Chapter Text
Where the hell am I?
Felix blinks his bleary eyes, grimacing at the weird taste in his dry mouth. He was pretty sure, that he was just on his way home from his part-time job… how did he end up in a room full of people, tied to a chair?
“Felix? Is that you? What- what are we doing here?”, a familiar voice groans from his left. He couldn’t quite place the voice, but it was familiar, so he blinked his eyes to get rid of the lingering spots and turned his head.
“Jisung?” Felix felt bewildered. Long forgotten memories of going home together after school, lying underneath a tree laughing at nothing in particular flood his mind. “Han Jisung?” What the hell was he doing here?
The other man with his soft features blinks at the blond, nodding in confirmation. Years ago, they had been good friends, until Jisung got expelled from school and left without a single goodbye. From time to time, the freckled boy would think about what happened to his high school best friend, but never would he have expected to meet him in such a weird setting.
“Sungie, do you know what’s happening?”, he asked shakily as he took in the other seven people tied to chairs in the brightly lit room. Some, like him, were blinking groggily, others were still out cold.
“No idea, I just woke up a few minutes ago. Is this some kind of weird high school reunion?”, Han scoffed, “If so, I’ll have to beat up whoever organized this shit.”
Felix tilted his head in confusion as he took in the other occupants of the room. It was true, he recalled each man’s face vaguely from his high-school days. Besides Jisung, was a scowling young man with thick eyeliner and several piercings. They had all been changed into their former school uniforms, but the narrow-eyed man was dressed like a delinquent: Rings on his fingers, silver chains around his neck and torn pants. The blond recalled that the black-haired man was one year under him and used to always have a dimpled, foxy smile. Jeongin, his mind supplied.
Next to Jeongin was the former student body president, Kim Seungmin, looking as proper as always in his tidy uniform, eyes hidden behind gold rimmed glasses. They had been in the same year, but he was never close to the other, as whereas Seungmin had been an overachiever, Felix preferred to chill. He vaguely remembered, that Seungmin had stepped down as student council president after some drama which he had not paid attention to, as he was too busy trying not to fail out of school.
The young man nodded his head in Felix’s direction, his eyes gleaming with recognition for a second.
Sitting across from Seungmin in the circle was another man who groaned loudly, as he snapped back to consciousness. Felix gasped in surprise, wondering how he hadn’t noticed the familiar shade of red hair, as that was his brother, Lee Minho. He was just about to call out to his hyung, when the last of the unconscious participants woke up in a start and promptly began panicking.
His attention turned towards the thrashing man with long, blond hair. He recognized this man as the former football club captain, Hyunjin. Felix recalled that the other was always followed by a gaggle of adoring fans… not that Felix couldn’t understand. The other boy was a typical high-school crush type.
Now, the man was panicking and flailing wildly in his bindings, the rest of them looking on helplessly, as nobody could help him.
“Oi, stop that, you’re going to hurt yourself, idiot”, the muscular black-haired man next to Hyunjin growled as he kicked at Hyunjin’s chair to snap him out of it. Hyunjin actually paused and looked at the man with round eyes. “Bin? What are you doing here? What’s happening?”, he blinked as he turned to the rest of the captives, growing visibly more confused.
“Nobody knows, we all just woke up here.” Felix turned towards the voice, recognizing Chris-sunbaenim, the upperclassman from Australia, who had been his guide in his first year after transferring. Unfortunately, he graduated that same year. The freckled man remembered his warm smiles and the dimples, paired with a comforting vibe of home.
Next to him, another upperclassman nodded his head.
A sudden crackling stopped his musings, as a cold, clinical voice came over the speakers at the same times the restraints on the chairs disappeared.
“Everyone, welcome to the Werewolf game, high-school reunion version. You are bound to participate; refusal will lead to elimination. Let me explain the rules: Beneath your chairs, you will find cards with your roles. It is forbidden, to show the cards to anyone or to look upon someone else’s card. Take a few seconds to check your roles.”
Felix stuck his hand underneath his chair, his breath hitching, when his fingers felt something that felt like waxed paper. He wriggled the card loose and brought it up covertly to check. The card reminded him of one of those Tarot Cards that his sister had been so obsessed with a few years ago. It showed a man sneaking with a sack over his shoulders, his features covered by a mask with a mischievous smirk. Just as he was contemplating what the hell this meant, the voice returned.
“It is against the rule to destroy your card. Now- let me explain the rules”, there was some rustling over the speaker, like a stack of paper had been moved. The voice cleared its throat. “The setting is a village plagued by two malicious wolves who can kill someone every night. The villagers have to find the wolves and vote them out of the game to survive. There are some special villagers who have special abilities: A doctor, who can save someone from the werewolves every night, a seer, who can check another player’s card every night, and a thief, who can steal and swap someone’s card once in this game. The goal is to survive to the end. The werewolves win, when the number of remaining wolves is higher than that of the villagers, when every villager is dead, or when the number of wolves and villagers is the same. The villagers win when all wolves are dead.”
What the hell? When had Felix signed up for such a childish game? Well, it couldn’t hurt to play, right?
“The winner will be rewarded with ten kilograms of gold. Every day, at 8 p.m., all players will gather to hold a village meeting, in which they can eliminate one player. At 11 p.m., everyone has to be in their assigned room. The doors will be locked for the night except for the werewolves. The game management strongly discourages to tie a vote, as there will be unforeseen consequences. We wish you good luck and a pleasant stay.”
The following silence was deafening, nobody dared to move. Felix felt that the situation was too bizarre for him to comprehend. Why would anyone literally kidnap me to make me play a game? He raised his hand to his neck to press two fingers to his pulse; a habit he had, when he felt especially nervous.
“What the-“, his fingers bumped again a cold, metal choker. “Does anyone else have this weird collar?”
A flurry of motion, as everyone checked their necks. “How do I get this off, what the fuck is this?”, the dark-haired upperclassman, Woojin, exclaimed.
“That’s not important right now, how do I get out? I have a date later today!”, Jisung wheezed, clawing at his neck, and looking around frantically for an exit.
Chan started pacing the room, inspecting the smooth, white walls and Hyunjin followed suit. Felix felt like his limbs were made of lead, he couldn’t move from his chair. The entire situation was just too much for him.
A commotion drew his attention as the punk kid, Jeongin, cawed triumphantly, as he revealed a hidden door in the wall, leading out into the hall and the staircase. He rushed out and Seungmin followed suit, their voices yelling out whatever they could see. “There’s a kitchen… fully stocked! The front door is bolted shut, it’s impossible to break out.”
“Well, I don’t give a shit, I am out of here”, Woojin growled, still tugging at the collar. “They can’t force us to play this shit, right? Hey, game! I want to leave!”
The speaker came on again suddenly. Felix couldn’t help but feel something ominous to the calm voice: “Kim Woojin, will you forfeit this game? If you forfeit, you will be eliminated.”
Woojin looked like a caged animal, trying to find the source of the voice. Coming up empty, he shrugged his broad shoulders and sighed. “Yeah, whatever, I forfeit. I quit. Let me out.”
Felix felt like he was suffocating. Something was about to go wrong. He felt it.
“Player Kim Woojin has been eliminated from the game.”, the voice proclaimed monotonously.
Everyone watched with bated breath as the collar clicked, sighing in relief when nothing happened. Maybe Felix was wrong, maybe this was just some elaborate prank. However, the calm was short-lived, as the collar began beeping and expanding.
Woojin’s smile fell, as he tried to clutch at the expanding collar: The metal band had split horizontally, the upper end rising up slowly until the metal pushed against Woojin’s jaw. It didn’t stop there, and Felix felt like he couldn’t look away, even as the older man screamed in pain. The band didn’t stop and Woojin’s scream ceded to a choking noise, the band now pushing against his collarbone and his jaw. “Ack- it- h- hurts!”, the man coughed, scratching at his own neck in panic.
Seeing that nobody was moving, Felix dashed forward and tried to push the two halves of the collar back to their starting state but even as his muscles strained, he could feel that his strength was no match for the machinery. “Someone help me! We have to stop the expanding band!”
However, his hands suddenly slipped as Woojin thrashed in pain or panic or a mixture of both and suddenly, the collar slammed into his jaw with such force that Woojin’s head separated from his body with a sickening ripping sound, showering Felix in something warm as he squeezed his eyes shut.
Ah, it’s sticky and warm.
One second later, he snapped back to reality, screaming as he took in the thing he was holding on to. The blond felt frozen, as his uncomprehending gaze took in the weight he was propping up. It had arms, legs, a firm chest, but no head, he mused. Felix was clinging to Woojin’s headless corpse, blood still spraying freely from his neck.
“Player Kim Woojin has been eliminated. Eight players remaining.”
Then he promptly fainted.