"We are not horses… we are humans. And humans are....
The words echoed through the chamber like a funeral bell, dull and distant but powerful enough to command the silence. In a darkened study, buried in the heart of a private island somewhere off the coast of Europe—an island not listed on any map—the Architect sat in solitude. Tall bookshelves shadowed the perimeter of the chamber. Velvet curtains choked the sunlight, and dozens of ancient, analog monitors lit the room in a gray-blue flicker.
On the center screen, Gi-hun fell.
There was no glory in his death. No monologue. No redemption. Just a twitch of realization in his eyes as the final shot echoed through the arena.
The screen crackled.
"Asia's Gamekeeper has confirmed it," came a voice from a nearby monitor. The connection was fuzzy. The figure on the other side wore a sculpted, black-and-silver mask. "The 456 is dead."
The Architect nodded slowly, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"Interesting."
He leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled.
"This changes nothing. Korea was always a flicker. The real storm brews elsewhere."
One Week Later — Seoul, South Korea
Rain tapped against a cheap aluminum window frame in a dim rooftop apartment. Neon signs bled into the wet glass—pink, blue, and occasional green flashes from the ramen shop below.
The computer screen glowed in front of the boy, illuminating his pale face. Lines of code reflected in his pupils like fire. Nineteen-year-old Specter, (an alias only) sat cross-legged in a tattered gaming chair. His fingers glided across a custom keyboard made from stolen parts. Each keystroke clicked with precision.
His real name? Lee Joon-Hwa Erased at sixteen.
He had learned from his father's mistake. The man spoke out against a government-backed surveillance conglomerate and vanished a week later. Specter didn't mourn,he studied. Trained. Broke into Seoul's central database for fun. He didn't want justice. He wanted truth. Control.He found some clues about his father disappearance, and where it lead to? The word Squid Game, the word he found when trying to dig out the cause of his father disappearance.
And tonight, he'd found something unexpected.
He had hacked into a private offshore video repository—a heavily encrypted server used by an elite secret community. The files were labeled in a cryptic numerical format, buried under false payroll documents and weather logs. But one clip caught his attention.
"SG3_456_TERMINAL_001.MKV"
He played it.
The quality was shaky, unfiltered, raw. A man—unmistakably Seong Gi-hun—stood bloodied, defiant, inside a stark concrete arena shaped like a twisted child's playground. Dozens of masked guards watched from above.
Gi-hun's voice crackled, distorted but audible:
"We are not horses… we are humans… and humans are…"
A shot rang out.
He dropped.
The camera didn't cut.
The feed stayed live for another minute. Somewhere in the shadows, another camera panned slowly to a figure watching from above—a masked man in crimson robes. The Front Man. Silent. Still.
Specter's breath caught.
This wasn't fake. This wasn't a TV show. This wasn't some viral horror ARG.
He grabbed his notepad, started scribbling symbols and frame markers. Replayed the footage. There was metadata,real, unedited, time-stamped and geotagged. The location pinged once—somewhere off the Seongapdo Island, a inhabited island near Incheon, South Korea. Then it vanished.
He shouted to himself:
"This is real… this is real." HAHAHA!!! FINALLY....!! I HAVE FOUND IT!
---
1 Week Time Skip
For seven straight days, Specter didn't sleep more than three hours at a time. He scrubbed metadata, cracked proxy layers, traced user logins, and blackmailed three dark web data dealers. His focus was clinical, cold, and terrifying.
He found patterns in death records, forged in mass casualty events: an apartment fire, a ferry capsizing, a mining collapse. All staged. All timed to match the days Squid Games supposedly happened—each one aligning with rumors from fringe message boards that were quickly deleted.
He identified recruiters—at least five possible operatives. All moved through arcades, gambling halls, rehabilitation centers. Specter targeted the most careless one: a mid-level scout who operated out of Busan using a fake NGO as a front.
Through a hijacked CCTV in a motel lobby, Specter watched the man hand a card to a desperate gambler.
A simple business card. A square. No name. Just a shape: a circle, triangle, and square.
He followed the man online, traced his financials, tracked SIM swaps.
Eventually, Specter made contact.
---
Now – A New Invitation
An unmarked envelope appeared on his desk one evening after he returned from planting a USB in a subway Wi-Fi router.
He never heard anyone enter.
He never left his door unlocked.
But there it was.
He opened it.
Inside was a black card with three white symbols. Circle. Triangle. Square.
And beneath it, in red ink:
"Player 001K — Confirm attendance by midnight."
His hands trembled.
Not from fear.
From excitement.
He had found the game. Now, he would enter it.
Not for money.For control.
And truth about his father disappearance.
Far across the sea, within the China, deep within the island chamber of the Gamekeeper, another monitor flickered. The Asian Gamekeeper—codenamed "Paragon"—stood in a dim transmission room, feeding live updates through a secure channel.
"The Korean outlier… we detected a disruption. Some low-frequency signature breached two layers of our darknet system. Possibly just another watchdog," Paragon said casually.
The Game keeper fingers tapped the desk.
"Don't bother. Korea hasn't been relevant since the 456. Let them have their little ghosts."
The guard gave a slow nod, but didn't look convinced.
And back in Seoul, Specter burned the black card into a digital replica, already rerouting traffic to scan for others who had received the same.
He was going in.
He just didn't know yet:
No one leaves the Squid Game untouched.
Squid Game Organization Structure
THE ARCHITECT
↓
GAMEKEEPERS (Continental Leaders)
↓
HERALDS (National Head)
↓
Front Man(Facility Leader)
↓
Masked Staff (Managers, Soldiers, Engineers, Cleaners)
(THE VIP'S ARE THE SPONSORS AND GAMBLERS OF THE GAME)