Chapter 6: 23:29 – A Countdown to First Death [12:31am]

Joon POV

Water, cold clammy water was up to my ankles. Uncomfortably cold and sending prickles up my legs, it stank of sewage water, rotten and decaying. I wanted to cover my mouth with my hands and sleeves, but they were both needed to search for a way out. So I in a deep breath and manned up. Scrubbing fear from my face, I stuck them deep into the slimy water and tried to suppress a shiver.

The other four were frantically pressed against the stone walls, pushing bricks in hope for a secret button like in those action movies or loose stones to dislodge. There was nothing and the room was tiny. Panic, panic, panic. Don’t panic, Lee Joon.

“Don’t give up guys,” Mir panted. It was like he could read my mind. “We’ll get out. We have to!”

Words I wanted to believe in.

But the water was rising. It was up to my thighs now and its all-ading chill ran through my body. Shudders rippled and I could do nothing to stop them. It was like standing at the north pole, unable to escape no matter where you ran. Forever and ever I was running. Running but trapped. My soul flying outwards, but my body anchoring it down, chaining it to this terrible place called reality. I tried to ignore the throbbing in my ankles, the heart-pumping in my chest. I wondered if this was how rabbits felt when they died of fear.

“There’s nothing!” Seungho finally snapped, breaking me out of my reverie.

“There’s has to be!” Thunder spun around, splashing murky water in the process. “This is a game! And every game must have a way out. A way to win.”

“Who says this is a game?!” Seungho’s voice came out wrenched and torn in all various ways. It was like a man on the run and the demon finally catching up to him. Desperation spiked and tinged it in every way. “We only have the word of this trickster and that is not good enough! Who says he has planned for us to just die down here, in a watery grave where no one will ever find us!”

“Because I can tell,” I found myself saying. “That gleam in his eyes. He’s having fun with all of this. There is no way he’ll let it end here. It wouldn’t be entertaining.”

Seungho glanced at me, that pure desperation glaze in his eyes slowly dying out.

Mir grasped the opportunity. “We fight till the last moment okay?” he grabbed Seungho by the shoulders and rattled him. “We don’t give up till our last breath!”

Seungho shook his head, ragged droplets flying and nodded. “Got it,” he said in a ragged, drawn-out breath. His chest was still pumping furiously, but he turned back to the wall, scouring those age-old bricks for some long-lost secret.

The water was up to our waists.

G.O POV

I found myself unable to speak. In the face of this watery death, in the face of my new found team members shouting and sobbing, in the face of everything. I just couldn’t concentrate.

Water, water, water. It’s everywhere. It’s consuming everything!

I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. It snapped me out of the prison my body had made for its mind. I had to get out. I had to stop over-thinking everything. Out there was my goal, and the possibility to achieve it. Whatever that goal may be, it was something that i could feel burning in my chest. It whispered fight, win, survive, you owe it to him. Get out of here!

So I turned back to the walls and continued searching. 

The water was up to my chest.

Thunder POV

We were floundering now, half-suspended in the water. I didn’t want to think where it came from, but the smell was horrendous. It was filling my every pore and I didn’t realize it was possible to feel so filthy from bathing.

A wave of water pumped out, unexpectedly vicious and I sunk. Water filled my mouth, as foul tasting as I imagined, and I spluttered. In the darkness of the underwater world, I could see nothing but that eerie blue light casting an atlantis-like atmosphere over everything. Down here, it felt almost peaceful. Like I could let go and-

A hand yanked me out. “Got you,” huffed someone. Water was in my ears, my eyes. I could see or hear properly. “You okay?”

It was Seungho. I blinked and coughed and nodded.

“Good,” he smiled softly, a little out of place. My befuddled brain wasn’t keeping up. “I don’t want to lose anyone yet.”

“Thanks,” I finally choked out. His smile vanished and he nodded, all stern and stoic now. Business.

But our position wasn’t good. It was a small room and we have scoured it high and low. To have no found the way out meant there must be some sort of trick involved. Some form of deceit. I said the ringmaster wanted a game, but he also wanted to be entertained. Like kings of the old days, to let prey simply die would be wasteful. They wanted a show, live acting, fear, happiness, sadness, joy, all painted real-time. There had to be a way out-

“There!” It was Mir, his voice bright with discovery.

I looked up.

Mir POV

The one place none of us would have looked at. The ceiling. But of course. How else did we get in here? We must have fallen, leagues and leagues down and landed somehow in one piece on this sandy, stony floor. And the exit was there: a trapdoor on the ceiling.

“But to get there…” Thunder had figured it out.

Yes. To get out of here, we would have to wait. Wait and let the room flood. And then swim out.