---
After Three Years
Yellow Team's Secondary Safe Zone
The city had no name. No map marked its location. Just endless streets choked with rust, broken glass, and shadows. Time didn't pass here—it lingered, stagnant. Buildings leaned like tired corpses. Lamp posts hung low, bent under invisible weight. The wind carried no warmth, only the metallic taste of silence.
Nothing moved.
Nothing breathed.
Until now.
Gunfire erupted like a sudden storm.
Inside the hollow shell of an old high-rise, the silence shattered. A low-level office, reclaimed by rot and dust, became the epicenter of a violent clash.
The Red Team breached first, bursting through a rusted stairwell door with brutal precision. Their movements were sharp, practiced. Weapons drawn. Eyes scanning. No words—just signals. A nod. A gesture. Then: attack.
From the west side, the Yellow Team held their ground. Hours earlier, they had fortified the office, stacking broken furniture into crude barricades. Their breaths were shallow. Trigger fingers tense.
"They're in. Sector Red," someone hissed into a cracked comm.
The reply was lost beneath a thunderous burst of automatic fire.
Bullets tore through drywall. Sparks flew as steel kissed steel. Screams ricocheted off peeling walls. Glass shattered as the Red Team advanced, forcing Yellow back into the heart of the floor.
And from above—footsteps.
Quiet. Precise.
The Blue Team descended from the upper level like wraiths. No entrance. No warning. Just flickers of movement through dying light.
"Above! They're dropping in from the roof!"
Too late.
The Blue Team struck like lightning—silent, lethal, efficient. One landed behind a Yellow fighter, blade flashing beneath flickering fluorescents. The scream was cut short.
The battle turned to chaos.
Red turned their weapons on Blue. Yellow fired at anything that moved. A grenade clattered to the ground—once, twice—
Boom.
Flames licked the walls. Heat warped metal. Smoke bloomed, thick and choking.
Footsteps pounded up broken staircases. Some fled. Others hunted.
A Red fighter tackled someone and drove a blade into their ribs. A Yellow soldier screamed as shrapnel tore into their leg. Blood sprayed across the walls like graffiti.
No alliances. No plans.
Just survival.
Through the comms, a distorted transmission bled through the static—
"Sector... confirmed... Black... initializing…"
Then silence.
And amidst it all—something blinking.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
A red light pulsed beneath the rubble of a collapsed beam. Small. Overlooked. Until someone noticed.
Their eyes widened.
"Get out—!"
The explosion hit before the warning finished.
A blinding flash lit the floor. The shockwave tore through the building, leveling what was left. Walls collapsed. Windows shattered. Fire devoured the rest.
Screams vanished in the roar.
The building crumbled.
Then—silence.
Ash drifted through the air. Charred beams jutted from the wreckage like broken bones. No footsteps. No voices. Only smoke curling upward like a final breath.
The game didn't pause.
It never did.
The dead city watched—silent, cold—as the dust settled… and waited for the next round.
---
Outside the Deathly Game
The gala was in full swing. Laughter echoed through the ballroom. The most powerful figures from every realm danced under golden chandeliers, bathed in opulence and pride. It was the most glamorous night of the year.
Until it wasn't.
A sudden alert flashed across a screen. Then came the explosion.
Panic. Smoke. Screams. Fire. The ballroom that once echoed with music now rang with terror. Guests surged toward the exits—but the doors were sealed. The windows, locked.
And the smoke… wasn't normal. It thickened unnaturally. It clung to their lungs like poison. One by one, they dropped. Gasps turned to silence.
Something was wrong.
Terribly wrong.
And just like that, the new twist of the game began.
In a hidden place where death had long become routine, a new round started. No introductions. No answers. Just one rule:
Kill or be killed.
The players didn't know how they got there, or why they were chosen. But one truth cut deeper than any weapon:
To survive, they had to play.
"New players arrived."
---