The group of six kept silent, it seemed that none of them knew what this...strange man was talking about. He crossed his arms in response, "seriously? Nobody kn-...okay. That's fine, it's simple! You'll all catch on quickly."
In one quick movement, he rummaged for something in both pockets and after pulling out both hands, Y/n noticed that in his left was a small remote, in his right were seven, small sticks of sorts. He pressed a button on the remote which caused the stage he was standing on to shudder; a small compartment had opened behind him and rose up from behind him. A small table appeared with multiple items littered on said table.
"You will each draw a random stick from my hand. Each stick has a number written on it!" He turned to the table and grabbed a small jar, with small pieces of paper mixed up inside, "you cannot tell anyone else your number, after, a random slip of paper will be drawn and whoever gets called is the King. The King calls any of the numbers that aren't their own up to the stage."
It was easy enough. Y/n had tried to crane her head up to get a better view of what was on the table as it came up from the ground, but she couldn't get a good look.
"The King has the power to tell the other person to do anything, as long as it draws blood, but isn't enough to kill them. We keep the game going until at least half of the people inside die."
Y/n could tell that the others, including herself, had their blood run cold at the sound of that. She could only assume at this point that the many items on the table were weapons of some kind, of course, this would also mean that he was allowing the six of them an opportunity to take a weapon and kill the rest of the contestants in this room.
Was that what he wanted?
The half-masked male descended from the stage's steps on the right-hand side and smiled as he approached the group who kept seated. When it came for Y/n's turn to draw one of the many sticks from his hand, she met his eyes and drew a stick, keeping his gaze until he left her table. Glancing down, she read her number; 2.
After everyone had drawn their stick, the man drew a slip of paper from the hat, "number six is the King!" Y/n could feel herself trembling at this point, her body going somehow cold in the room, flushed with fear.
The girl that had arrived with the two other males, stood up slowly, raising her stick with uncertainty. It was quiet while she hurried up the stage and paused to stare at the items on the table, "um... One and...three."
Y/n flinched at the sound of Ann, who sat next to her, standing up. She made it to the stage before the other male, one of the ones from the group of three. The girl who was the supposed 'King' looked shocked that she had called on one of her teammates, "T-three, punch one!"
Ann raised her brows at this and her lips somewhat twitched upwards, though, right before she could take a swing, a loud noise rang throughout the room. Y/n's ears were ringing due to how close the sound had originally been to her ears.
A loud scream erupted from upon the stage from the younger girl who was now clutching her arm in pain. The noise was still a tad bit muffled, but Y/n could clearly see blood running down from her left arm.
"You'll be fine. It won't kill you....yet," the masked individual tucked his gun away quickly, "you only get one mistake. It must draw blood...punches don't do justice," if this was what he deemed as a mistake, then they'd all have to choose their words carefully.
"Punches draw blood!" The last of the group of three who was still seated argued back, which caused the one who shot at the girl to glare at him.
"I don't trust one punch to draw blood."
It fell silent again, well, as silent as it could be with the girl on stage whimpering and trembling with a bloody arm. She glanced at the two who stood standing, one staring out of shock and fear, the other preparing themselves for what would come next, "one...one, use the knife and cut three's arm!"
Y/n blinked, her e/c eyes widening. She had switched up the attacker, was it because she noticed that Ann was going to take the swing? The male who stood across from Ann whipped his head to look at the injured girl with shock, "Nea!" He hissed with betrayal laced in his tone. Ann stepped over to the table and picked up a small pocket knife while Y/n let out a sigh of relief.
Perhaps Ann had acted like she was about to throw the punch just in case this event was to occur. She could've also planned to fight back rather than take the punch too, but it seemed like the one who was chosen to be the King was just as shocked as well.
"Three! I-I meant three cut one's arm!" She stammered, looking between the two and then back at the man who stood down by the chairs and tables. He just shrugged, "you already gave the order, and you only get one chance."
In a quick motion, Ann swiped at the man who had yet to decide if he wanted to take the injury or fight back and deal with the consequences. He let out a pained yell and immediately used his other hand to cover the wound so the blood wouldn't pool out as quickly. Ann placed the weapon back on the table and the three quietly left the stage.
"Now, I'll collect your sticks and we all redraw numbers!"
The second round had Y/n holding her breath as the man that had first entered the room, the oldest one, had been called to be King. She hated this, hated sitting and waiting out of anxiety while playing this sick game. The black-haired girl, Nea, that had been shot had been clutching her arm in discomfort, frequently creating small noises of pain. There was a small ounce of pity given out to her from Y/n...but the protagonist also felt bitter towards her, as if she deserved the injury. It was possibly from the spite of attempting to get Ann injured.
"Four and...five."
Y/n's blood ran cold as she saw the number five written on her stick. She stood, as well as the same male who had been up on stage before. His arm was still bleeding, but he made do with a ragged, white cloth. The two of them walked on stage and stood quietly across from each other. Y/n took this chance to eye the table of weapons.
Three knives, one a large kitchen knife, the other two being a pocket knife and a poorly made dagger which had been clearly rusting. There was an axe, four darts, pliers, and a gun. The last weapon she eyed warily as it was unknown if the gun was loaded or not. Why would he, the possible killer, allow that choice of weapon when it could be easily used against him?
"F-four," the sound of the number changed the expressions on both the victim's faces, "pierce five's hand with a dart."
The male stared at the darts on the table, his eyes just as wide as Y/n's. For a moment, the female thought about making a break for one of the doors, or even for the gun to shoot the ringmaster of this whole game, but this wouldn't change the fact that the one off-stage could act first. She would be shot in the head and it would be all over.
"Choose a hand," he muttered, plucking one of the darts from the table. He looked it over with his other hand stuffed leisurely in his pocket. Y/n chose her left, holding it out with her palm facing upwards. For now, they would have to play along. Even though she was expecting the male to stab the dart into her hand, he instead had only prodded the pointed end into her skin enough that it had drawn a bead of blood.
The masked man did not look too pleased with the lack of a show and Y/n caught a look of vague disappointment on the King.
"Don't play smart with me," he said as the three of them left the stage, "do that again and you know I won't hesitate to put a bullet through your skull."
Before the numbers were passed out again, a beep echoed in the room. Then a second, and a third following right after. The man shuffled the sticks in his hands and released an amused snort. Three had been killed.
______
Doctor Smiley never really enjoyed getting his hands dirty, but when an entire group of people was resting and oblivious to his presence, he couldn't resist the chance. To be entirely fair, the doctor did not enjoy this predicament either. His capture was...well, messy, to say the least.
The moment he smelled fire, he entered Levi's room in order to leave the place, but had been knocked away by a man, a very strong one at that. Levi was standing too, his eyes were wide and terrified. Before Dr. Smiley could recompose himself, he had been dragged out by whoever had knocked him down in the first place. He could only thrash against his attacker until he was dragged outside and tossed effortlessly to the side.
Another sharp blow to his head had knocked him clean out, so the man didn't know what really happened after that.
Now, rid of his medical equipment, mask, and gloves, he could only make do with what he had been given in his first room...which, thankfully, there happened to be a very worn-out sickle. Lucky him.
Blood stained the small room's floor and the artificial snow. The cold slush turned pink when Smiley attempted to clean off his crimson-stained hands, but it did very little. The feeling of the somewhat slimy substance had him craving a way to wash it off before it would dry and stick to his hands. And, most of all, Dr. Smiley wished that there wasn't an annoying noise each time a person died. He had been caught by surprise the first time it went off but found it irritating when it was loudest in the room he was in now.
Was the noise meant to be a locater? Dr. Smiley knew this game had some sort of grudge against the original show, but to give away a position like his was not a very smart idea; he'd just eliminate all the competition.
"Great..." He sighed unenthusiastically as he rummaged in the belongings of the three dead before him. The room was growing colder by the second, so he wanted to leave. Who decided resting here was a good idea anyways? Just because there were thick trees in the small landscape and large snow mounds nearby did not mean they were well hidden. Dr. Smiley hummed in satisfaction when he found a small pocket knife and slipped it inside his white coat pocket. They didn't have much in terms of rations, only a small bag of salted peanuts and one small water bottle; not the best, but he'd make with what he had.
Dr. Smiley left the room in a hurry, deciding to just rush through at least three or four more so he could get as far away from the scene as possible. Of course, he closed the doors behind him so it would be hard for anyone who arrived with the intent to kill to find him.
"The Rake would be pretty good at this game," the doctor mumbled with a small smirk as he arrived in a room that had been designed to look like a library; this place actually had books on the shelves too!
Shutting the door softly behind him, Smiley slowly approached the long bookcases quietly. The floor was carpeted, so that helped him conceal the sounds of his footsteps. Another thing that stood out to him was the small speckles of blood stained on the brown carpet. The doctor bent down on one knee and used the back of his hand to drag across the area. Dry. It was not fresh.
Still, that did not mean the one who was injured had left this area, in fact, this only piqued Dr. Smiley's curiosity a bit more. The fewer contestants there were, the less time he would need to spend in this place.
I still need to find Y/n and Levi... The male thought, clutching the sickle he still had in his dominant hand. He couldn't just leave without finding out if they were okay, Y/n for the most part; of course, he knew she could defend herself...but in this place... It was much different from the maze to put it simply, and Dr. Smiley wasn't even in it in the first place.
Even after leaving the somewhat long hall of bookshelves, Dr. Smiley realized this library was larger than he thought. It would be very well possible for someone to hide and not know about it. Or, he could do just that and ambush whoever entered.
Yes, perfect.
~
BEN had been working tirelessly, attempting to find something, anything that could lead them to where this facility had been built, but either his connection was weak or the materials he had were faulty because the blond could not get anywhere with information. He had the chat up on Y/n's phone in hopes that someone who knew about the project would spill something important, but it was all of the same nonsense.
How long has he been here? What time was it? At this point, BEN didn't give a damn anymore.
The results were simple; they had no leads. Everyone, and by everyone he meant all the killers available to Masky, knew of this operation by now. Hoodie himself even had come to visit BEN the same day he had made the call to the other proxy...and he didn't seem too pleased to see that BEN had Y/n's phone.
"Who cares if we could've used it to track her down," BEN mimicked, still pissed off from the scolding he had received, "you have the best infiltrator here and you care about a stupid cellphone?"
Well, why hasn't our infiltrator found anything? He could almost hear Hoodie reply with a sneer behind that frowning mask. Well... He didn't know, okay?! All the information that he was getting always led back to One Killer Maze's original location, and that couldn't be possible unless-... BEN paused.
Unless... They were using the abandoned facility as a disguise.
BEN added another screen, smaller than the live stream, up on his monitor and tapped the side of the keyboard twice. Green jolts of electricity caused the item on his lap to shudder, the small screen showing up as blank for a few moments before multiple smaller screens appeared on the new window he had opened.
Cameras. Cameras of the old facility.
Nowadays, a large handful of people knew where this location was, but a smaller handful had actually visited the area. Now, it looked like an everyday abandoned building from the outside, covered in graffiti, littered with trash, and broken in many, many places. Any valuables that were left inside were stolen and probably sold off to whoever bid the highest price, that is, if the police didn't catch them. BEN rolled his eyes. The police didn't care about the actual killers on the loose but they did care about the amount of stolen tech and information from inside the halls of that building.
Widening the screen of the cameras that were displayed, he made a count of the ones that were shut down or barely functioning. There were only five working on the inside of the building when there were usually ten, and only one of the four outside cameras was online.
"Interesting..." BEN mumbled, staring intently at the outside camera. This footage showed the very front of the facility. The dark road (it was night) could barely be seen, so BEN rewinded that camera specifically to the earlier time of the day.
Nothing, just the flutter of a leaf falling diagonally in front of the camera. BEN rewound the footage again, to a later date. The leaf appeared again. Then again, and again. A breathless laugh escaped the male.
It wasn't a live feed of the front camera; it was prerecorded and set on a loop.
"And you would only do something like that if you're hiding something!" BEN grinned. The other online cameras did not show anything of interest as they only focused on areas of the facility that were just empty rooms. The cameras that were truly important though were the ones that were currently broken. How convenient.
BEN fumbled for his discardable phone and began dialing frantically. If he was right about this, they could get to this One Killing Maze sooner than he thought.
_____
This game was getting exhausting. Everyone in the room was bleeding, only two of them severely injured and clearly fighting for their last breath, but not once did the masked man has to climb the stage. He had not been wounded at all despite participating in his own game.
Y/n had only gotten to be the King once and that was right after she was cut on the leg, ripping her nice jeans. Ann was doing worse than her, but still awake and alert.
Finally, finally, Y/n's number was called to become King again. As she made her way up to the stage, she decided to think things over. There were seven in this room, counting herself, right? So, of course, there would be three sticks to choose from. They had played at least just around twelve rounds of the King's Game, and the number of times she had gotten a different number should have matched up with the number of sticks they had.
Yet, Y/n had never gotten the number seven.
She had also noticed that nobody had called up the number either.
The h/c-haired girl took a small look over at the weapons on the table; each had been used, covered in blood, all except for the axe. Nobody really wanted to tell another person to kill the other, that's why they weren't using any items that could mortally wound the other player.
"One and seven." She called from the stage, her eyes furrowing. Everyone raised their heads in interest and confusion.
Seven? There was a seven? She could hear their thoughts by reading their faces and expression. Though, her eyes were solely on the masked one in the center of the others. Ann stood from the corner of her eye and made her way to the stage.
The black-haired coughed and then covered it with a laugh, "Y/n...I think I misheard you wrong, seven?"
Y/n shook her head.
She had him right where she wanted him. After a few moments of silence with Y/n and Ann staring him down, he then sighed, threw his hands up, and nodded, "alright, alright," he made his way to the stairs of the stage and walked up them slowly, "I really didn't think anyone was going to call on me with all the rounds we've played. Well done."
Was he admitting that he was number seven then? Or...was he just trying to trick her?
No, no, he admitted that he was seven, she thought, don't let him get to you.
"One, use the axe." She looked at Ann, who made her way to the table. She gripped the axe tightly in her right hand and held it close to her hip, but the so-called audience gasping caught Y/n's attention first.
"Shit," the masked male hissed, his gun pointed at Ann, "he didn't say it would go like this."
"You little coward, bitch!" Ann snapped right back, "you aren't even a real killer, aren't you?! You're just acting tough to scare others off!"
Y/n could see the tremors that shook the hand that held the gun pointed at Ann, "listen, you can let us go, and this will all be-"
The gun pointed in Y/n's direction. Just as it left Ann, the woman hurled it toward the male's figure. The h/c-haired girl threw herself off to the side, covering her head just as she hit the table. A gunshot rang off in the room and screams erupted from the others straight after. The table wobbled and the weapons on it slid and clattered on the ground; one of the knives sliced and area on Y/n's palm, blood blooming from the injury.
"Y/n!" She could hear Ann's struggling voice, so she snapped quickly out of her daze and grabbed the weapon closest to her.
The gun.
She got to her feet, running to the edge of the stage. Ann and the male, now unmasked, were struggling with each other on the ground. Ann had him pinned, but could only do so much as he still had the gun in his right hand. She was doing well, but could not hold him for long. The others that had been injured in the game were scattered across the room, some hiding in the booths on either side.
Y/n aimed the gun to the dimly lit ground where the two fought, "I don't want to hit you!"
She could see the gun twist in his grip, his arm pinned, but not his hand.
"Just SHOOT!"
Right before he could shoot Ann in the face from his place on the floor, Y/n directed the gun she had to an area where his chest was exposed but was also a narrowly close area to where Ann was hunched over him. The male jolted, the bullet clearly impacting him as his struggle slowly ceased. Both girls breathed heavily, adrenaline pumping loudly in their veins before Ann quickly grabbed the gun and something in his pocket before she scrambled to her feet. Fresh blood was splattered across her face and a stream of it dribbled down from her nose and to her chin, she wiped at it with the back of her hand.
Ann hurried back up the stage and to Y/n's side who was still somewhat put off by the fact that the other female had a gun too, but it didn't look like she was going to harm Y/n, at least, not yet, "what should we do with the others?" Y/n asked quietly. She could feel the gazes of the rest of the injured in the room. Ann was quiet, her eyes searching out in the dimness of the room.
"They'll bleed out if their wounds aren't treated or they'll be killed by someone else entirely," she murmured back, "we'll let them go."
Relief burned at Y/n's chest as Ann messed with the item she had taken from the dead man on the floor. The sound of the doors unlocking caused everyone to jump, "oh, and this stuff," she pointed back to the weapons that were once on the table, now on the floor, "this stuff is ours."
She said it loud enough so everyone could hear it.