SCREAM!!!

3. Red light, dead light

The words “Let the games begin” hung over Cedric like a curse that had been carved into his chest.

For a long moment, no one moved. Not a student, not a teacher, not even Kevin, his best friend, who was gripping his arm with a white-knuckled intensity that made Cedric’s own heart hammer faster.

They weren’t in Alder High anymore. Not really.

The ground beneath their feet was no longer concrete or grass but soil the color of dried blood, uneven and coarse under shoes. Buildings that once framed the campus now rose like jagged obsidian cliffs, their sharp edges glowing faintly, as if molten rock had hardened too quickly. Smoke and ozone clung to everything, heavy and choking, curling into their nostrils. The sky overhead had drained to a dark crimson, as if the sun itself had been torn from the heavens.

It was a nightmare given form.

Cedric’s chest tightened with each shallow breath. The cold, iron-laced wind rattled through the ruins of the school, carrying whispers that weren’t quite words. He wanted to scream, to run, but his legs felt like lead.

Then Baran’s voice cut through the silence. Smooth, commanding, chilling.

“Round One: Red Light, Dead Light.”

A murmur spread through the crowd. Someone laughed — a short, broken sound, almost like disbelief.

“You mean… like that game we played as kids?” a freshman girl said.

Baran tilted his head. “Exactly like it,” he said, his lips curling into something that might have been a smile. “Except here, disobedience has consequences.”

The soil beneath them pulsed. The air hummed, almost alive. Trees erupted from the ground—charred, skeletal trunks, black and leafless, twisting upward like the fingers of corpses reaching for the sky. The horizon expanded unnaturally, stretching the courtyard into an endless expanse that defied reason. Cedric felt his stomach turn. This was no longer a playground. This was a hunting ground.

The ground beneath their feet split apart violently, shoving students into lines like pieces on a massive, invisible chessboard. Five hundred people, Cedric realized, all separated into neat rows, stretching so far he could barely see the end. Teachers, administrators, and even the school board had been pulled in, their faces pale, expressions frozen between fear and disbelief.

At the far end of the crimson field loomed a colossal porcelain doll. Three stories tall, its head tilted unnaturally to one side. Its painted lips were frozen in a smile that made Cedric’s stomach flip. Hollow black eyes, rimmed with red, blinked open and focused on them.

A mechanical, high-pitched voice rang out, childlike and melodic:

“Green light!”

Some students froze in hesitation. A few began to move.

The doll’s head turned slowly. The sound of cracking bone seemed to echo through the field.

“Red light!”

Cedric barely had time to process the movement before a scream split the air. A senior boy in the row ahead—he thought his name was Daniel—hadn’t stopped fast enough. The doll’s eyes emitted a red beam that struck him in the chest.

He didn’t burn. Not exactly. His body fractured in an otherworldly light, peeling away into shards that shimmered like broken glass in the sunlight, scattering across the blood-soaked soil. Where he had been, only a dark scorch mark remained.

The stench hit Cedric immediately. Ozone, metal, and something sweet and sickening.

Panic erupted across the lines. Screams, shouting, sobbing. Students clawed at their neighbors, tripped over one another, trying to escape impossible lines, only to find that any movement out of sync was punished immediately.

“Move!” someone yelled, desperation cracking the words.

Cedric’s legs shook uncontrollably. Kevin’s grip on his arm was iron. “We have to go!” he hissed.

“Green light!”

Cedric forced himself to step forward, each foot heavy as though walking through water. The screams of those left behind made his throat tighten. Every step was a battle between instinct and fear, every second stretched beyond comprehension.

“Red light!”

Silence fell like a guillotine.

A teacher two rows ahead stumbled, tripping over a cracked patch of soil. Cedric froze, watching as the red beam shot from the doll’s eyes. The teacher’s body vanished before anyone could even react, leaving behind nothing but a dark stain etched into the ground.

Cedric’s stomach twisted. He could taste bile, metallic and sharp. Every beat of his heart felt deafening, every breath a struggle. The rules were clear. One misstep. One hesitation. Death.

And the horror? He knew it too well. Every detail of this moment was his. The doll, the red sky, the shifting field — it had all come from his sketchbook. His notebook had made this real.

Kevin tugged him forward. “Cedric! Don’t think, just move!”

Cedric forced his legs to obey. They inched forward together, hand in hand, hearts hammering like twin drums of panic. He could see others faltering, frozen mid-step. A freshman girl tripped on uneven soil, screaming. Without thinking, Cedric lunged, grabbing her arm and pulling her upright just as the beam cut across the space where she had been.

His sleeve scorched. Pain shot through his arm like fire, but she was safe.

“You… you saved me,” she whispered, trembling.

Cedric didn’t answer. The wire in his chest felt stretched beyond endurance. He felt nothing heroic, only hollow terror.

---

Time fractured. Green light, red light, each round claiming another life. Cedric saw friends he knew—laughing just yesterday—vanish into shards and smoke. The screams became a chorus of despair, echoing off the warped buildings that resembled his own drawn nightmares.

Kevin was shaking beside him. “I can’t—” he stuttered, but Cedric gripped him tighter. “Yes, you can. We have to survive.”

The finish line shimmered ahead like fractured glass, humming with light. The remaining students stumbled forward, bodies trembling, sweat and dirt plastered to their skin. Each movement, a gamble between instinct and terror.

“Red light!”

Silence swallowed them again. A single cough behind Cedric triggered the beam. Three people disintegrated mid-scream, scattering into the crimson soil.

He bit his lip until blood mingled with sweat.

Finally, the doll’s mechanical voice intoned:

“Game over.”

The surviving students—maybe three hundred of them—collapsed on their knees, trembling, staring at the scorched field behind them. Shadows burned into the ground, a grotesque memorial of what had happened.

Kevin sank beside Cedric, shaking violently. “That… that wasn’t a game,” he whispered. “That was… a massacre.”

Cedric swallowed, staring at the horizon where twisted black trees still leaned toward the red sky. Baran’s voice cut through the oppressive air, smooth, calm, and terrifying.

“Congratulations to the survivors of Round One,” he said. “You’ve proven that instinct and fear can coexist.”

Cedric’s blood turned to ice. His fists clenched, nails biting into his palms. He wanted to scream at him, to demand answers, but the words died in his throat.

Baran’s gaze met his across the field, sharp, knowing, almost amused. The cruelest twist settled like lead: he had brought them all here. And somehow, Cedric’s own imagination had made it possible.

Baran’s smile widened. “Remember—only one of you leaves alive. The rest… feed the game.”

The air shivered, the black trees bending, the crimson soil warping, shaping new horrors just beyond sight.

Cedric’s stomach lurched as new structures began to rise in the distance — spiraling towers of steel and flame, jagged edges like teeth.

Round Two was coming.

And he knew, deep in his bones, the nightmare had only just begun.