~Always tie your shoelaces to a double knot because you never know when you'll have to run a marathon. Hard situations occur when we least expect it. Same goes for good situations. Always be ready to stay and alway be ready to run~
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"Only two buttons left now" I said as the doors opened up.
"Level eight, double knot" the voice spoke.
"That's all? No 'the fourth level of your second chapter of your journey, clé 3'?" I asked when that was all we got.
"Seems so" Felix said.
"Always be ready to run and always be ready to stay, brace yourself" the voice then gave us our instructions.
"What are we playing red light green light or something?" I asked because of the instructions.
"That actually would have made sense though" Jeongin said with a shrug.
"Yeah if we were kids" I said.
"Or in squid game" Jisung suggested.
"Let's hope it's not like in squid game" Chan said.
We left the elevator and found ourselves in a city again. It was the outside of a city though. Here were abandoned warehouses and factories and not a person to be seen. It still didn't feel as cold and dark as miroh though. It just felt like an abandoned part of a city. Up in the sky we saw the two moons again but they were a tiny bit closer to each other.
"So what shall we do?" Jeongin asked and looked around.
"I'm guessing we're bracing ourself for what is about to come in the next level" I said with a shrug.
"And that means?" He proceeded to ask.
"Tie a double knot and just be ready for anything that could happen" I said, and as on cue a cloud of greenish fog came up behind us and making its way towards us rather fast.
"I'm guessing that's to make us brace ourselves!" Jeongin said and we all started running to get away from it.
It wasn't moving that fast, but it was enough to force us to run. We ran in the middle of the street into the city until we reached a big bridge, going over the highway. Finally the fog cleared up and no traces of it were left.
We all stopped to pant as we were already exhausted.
"I'm gonna take the game's tip and tie a double knot on my shoes" I said and squatted down to tie them hard in a double knot. I wasn't the only one who did so though.
"So I suppose we continue in this direction, since the fog lead us here" Seungmin said.
"That's probably correct" Chan said and we all started walking.
Then we heard a rumbling sound and and saw the bridge ahead of us had started do fall down from the other side and was continuing to fall towards us.
"Or maybe not" Chan said and we all started running the other way until we were off the bridge.
"Let's try the other way then" Changbin said and we tried the third way. This should be the correct one since there only were three ways.
We started walking and we got quite far before we stopped at a four way intersection.
"Now what way do we take?" I asked out loud.
We saw nothing suspicious in any direction. I suppose the things that happens just happens suddenly from nowhere, that's why we always need to be ready.
Suddenly a car came with really high speed, racing straight towards us.
We all ran off the road to the side walk to let the car pass.
"I swear this level is just all stress and anxiety" I said as I felt my heart was racing as fast as the car had been.
"I'm scared to death every time" Seungmin agreed.
"I'm hungry, can't we find a place to eat?" Jeongin asked.
"You think we'll be able to eat without getting killed in this level?" Felix asked him.
"Well, I'll die of starvation anyway, so..." he said with a shrug.
"We do have money left since Miroh, so why not try?" I said.
"Second problem, where will we find something to eat? This whole part of the city seems quite abandoned" Seungmin said.
"That place is open" Jeongin said and pointed at a ramen restaurant with a sign saying open facing the street.
"It's not certain it's open just because the sign says so, here's not a single person" Hyunjin said.
"Let's see if they're open" Chan said and we headed towards it.
We peeked inside and saw a lady making ramen behind the counter in the kitchen.
"See it's open" Jeongin said and stepped inside.
The lady looked up at us. "What can I get for you dears?" She asked.
"Something cheap" I said.
She laughed at us. "Such sweet kids, this one is on the house" she said.
Okay this is for sure a trap. We looked between each other.
"I'll take ramen with chicken and kimchi on the side" Jeongin ordered.
We all looked at him.
"What? It's free" he asked with a shrug.
"Exactly" Felix said.
"We'll die from starvation otherwise so let's just have something good to eat and not die with an empty stomach" he said and I could buy that.
"Fine, I'll have the same" I said.
We all ordered our ramen and sat down around a table to wait for our food. I was sitting between Chan and Jeongin and in front of me sat Felix.
He kept looking at me, like he'd done before too. "Whats so interesting over here?" I asked him.
"Nothing" he said and looked away.
I heard Jeongin snorted next to me. "I'm sleepy, let me just rest here on your shoulder" he said and tilted his head so it was on top of my shoulder.
Now Felix was looking again, he had big eyes and swallowed while watching us.
Then the food came and I forgot all about Felix because I was hungry. But like can you blame me? The noodles were really good too. It was for sure the best meal I'd had since getting trapped in the game. It was also the first real meal I'd had. Cup ramen, dry bread and bland porridge just can't compare to this.
"You got something there" Chan said and pointed at at the corner of his own mouth to show where on my own face I had something.
"Here?" I and we and pointed at the same place on my own face.
"No there" he said and pointed again.
I moved my finger slightly to where he was showing. Then he stretched his arm out and wiped it off himself.
Why was my face so warm. This is awkward though. I also heard Felix was choking on his ramen on the other side of the table.
He kept coughing as he couldn't breathe until he grabbed a glass of water to drink.
"Thank you" I said awkwardly to Chan with a awkward little smile.
Felix was staring now and he didn't look happy for some reason. He was clenching his fist so hard his knuckles were getting white.
Chan was also watching Felix and couldn't help but let out a chuckle. "Yah calm down Felix, I'm not stealing her" he said.
I looked between the two boys confused from Chan's words.
Felix didn't even seemed to have realized he was clenching his fists until now. He looked a bit flustered as he relaxed them.
"Who would you steal anyway?" He muttered with low voice.
"Felix is just..." Jeongin was starting to talk but Felix wouldn't let him finish before throwing one of his chopsticks at him.
"Don't say a word" he threatened the youngest with a death glare.
"Felix is just wonderful, am I right?" He changed what he was saying and showed a faked smile. He almost looked scared of Felix, or as if he was pretending to be scared. Trust me Jeongin isn't scared of anyone here, we're the ones scared of him. Felix knew it as well, the maknae hadn't actually been scared off by him, he was just teasing him.
"The tension at your part of the table is just electric" Seungmin who was sitting at the other end of the table said. He was rolling his eyes as he looked at us.
"Everything's just normal here" Jeongin said and flashed a smile.
"Well, I mean yeah, normal considering the circumstances" Seungmin agreed.
"Those two really" Changbin said.
"Stop talking about me and Felix as if we were a couple, we're not" I said feeling very wronged.
"You're not a couple?" Minho asked teasingly.
I glared at him. "Yeah, we've been married for 10 years now" I said with sarcasm.
"Congratulations" Changbin said.
"Can we please just eat in peace?" Felix asked at last.
"For once I agree" I said.
The others were amused, but between me and Felix this weird tension had been created. Looking at him felt weird and whenever I caught him looking at me it felt weirder.
"Everybody ready to leave?" Chan asked and stood up when we'd all finished eating and were just chatting a bit.
So far nothing had happened. Maybe we'd been poisoned and couldn't notice it yet, but that was the only possible trap so far.
I nodded and the others also felt ready and stood up. We were about to walk out the door when we saw fog starting to fill up the street outside.
"Or maybe not" I said.
It was the same greenish fog from before and it didn't look friendly. I bet if we stepped out in it we would get boils or fried like chicken or something.
"Always be ready to run and always be ready to stay, I guess this is when we need to stay then" I said after thinking back on the instructions for this level.
"Sounds logic to me" Minho said.
The lady working here was gone, back in the kitchen probably, but we sat back down again and continued our chitchatting.
It took a while for the fog to clear out, but at last we dared to go outside, that was to almost be run over by a car. We were about to just cross the street when the same racing car as last time raced past and almost ran us over, but we managed to stop in time to not get hit.
"Let's continue" Jisung said and we all started walking in a direction that felt good. We had four ways to choose between, it in reality three since we came from one too, but picking a path was hard when you don't like taking decisions. Luckily some of the others were better than me at taking decisions.
We were walking for a while and so far nothing had happened. We continued walking and the sun was starting to set.
"Maybe we should find a place to rest the night out and continue tomorrow" Chan suggested when he saw Jeongin was yawning.
"I second that" I agreed. I was also really tired now.
"Okay but where will we be able to have a rest without dying here? The game keeps trying to kill us every time we get off the route" Felix said and seemed optimistic.
"Then we must stay on the route" I said with a shrug.
"Are we just going to lay down here in the middle of the road and wait for that car to run us over?" He asked.
"No, but we didn't have any problems eating, the restaurant was also off track but still close enough" I said.
"But there did come that green fog" Jeongin pointed out.
"Yeah but that was outside" I said.
We walked past a bed and breakfast with a lit up neon sign saying vacancy. "Look it's like they're telling us to stay the night" Seungmin said and pointed at the sign.
"It really is though" Changbin agreed.
"The restaurant had been there so conveniently and now this bed and breakfast, they either are letting us prepare for something terrible or it's just traps" Jisung said.
"I mean the level is all about preparing yourself, so we could hope it's not a trap" I said with a shrug.
"I say we hope it's not a trap because I want to sleep" Jeongin said and went straight up to the building.
The one taking the decisions here is definitely Jeongin. He does what he wants, and right now that is sleeping.
The rest of us just followed him inside. A sign on the counter said 'self check in, the keys can be found in the locker behind the desk'
"This is not making it feel better, but sure, let's just take a key" Felix said and went to the locker to look.
***
A/N This is seriously me with my chapters' names at this point...
I won't keep them like that... probably. But at this point I like don't even care ahaha...