The grip on Kael's shoulder was cold and strong, an anchor in the dizzying chaos. The low, familiar rumble of the voice, heavy with years of unspoken history, spoke directly into his ear, cutting through the noise of the hall.
"Don't move. We have a lot to talk about, Kael."
Kael turned slowly, dread warring with an astonished recognition that briefly eclipsed the terror of their situation.
It was Ravi.
Ravi, Kael's childhood friend from grade school, stood a head taller now, broader in the shoulders, his features sharpened by adolescence. He still wore the intense, focused look Kael remembered from their shared days of backyard adventures, before Ravi moved districts, only to reappear at Oakridge High for their senior year.
"Ravi? What the hell? It's been… what, five years?" Kael stammered, pulling his arm away, suddenly needing the space to verify that this familiar face was real and not another hallucination. "How did you get here? I thought only Oakridge students were are here."
Ravi didn't waste time on sentiment. His eyes, dark and vigilant, continued to sweep the vast, sterile hall. "They announced it earlier this morning, while I was waiting for the late bus outside the gates. Said we were chosen players.
"Yes, but… how can we be here at the exact same time, Ravi? This isn't a coincidence. Who is powerful enough to do this, to kidnap over a thousand people from a secured environment?" Kael's voice was frantic, his questions pouring out in an unanswerable stream.
Ravi merely tilted his gaze upward, interrupting Kael mid-sentence. "Watch there. Stop asking 'who' and focus on the 'what'."
Kael followed his friend's gaze. Floating high above the center of the enormous white hall, slowly spinning in the high-intensity light, was a plush toy—a ridiculously, stomach-churningly cute fox doll. It was rendered in bright orange and white fabric, with oversized, bright blue plastic eyes and stitched-on rosy cheeks. It was the epitome of harmless, saccharine childhood joy, yet its presence here felt like a profound cosmic insult.
The doll, however, was the source of a new, sharp, synthesized voice that instantly commanded attention.
"ATTENTION, PLAYERS. WELCOME TO THE SELECTION ROUND."
The thousand-plus students instantly fell silent, their collective eyes fixed on the revolving toy. The voice, despite its cheerful pitch, carried an unnerving, absolute authority.
"You all are chosen players. The rules are simple and final. Choose your team of four before time is up."
A murmur of confusion rippled through the crowd, quickly escalating into frightened chatter.
"You have exactly thirty minutes. If you are without a team when the clock expires, you will be… eliminated." The doll delivered the word "eliminated" with a sickening, high-pitched giggle that was somehow more horrifying than a roar.
The students dissolved into a terrified roar of protests. The cute fox doll looked cute no longer; it was the voice of their imminent doom. Hysteria gripped the fringes of the crowd.
"We don't want to play! We want to go home!" shouted a girl, her voice cracking with pure terror. Several other boys and girls, pushed past their breaking point, quickly joined the desperate chant, screaming at the silent, watching walls.
The fox doll's stitched smile seemed to widen, somehow conveying a cruel amusement. It raised one small, plush finger, pointing with lethal precision at the group of protesters.
In the next instant, a dozen figures who had shouted their refusal to play suddenly convulsed. Kael watched in slow-motion horror as an invisible force brutally acted upon them.
A horrifying, wet CRACK echoed through the hall, a sound sickeningly similar to a melon hitting concrete. Blood, bright arterial crimson against the blinding white walls and floor, instantly sprayed outward. More than ten bodies dropped—some of their heads exploding like pressurized containers, others tearing violently away from their torsos as if pulled apart by unseen, tensile wires. The corpses settled on the pristine white tile floor in grotesque, impossible poses, a chilling tapestry of immediate, irreversible violence.
The stench of burnt ozone, copper, and fresh bile immediately filled the air, replacing the dry scent of dust. The horrific sight and sound, coupled with the realization that their lives were meaningless to their captors, brought about a stunned, horrified silence. Students near the carnage began to retch, while others simply collapsed, fainting in small, unconscious bundles. Kael, though miles away from the initial explosion of gore, felt a literal, deep-seated chill run through his body. He clutched Ravi's sleeve, his knuckles white.
The little fox doll lowered its finger, its voice maintaining that sickening, cheerful chirp as it surveyed the carnage. "Anyone else want to go home?" It followed the question with another bout of high-pitched, evil laughter that bounced off the high walls, pure malice wrapped in a child's toy.
"Your time starts now," the doll chirped finally, and a large, crimson digital clock flared to life on the nearest seamless wall, starting its ruthless countdown from 30:00.
The hall erupted again, but this time, the chaos was driven by desperate action, not protest. Fear fueled the instinct to survive, and groups began to coalesce instantly. Everyone looked frantically for three others—not friends, but assets. The cool guys, the athletes, the wealthy, and the popular students—those always in the spotlight—formed their elite teams first, their movements quick and practiced.
"We need Clara," Kael said, urgency overriding the residual shock of the massacre. "And then two more. We need a team of four, Ravi. That's twenty-seven minutes now!"
Ravi nodded, already scanning the crowd with a predator's intensity. "Agreed. Let's move. Focus on Clara."
They pushed through the frantic scrum, dodging desperate hands reaching out for a fourth member, ignoring pleading eyes. After a tense, agonizing search, Kael spotted her near one of the distant, featureless walls.
"Clara! Over here!" Kael yelled, relief flooding him with dizzying speed.
He reached her, his protective instincts kicking in, and immediately grabbed her hand, his fingers tightening around her wrist. "Clara, let's go! We have Ravi, we just need one more member. Come on!"
He started to pull her toward Ravi, but she planted her feet, yanking her hand free with sudden, surprising force.
"Kael, stop. And stop holding my hand," she commanded, her voice flat, devoid of the familiar warmth he knew.
Kael froze, the shock of her words almost as paralyzing as the fox's gruesome execution. He looked at her, searching for the joke, the faint glimmer of the friend he knew. It wasn't there. Clara looked at him with cold, clinical disdain, her warm eyes now sharp and judgmental.
"You may be my best friend, Kael, but I'm not going to die with you."
The words hit him like a physical blow, stealing the air from his lungs and the strength from his knees. He stood there, frozen, the world tilting. This isn't real. My only best friend… the one who protected me… said that about me?
"You are trash, Kael," she continued, her voice gaining cruel, calculated momentum. "You couldn't do anything by yourself. You always needed my help for the simplest things. You are nothing but a loser who hides behind a girl." The harsh words piled on, destroying years of shared history in seconds.
Before Kael could formulate a defense, a massive, muscular figure approached. It was Jace, the imposing athlete who had bullied Kael mercilessly in middle school before Kael learned to keep his head down. Jace wrapped a possessive, smug arm around Clara's shoulder.
"What's up, babe? Wasting time with this trash?" Jace sneered, looking Kael up and down with dismissive contempt, as if he were looking at an irritating speck of dirt. "Let's go. We need to find one more member."
As they turned to leave, Clara threw a final, chilling question back at Ravi. "Ravi! Why are you teaming with that trash? Join us. We need one member also. Jace's team is stronger."
Ravi merely smirked, his expression unreadable. "Not interested."
"Suit yourself," Clara replied, her voice distant and final, already pulling away. "If you love to die soon, I can't help you then." And with that, they were gone, swallowed by the surging, panicked crowd, Jace's laugh echoing behind them.
Ravi stood silently beside Kael, allowing the magnitude of the betrayal to sink in. He didn't offer comfort or platitudes. Kael stood there, in the middle of the maelstrom, for ten silent minutes, the vast hall blurring around him. He was an empty cell without a soul, his face pale, his eyes wide and vacant. The digital clock on the wall now flashed 15:45.
Finally, Ravi couldn't take the inaction any longer. He delivered a sharp, open-handed SLAP across Kael's cheek. The sound was loud enough to cut through the frantic noise.
"Are you for real, Kael? We have less than sixteen minutes left! Snap out of it! She is gone! She is not worth dying for!"
The sting brought Kael back, not to reality, but to a raw, burning awareness. He felt the pain, the shame of Clara's words, and then a strange, fierce anger—an anger he had never felt for himself before. He lifted his own trembling hand and slapped himself even harder on the other cheek.
"You're right," Kael declared, his voice rough but firm, his eyes suddenly burning with desperate resolve. The haze of the past was finally burnt away by the present reality. "She's right. I was always trash, but I won't die trash. Let's go find some other team members. We are going to get alive out of here."
Ravi grinned, the smirk replaced by something genuine and fierce. "That's the spirit, Kael. That's the only attitude that works here. Let's go, we need to be fast. The clock doesn't wait for revenge."
"We need to be faster than walking the floor together. Let's split up and search simultaneously," Kael suggested, adrenaline flooding his system. "I'll head toward the perimeter, you take the far end near the bodies. Look for anyone who is alone, and who looks like they have more than muscles."
"Go," Ravi confirmed, his eyes already narrowed in focus.
They nodded to each other, a silent, desperate pact of survival made amidst the terror and the dying. Kael and Ravi immediately turned, sprinting off in opposite directions through the increasingly compressed and panicked mass of students, the crimson timer glaring down at them.