Huff… Huff… Huff…
Their rough breaths were the only sound they made, a desperate rhythm against the pounding of their feet on the rocky floor. They ran blind, the darkness a physical wall they had to push through with every step. And right behind them, it followed. A cry that was anything but human, a girl's voice stripped of all emotion, echoing off the closing walls.
"I will find youuu!!! I will find youuuu!!"
Shit. Shit. What the hell is this? The curse was a frantic drumbeat in Dave's mind, matching the pace of his heart. The sheer cruelty of it all enraged him. This entire nightmare, the mutated gravity, the soul-draining ghost, this endless, lightless run, all of it was orchestrated just for entertainment. They weren't people; they were characters selected to play a game with a 0.01% chance of survival, and the Game Maker was a bored god flicking ants with its finger.
As they ran, Dave could hear Violet's breathing becoming more and more uneven, a hitching sound that worried him. She's hitting her limit. He didn't know the half of it. He couldn't see the warm, sticky blood still seeping from the cut on her head, matting her black hair. He didn't know that when gravity had slammed them back to the cave floor, her head had connected with a patch of rock seeped with a paralyzing toxin. The weakness wasn't just from exhaustion; it was a poison sapping her strength with every frantic beat of her heart.
Du! Du! Du!
The cave itself began to tremble, a deep shudder that ran up through the soles of their feet. Loose pebbles and dust rained down from the ceiling. Dave's expression grimaced. How are we supposed to reach the Selection Zone if the whole cave collapses on us first?
"I will find youuu!!!"
The voice was louder now, closer. It was no longer just following; it was gaining. A childish, gleeful giggle danced at the edges of his hearing, too close, far too close to offer any hope of escape. Dave could feel it, a cold presence at his back, breathing down his neck. He could feel the sweat soaking through his orange overalls, a clamminess that had nothing to do with exertion and everything to do with the icy grip of a second, impending death.
And then, in the chaos of the quaking cave and his own thundering pulse, he heard it. Not an echo from behind, but a voice right beside his ear, a fleeting whisper that bypassed the air and spoke directly into his soul.
' I have found you….'
In that moment, Dave felt his whole body explode.
It wasn't an explosion of force, but of sensation. A white-hot agony erupted from every nerve ending, a final, violent seizure of his being. His vision whited out, consumed by a pain so absolute it felt like his very atoms were being torn apart. This was it. The end.
And before the nothingness could fully claim him, a chime, clean and digital, cut through the void.
.
.
.
.
.
****
Darkness. It was the same profound, weightless void that had greeted him after the firing squad, after the first game. But this time, it held no terror for him. It was a familiar transit, a limbo between horrors. His mind, clear and strangely calm, turned to one concern: Violet. Had she made it? He pieced it together, they must have reached the Selection Zone at the very moment of his death. The requirement wasn't to escape the creature, but to be caught by it. A final rule in a game of cruel rules. She'll be alright, he told himself, clinging to the hope that their shared ordeal had ended in the same place.
<'Player Dave' You Are Being Transferred To Your Selection Zone>
His vision swirled, the darkness dissolving into a nauseating blur. His consciousness slipped, pulled like a fish on a line, yanked from the void and hurled toward a new destination.
His breath exploded from his lungs in a hard, ragged gasp, as if he had been holding it for an eternity. His eyes snapped open.
He was standing at the beginning of a path, a long, straight avenue stretching into a gloom that defied measurement. Under his feet was a carpet, its color a deep, dark red, the hue of old, dried blood. It was the kind of carpet laid for royalty, but this one felt ancient and profane, as if it had soaked in the footsteps of countless doomed souls.
His gaze was drawn forward, down the impossible length of the carpet, to the distant end of the hall.
There was a Throne.
It sat atop a dais of countless steps, a monolith of dark stone. It was devoid of any ornament, any comfort. It was a seat of power that promised not glory, but a cold, absolute burden. It looked untouched, as if no one had ever been worthy, or perhaps as if everyone who had ever sat there had been consumed by it.
Something tugged at Dave, a deep, instinctual pull from the core of his being. An urge, silent but undeniable, whispered to him to move forward, to climb. Go. Your destiny awaits. The thought felt both strange and intimately his own. It was a siren's call woven into the very air, a gravity that pulled not his body, but his soul.
And so, he began to walk.
Each step on the dark red carpet was heavy at first, but as he drew closer to the dais, his footsteps lightened, as if the path itself was eager to bear him to his fate. With every stride, the sensation of being watched intensified. It was not a single gaze, but a multitude, ancient and patient, observing him from the shadows. Whispers coiled around him, not in words he could understand, but in feelings of inevitability, of purpose, of a terrible, glorious ascent. All of existence itself seemed to be funneling him toward that seat.
It felt like he was meant to be here.
He reached the base of the stairs and began to climb. The echoes of his footsteps were the only sound, tiny in the vast, silent hall, marking his progression toward the pinnacle. Finally, he stood before it. The Throne. Up close, it was even more imposing, a sculpture of raw, dark power.
He stood there for a single, suspended moment, the whispers falling silent, the watching presence holding its breath as he reached out to touch the throne.
And when he did... a single word erupted, not from one voice, but from a multitude, a chorus of countless throats speaking as one. It boomed through the throne room, like a final bell of the end and the genesis of a new beginning, shaking the very world...
"GLORIOUS!!!"