Chapter 8 - Sugar and Silence
The compound was quieter that morning.
Breakfast was reduced to a murmur,less chewing, more glancing. The absence of names didn't stop the players from noticing who hadn't returned from the yard. Beds were empty. Conversations, emptier.
Specter sat at the same corner table, untouched oatmeal in front of him. A shadow of thought glazed his eyes. He wasn't grieving the dead,he hadn't even spoken to them. But there was something about shared terror that stitched strangers together, and that stitch had just been torn open.
"They're changing the mood on purpose," he thought, eyes lifting to scan the cameras in the corners. The black domes stared back, cold and expressionless. "They want dread to settle like dust."
The announcement came at 9:00 sharp.
All remaining players, please prepare for the next game. Follow the staff through the central corridor. Do not speak. Do not resist.
Silence followed. Not out of obedience—fear was simply more persuasive than order.
Specter rose and fell in step with the herd. A few faces glanced at him. Player 077—Da-bin—walked a pace behind, silent as usual. Specter had started recognizing patterns in the others. The tall, jittery one with bloodshot eyes: Player 119. The older woman with cropped gray hair and a foul mouth: Player 046. A girl with a bandaged ear who never blinked enough: Player 202.
Patterns. Predictable. Manageable.
The corridor was long and bare. Walls the color of dried gum, floor scrubbed too clean to be anything but sinister. Only the footsteps echoed—there was no idle humming from the masked guards, no mechanical whirs. That itself felt wrong.
Eventually, they emerged into a vast, artificial courtyard. The sky above was painted cerulean. Fake clouds glowed from embedded lights. A giant playground stood before them: slides, tunnels, pastel-colored equipment that reeked of childhood.
The players stopped.
At the far end stood four metal doors.
Then, a screen flickered to life.
It was the Front Man. Or rather, his silhouette. A metallic voice followed:
Welcome to your second game.
This challenge is called Sugar Honeycombs.
Murmurs began immediately. Specter didn't speak—but he knew the name.
You will each approach one of the four metal doors. Do not open them. Choose a shape. You will receive your sugar piece after entering. Your goal is simple: extract your shape without breaking it.
A beat.
Failure results in immediate elimination.
More murmurs. This time, from deeper in the crowd—whispers laced with panic.
Specter tilted his head slightly.
Four doors. Four symbols. A familiar structure.
He took a slow breath, remembering the videos. Children licking metal tins. Frustrated hands cracking delicate shapes. Triangle. Circle. Star. Umbrella.
"Of course," he thought. "They're escalating by simplicity. The danger is not in the game,it's in the time. And the shape."
The guards began pushing players gently but firmly.
Time to choose.
Specter didn't move immediately. Others scrambled toward the doors, forming anxious lines. Some jostled. Some whispered prayers.
He didn't run. He observed.
By the third second, he noticed Player 046 glance toward the triangle symbol. Player 202 went toward the star, twitching like she regretted it.
He watched their decisions, measured them. One step forward. Then another.
And then he moved.
Not toward the umbrella.
Toward the circle.
A gamble—but a calculated one.
"If they want a spectacle," he reasoned, "they'll trap the curious in the most complex. The umbrella will break hands. The triangle will save fools. The circle? People underestimate curves."
Inside, the room was small. Sterile. A masked worker stood behind a narrow table. No words. Just a tin can slid forward.
Specter took it and sat. The candy inside was warm.
And at its center, the shape: a perfect, thin-lined circle.
He took the needle beside it.
And time began.