From their appearance and clothing, they were all contestants—just like us.
Thick iron hooks had pierced straight through their ankles, pinning their legs together.
They hung like roasting ducks in an oven—heads dangling downward, feet pointing up.
Their eyes bulged wide in death, mouths gaping in terror, blood seeping steadily from their lips.
Drip. Drip. Dripping onto the students eating below…
This grotesque scene was reflected on the oversized screen—which was how I'd spotted it.
Quinn managed not to throw up—barely.
Our reaction caught the attention of the two people at the neighboring table.
They looked up too.
Then the entire cafeteria erupted in a chain reaction of nausea.
Everyone who saw the bodies above gagged instantly.
Some people had already guessed what was happening and simply kept their heads down, mechanically shoveling food into their mouths.
But the sound of retching echoed from every corner of the cafeteria.
Even those who hadn't looked up, hearing the sounds and smelling the acrid mix of food and vomit, couldn't help but follow suit.
Quinn glanced back at the screen, then reminded me, "Seven minutes left. You still have so much food…"
He stared at my tray, words trailing off.
I remembered the countdown. I remembered the three rules broadcast over the PA.
No picky eating. No waste. Finish everything within the time limit.
Right. No time left. I couldn't drag this out any longer.
I steeled myself and picked up my chopsticks.
Without changing expression, I shoveled everything on my tray into my mouth—vomit and all.
It was like chewing wax. I told myself not to think about it, to focus on nothing. If I had to eat shit to survive, I'd eat shit.
Maybe my self-delusion kicked in, because by the time five minutes remained, my tray was finally empty.
Quinn had finished ages ago and was waiting for me.
"Let's go." I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, grabbed my tray, and stood up.
Quinn followed behind me as we walked toward the drop-off area.
Along the way, I saw several people crouched on the floor, picking up the food they'd just thrown up.
Others stared at their trays in frozen horror, not moving at all.
I was about to wonder why when I noticed that their food was mixed with dark-red blood.
Where had this blood come from?
Then it hit me.
Quinn and I had gotten lucky—our table was in the corner of the cafeteria, with no corpses dangling above us.
But the people who'd chosen the center section weren't so fortunate.
Some had one corpse dripping above them. Others had two, or even more.
The blood from those hanging bodies hadn't yet coagulated—it was still seeping from their wounds, drip by drip.
Right into the trays below.
Some could dodge it by sliding their trays a few inches to the side.
Others weren't so lucky. Their trays were pooled with it.
To follow the rules, those poor souls were forcing themselves to eat rice and vegetables soaked in blood, gagging with every bite.
The sight nearly made me throw up again. I jerked my eyes away and hurried to the collection area.
Quinn and I stacked our trays carefully, aligning them neatly.
Then we returned to our seats and sat down.
Three minutes remained.
Our task was done. All we could do now was sit and wait for time to run out.
Taking advantage of the lull, I decided to ask Quinn something I'd been wondering about.
"Quinn, earlier during the quiz game, you said the one who died was your brother?"
Quinn nodded. "My twin brother."
I was surprised. "Twin?"
He lowered his eyes. "Growing up, my parents always favored me over him. He could never accept it, so he'd always dreamed of me disappearing from the world."
I looked at him with sympathy and fell silent.
Quinn didn't seem bothered. He even cracked a smile. "The night he pressed that button, I didn't go to sleep. I stayed up until midnight and heard someone opening our front door. I didn't think it was a burglar—I immediately thought of the button. So I hid in my brother's closet and watched those rabbit-masked people break into his bedroom and inject him with sleeping pills. And then he was gone."
Hearing this, all I could say was, "I'm sorry for your loss."
Quinn glanced at me, then shifted topics. "Don't dwell on it. We're about to be split into groups."
Just as he said that, the cafeteria timer hit zero.
A cheerful school bell chimed over the broadcast system.
In stark contrast to the light, breezy music, every face in the room tensed simultaneously.
The announcement came: "All students, please remain seated. Your teacher is about to conduct an inspection."
With that, a massive cartoon rabbit head appeared on the screen.
Its glowing red eyes shot two beams of crimson light, sweeping from top to bottom across the cafeteria tables.
The beams converged into an egg-sized red dot.
The red light moved slowly—across students' backs, across tabletops, across faces.
Whenever it passed over a table, the automated voice chimed: "No picky eating. No waste. Finish your lunch within the time limit."
The first several inspections went smoothly.
But when the red light reached the fifth column of tables, it stopped dead.
I turned my head slowly to look.
That table's surface looked clean. Why had the light stopped?
A malfunction in the system?
Before I could puzzle it out, I saw the man and woman at that table—both trembling, faces ashen.
The automated voice blared: "Alert! Alert! Two students have failed to finish their meal within the time limit. They will now face severe punishment from the Rabbit Overseer!"
The two shot to their feet and bolted for the cafeteria door.
As they stood, rice and vegetables tumbled from inside their clothing.
I wasn't the only one who saw it.
A collective gasp rippled through the room.
The man and woman yanked at the cafeteria doors, but they wouldn't budge.
Despairing, they turned and fell to their knees before the giant screen, kowtowing frantically.
"I was wrong! Please let me go! I'll never do it again!"
The red dot from the rabbit's eyes crept across the floor toward the door.
Then it crawled up the doorframe.
Finally, it settled on the cafeteria door between the two of them.
For a fleeting moment, they thought they'd been spared. They smiled through their tears.
Then the red dot split into two.
Each dot locked onto the center of their foreheads.
Without warning—BANG.
Their skulls were pierced by an invisible blade. Blood sprayed across the cafeteria doors.
Everyone watched.
The smiles were still frozen on their faces. Eyes wide open, they toppled backward, dead.
I pressed my hand to my chest, struggling to breathe.
That single shot felt like it had struck my own body—a visceral, empathetic terror.
Then the red light resumed its inspection, continuing down the line.
Besides that couple, others were caught with food scraps beneath their tables or beside their feet—crumbs they hadn't even noticed.
Without exception, every one of them was "dealt with" by the Rabbit Overseer.
In that sealed cafeteria, with gunshots ringing one after another, no one dared even breathe, terrified that death might land on them next.
An eternity later, the Deadly Lunch finally ended.
The screen announced: "Now entering the class assignment phase. All surviving students, proceed to the front of the screen. Boys on the left, girls on the right. Line up by height, shortest to tallest."
My heart sank the moment I heard "by height."
Quinn was a full head taller than me.
Based on the average heights remaining in the cafeteria, there was no way we'd be in the same class.
Before all this, I'd wanted nothing more than to ditch Quinn.
But now that we were actually about to be separated, my feelings were complicated.
After everything we'd been through together, sticking with Quinn felt safer than being alone.
I looked up at him.
He wasn't looking at me.
Without a backward glance, he strode away toward the cluster of taller men.
The moment he entered the crowd, it was like he'd put on a protective shell. His face shifted into an easy, joking expression.
Within just a few words, the men around him were already looking at him differently—from initial wariness to open disdain.
I suddenly understood something.
Everyone here was competition.
Never make yourself look too clever, or you'd become a target. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
Two fists can't fight four hands. Even a tiger fears a pack of wolves. Caution was key.
Taking the lesson, I pulled myself together and sought out the group of people closest to my own height.
The cafeteria still held more than a few bodies from the deadly inspection.
Everyone lined up in silence, no one in the mood for chatter, waiting for the system's next instruction.
Then the broadcast crackled to life once more.