Chapter 8- Escaped Level One
908 Words
Silence held for one awful second. Then everything broke loose.
People shouted, shoved, scrambled over each other, panic feeding panic in a way that made the earlier chaos look almost orderly. The moment survival began to look like a finite resource, everyone started hoarding it.
"There are too many people!"
"MOVE!"
"GET TO THE EXIT!"
One man shoved another prisoner under the black water and held him there, pinned, while the man thrashed for air that wasn't coming.
PLAYER GUEST884 HAS BEEN ELIMINATED — GAME OVER.
Kate's face went white. "Oh, my god…"
The stranger's expression turned grim. "It's happening early."
"What is?!" Zamora shouted.
He didn't get the chance to answer. The system spoke first.
ATTENTION PLAYERS:
EXIT GATE WILL REMAIN OPEN FOR 30 MINUTES.
CURRENT QUALIFIED PLAYERS: 0 / 200
PLAYER ANDY HAS BEEN ELIMINATED. LEVEL ONE REASSIGNMENT INITIATED.
The prison fractured further. Prisoners turned on each other—one woman shoved two others directly toward the predators just to clear her own path. Somewhere down the corridor, someone was laughing, the kind of laugh that had stopped being about anything funny a while ago.
The predators didn't move. They just stood there, watching the chaos unfold, like they were waiting for the players to do their job for them.
"That's not normal…" Kate whispered.
The stranger studied the motionless creatures, grim. "They're adapting."
Zamora's stomach twisted. Then a glowing blue line traced itself across the flooded wall beside them—a path.
EXIT ROUTE UPDATED.
Arrows lit up along the corridor, leading deeper into the crumbling prison. Hundreds of prisoners surged toward it at once, and the current turned violent again.
"GO!" someone screamed.
Bodies collided in the scramble to stay above the freezing water. Some didn't make it.
PLAYER KIRA HAS BEEN ELIMINATED — GAME OVER.
PLAYER GUEST411 HAS BEEN ELIMINATED — GAME OVER.
The stranger's grip on her arm tightened before the crowd could pull them apart.
"Stay close to me. No matter what."
Before she could respond, another memory hit her—harder this time.
A throne made of black ice. Snow falling endlessly over a ruined kingdom. And him, standing in the middle of it, older, coated in blood, the same crimson eyes burning through the white.
His voice rang out in her mind.
A VOLCANO ERUPTED ON LEVEL NINE. TAKE COVER.
"If she remembers, the system will find her."
Zamora gasped, yanked back into the present. Beside her, the stranger had gone rigid, like he'd felt it too. For the first time, real panic crossed his face.
Then the system spoke, calm as ever.
HIGH PRIORITY TARGET SYNCHRONIZATION DETECTED.
Silence dropped over the corridor. The stranger turned to her, and his voice came out low.
"You were never supposed to remember me."
Prisoners shoved and clawed their way toward the flashing Exit Gate, blue energy pulsing from within as chunks of the ceiling crashed into the water around them.
CURRENT QUALIFIED PLAYERS: 197 / 200
"We're almost there!" Kate shouted.
Another explosion rocked the prison.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
TAKE SHELTER, ZOMBIES ARE SWARMING ON LEVEL 22.
The floor beneath them gave way completely. Prisoners fell shrieking into the dark below—and this time, the screaming didn't stop right away. It was answered. By laughter, somewhere far down in the abyss.
The stranger's face went grim. "It's close…"
Zamora looked back, and her stomach lurched. A massive eye hung in the darkness above, watching. Waiting. Black fissures spread out from the Exit Gate itself.
WARNING: EXIT GATE COLLAPSE IMMINENT.
TIME REMAINING: 00:58
The panic became something else entirely. People fought outright now, clawing toward the narrowing passage, no rules left at all.
PLAYER GUEST881 HAS BEEN ELIMINATED — GAME OVER.
PLAYER DRAKE HAS BEEN ELIMINATED — GAME OVER.
CURRENT QUALIFIED PLAYERS: 199 / 200
"No…" Kate whispered.
One spot left. Chaos erupted.
A man charged at Zamora with a length of broken steel, shoving her back into the flood. Before he could land a second hit, the predators around them tore him apart in an instant. Blood sprayed through the collapsing passage—and then every creature turned, slowly, back toward her.
The stranger grabbed her arm hard.
"GO!"
The prison shook again, harder than anything before.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
Black cracks split every wall at once, and the entire structure began folding toward the darkness below. The Exit Gate flickered violently, on the verge of collapse, when the system's voice rang out, sharp for the first time.
ENTITY BREACH IMMINENT.
ALL REMAINING QUALIFIED PLAYERS PROCEED IMMEDIATELY.
The massive eye below snapped fully open. Something began climbing toward them out of the dark. Everyone screamed, and the stranger shoved Kate toward the Exit Gate first.
"MOVE!"
Kate stepped through the light and vanished.
CURRENT QUALIFIED PLAYERS: 200 / 200
The gate destabilized harder, faster.
"No, no, no—" the stranger muttered.
Then a voice boomed through her mind, low and ancient.
"You always choose the wrong door."
She gasped, and the same voice thundered through the collapsing prison, loud enough to shake the walls themselves.
NO ONE LEAVES ALIVE!
The stranger grabbed her and pulled her toward the crumbling gate just as the floor beneath them gave out completely. Below, something vast began to rise from the ground, darkness, broken ice, and countless eyes opening one by one in the void behind it.
Then white light swallowed everything.
Silence followed.
The system's voice returned, calm once more.
CONGRATULATIONS.
YOU HAVE SURVIVED LEVEL ONE.
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