In that moment, it hit me.
There was no back door in the game footage.
The only way in or out was through the front.
In other words, the game designers had been telling me all along.
No one could escape this room by completing a mission.
I'd been played again.
Through the haze, I heard the door behind me open.
Heavy footsteps approached.
A man and a woman spoke in hushed tones.
"Annoying—coming to collect a body in the middle of the night."
"Stop complaining. The game's almost over."
They hoisted my body, then exclaimed in surprise: "Hey, this one's still alive!"
They grabbed my chin, turning my face left and right. "Huh, this body seems like a high-score product. The master was quite satisfied with it. Since it's not dead, let's send it back."
"Okay."
The two of them chattered in terms I couldn't decode.
I could feel them carrying me, but I couldn't do anything about it.
At some point, I lost consciousness.
3
When I came to, I was horrified to find myself back in the same enclosed room.
What? How was I back here?
I sat up in shock, scanning my surroundings.
A familiar voice came from behind me. "You're awake?"
I turned. Quinn, Seth, Rosa, and a middle-aged man I didn't recognize were sitting on a sofa.
All four looked haggard, their faces blank as they stared at me.
Something about their expressions felt off. I asked blankly, "What are you all doing here? Where is everyone else?"
Seth kept his head down. "They're all dead."
I was stunned. "Dead? That's almost a hundred people..."
Rosa sneered. "A hundred people—is that so many? The buses that brought us here filled the entire parking lot. Think about how many that was."
Rosa had never been the bitter type.
But right now, something about her was different.
I glanced instinctively at Quinn. His face was cold, stripped of its usual levity.
Seth's demeanor was off too.
They all seemed to have survived a living nightmare—as if every drop of fight had been wrung from their bodies.
I made my way to the sofa and sat down, processing what they'd said.
"So it's just the five of us now?"
No one answered. The room fell silent.
But my heart was hammering.
Same room. Same number of people. Same configuration—four men, one woman.
What did this mean?
God was on my side.
Had I stumbled into a blessing in disguise—learning the final challenge in advance?
I steadied my breathing and pretended to survey the room.
But my eyes kept drifting toward the computer desk.
I remembered clearly—the key to the door was in the desk drawer.
But when I looked at the computer desk, my stomach dropped.
This room's desk had no drawer.
It was just a plain, four-legged wooden table—like something hastily borrowed from a restaurant.
I leapt up, frantic, and began pacing the room.
I checked under the bed. I rummaged through the bookshelf. I dropped to the floor and examined the boards where the hidden bodies might have been.
Trying to find, from memory, the same clues I'd uncovered in the game.
Nothing.
The room looked similar, but countless details were different.
The previous room hadn't had a sofa. And this room only had one exit.
The realization made me more anxious, and it must have shown, because the unfamiliar man snapped:
"Can you stop pacing? The organizers said to wait here for instructions."
"Wait for what instructions?"
Quinn explained. "After the last round ended, while they were transferring us here, the guide told us to wait in this room. They'll announce the final task when the time comes."
I narrowed my eyes. "How long have you been waiting?"
Rosa said, "A while, I think."
I was frowning, deep in thought, when my stomach growled.
An empty ache. I rubbed my belly—and my fingers brushed something round, slightly raised.
I froze. I lifted my shirt and looked down.
There, over my navel, someone had attached a button.
The button had a black border with a transparent glass dome at its center.
Beneath the glass, red digits were counting down from one hour.
I tried to peel it off.
A tiny electric shock jabbed my fingertip, numbing it instantly.
The other four noticed it and jumped up, crowding around me.
Seth panicked. "What is that? Is it a bomb?!"
I snapped at him. "Can you stop jinxing everything? Why would they strap a bomb to me? Don't you have one?"
Seth and the stranger both shook their heads. "No."
Rosa frowned. "Looks like the organizers played us again. They're not going to tell us the task—we have to find it ourselves."
Seth nodded. "Makes sense."
Quinn stared at the button on my navel in silence.
After a long moment, he asked, "Alex, are you hiding something from us?"
My pulse quickened, but I kept my face neutral. "Like what?"
Quinn was dead serious. "The organizers said the task would be announced when the time comes. But I think the moment you woke up was when the game actually started. This time, the task isn't coming from them—it's coming from you. You're the one who's supposed to tell us."
Seth and the others looked at me with sudden understanding.
They all stared. "Alex, what do you know? Tell us."
I swept my eyes across their faces and sighed.
"Before I passed out, they took me to a sealed room. I played an escape-room game on a computer. Find the key within the time limit and you clear the level."
As soon as I said it, Seth's face lit up with hope.
4
They pressed me urgently—where was the key?
Seth was so excited he nearly jumped. "If we find the key, we can get out of here!"
Only Quinn crossed his arms and said, with a gaze that saw through everything, "It won't be that simple."
I nodded. "I already checked. There are no props from the game in this room. That earlier game was just a trial. This is a brand-new challenge."
Their faces fell.
I tried to reassure them. "In the trial, the game involved people at a cabin, and all the props related to their personal information. This challenge is probably similar. Let's search the room and put anything that seems connected to personal relationships in one spot, then figure it out... Time's running out. Let's move."
I gave them the gist without revealing everything.
Even if they didn't believe me, they had no choice.
The task was in my head.
If I didn't want to talk, they couldn't pry it out of me—they'd have to work with what I'd given them.
While they scattered to search, I went straight to the desk.
I ran my hand under the table, feeling along the back panel.
I even entertained the possibility that the organizers had used clear tape to stick a key to the underside of the desk.
When my hand found nothing, I realized I'd been overthinking.
At the same time, I noticed Quinn and the others kept glancing back at me.
Worried about raising suspicion, I didn't linger. I moved on, drifting toward the bed.
I was casually rummaging through the nightstand drawer when I came across a medical chart.
It belonged to a six-year-old child.
Before I could read it in detail, a hand snatched it away from me.
I turned to find Rosa staring at the chart, her face pale, muttering under her breath.
"Why is this... here?"
I asked, "Someone you know?"
Rosa barely whispered, "It's my son... I came to this game for him."
I gasped and immediately apologized.
Rosa didn't respond. Her eyes were bloodshot, fixed on the chart for a long time.
I'd overstepped. I moved on to search elsewhere.
It wasn't just Rosa—Seth, Quinn, and the man named Derek had all found items connected to their own lives.
Rosa had the medical chart.
Seth had found a loan-shark IOU.
Derek had an oxygen tank.
Quinn had a graduation photo of twins.
And I, on the back of the door, found a car key.
As I took the key in my hand, a chill crept through me.
Each of us held a prop linked to our past, standing frozen like puppets.