2025-05-20 20:26:03Kai's POV
I woke up with the sharp, dry taste of the forest still lingering in my mouth. The cold earth beneath me felt unfamiliar, and the strange pull of disorganized made my head spin. I sat up, trying to clear the fog from my brain, but my body felt sluggish, as if the night’s terror had drained all my energy. The others were already stirring around me, their faces pale with exhaustion, eyes wide with the same fear that had settled in the pit of my stomach. Tae, Rubin, Marianne, and Mark were all groggily rising to their feet, confused and disoriented, as if they had been pulled from the dreamlike haze of sleep into another nightmare. But this wasn’t the forest anymore. The familiar, damp trees had been replaced by something else something even worse. We were lying on cracked asphalt. The ground felt cold beneath my fingers, the dry leaves crunching as I pushed myself up. The sky above us was still a sickly gray, no blue in sight, just an oppressive overcast that seemed to suck the light out of everything. "Where are we?" Marianne asked, her voice trembling, as she stood up and surveyed the surroundings. "This doesn’t look like a forest anymore." The others were looking around too. The horizon stretched out ahead of us flat, open land with just the barren road cutting through it. Nothing else. No trees, no buildings, no signs of life. But then it hit me. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out, hoping for some kind of answer, some explanation. But no. There it was the familiar notification from the game. Didn't we smash our phones earlier? "Guys! What's happening? why is my phone with me?" Mark screamed Tae cursed under his breath" I told you, destroying our phones wouldn't make a difference!" "This has to be some kind of twisted dream! What does this game wants from us?" Rubin yelled I take a look at the phone that I couldn't trust anymore, reading the notification “LEVEL 4: Your task—Confiscate a car. Kill the driver. Return home. If you refuse, someone in your family will die.” I felt the blood drain from my face. It wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. "This... this has to be some kind of joke," Rubin muttered, his hand trembling as he stared at the message. "The game...it's not just messing with us, it’s controlling us. It’s making us kill people now." Tae shook his head, his lips curling in disgust. "We’re not doing this. We can’t." "Guys, think about it," Mark said, his voice cold, emotionless. "It’s our families. If we don’t do this, they’ll die. We have no choice." We all fell silent, the weight of his words sinking in. We were stuck. Trapped. The game had made sure of it. "Do we have to?" Marianne whispered. "I don’t think I can ..." But before she could finish, the sound of an engine cut through the silence. A car was coming down the road toward us, a sleek black sedan, its headlights piercing through the thick fog. The tension in the air thickened, each of us exchanging uncertain looks, paralyzed by fear and indecision. Then, Mark’s phone rang again. He looked down, his eyes widening. He didn’t say anything, but we could all see the shift in his expression. His fingers clenched around his phone, his knuckles turning white. "Mark?" I asked, but he didn’t answer. He just stared at his screen, his face drained of color. Suddenly, he stumbled back, holding his head as if he were about to collapse. But when he straightened, his eyes were cold. Unrecognizable. "They... they have my sister," Mark said, his voice tight with fury. "They’re... they're going to kill her if I don’t do what it says." None of us had the chance to react before Mark turned, running straight for the oncoming car, his eyes wild with panic. Without a word, he threw open the door of the car, dragging the driver out before we could stop him. "Mark, no!" I shouted, but my voice was drowned out by the sound of the driver screaming and the sickening thud of Mark’s fist connecting with the man’s face. The game had pushed him too far. We had all been pushed too far. Mark’s eyes were wide, filled with terror and desperation. "I’m sorry," he said under his breath, his voice cracking. "But I have to do this." In one swift motion, he reached into the car, grabbed the driver’s keys, and with a brutal force, shoved him out of the car. The man hit the ground with a sickening thud, and I could only watch in horror as Mark climbed into the driver’s seat, the car engine roaring to life. "Mark!" I yelled, running toward the car, but he revved the engine, slamming the gas pedal down, and without another word, he sped off down the road, leaving us standing in the dust. My chest tightened, and my heart pounded in my ears. He had just...he had just killed someone. And worse, he’d left us behind, alone, with no way of knowing if he’d ever come back. The weight of everything, the horror of the game, the terror of what we had just witnessed, hit me all at once. The world around me started to spin, and I felt myself wobble on my feet. This was real. We weren’t dreaming. We were trapped, and no one was going to save us. Are we going to die? "Why did he...?" Marianne whispered, her eyes wide with disbelief ,tears streaming down her cheeks. She could hardly speak. "We have to find a way out of this," Tae said, his voice a little shaky. "We can’t let the game win." But the problem was none of us had any idea how to get out. We stood there, silent for a long time, trying to process what had just happened. Mark was gone, and we were left with nothing but the buzzing of our phones and the same chilling message flashing on the screen. “You’ve lost one. The next task will be more difficult. Choose wisely.” I felt my stomach twist. The game wasn’t going to stop. And now, it had our families in its grasp. There was no way out. And I couldn’t help but wonder: How far would we go to survive? ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Would you survive?♟️♟️
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Dangerous Alliance
Kai's POVI paced back and forth in Professor Warrick’s office, the silence hanging heavy in the air like an impending storm. My mind still was processing everything that had happened. My phone buzzed on the desk, and my heart skipped a beat as I glanced at it. It was another notification from the game.I swallowed hard, my throat dry.“Don’t check it,” I muttered to myself. If I looked, I knew it would only make things worse. But I had to stay focused. For my friends. For myself.Professor Warrick sat across from me, his face etched with concern. He was a man of few words, but right now, the tension in his eyes spoke everything.“I’ve been researching the app,” he said, his voice low and steady. “And the results... they’re disturbing.”I nodded, anxiously running my fingers through my hair. “What did you find? Is there any way to stop it?”Professor Warrick leaned forward, his fingers steepled together. “The app isn’t just a game. It’s a force. It’s using a network of minds to feed
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