Chapter Text
“You can buy me a soju when we get out,” a voice echoed in Gi-hun’s head. Those were the words Young-il had said to Gi-hun when he had thanked him for saving his life, his eyes shifting from the rifle in his hand to Gi-hun, as he pulled its strap across his neck.
The words kept replaying like a cassette stuck in the tape recorder since Gi-hun had heard Young-il’s last words on the walkie-talkie.
“Gi-hun ssi, I am sorry,” Young-il’s words had fizzled through the device. “It’s all over. They got us too.” Gi-hun had heard a gurgling sound, followed by a deafening gunshot.
“Advance team, do you copy? We are out of ammo. We are surrendering,” A voice from the walkie-talkie snapped Gi- hun out of his reverie. Jung-bae withdrew his magazine to check, which was empty too.
And just like that, his last hope abandoned him.
“I surrender,” Jung-bae slowly lowered down his rifle, and then himself on the ground. Gi-hun followed suit, putting his hands behind his head as two pink guards stood behind, holding them at gun-point.
‘Wait. Here, take this,” Gi-hun had grabbed Young-il by his shoulder. “You’re going to need it,” He had said, extending his last magazine to the man in front of him.
“Are you sure?” Young-il had asked, his gaze fixed on Gi-hun’s. He had only nodded in response, knowing that their teammate Dae-ho would be back any second with the ammunition.
Young-il’s body had frozen momentarily, his eyes wavered before taking the magazine from Gi-hun’s hand. What was it behind those eyes? Surprise? Skepticism? Apprehension? Hesitation?
As Young-il’s face swirled inside his head, Gi-hun heard heavy footsteps nearing him. He saw a pair of black boots coming down the stairs and instant dread filled his body from head to toe.
“Player 456,” the distorted voice spoke. “Did you have fun playing the hero?”
Hearing that voice again sent shivers down his spine. Gi-hun raised his head to find the man of his nightmares standing over him, like a wave of tsunami waiting to engulf everything in its path. His heart was hammering inside his chest, threatening to explode out of the ribcage surrounding it.
The masked man lifted his left hand, pointing a gun at Gi-hun. “Look closely at the consequences of your little hero game.”
Gi-hun braced himself, his eyes defiantly staring up at the Frontman. He inhaled deeply, anticipating the bullet to pierce his body, but panic overtook him as he saw the black-gloved hand turn towards Jung-bae.
“Gi-hun,” Jung-bae said weakly, hands behind his head, his face a mixture of horror and despair.
Before Gi-hun could react, a loud bang echoed through the hallway, followed by a thump. Jung-bae’s empty eyes stared into him as blood pooled around his body.
“No!” Gi-hun threw himself onto him, the blood leaking from Jung-bae’s chest staining his sleeves. He shook Jung-bae, but his friend refused to budge.
Rage consumed him as he crawled towards the Frontman, who was now climbing back the same stairs that he had descended from not long ago. He felt two pairs of hands digging into his shoulders and pinning him to the floor, his face just inches away from Jung-bae’s. A sudden pain arose in his chest which spread like wildfire across his entire body. Tears blurred his vision, as he lay gasping for air.
Gi-hun saw his whole world crashing down; three years of sleepless nights chasing after a shadow man, countless hours of planning and tons of manpower spent, all the time he could have been with his daughter across the Pacific Ocean instead; endangering multiple lives for the rebellion, including Jung-bae and Young-il’s, ultimately culminating into nothing.
Maybe this was dying felt like. The pain slowly overtaking every cell in your body, the blood clumping in your veins, the air collapsing in your lungs, and your brain squirming to break out of your skull.
Dark spots covered his vision as his consciousness slipped away. He felt numbness wash over his limbs as a pair of hands slipped below his underarms, and another pair grabbed him by the feet. Gi-hun hit his head on wooden surface and his eyes closed shut without permission.
*
“They’re moving!” Player 145 yelled as Gyeong-seok saw the pink guards moving across the bright-green bridge connecting them.
“They’re coming this way!” Player 324 fired shots, his rifle aimed towards the bridge.
Player 324 slumped to the floor, gripping the bullet wound in his right forearm.
Gyeong-seok quickly pulled out his magazine to find it empty. A bullet grazed past his ear to penetrate the wall behind him, forcing him to jump and take cover in the opposite direction.
“We should retreat,” Player 145 said, holding an empty magazine akin to Gyeong-seok’s.
“This side is blocked as well,” he yelled over the deafening noise of bullets firing behind him.
“All players, it is bedtime now,” a robotic female voice announced through the speakers. “Please return to your quarters, otherwise you will be eliminated from the game.”
“No, don’t!” Gyeong-seok pleaded as he saw Player 324 aim the rifle below his chin.
“Let me repeat,” the speaker rang again as Player 324 pressed the trigger, the pink wall behind him splattering in red.
“Let’s surrender,” Player 145 called out to Gyeong-seok, pointing his eyes to the guards surrounding them. “We need to survive somehow.”
Gyeong-seok reluctantly looked around, seeing four triangle-faced guards approaching them. Where’s Hyun-ju ssi? Did she get lost too while looking for Dae-ho ssi? He wondered, a tiny part of him hoping for a miracle, for the tall woman to somehow burst through the wall of guards with the ammunition they were in desperate need of.
Player 145 emerged from his spot, hands raised above his shoulders. “Please don’t kill-”
A pink guard fired at his chest before he could finish his sentence. Gyeong-seok looked around in disbelief; his hands frozen in the air as another pink guard marched towards him with his rifle pointed at him. The guard did not pause his steps, instead strode fast until Gyeong-seok was backed into a corner.
“Please don’t kill me,” Gyeong-seok begged the armed man in front of him. “My daughter is very sick-”
A sudden heat seared through his lower abdomen, and he fell to the floor. His hands instinctively ran to his left side, where the bullet had entered his flesh.
“Close your eyes,” the masked man whispered to Gyeong-seok as he sat there quivering, gasping for air. “If you want to live, do as I say.”
Without asking any questions, he did as he was told. He felt a cold metal bar touch the skin below his left ear. He heard a beep, followed by a mechanical voice stating, “Player 246 eliminated.”
Gyeong-seok felt himself being lifted and carried away. His body thudded when his back hit what he assumed to be the floor.
“Take it away,” a distorted voice spoke, following which he felt something restrict the access to the air above.
Am I inside a coffin? He panicked; but did not dare to open his eyes. The coffin whirred into motion. Maybe it was the loss of blood due to the bullet wound, or the lack of oxygen inside the wooden box, or the myriads of disturbing events he had experienced in the past three days, or perhaps all the above combined, soon Gyeong-seok felt drowsiness taking over his body.
*
Gi-hun’s body wobbled inside the coffin as he slipped in and out of consciousness. Is this yet another nightmare? Where I have become paralysed and my mind is replaying my last moments over and over? No, I must have died, he thought as his mind flashed back to the Frontman shooting Jung-bae, the loud bang still ringing in his ears.
My time has finally come, but how will I face my ancestors? Knowing I have led multiple people to their deaths? Jung-bae’s lifeless eyes appeared to him, his face frozen in agony.
“Gi-hun, after the next game, let’s get out of here, okay?” Jung-bae had told him the night before the Mingle game, when they were sitting on guard by the bunk beds. “Let’s go and drink soju like old times.”
“Seong Gi-hun, the cheapskate of Ssangmun-dong”, that’s what Jung-bae had called him, which had brought an unguarded smile to Gi-hun’s face. And now Jung-bae is dead because of me, a thought emerged, how will I face him in the afterlife?
Despite his senseless state, he could feel being placed down after being carried for what felt like hours. He felt someone touching his face and then pulling him up on his feet. His mind protested but his body failed to react in any sort of way.
“You can buy me a soju when we get out,” Young-il’s face surfaced once again in his mind. For some inexplicable reason, he couldn’t shake those words out of his system.
He felt a hand under his neck, and then hit his head on something soft. Young-il ssi, is that you? Gi-hun tried to speak but the words remained trapped in his throat.
Young-il ssi, his memory wandered back to when Young-il had shot a pink guard with utmost precision, just as he was about to fire at Gi-hun. You saved my life, and what did I do?
A hand grabbed his shoulder, jerking it violently. “Sir, are you okay?” A male voice asked.
Gi-hun blinked slowly, his eyes adjusting to the bright light above. Am I in heaven? No, it can’t be… Sang-woo is that you? What are you-
The spectacled man interrupted his thought. “Oh, thank god, we were worried,” Player 007 sighed with relief. “My mother told me to come and check up on you, to see if you needed anything.”
Gi-hun lay there motionless, his eyes still adjusting to the face in front of him.
“When Hyun-ju ssi came back to collect the magazines, a lot of guards had entered here,” he said, sitting down on the bed near Gi-hun’s knee. “If my mother had not stopped her, they would’ve killed her too.”
Gi-hun followed his eyes to a corner where Dae-ho and Hyun-ju were sitting together on the floor. Could those two have colluded to stop the-
“No, no, it’s not what you think-” Player 007 interrupted his thoughts once again. “It was Dae-ho who did not return with the bullets. I had even helped him collect the magazines from the dead guards’ pockets, and huddled them all in a jacket,” he continued, even though Gi-hun had not uttered a single word till now. “He was out of the door too. But just seconds later, he came back, clutching the jacket tightly.”
He focused his gaze on Dae-ho. He was too far for Gi-hun to make out his expressions, but he was holding his knees to his chest, his back slumped over in an inverted C-shape.
“Are you sure?” Young-il had asked him as Gi-hun had offered up his last magazine.
“Dae-ho will be back with more,” Gi-hun had assured both Young-il and himself.
But he did not. Dae-ho had come all the way back to the dormitory, collected all the magazines, put them inside a jacket, and had even left through the side door. He, however, had ultimately chosen to retreat with the ammunition while Young-il and Jung-bae were shot to death.
“Yes, hyeongnim. I’m on my way to get them,” Gi-hun recalled hearing Dae-ho’s voice over the walkie-talkie in Jung-bae’s hand. “Yes, you can count on me, hyeongnim! I’ll be there soon!” He had shouted over the device as Jung-bae and Gi-hun reached their last round of bullets.
But he did not. For whatever reason, Dae-ho decided not to return with the ammunition, and Jung-bae and Young-il were dead because of it.
*
Gyeong-seok awoke to cold metal touching his back, his bare chest exposed to the air.
“I’m trying to save your life,” A triangle-masked guard stood over him. He gestured towards a pink jumpsuit lying in a corner. “Take that and get dressed quickly.”
Gyeong-seok slowly sat up and lowered down his feet, his head still woozy. He saw a bandage wrapped around his abdomen, blood slowly seeping through the white cotton.
He blinked his eyes rapidly to take in his surroundings, and was startled to see three dead guards scattered across the dimly lit room. What happened here?
The guard turned his back to Gyeong-seok as he slipped into the pink jumpsuit, which struck him as odd. Everything about this situation was odd; why had this guard saved his life, when they had killed everyone else? Did some sick punishment await him outside or was this his guardian angel in disguise?
“Hurry, we don’t have much time,” the distorted voice said, without turning back.
Gyeong-seok zipped up the top, wincing as the entire left half of his body throbbed. “I am done,” he said, covering his face with the black mask.
“Just do as I say,” the guard handed him a singular key attached to a small triangle. “This is the key to Guard 016’s room. Take this and go inside. There’s a camera in there too, so be careful.”
“Why are you helping me?” He couldn’t stop himself from asking.
“Don’t ask questions if you want to live. Now follow me.”
Gyeong-seok wanted to probe further but thought it best to keep quiet. These are dangerous people, it’s best not to ask questions, he told himself, burying deep the curiosity in his head. He followed the guard up a dark staircase, which opened to a now familiar pink hallway.
“Go and follow those soldiers,” he gestured towards the pink guards marching up the stairs in a single file, akin to worker ants. “Don’t talk to anyone, and wait till I contact you.”
Gyeong-seok quickly bowed to show his gratitude, and jogged towards the guards, joining the line. His thoughts travelled to Na-yeon, hoping that he reunites with his little daughter soon.
Korean terms used:
- ssi: an honorific suffix equivalent to “mr.,” “mrs.,” or “miss”; used to address someone respectfully, usually when you are not particularly close to them or when speaking to someone of a similar social standing.
- hyeongnim: an honorific term used to address an older male who is not a direct older brother, but is close to the speaker, often in a familial or respectful way; a more formal way to say "hyeong", which means older brother.