2026-07-25 00:34:19The Host’s metallic voice echoed directly from the walls, delivering a new rule that would seal the boy’s fate: "Time is a luxury for the innocent, but an executioner for the guilty. Player Gabriel, your countdown has begun. And for every ten seconds of hesitation, the marble edge will recede thirty centimeters."
The digital display on the chandelier began flashing frantically. [ 00:10 ] Clack-clack. With a jolt, the marble platform beneath Gabriel’s feet receded another thirty centimeters. The gap was now an impassable abyss of nearly four and a half meters of absolute darkness. The other survivors on the edge — Elena, Lucas, and the rest retreated along with the structure, leaving the boy isolated on the shrinking stone ledge. — Gabriel, take off your hoodie! — I shouted, my voice cracking from the effort of keeping Diana steady while trying to find a solution. — Throw the hoodie to me! If I grab the end, you can use it as a rope! — It won’t work! — Gabriel sobbed, panic paralyzing his muscles. He looked down to where Hugo’s body still lay in the darkness. — It’s too far! I’m going to fall, Hayes! I’m going to die just like Mariana! Her name hung in the cold air of the foyer, hitting my chest like a block of ice. Mariana. The girl whose shoulders I had used as a step to escape the fire. Her brother was about to plunge into the same void because of my cowardice. — You’re not going to die! — I roared, ten years of accumulated guilt turning into desperate strength. I looked at the bridge. — Diana, you need to hold onto the steel cable by yourself. Now! — Are you crazy? — Diana hissed, her narrowed eyes trying to focus on my face. — If I let go of you, I fall! — If you don’t let go, all three of us will die when the boy’s floor disappears! Shift your weight to the right cable! Without waiting for her answer, I gently pushed her shoulders toward the thick hemp rope running along the right side of the bridge. Diana let out a muffled scream, but survival instinct made her hands grip the cable with astonishing force. Free of her weight, I stood up on the acrylic plaque. The wind rising from the pit stirred my jacket. [ 00:20 ] Clack-clack. Another thirty centimeters of stone vanished beneath the gears. Gabriel was now perched on a narrow sliver of marble less than half a meter wide. Behind him, the foyer wall advanced slowly, pushing him inevitably toward the fall. — Gabriel! — I called, stretching my arms forward. — Trust me! Remember what I promised you in the room? I’m getting you out of here! But you have to jump! Jump on my signal! The boy looked at me through his tears. In that second, he didn’t see the failed writer or the man carrying a monstrous lie on his back. He saw a protector. And that trust almost broke me inside. — Get ready… — I warned, bending my knees, preparing my own body to receive the impact of a four-meter jump. If he missed the trajectory, his weight would drag us into the depths. If he hit it, the combined impact on the HAYES plaque could pulverize the acrylic beneath our feet. It was mathematical suicide. — Three… two… one… — I counted. In the final millisecond before the marble receded again, Gabriel closed his eyes and took what little momentum remained on the stone. He launched himself into the void. The boy’s body crossed the darkness in a desperate parabola. His outstretched hands reached mine in the air, but the impact of his weight against my chest produced a sharp, terrifying sound that echoed directly beneath my boots: the acrylic of the HAYES plaque had just cracked from end to end.
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19. The Scale and the Blade
The electric buzz under Jonas’s chair rose in pitch, vibrating through the metal floor and reverberating into the soles of my feet. The smell of ozone mixed with cold sweat in the room was suffocating.[ 00:38 ][ TARGET: 150 ml ]“Jonas, you have to do this!” Diana shouted, leaning forward as far as the restraints allowed. “There’s no other option! Either you cut yourself, or the discharge is going to kill you!”“I can’t! I have a phobia of blood… I can’t!” Jonas screamed, his eyes fixed on the surgical steel blade that gleamed under the yellow light. His hands hovered trembling over the pedestal, fingers splayed just centimeters from the cold metal, refusing to press down.“Stop being a coward, journalist!” Roberto growled, fury etched into the lines of his ex-cop face. “You had the courage to lock dozens of kids inside so they would burn to death and save your own skin. Now own the fuck up to what you did and pay the price!”“I was twenty years old! I was scared!” Jonas’s voice cra
18. The First Verdict
The digital timer in the center of the room pulsed with a sickly red, spilling a scarlet light over our sweating faces.[ 00:42 ]“Who was it?!” Roberto’s voice echoed, harsh, the authority of a former cop reverberating off the mirrored walls. He shook his arms, but the leather straps around his ankles didn’t give an inch. “Someone here locked that emergency door from the outside! Who among you condemned those people to die suffocating like rats? Speak!”No one moved. The silence that settled was stifling, broken only by Gabriel’s quiet sobbing and the rhythmic metallic click coming from inside Lucas’s pedestal, as he kept trying to decode the system through the touch panel.“There’s no point asking, Roberto,” Marcus hissed, eyes fixed on his own screen, pure contempt gleaming on his face. “No one here is stupid enough to confess to being a mass murderer. The Host knew that. He wants to see who we’re going to choose to bleed.”[ 00:31 ]The physical tension in the room was almost palp
17. The Weight of Truth
The silence that settled over the circular room was so thick it could almost be heard. Looking at that armored glass box filled with money, knowing that the only way for one person to leave with all of it and absolute forgiveness was through the deaths of the other nine, instantly transformed the atmosphere. The trust that was already a scarce luxury among us evaporated completely. Marcus took a slow step backward, distancing himself from Roberto. Elena Vance’s eyes moved from face to face, cold and calculating, as if she were diagnosing which of us would be the first to give in to the Host’s temptation. Gabriel shrank closer to me, his breathing short. "No one is falling for this… right?" — Beatriz’s voice broke the silence, trembling. "This is exactly what he wants. For us to kill each other so he doesn’t have to design more traps." "She’s right"— Diana intervened, her lawyer’s voice taking on a firm tone of authority. "If we start distrusting one another, his game wins by d
16. The Price of Absolution
The silence that followed the Host’s voice was almost worse than the noise of the gears crushing the acrylic. We stood at the beginning of a wide corridor, the walls covered in a dark, almost black wallpaper that seemed to absorb the little light from the crystal chandeliers above us. Ten survivors. Ten uneven, noisy breaths sharing the same rarefied air. Marcus wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his crumpled suit jacket, his bloodshot eyes fixed on the iron doors that had just locked behind us. He let out a nasal laugh, a dry sound with no humor in it at all. “Ten million…” Marcus murmured, shaking his head. “We went through all of this because of an empty promise of ten million reais.” “What do you mean by that?” Jonas asked. “I mean we’re idiots, journalist,” Marcus spat on the carpeted floor. “Who guarantees that this money even exists? Who guarantees that this whole damn thing isn’t just some broke sadist watching us on security screens, laughing while we t
15. The Abyss Triage Part 2
3. Sofia (the Influencer) SOFIA was paralyzed. She clutched her signal-less phone against her chest, tears smearing her heavy makeup as she sobbed nonstop. When her name lit up on the chandelier, she simply could not take a single step. “It’s a lie… this is a sick reality show, I’m going to wake up…” she whispered, curled up on the floor. [ 00:30 ] [ 00:15 ] [ 00:00 ] Time ran out without her moving. The Host did not tolerate hesitation. The marble block beneath Sofia’s body fully retreated into the wall, opening a gap under her. Sofia fell sitting straight into the void, her high-pitched scream vanishing into the deep darkness of the pit. [ REMAINING: 7 ] 4. Clara (the Retired Employee) The elderly CLARA looked at the abyss, then at the panel displaying her name. Her weak legs and arthritis-ravaged knees would never allow a two-meter jump to the first platform. She gave a sad, resigned smile and looked at us on the other side of the bridge. “May God have mercy o
14. The Abyss Triage Part 1
The acrylic under my boots let out a sharp crack, a dry vibration that climbed up my legs and lodged itself directly in my chest. The HAYES platform was giving way. Three bodies, mine, Diana’s, and Gabriel’s were too much sand for that plastic hourglass. “Get off! You have to move!” I shouted, my voice hoarse as I tried to keep my balance with Gabriel’s body pressed against mine. Gabriel’s platform, which had slid away, began returning to the central axis with a metallic creak. “Gabriel, now! Your platform is coming back! Jump!” I ordered, giving the boy a firm shove on the shoulders. Still trembling, Gabriel used the last bit of courage he had left. He leaped from my cracked platform back onto his own at the exact moment the two aligned. He fell chest-first onto the GABRIEL acrylic, clinging to the side ropes as if his life depended on it and it did. Diana, realizing the HAYES platform would shatter at any second if we stayed together, used the ropes for support and launc
