No escape
1201 Words
Kai's POV
I don’t know how long we stood there, staring at our phones as the gruesome tasks ticked away, but I do know that something snapped inside of me. The weight of what the game was making us do crushed me until I couldn’t breathe.
Without a word, I took a deep breath and slammed my phone into the ground as hard as I could. The screen shattered, tiny shards scattering across the dirt.
"What the hell, Kai?!" Tae yelled, but before he could stop me, Rubin followed my lead, hurling his phone against a nearby tree.
"We can’t keep playing this sick game," I said through gritted teeth. "If we don’t have phones, it can’t make us do anything."
For a moment, the others hesitated, looking at their screens as if they were lifelines. But then, one by one, they smashed their phones, letting out screams of frustration and fear. Marianne hurled hers against a rock, tears streaming down her face. Mark crushed his phone under his heel until the screen turned to dust.
We stood in a circle, surrounded by broken glass and bent metal, our chests heaving from the effort. For a brief second, I felt a flicker of hope. Maybe we had done it. Maybe this nightmare was over.
But when I looked up, the forest seemed to shift around us. The fog grew thicker, the trees closing in like prison bars. The exit we thought we saw moments before was gone, swallowed up by the darkness.
"Where do we go now? Guys do something I'm scared" Marianne screamed her voice was sharp, cutting through the silence we were all experiencing .
"We need to get out of here," I said, trying to sound confident even though I felt anything but. "There has to be an exit somewhere."
We started walking, sticking together like glue, our eyes darting around at every snap of a twig or rustle of leaves. The deeper we went, the more the forest twisted into an endless maze. Every path seemed to loop back on itself, leading us right back to where we started.
"It's like we're trapped in a nightmare," Mark muttered, his voice trembling.
"No," Tae replied, shaking his head. "It's worse than a nightmare because we’re awake, and there’s no waking up from this."
After what felt like hours of walking, the adrenaline that had fueled us burned out, replaced by a deep exhaustion. My stomach growled loudly, reminding me that we hadn’t eaten since lunch, and that had been ages ago I don't even know what time is it now.
"Does anyone have any food?" Rubin asked, his eyes desperate.
Marianne checked her bag, pulling out an empty gum wrapper and a bottle of water with barely a sip left. "This is all I’ve got."
"We can’t survive on that," I muttered, clutching my stomach as another hunger pang hit. We were starving, and the forest didn’t seem to have any end in sight.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small movement in the bushes. I turned, squinting through the mist, and spotted it a tiny rabbit, sniffing the ground.
"It’s just a rabbit," Mark said, noticing where I was looking.
"Food," Rubin muttered, his eyes locked on the animal. I realized then what he was thinking. I was thinking the same thing.
We were too weak to care about anything else. Survival instincts kicked in, drowning out every other thought. Rubin and I exchanged a look, a silent agreement passing between us. We needed food, no matter what.
I crouched down, moving as quietly as I could. The rabbit didn’t notice me at first, nibbling on a blade of grass. In one swift motion, I lunged forward, grabbing it by the neck. It squirmed in my hands, but I held tight, my grip firm.
I looked back at the others. "I know this is insane, but if we don’t eat something, we’re not going to make it."
"Are we seriously going to eat that raw?" Marianne asked, her face pale. But the hunger in her eyes mirrored my own.
"It’s either this or we starve," Rubin said flatly.
We didn’t have the tools, no knives, the time, or the patience to make a fire. We were starving, and there was no other choice. I closed my eyes, steeling myself, and took a bite.
The taste was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was metallic, salty, and raw blood dripping down my chin. I gagged my eyes were dropping silent tears but forced myself to swallow, the need to survive stronger than the urge to vomit.
Rubin grabbed the rabbit from me and took a bite, wincing at the taste but forcing himself to eat. Tae and Mark looked horrified, but their hunger won out. They each took turns, their faces twisting in disgust.
Marianne was the last to take it. She hesitated, looking like she was going to cry. "I can’t believe we’re doing this, never in my life I thought I could experience this nightmare" she whispered. But even she took a small bite, shuddering as she chewed.
We are what we could, our faces turned in a mixture of disgust and desperation. When the rabbit was nothing but bones, we sat back, panting, the taste of blood still heavy in our mouths.
"Well, that’s a new low," Mark muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Yeah," I agreed quietly, staring at my bloodied hands. "But at least we’re still alive."
For now.
We continued walking, the forest seeming even darker now, the mist clinging to our skin like a cold, damp blanket. My phone was broken, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the game was still watching us, lurking somewhere in the shadows, waiting for its next move.
Suddenly, Tae stumbled, almost falling to the ground. I reached out, grabbing his arm to steady him. "You okay?"
"I’m fine," he said through gritted teeth. "Just dizzy."
"We need to rest," Marianne said, her voice exhausted.
"No," Rubin snapped. "We can’t stop now. We have to find a way out before it gets worse."
"And what if there isn’t a way out?" Mark asked, his voice cracking. "What if we’re stuck here forever?"
"Don’t say that," I snapped back, my voice harsher than I intended. "There has to be an exit. We just haven’t found it yet."
But even as I said it, I wasn’t sure I believed it. The forest seemed endless, a never-ending maze designed to trap us here until we either starved or gave up.
And I couldn’t shake the feeling that smashing our phones hadn’t changed anything. If anything, it had made the game angrier. I glanced around, half expecting to see the eerie smiley face of the app lurking in the darkness, watching us struggle.
As we trudged on, the weight of our decision pressed down on us. We had tried to escape the game, but it felt like we had only made things worse. And deep down, I knew this was just the beginning of a nightmare that would only get darker from here.
I miss home
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- Writer
