Ruby Fridays

Chapter 63: Blood Meadow

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N O W P L A Y I N G

» [ The Presto Strings - Song Jin Seok, Hwang Seung Pil ] «

1:13 ──〇─────── 2:26

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───── ❝ R U B Y F R I D A Y ' S P O V ❞ ────

║ Gregorian Calendar ║ 02 - 27 - 2027 ║

║ Saturday║ Second Day of Olympia's Cup║

The blaring siren pierced through the silence of the day like a knife, jolting me awake from my slumber. I had been dreaming of home, of warm summer evenings filled with laughter and love. But, those sweet memories were shattered as the piercing sound cut through my mind, pulling me back to this cold chamber of stone and steel.

The incessant wailing rose in pitch and intensity, filling my cell and the long corridors beyond with an eerie, foreboding tone. An ominous warning of some impending doom or terror, no doubt meant to fill our hearts with fear and dread.

The siren wailed again, long and haunting, its sound cutting through the darkness. It was not the usual alarm used to rouse prisoners from their sleep, nor the usual siren the school used to signal the times of class.

This was the Games siren, the one that signaled the beginning of a new day of torture and perhaps bloodshed.

With its dreading call, I immediately knew what it meant - the second day of the games had begun. The siren, like a banshee's cry, pulled me from my dream of home and rest, thrusting me back into this nightmare world of stone walls and iron bars.

I pushed myself up from my spot on the cold floor where me and my teammates had slept, my muscles aching and stiff, and my heart pounding in my chest. The siren's cry still rang in my ears, a grim reminder of what awaited us beyond the cell. Another day of fighting for our lives, of spilling the blood of others to survive for just one more sun rise. The siren called over and over, as the second day of our hell began.

The same time that the room casts an eerie red glow from the flashing light outside the small window of the chamber, was the time the other girls from my team woke up. We looked at each other with hollow eyes, knowing that we were lucky to make it through another night. No words were needed, the grim reality of our situation spoke for itself. We stood up stiffly from our spots on the cold floor, our thin clothes doing little to protect us from the chill.

"Ugh, that damn siren," Serene growled as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Staring at her, I can see her eyes flashed with annoyance as she glared at the unknown, her fists clenching at her sides, as if the shrill siren grated on her already frayed nerves, the never-ending alarm a mockery of their captivity, as if she longed to smash the source of that wretched noise, to tear it from the wall and hurl it to the ground in a burst of shattered plastic and broken circuits.

But as if knowing such defiance would only earn her more time in isolation, she rose from her laying place, grumbling under her breath. Dark circles hung heavy under her eyes and her now auburn hair stuck out in limp tangles as if the incessant siren drills felt designed specifically to wear down her spirit and fray her nerves.