The Last Game { K Project Fan-fiction }

The Prison of Thorns

" Who shall it be today ? " the woman with the frizzy black hair grinned as every child in the room shrunk back into the shadows, huddling against the wall as they tried to hide from her blood-stained hands. I sat cross-legged in one corner of the cage, aware that she had entered but not bothering much as I tucked my legs close to my chest. I bowed my head but from the corner of my eye, I watched her drag away a boy, approximately 7 at most who was kicking and crying as another girl in the cage cried as well. Twins ? Most probably. It was useless to cry already though, especially since we were already at this place with no escape. 

This was a place in one of the abandoned areas of Shizume town, I had only seen the outside once but once was  more than enough to burn the image into my head. Roses tainted red swayed gently in the slight breeze, green vines grew up the clean white walls and it looked nothing more than a normal house. The lady who exits the house smiles charmingly at you, she wears a long aquamarine dress with a clean white apron over it, her frizzy black hair is neatly pulled back into a ponytail held together by a black band. She was holding a watering can the first time I met her, I had thought she was watering the roses but the watering can held no water, only a thick red liquid which resembled blood, maybe it was.

She will hold your hand kindly and welcome you to the orphanage, the place inside actually looks normal, a room with a door leading to what looked like a kitchen and another metal door which had strange red patches leaking from underneath. You'll want to run now if you still can but I bet you can't because by now, she'd have already dragged you into a cage and thrown you in together with 700 over children, most of whom were already dead and rotting or crying in somebody's arms if they had been recently brought over as well. I was thrown in a cage with 24 children, among which 17 of them were boys and the remaining were girls, the oldest among all was around 16 and the youngest, a pair of siblings, were only 5. 

Honestly, it felt a little dark at first but when your eyes got used to the little light available, the only faint shafts of light coming from the cracks in the roof, you'll notice all the other cages crammed into the room, the children packed together with dead bodies like sardines in a can, except these were bodies in a cage. 

A single index finger traces down the lines of razor wire twisted around my hand, embedded quite deeply in, I should be glad I wasn't dead yet. There were some winding down my neck and limbs as well, only the face remained untouched but that should be some good news unlike others who had their eyes sewed to their mouths or their noses split and remade. It was painful, shouldn't I be glad I wasn't dead ... no, I think I would be better off dead. How long had time passed here ? For all I knew, long enough for me to be more than used to the sudden screams that broke the tensed atmosphere during midnight. Did anyone still remember me or had they already forgotten ? 

No, of course nobody would. There was nobody left who would remember after all. 

Each movement just hurt, the razor cutting into the skin, tearing gaping cuts, allowing infection to seep in slowly, madness which took over your mind inch by inch, plunging your entire soul in an unescapable darkness, where no one would be able to reach you. You could try to push it away but each day just gets more horrible than the next, the screaming from the other room before a lifeless body is dragged back into the cages, the body horribly mutilated and everyone watches in silence at that crimson apron and the newly acquired red patches on the dress, shoes, hair ... the list was endless. It was torture. 

In the end, insanity will take you but you would find it more of a bliss than a pest after a few days if you were weak-willed. After a few weeks at most, anyone here would anxiously await for that craziness to swallow them up, joyfully embrace that deep abyss when it comes to take them away. Those people who had sunk to the lowest level were terrifying though, they were awake 24 hours each day, never seeming to sleep, eat or needing to do anything else. Everyone would be rudely jolted awake from a high-pitched scream from some cage either below you, above you or some cages away on your right or left. However much you strain your eyes, the most you can see would be some splatter of fresh blood on the floor and the stench of death hanging in the air.