade into the blackness until all that was left was my thoughts and the dull beat of my heart, struggling in its final moments.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Was this how Byunghee-hyung and Changsun had felt in their last moments? Peace despite knowing that they had lost in everything else? Peace perhaps knowing that even if they were gone, part of their will would still be carried on?

Peace in finally letting go of everything?

It felt like ages since I had last thought about Changsun. Now though he was all I could think about. Had he been watching over me? Was he sad that I was dying? Happy perhaps that I was crossing over to the world where he was?

Maybe it was all just a delusion of mine and there was really nothing after all of us. Even so, I couldn’t help but hope.

Thump… thump… thump…

I could feel my heart slowing now, the last of it giving up.

It was funny. We were only meant to be in these games for 24 hours and not even the full time had passed, yet I felt so tired, so worn out from this entire mess. I felt decades older, my soul an aged little thing.

Maybe this was for the best. A little break, passing on the baton.

It was quiet now, not even my thoughts echoing around the empty crevices of my mind. All that exited was the gentle beat of my heart. I let the tension seep out of my body, gave myself in to the rhythmic sound of the beats. It was easy, just like falling into a dream…

Thump… thump… thump-

And then…?

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Thunder POV

His eyes were like thunder, his lips like the jagged bolt of lightning. His expression was a mash of emotions: anger, confusion, hurt.

My hands were coated in blood. It made them slick and as I straightened, the glass shard in my hand slipped ever so slightly. I tightened my hold, kept the shard close to my heart. I would need it for the final level.

For the final kill.

In my peripheral vision I saw Seungho stand as well. His mouth was wrenched with sorrow, his eyes tight with pain.

“Sanghyun!” he said in the kind of voice that promised this was not over even though the body lay at my feet, rapidly cooling. He was crossing the floor now in long strides, uncaring of how his shoes crunched on the broken glass below. “You’re going to tell me everything. From the beginning. Now-“

He got as close as a foot away from me when the floor broke apart, a cracked piece from below us rising and taking us away from the level.

I saw Seungho stumble, arms out for balance. He fell to his knees but  I stood standing, the cold cut of the glass still in my hands.

The floor pieces shuddered and propelled us upwards into inky blackness and I my lips, looking skyward in anticipation.

Just one more, I thought, and my hand about the glass shard tightened, the edges cutting into my hand. The pain wasn’t bad. If anything, it cleared my mind. I had but a few minutes until we arrived at the final stage and there, I would make the final stand.

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[AND SO THE COUNTDOWN TO THIRD DEATH STRIKES ZERO]

 [DEAD : 3 , LIVING : 2]

[A COUNTDOWN TO THE FOURTH DEATH BEGINS NOW]

[LET THE FINAL LEVEL COMMENCE]