Alice in Borderland

Chapter 4 - Run away

Since I last slept really well, it's been five days now. I left as planned the next day, but none of my friends' houses or flats were anyone. On the street or in the windows I see strangers from time to time, but none of them has even looked at me with a spark of kindness. Honestly, I don't really want to befriend any of them. Five people have died in this library. One man died right next to me and the other because I wasn't fast enough.

Today it is time again. I have to play a game again to renew my visa. I'm excited to see where these venues will appear and hope I'm close to such a hotspot. Otherwise, the same thing happens to me as the man in front of the library. I hope that there will not be so many deaths this time. It gets dark slowly and I grab an apple from a supermarket, but i'm leaving a little money there.

Again the lights go on, but I can't detect an ad yet. I stroll around a little bit, but look around. Then I discover a advertisement and follow the instructions, up to a fair. On the ground are luminous markings and I follow them, up to a kind of mixture of mirror cabinet and ghost train. There are only three people in front of it this time. There are still some mobile phones at the ticket counter, but I hope there aren't too many. I take a white phone and have my face scanned.

"You already know that," says a middle-aged woman, looking at me with a neutral gaze. I nod and look at the others. A boy with green hair, perhaps a year older than me, looks around nervously and flips back and forth a little.

"New?" I ask, and the boy looks directly at me.

"Do you notice that?"

"Yes," I say, and the last person present so far. He wears glasses and looks a bit like a computer nerd.

The time is up, the game starts 

I look slightly nervously at the phone and sclose my jaw. I hope it will be a similar game to the last, of course with the aim of guessing the puzzle faster.

Game: Race. Number of participants: 5. Difficulty level: Spade 4. Rules: No weapons of their own are allowed. Reach the goal alive before the Spirit gets you. The time is 15 minutes. Anyone who has not reached the target after the deadline dies. Good luck.

"What does spades mean?" I ask to find out more about these games.

"That the game is physically predisposed," the woman replies, smiling slightly at me. Difficulty level four, that means I don't have very long until I have to play the next game. We all stand by the luminous sign with the inscription Start.

"Shouldn't we set an order?" I ask tactically.

"For you to be a cheerleader at the top, no thanks," says the nerd, standing demonstratively lightly in front of me. I pinch the phone to my skirt and when the start signal starts, the boy and the woman run forward. The woman rams her elbow into the boy's chest with the green hair and the other boy cuts off my path to run forward.

"We can all do it, you don't have to fight unfairly!"

"In this world you have to do everything you can to survive," the boy screams in front of me. They run up the stairs and suddenly a man with a creepy mask appears in the dark and rams the boy in front with an axe in the chest. I get some splashes and have to dodge before the boy falls on me.

I look up and a scaffold that looks like a transverse ladder. I tell the boy with the green hair that I am giving him help. We don't have much time and he climbs up. The woman screams like a fury and the man with the axe seems to be trying to make sure his first victim is really dead. I grab the woman and with the help of the boy one floor up we get her up. The axe man now seems to be targeting me. With a jump I get to grab the pole and the moment the man pulls out with his gun, I grab my body and swing just above him. I start running like a madman, as the others have a one-floor lead over this madman. I walk around fifty, tight curves until I reach the stairs to the next floor. I come to the Mirror Cabinet. Behind me I can see the man behind me mirrored three times and see the others running away through a door.

I grop my way past the mirrors and hear a sliver behind me. With the mask, the hunter doesn't seem to be able to keep the mirrors apart. I finally reach the next room, but I feel like the man is getting closer and closer. In the next room, punching bag-like things swing back and forth everywhere. I discover a small, narrow gap behind the door and panicked I try my luck. I squeeze into it and when the door opens, the man stops for a moment. For him, this environment also seems new, which means that he hasn't been here before. Then he walks on and disappears through a secret side door. Apparently the game is designed to this man's advantage.

As soon as the door closes, I force myself out of the gap and sneak past the now-disappeared door, because if he hears me, he could turn around immediately. In front of me I reach a moving staircase up. It always goes up two steps and down two steps again. I try to get up as quickly as possible and walk over a water basin with stones as a stepping possibility. I move quickly and turn into a rotating tube. I stumble through it and fall at the end. I don't hit hard and when I get up I realize the reason. The woman lies on the ground, her eyes are cracked and she bleeds heavily. She's already dead and my uniform is soaking up with her blood.

Suddenly someone from the aisle in front of me shows up and doesn't pack. Frightened, I slap around me, but the one presses my hand on my mouth and my heartbeat quadruples. When I see the green hair and light blood on his cheek, I calm down a little. I nod and he lets me go again.

"Where is he?"

"I lost sight of him"

"Then fast!"

We continue to run into a room that seems to be completely spinning and tearing us off our legs. We're pushed to the edge and trying to get up again. It's harder than you think and we stumble to the next exit. On the next floor we walk through an obstacle parkour and then we hear the blade grinding behind us. He's already damn close, so I push the boy forward. We stumble through a pitch-dark room, illuminated by flashlight, and come to a door. He opens it and in front of us a slide appears, which leads down to the exit. As fast as he can he slides down and I swing after him on the slide. I still feel a small air train when the masked man pulls out one last time with his axe, but he only hits me slightly on the arm.

We stumble through the sign at the exit and fall on the ground. We look at the masked man taking off his mask. Suddenly a band flashes on her neck and then it explodes. He scares back slightly when our phones light up.

Congratulations, you won

"It went fast," says the boy, laying flat on the floor. I'd love to do it, but I'd rather look at my wound. She bleeds, but not too much. I get up and run to the ticket stand: instead of the mobile phones, the playing card is now there, which I simply take on myself. They have to be good at anything. I take my sports bag again and run again in the direction.

"Good luck with survival," I shout back and he stares at me perplexedly.

"Thank you"

I have to grin a little about his confused voice. But then it fades. I've only won four days, but somehow I want more if anything comes in between. So I decide to play again tomorrow.