A Game of Tag (2)

"I-it's not my fault."

Kang Hyun-soo ran, gasping for air. There was no real reason to head for the cornfield — Kim Min-jeong had already been caught, and the moment she died the game would end on its own — but the boy ran anyway, sweat pouring off him in sheets.

He kept his eyes locked forward, and still her face refused to leave him. The image was burned into the back of his skull: her throat crushed in that massive grip, drool spilling from the corner of her mouth, a crawling, choking rasp begging him to save her. Tears streamed without end. Cut off from blood, her skin had flushed a blazing red, and she had stared at him with eyes so bloodshot the vessels looked ready to burst.

"I-I told her from the start I wouldn't help even if she asked! S-so it's not my fault. H-helping her back there would've been suicide. W-who the hell would? Wanting that kind of humanity out of people is just— it's wrong!"

No one could have fairly condemned the choice. The thing hunting them stood well over six and a half feet tall, a mountain of a man with the strength to pulp a human skull in one hand. Kang Hyun-soo was only in the eighth grade. Facing that monster was as close to impossible as anything got. If he had gone back for her, the odds of dying a dog's death in her place dwarfed any slim chance of actually pulling her free.

It had been the optimal decision. The one that kept him alive.

And yet the face would not leave him — Kim Min-jeong weeping, those pitiful eyes pleading for someone, anyone, to save her. His chest tightened as if a hand had closed around his own throat. A nauseating heat ate through his ribs until he thought he might lose his mind, and he pounded his fist against his sternum, over and over, trying to drive the feeling out.

He had made the rational call. He had chosen to live. The guilt that came flooding in afterward was something else entirely, and no amount of reason would shake it loose. She hadn't cried out to the empty air. She had looked him dead in the eye, pointed that plea straight at him, and asked him to save her. However powerless he was, the fact that he hadn't even tried was tearing him apart.

"Fuck. Fuck! That's what you get for being stupid enough to get caught by a killer, you dumb bitch. Even if I had saved a girl that brainless, she'd just die in the next game anyway."

He shoved through the corn, swearing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠under his breath, driving himself toward the spot marked on the map as if he could outrun the face still occupying his head.

Then a thought struck him, and his feet stopped dead.

Why?

Why hasn't the game ended yet?

It had taken him more than ten minutes just to reach the cornfield. The instant the killer got a hand around Kim Min-jeong's throat, he could have snapped her neck in less than a second if he'd felt like it. Even if he were killing her some other way, there was no reason it should take this long.

The thought arrived unbidden — what if she had been dragged to that torture chamber from the briefing footage, and her organs were being carved out of her while she was still alive? Kang Hyun-soo's whole body shuddered. He shoved the image of her end as far down as it would go, and forced himself to start walking again.

"Khack! G-gurk—ghk!"

Kim Min-jeong's moans sounded like her last breath was already on its way out. Her eyes had rolled back until almost nothing showed but white.

"Ihhihi!"

The killer giggled, the easy, unbothered laugh of a child with a new toy, and shook her body every which way. She flopped in his grip like a paper doll, all the strength gone out of her. She knew she was about to die.

She had been diagnosed with stomach cancer far too young, and she had clawed her way back from the edge more times than she could count. When she first arrived in this place, she had been secretly, shamefully glad. The pain that had been killing her by inches was gone. The hair she had shaved down to the scalp for chemo had grown back ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠thick and full. Being here had felt like getting herself back — right up until the game began.

Better the hospital. Better a place where she at least had a sliver of a chance to live, than to be murdered for nothing in a hell like this. She cursed the fingers that had installed a new game just because she'd been feeling a little better. She should have gone to sleep. She should have watched that movie she'd been meaning to see, or an anime, anything else.

This was the price of curiosity. This wretched, pointless end.

The unfairness of it was enough to drive her insane, but there was nothing she could do. All that was left was to hope the pain would finish quickly.

Her vision fogged over. Her mind went slack and distant, and the convulsions wracking her body faded into a dull nothing. Darkness crept in from the edges of her sight, and with it came the smell of death — that familiar scent she had spent so long running from. It rolled over her in a single wave, and she stopped fighting.

"Cough— cough, cough!"

Blood rushed back into her head, and a fit of raw, tearing coughs ripped out of her. She clutched her own throat, drool running down her chin, and looked up at whatever stood in front of her. The blur slowly sharpened into a shape.

For a moment it felt like a mountain — something vast and solid planted between her and the end. Then the mountain resolved into a boy's back. Beyond Han Mir, the killer was sitting on the ground with his eyes blown wide, a wooden skewer still threaded with a marshmallow half-buried in the meat of his thick arm.

The air that filled her mouth and nose was almost painfully sweet. It told her she was alive.

"A-am I… am I alive?"

Kim Min-jeong stared at Han Mir, her own fingers still probing her throat as if she couldn't quite believe it was still there.

"Mmph. Unnie, you okay?"

"Huh? Y-yeah."

Han A-reum had padded up beside her, a bag of marshmallows in one small hand. She kept reaching in with those tiny fingers and popping another one into her mouth.

"Oppa said, mmph, you're in the way, so— gulp —he told us to stay far away."

"W-wait— i-it's dangerous! Forget that, we should run, right now, together—"

"Hurry up! Oppa said not to get in the way!"

Han A-reum hooked her by the arm and hauled her bodily into the house next door. From the window, Kim Min-jeong watched the boy outside, and none of it made any sense.

Han Mir had saved her at the last possible second, like a prince out of a fairy tale. In any story she knew, that was the part where you landed one good hit on the killer and ran while he was still seeing stars. This boy was doing none of that. Half-lidded, thoroughly unimpressed, he was standing there waiting for the killer to get back up.

"U-uwaaaaaah!!!"

The killer surged to his feet with a howl. His muscles, inflated tight as balloons, jumped and crawled under the skin as if each one of them were alive and furious. One enormous hand clamped down on Han Mir's shoulder. He bore down with everything he had, meaning to pulp the joint outright—

Han Mir looked at him with a face so calm it was almost rude. Bored. Uninterested. The expression of someone who had already decided this was the most tedious thing in the world. The killer faltered, just for a second — then his face went red and the rage came pouring out of him.

"Look out!!"

Kim Min-jeong's scream didn't move him an inch. The killer bellowed and started swinging wild. Fists bigger than the boy's head slammed into Han Mir's body one after another. The massive arms pistoned up and down without rest, beating him for the better part of ten minutes.

Kim Min-jeong couldn't watch. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face away, drowning in a guilt she had no words for — this boy had thrown himself into that monster's hands because of her. She wasn't laughing at him. She refused to write it off as some eighth-grade hero complex. He had walked into a situation no one else would touch and put his life on the line to do it. He was a true hero.

"Ah— aah?"

The killer's voice, startled and wrong, dragged her eyes open on their own.

"W-what? What is this? How—?"

Han Mir stood there without a scratch on him. She could only stare, her mind gone blank. It was the killer's fists that had swollen a raw, angry red.

"That it? We done?"

Han Mir took one step forward. The killer flinched hard and scrambled back — and then his eyes found the chainsaw he had dropped ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in the dirt. For a man that size, the speed was obscene. He slid, snatched the thing up, and put distance between them in a single motion. He yanked the cord. The engine caught.

BRAAAAAAAP—!!

A deafening roar poured out of the chainsaw as the teeth spun up to a screaming blur. The killer's mouth split in a grin so wide it looked ready to tear to the ears, and he locked eyes with Han Mir.

He had been certain he would see fear. The boy's face was still bored. And he was still walking closer.

A muscle jumped in the killer's cheek.

Every survivor who had ever stood in front of him had learned the terror of being powerless. The ones who swallowed their fear and tried to fight. The ones who found an exit and ran. In the end they were all just meat. They all died the same way — screaming for someone to save them, right up until the last second. That was the fate of everyone who entered this game.

So why?

Why wasn't this boy afraid? Why wasn't he running?

Those eyes looking down on him — as if the boy were standing somewhere above him — were more than the killer could stand.

"AAAAAAHHHH!!!!"

He roared and swung. The blade that had torn through the flesh of countless survivors, that had split their bones and drunk their blood, met Han Mir's body.

The smile of certain victory twisted, all at once, into something else.

A dry, brittle clatter.

The chainsaw had touched the boy's body — and shattered. Fragments sprayed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in every direction.