You're Banned
An attic in a run-down mansion, buried deep in a forest — like a scene ripped straight out of the movie The Cabin in the Woods.
In front of a vintage television spitting nothing but scratchy static, a worn-out leather sofa sat there out of nowhere, as if someone had set it out and said, take a breather.
'And there I am, sitting on it blankly staring into space.'
Sluuuurp....
Quietly sucking on a straw stuck through a paper carton of orange juice, I took a moment to calmly sort through the tangled mess of my brain. Like the thick, damp fog packing the window outside, my memories of being trapped here for so long were slowly rusting away. Which is why every so often I have to deliberately pull myself together like this and remind myself of who I am and where this is. Otherwise, I might just end up as a monster with nothing left inside the shell.
"How many years has it been...?"
I'd honestly lost track of how long it'd been since I was dragged into this pitch-black darkness. Or maybe it's been hundreds of years. Sure, if I just glance around there's a wall clock, there's a calendar hanging on the wall — but sadly, none of them can be used to calculate the passage of time. Because none of these are familiar objects that exist in reality. Some calendar has the year written as '3125,' while the wall clock, if you stare at it long enough, is spinning the bizarre number '145:2543' like a lunatic. Anyone could tell it wasn't the 24-base or 60-base timekeeping humanity uses.
The reason is simple. 'The One Whose Name Cannot Be Spoken.' Calling that a name is a joke, really, but nobody in existence knows its true designation, so that's all we've got. Anyway, the mud I'm standing on, the moldy walls and old junk filling my view, even this orange juice I just found in a corner and have been refreshing myself with — all of it is part of the virtual world crafted by that hobby-sick godlike being. A spiteful little theater stage.
'Or maybe it's not even a virtual world at all — maybe it's that thing's actual body.' Come to think of it, blood-red eyeballs do pop out of the walls and floor now and then to blink at me... so this pitch-black world I've fallen into really might be its stomach.
At any rate, that twisted bastard is no friendly counselor, and it's not the type to run a customer service center with a complaint email address either — so there's nowhere to voice grievances or ask questions. If it says jump, you jump.
As I sipped my orange juice and sorted through pointless thoughts, an unpleasant creak of twisting wood began drifting up from the mansion's first floor.
"The pursuer's already here, huh."
Let's see... A heavy footfall shaking the ground, plus something cold and metallic being dragged across the floor like someone flinging down a hunk of iron... Chain Keeper, is it? Ninety-nine percent chance it's Chain Keeper. There are a few others who come clanking in with metal, but the Berserker, who drags a greatsword along the ground, makes a way wilder, more frenzied racket — plus that distinctive hearty, grotesque laughter sprinkled in between.
"Haaam~ Well, I've had my fill of a snack anyway. Time to run another round, I suppose."
Once I confirmed the footsteps had reached the mid-landing connecting the first and second floors, I threw myself toward the attic's crumpled window without a shred of regret.
Whoosh...
Cat's Footstep had kicked in, so even jumping from the considerable height of an attic, I landed without injury and without making a loud noise against the ground. In this shit-for-brains survival game where a single sound can decide life or death, it's one of my most treasured passive abilities.
The rules of this death game, which I've experienced with my whole body thousands of times — no, probably tens of thousands by now — are brutally simple. A survivor wakes up in a randomly assigned, grotesque, sealed location and must flee from a 'pursuer' fixated solely on slaughtering them, searching for the key or condition needed to escape and get out.
The pursuer never dies. Shoot it, shove it off a cliff — after a while it rises again with an eerie pop of disjointed joints. You can't seal it away or tie it down either. Even its basic movement speed is leagues beyond a survivor's. On top of that, each pursuer comes equipped with its own chest-swelling signature killing weapon or superpower, so in a straight one-on-one brawl you don't stand a snowball's chance in hell.
CRASH... BOOM!
The moment I slipped out, the sound of the attic door on the second floor being violently smashed off its hinges punched through the thick fog. Chain Keeper had finally reached the attic, apparently. I wonder what it thinks when it sees the empty juice carton I tossed aside and the television spewing pure static. I wouldn't know — it's got nothing but darkness where a face should be inside that rusted iron helmet, so I've never once seen its expression.
"Now then... where's today's exit hidden, I wonder."
Waking my rusting brain up with a bit of monologue, I jogged lightly into the moisture-heavy fog.
The exit's location and the conditions for opening it change every single time. Some days you have to snatch a key off the killer's hip to unlock the door — the absolute worst kind of day, that one. Some days you have to find and pull three levers scattered across the whole map; others, you have to crank rusted generators buried somewhere in this grotesque forest to restore the power. And some days you have to sneak deep into the pursuer's lair and steal a key soaked in blood. The catch, of course, is doing all of this while listening for the breathing of a mad murderer who could burst out of that fog at any moment.
CLANK, clank... THUD!
A second-floor window of the mansion shattered outward, and I heard the thud of a massive frame hitting the mud on the ground floor. Chain Keeper had figured out my descent path and was already chasing me down. The instant its feet hit the ground, the heavy iron chains began clawing at the damp earth with a nasty scraping hiss that tore through the fog in pursuit.
"Fast as always, you crazy old geezer."
I smirked and threw myself deeper into the fog. Fear? That doesn't register anymore at this point. A mild thrill, maybe. When you've died a few tens of thousands of times, an emotion like terror wears smooth and dull. The pain of a blade or spear spilling my guts, the sensation of my skull getting crushed — no amount of repetitions will ever get me used to those... but these days, after surviving the death game more times than I can count, I almost never actually die. If anything, these moments of reading the killers' patterns and tightrope-walking on the razor's edge might be the precious hours that make me feel genuinely alive in this boring, endless eternity.
"What would people in the real world think if they saw me? Probably some crazy pervert. But hey, this is the only entertainment on offer around here."
Through the branches beyond, a single red eye blinked in the fog. Some kind of CCTV for the Nameless One, I suppose. When the grotesque watching eyes started appearing on the ground and atop pillars too, that was the signal — It had taken its seat in the royal box for today's show. Not that I know if there's an actual royal box.
"Go ahead, watch all you want. Today I'll show you another fun round of toying with a killer."
"Jang-ji-gi jang-ji-gi, jang-jang ji-gi-gi~"
And a little while later, right in front of the iron gate at the forest's edge, hanging wide open — there was Chain Keeper, gripping its chains so hard they looked about to snap, trembling with rage, and there was me, performing a bizarre victory dance in front of the exit.
Sad to say for Chain Keeper, but a simple condition like collecting seven ominous paintings hidden somewhere in the forest and burning them at the bonfire in front of the mansion is nowhere near enough to stop me — Han Doyun, the Survivor Devil. Of course, I hadn't actually stepped through yet. I was just standing in that exquisite spot, one step away from the exit. Why?
'Because the moment I cross the exit, the escape gets judged and I get shipped off to the next game....'
The death game never ends anyway. So who's going to fault me for using the intermission to squeeze in a bit of entertainment? These precious little games I play with the pursuers in the gap between one match and the next — that, right there, is the royal panacea that restores my sanity.
"I'd rather~ have a crying~ clown instead~
Yeah~ yeah~ yeah~ yeah-ah~"
When I launched into an immortal classic medley, Chain Keeper was apparently so moved by my lovely voice that it began swinging its taut chains around like a maniac.
[Stop.... Stop it and get out, NOW....]
"Sinking even deeper~ Even if it kills me~ Would you come~ baaack to me one more tiiime~"
But of course, I'm far too much of a veteran to fall for such an obvious pattern.
"Chain Keeper's pattern is simple, folks. You throw in a left, right, right, left, right, left, left, right — and once Chain Keeper gets briefly exhausted and starts panting, that's the stun state. And right there, ladies and gentlemen, is your window."
I slipped the camera out of my pocket. A cute little toy I'd picked up at the mansion in the forest earlier.
"All right~ Chain Keeper, eyes on me~ Click!"
SHRIEEEEK!!
The pale, sunken eyes of the exhausted Chain Keeper, worn out from flailing its chains, took the camera flash point-blank.
[GRAAAAH! My eyes... MY EYEEES!! Ah, can't see anything!!]
Chain Keeper flailed about, apparently offended at getting caught on camera. If I teased it any harder, it might sulk off like a ghost bride and refuse to even talk to me anymore.
"Great game, Chain Keeper. Let's do this again soon, yeah?"
Having had my fun, I tucked the camera back into my rear pocket and stepped through the exit wrapped in nothing but thick fog.
[Just GET LOST, Han Doyun! Why on earth would That One let a bastard like you into the death game at aaaall!!]
"Beats me~"
After a hundred meters or so, the once-vast forest and the shrieking Chain Keeper both vanished as if they'd been a mirage. And as always, only the thick fog and the ground remained.
Ha, ha, ha! Ha ha, two three four~
Ha, ha, ha! Ha, two two three four~
Marching along to the Teemo march, I arrived at my own little hut — a space where I can check my gear between games. Just a warehouse for storing the items I've collected in the death game and a makeshift bed, but it's the death game host's small kindness, I suppose — my own tiny corner of rest.
"What a cutie, huh."
I dumped today's camera (flash-bang model, 1 of 3 uses) carelessly into the warehouse, lay down on the bed, and quietly closed my eyes for sleep.
"Ahh~ that was fun today. Tomorrow's gotta be fun too. Thank you always, O One Whose Name Cannot Be Spoken."
I draped the yellowed, torn scrap of blanket over just my stomach, recalled Chain Keeper's shrieking, and shut my eyes.
......
"Mister! MISTER! You sleep here, you're losing that spot!"
When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in the middle of what appeared to be a subway station.
"Mmm....hnngh?"
A public service worker in a yellow vest was scowling as he shooed me off, so I shuffled out after him and made my way outside the station. The bus stop sign read Jongno 3-ga. The clock on the bus stop showed a perfectly normal 2026, and the hands pointed to 1:00 PM.
"Wait, this is Seoul?"
Yes. I had been banned from the death game.