CHAPTER 3

Kaitlyn woke to silence.

Not the screaming that had greeted her the previous morning, not the sound of panic or discovery. Just silence—heavy and oppressive, like the air itself was holding its breath.

She sat up slowly, her body aching from another night on the hard floor. Around her, others were stirring, faces pale and drawn in the dim morning light filtering through the boarded windows.

Her phone buzzed.

GOOD MORNING, PLAYERS.

The familiar dread settled in her stomach like a stone.

DURING THE NIGHT, THE POLICE HAVE EXERCISED THEIR POWERS.

Kaitlyn's eyes swept across the foyer, counting faces. Sixteen people had gone to sleep. How many would still be here?

THE MOBSTERS HAVE EXECUTED NO ONE.

A collective exhale rippled through the group. No execution. For the first time since this nightmare began, they'd made it through a night without losing someone to the mobsters.

But the relief was short-lived.

SEAN PARKER HAS LEFT THE GAME PLAY AREA AND HAS BEEN EXECUTED. SEAN PARKER WAS A CIVILIAN.

"Fuck," someone whispered.

Kaitlyn looked toward the entrance, where Crystal, Kasey, and Jace should have been returning from their perimeter walk. The doors stood open, and as if summoned by the announcement, the three of them appeared, their faces grim.

The group surged toward them immediately.

"What happened?" Samuel demanded. "The announcement said Sean—"

"He fell," Jace said quickly. His voice was tight, controlled. "He got too close to the boundary and he fell."

"Fell?" Sev's eyes narrowed. "Or was pushed?"

"He fell," Kasey said, her tone calm and measured. "We were walking the perimeter, examining the boundary. There's a cliff on the north side—a steep drop into a ravine. Sean wanted to see if there was a way down, if we could get under the boundary somehow. He got too close to the edge and he slipped."

"Slipped," Sev repeated, his voice dripping with skepticism. "How convenient."

"It's not convenient," Crystal said sharply. "It's a fucking tragedy. Sean is dead because he was trying to find a way out for all of us."

"Or because someone pushed him," Sev shot back. He was looking directly at Jace now. "You were right there with him, weren't you?"

Jace's jaw clenched. "I tried to grab him. I tried to pull him back. But he was already falling."

"Tried to grab him or tried to push him?"

"I didn't push him!" Jace's voice cracked, and Kaitlyn saw something flash across his face—guilt, fear, or maybe just exhaustion. "Why would I push him? What would I gain from that?"

"One less person to compete with," Sev said. "One less civilian vote against you if you're a mobster."

"I'm not a mobster!"

"Then prove it."

"How?" Jace spread his hands, his expression desperate. "How am I supposed to prove I'm not a mobster? There's no way to prove it! That's the whole point of this fucked-up game!"

Kaitlyn stepped forward, her voice cutting through the rising tension. "Did anyone else see what happened? Crystal? Kasey?"

Crystal hesitated. "I saw Sean get close to the edge. I saw Jace reach toward him. But it happened so fast—I can't say for certain whether it was deliberate or an accident."

"I saw the same thing," Kasey said. "Sean was leaning over the cliff, trying to see if there was a path down. Jace moved toward him—whether to help or to push, I honestly can't say. Then Sean was falling."

The ambiguity hung in the air like smoke.

"So we have no proof either way," Marley said quietly. "We don't know if it was murder or an accident."

"Which means we can't trust Jace," Sev said. "Not until we know for sure."

"We can't trust anyone," Charlotte observed. She was leaning against a pillar, arms crossed, watching the argument with detached interest. "That's the point. Any one of us could be a mobster. Any one of us could be lying."

"Then what do we do?" Ailyn asked. Her voice was small, frightened. "How do we survive if we can't trust each other?"

"We pay attention," Sev said. "We watch for patterns. We look for inconsistencies in people's stories." His gaze swept across the group. "And we vote out anyone who seems suspicious."

Samantha said, her tone measured, "Look how well that worked out."

Sev's face darkened. "Siobhan was a guess. Next time, we'll have evidence."

"There is no evidence!" Kaitlyn said, frustration bleeding into her voice. "We're trapped in a nightmare with no information, no proof, nothing but suspicion and fear. If we start voting people out based on hunches, we'll just kill more innocent people."

"Then what do you suggest?" Sev challenged. "That we do nothing? That we just wait for the mobsters to pick us off one by one?"

Kaitlyn didn't have an answer. Not yet.

"Did you find anything else?" Samantha asked. "When you were walking the perimeter—did you see any weak points? Any way out?"

Crystal shook her head. "The boundary is solid. Perfectly uniform all the way around. And beyond it..." She paused, her expression bleak. "There's a gas station maybe half a mile to the east. We could see it clearly from the roof. Cars on the road. Civilization so close we could almost touch it."

"But we can't reach it," Sid said.

"No. The boundary kills anyone who crosses it. We saw what happened to Peter. We saw what happened to Sean." Crystal's voice was flat, emotionless. "There's no way out that direction."

"What about other directions?" Lexus asked. "Did you check the whole perimeter?"

"We walked about a quarter of it before..." Kasey trailed off, glancing at Jace. "Before Sean fell. But from what we could see, it's the same everywhere. White line, perfectly painted, perfectly lethal."

"So we're trapped," Ricky said. "Completely trapped."

"Unless we complete the game," Kasey said quietly.

The words settled over the group like a shroud.

"Complete the game," Samuel repeated. "You mean vote out all the mobsters."

"Or let the mobsters kill all the civilians," Charlotte said. "Either way, the game ends when only one side remains."

"That's not an option," Kaitlyn said firmly. "We're not going to just roll over and die."

"Then we need to start identifying mobsters," Sev said. "And we need to start now, before we lose anyone else."

"We've already lost seven people," Marley said softly. "Charity, Siobhan, Peter, Tamika, Marcus, Sean... and whoever the mobsters killed on the first night that we haven't found yet."

"Six," Crystal corrected. "The announcement said the mobsters executed no one last night. So we've lost six people total."

"Six out of twenty," Travis said. He was sitting with his back against the wall, his knees drawn up to his chest. "Thirty percent casualties in less than forty-eight hours."

The math was brutal. At this rate, they'd all be dead within a week.

"We need a strategy," Kaitlyn said. "We need to think this through rationally instead of just reacting out of fear."

"What kind of strategy?" Samantha asked.

Kaitlyn's mind raced. They needed information. They needed to identify the mobsters without killing innocent people in the process. But how?

"We watch," she said finally. "We pay attention to behavior. We look for patterns. The mobsters have to coordinate somehow—they have to communicate, make decisions together. If we're observant, we might catch them."

"And in the meantime?" Sev asked. "While we're watching and waiting, the mobsters keep killing people every night."

"Not last night," Kasey pointed out. "Last night, no one was executed."

"Because the police exercised their powers," Crystal said. "Whatever that means."

"It means someone in this group has the ability to protect people," Kaitlyn said. "Or investigate. Or something that prevented the mobsters from acting."

"Or the mobsters chose not to kill anyone," Charlotte suggested. "Maybe they're playing mind games. Making us think we're safe, then striking when we let our guard down."

The thought was chilling because it made sense. Everything about this game was designed to create paranoia, to turn them against each other.

"We can't assume anything," Kaitlyn said. "We can't trust the patterns because the patterns might be deliberate misdirection."

"Then we're fucked," Sev said bluntly. "If we can't trust anything, if we can't make assumptions, then we have no way to identify the mobsters."

"We have one way," Jace said quietly. Everyone turned to look at him. "We vote. We make our best guess and we vote. Eventually, we'll get it right."

"And how many innocent people die before we 'get it right'?" Marley demanded.

Jace didn't answer.

The group dispersed slowly, breaking into smaller clusters. Some went to search for food in the convenience store. Others explored the mall, looking for anything useful—weapons, tools, information.

Kaitlyn found herself standing alone near the entrance, staring out at the parking lot where Peter's body still lay in the distance. The morning sun was bright, almost cheerful, completely at odds with the horror of their situation.

"You're thinking too hard."

She turned to find Kasey standing beside her, hands in her pockets, expression thoughtful.

"Someone has to think," Kaitlyn said. "Someone has to try to make sense of this."

"Does it need to make sense?" Kasey asked. "Maybe that's the problem. Maybe we're trying to apply logic to something that's fundamentally illogical."

"It's not illogical. It's a game. Games have rules, patterns, strategies."

"This game has rules," Kasey agreed. "But the rules are designed to create chaos, not order. The more we try to strategize, the more we play into the game's hands."

Kaitlyn looked at her sharply. "What are you suggesting?"

"I'm suggesting that maybe the only way to win is to stop playing."

"We can't stop playing. We're trapped here until the game ends."

"Are we?" Kasey tilted her head, studying Kaitlyn with those sharp, intelligent eyes. "We're assuming the game will end when one side wins. But what if there's another way out? What if we refuse to participate?"

"People already tried that," Kaitlyn said. "Peter tried to leave. Marcus tried to leave. They both died."

"I'm not talking about leaving physically. I'm talking about refusing to engage with the game's mechanics. Refusing to vote. Refusing to play by the rules."

The idea was intriguing, but Kaitlyn couldn't see how it would work. "The game forces us to participate. It forced Charity to kill herself when she was voted out. It forces us to sleep during the night phase. We don't have a choice."

"We always have a choice," Kasey said. "The question is whether we're brave enough to make it."

Before Kaitlyn could respond, a commotion erupted from deeper in the mall. Raised voices, the sound of something crashing.

They ran toward the noise, finding a crowd gathered near one of the empty storefronts. In the center of the crowd, Sev stood over Ailyn, who was on the ground, her face pale and frightened.

"What the hell is going on?" Kaitlyn demanded.

"Just having a conversation," Sev said. His voice was casual, but there was an edge to it that made Kaitlyn's skin crawl.

"Doesn't look like a conversation," Crystal said. She'd appeared from somewhere, her expression hard. "Looks like you're bullying her."

"I'm not bullying anyone. I'm trying to get information." Sev looked down at Ailyn. "Information she's refusing to share."

"I don't have any information," Ailyn said. Her voice shook. "I don't know anything."

"Bullshit." Sev crouched down, bringing his face level with hers. "Everyone has a role. Everyone knows something. You're hiding something, and I want to know what it is."

"Leave her alone," Marley said, but she didn't move to intervene. Neither did Samuel, who stood beside her, watching with an unreadable expression.

"Why?" Sev asked. "Why should I leave her alone? For all we know, she's a mobster. For all we know, she's the one killing people at night."

"I'm not a mobster!" Ailyn's voice rose, panic bleeding through. "I swear, I'm not!"

"Then what's your role?"

"I—I can't tell you. The rules said not to disclose—"

"Fuck the rules!" Sev grabbed her phone from where it had fallen beside her. "If you won't tell me, maybe your phone will."

"Don't!" Ailyn lunged for the phone, but Sev held it out of reach.

He tapped the screen, navigating through the app. Kaitlyn saw his expression change as he read something.

"Interesting," he said slowly. "Very interesting."

"What does it say?" Charlotte asked. She'd moved closer, curiosity evident on her face.

Sev opened his mouth to answer, but before he could speak, every phone in the vicinity chimed simultaneously.

PLAYERS MAY NOT FORCE OTHER PLAYERS TO REVEAL THEIR ROLES. VIOLATION OF THIS RULE WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE EXECUTION.

Sev dropped the phone like it had burned him. It clattered to the floor, the screen still glowing with whatever information he'd been about to share.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered, stepping back.

Ailyn scrambled to retrieve her phone, clutching it to her chest. Tears streamed down her face.

"You okay?" Kaitlyn asked, kneeling beside her.

Ailyn nodded, but she was shaking. "He pushed me. I told him I couldn't share my role, but he wouldn't listen. He pushed me down and grabbed my phone and—"

"I know," Kaitlyn said gently. "I know. But you're okay now."

"Am I?" Ailyn looked up at her, eyes red and swollen. "Am I okay? We're trapped in a nightmare where people are dying every day, where we can't trust anyone, where someone like him—" she gestured at Sev "—can just attack me and no one does anything to stop it."

She wasn't wrong. Kaitlyn had seen the whole thing happen, and she hadn't intervened. None of them had. They'd just stood there and watched.

"I'm sorry," Kaitlyn said. It felt inadequate, but it was all she had.

Ailyn pulled away, standing on shaky legs. "I need to be alone."

She walked away, and no one tried to stop her.

Sev watched her go, his expression unreadable. "She's hiding something," he said to no one in particular. "I don't know what, but she's definitely hiding something."

"We're all hiding something," Kasey said quietly. "That's the nature of the game."

Travis found the office by accident.

He'd been wandering the mall, trying to clear his head, trying to process everything that had happened. Six people dead. Six people who'd been alive and talking and breathing just two days ago, now reduced to corpses in a freezer.

The thought made him want to vomit.

He pushed open a door marked MANAGEMENT and found himself in a small office. Desk, filing cabinets, a dusty computer that probably hadn't worked in years. And on the desk, an old landline phone.

Travis stared at it for a long moment. Then, almost without thinking, he picked up the receiver and held it to his ear.

Dial tone.

His heart leaped. A working phone. A connection to the outside world. He could call for help, call the police, call—

The phone started ringing.

Travis nearly dropped it in surprise. The sound was shrill, insistent, echoing in the small office.

He pressed the receiver back to his ear. "Hello?"

Silence.

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

More silence. But not empty silence—there was something on the other end. A presence. He could hear breathing, faint and steady.

"Who is this?" Travis demanded. "Are you the one running this game? Are you—"

The line went dead.

Travis stared at the phone, his hands shaking. Then it started ringing again.

He answered immediately. "Hello? HELLO?"

Nothing. Just that same breathing, that same sense of someone listening on the other end.

"Answer me!" Travis shouted. "Who are you? What do you want?"

Click.

The line went dead again.

Travis slammed the receiver down, his chest heaving. This was a game. Someone was fucking with him, playing mind games, trying to break him.

The phone rang again.

"FUCK YOU!" Travis screamed at it. He grabbed the receiver and hurled it against the wall. It bounced off with a satisfying crack, the plastic casing splitting.

But the ringing continued.

Travis looked down at the phone base. The receiver was dangling by its cord, broken and useless, but the ringing persisted. Loud, insistent, maddening.

He grabbed the entire phone and smashed it against the desk. Once, twice, three times. The ringing stopped.

Travis stood there, breathing hard, surrounded by pieces of broken plastic and tangled cord.

Then he noticed the wire.

The phone line, the one that should have connected the phone to the wall jack, was severed. Cut clean through, the copper wires exposed.

The phone had never been connected.

It couldn't have been ringing.

But it had been. He'd heard it. He'd answered it. He'd heard the breathing on the other end.

"No," Travis whispered. "No, no, no, that's not possible. That's not—"

The door opened behind him.

He spun around to find Kaitlyn and Kasey standing in the doorway, staring at the destruction he'd wrought.

"Travis?" Kaitlyn's voice was careful, concerned. "What happened?"

"The phone," Travis said. His voice sounded distant, disconnected. "It was ringing. Someone was calling. But the line is cut. It's not connected. It can't ring if it's not connected."

Kaitlyn and Kasey exchanged a glance.

"Travis," Kasey said gently, "there's no one here. There's no one outside the mall. We're completely isolated."

"I know that!" Travis's voice rose. "I know that! But the phone was ringing! I heard it! I answered it!"

"Okay," Kaitlyn said, moving slowly into the room like she was approaching a frightened animal. "Okay, I believe you. But maybe... maybe it was just the stress. Maybe you thought you heard—"

"I didn't think anything!" Travis backed away from her, his eyes wild. "It was real! The ringing was real! The breathing was real! Someone is watching us! Someone is playing with us!"

"We know someone is playing with us," Kasey said. "That's the whole point of the game."

"No, you don't understand." Travis ran his hands through his hair, pulling at it. "This is different. This is... this is personal. Targeted. They're in my head. They're trying to break me."

"No one's trying to break you," Kaitlyn said. "We're all under incredible stress. We're all seeing things, hearing things—"

"I'm not crazy!"

"I didn't say you were crazy. I said you're stressed. We all are."

Travis looked at her, then at Kasey, then at the broken phone scattered across the desk. His shoulders slumped.

"I need to get out of here," he said quietly. "I need to get out of this place before I lose my mind completely."

"We all do," Kaitlyn said. "But the only way out is through. We have to finish the game."

"And how many of us will be left when it's finished?" Travis asked. "How many of us will survive long enough to see the end?"

Neither Kaitlyn nor Kasey had an answer for that.

By late afternoon, the group had gathered in the foyer again. It was becoming a ritual—coming together as the day wore on, seeking safety in numbers, dreading the approach of night.

Kaitlyn stood near the center of the space, watching the faces around her. Fourteen people left. Fourteen people who'd started this nightmare as strangers and were now bound together by shared trauma and terror.

She thought about Kasey's words from earlier. Maybe the only way to win is to stop playing.

An idea was forming in her mind. Dangerous, possibly stupid, but maybe—just maybe—it could work.

"I have a proposal," she said, her voice cutting through the low murmur of conversation.

Everyone turned to look at her.

"What if we just... stopped voting?"

Silence.

"What do you mean?" Samuel asked.

"I mean exactly what I said. What if we refuse to vote? What if we all agree, right now, that no one casts a vote tonight?"

"That's insane," Sev said immediately. "If we don't vote, the mobsters keep killing people every night. We'll all be dead within a week."

"Will we?" Kaitlyn challenged. "We don't know that. We don't know what happens if no one votes. Maybe the game can't proceed. Maybe it forces a stalemate."

"Or maybe it kills us all for non-compliance," Charlotte said.

"Maybe," Kaitlyn admitted. "But think about what's happened so far. We voted for Siobhan, and Charity died. We're making decisions based on fear and suspicion, and innocent people are dying because of it. What if the only way to stop the killing is to refuse to participate?"

"The mobsters will still kill during the night phase," Crystal pointed out. "Even if we don't vote, they'll keep executing people."

"Will they?" Kaitlyn looked around the group. "Last night, no one was executed. The announcement said the police exercised their powers. What if that happens again? What if refusing to vote triggers some kind of protection?"

"That's a huge assumption," Samantha said.

"Everything we do is an assumption," Kaitlyn shot back. "We're operating with almost no information. At least this way, we're not actively choosing to kill someone."

"We wouldn't be killing them," Sev said. "The game would be killing them."

"Semantics," Marley said quietly. "If we vote for someone and they die, we're responsible. Kaitlyn's right about that."

"So what, we just do nothing?" Sev's voice was sharp with frustration. "We just sit here and hope for the best?"

"We make a choice," Kaitlyn said. "We choose not to play the game by its rules. We choose to stand together instead of turning on each other."

"It won't work," Sev said flatly. "The game will force us to vote. It'll compel us, just like it compelled Charity to kill herself."

"Maybe," Kaitlyn said. "Or maybe it won't. We won't know unless we try."

She could see the doubt on their faces, the fear. But she could also see something else—a desperate hope that maybe, just maybe, there was a way out of this nightmare that didn't involve more death.

"I'll do it," Travis said suddenly. He stood up, his expression determined despite the haunted look in his eyes. "I'll collect everyone's phones. We'll put them all in one place, and no one votes. We'll see what happens."

"This is a mistake," Sev said. "This is a huge fucking mistake."

"Then don't participate," Kaitlyn said. "Keep your phone. Vote if you want to. But the rest of us are going to try something different."

Travis found a large trash can and brought it to the center of the foyer. One by one, people approached and dropped their phones inside. The sound of plastic hitting plastic echoed in the space.

Kaitlyn watched as the pile grew. Samantha. Samantha. Ailyn. Ricky. Savannah. Sarah. Ashlynn. Sid. Crystal. Lexus. Marley. Samuel. Jace.

Even Charlotte, after a long moment of consideration, tossed her phone in.

Only Sev held back, clutching his phone to his chest.

"You're all insane," he said. "You're going to get us all killed."

"We're already dying," Kaitlyn said. "At least this way, we're dying on our own terms."

Sev shook his head but didn't argue further. He moved to the far side of the foyer, putting distance between himself and the group.

Kasey was the last to approach the trash can. She held her phone for a moment, looking at the screen, then at Kaitlyn.

"Interesting experiment," she said quietly. Then she dropped her phone in with the others.

Travis covered the trash can with a piece of cardboard, hiding the phones from view.

"Now what?" Lexus asked.

"Now we wait," Kaitlyn said.

The hours crawled by.

The group stayed together in the foyer, no one wanting to be alone. They talked in low voices, sharing stories from before—before the mall, before the game, before their lives became a waking nightmare.

Kaitlyn learned that Samantha had been a teacher. That Samantha worked in IT. That Ailyn was studying to be a veterinarian. Normal lives, normal dreams, all shattered by whatever force had brought them here.

As the sun began to set, the anxiety in the room grew palpable. People kept glancing at the trash can, at the pile of phones hidden beneath the cardboard.

"What time is it?" Ricky asked.

Travis checked his watch—one of the few people who still wore one. "Eight-thirty."

Three and a half hours until midnight. Three and a half hours until they'd know if Kaitlyn's plan would work.

"I need to use the bathroom," Savannah said. She stood up, her movements jerky with nerves.

"Want someone to come with you?" Marley offered.

"No, I'll be fine. I'll be quick."

She disappeared down one of the corridors, and the group fell back into uneasy silence.

Kaitlyn found herself sitting next to Kasey, who was watching the group with that same analytical expression she always wore.

"Do you think it'll work?" Kaitlyn asked quietly.

"Honestly? No." Kasey's voice was matter-of-fact. "I think the game has contingencies for every possible action. Including non-compliance."

"Then why did you go along with it?"

"Because I'm curious to see what happens. And because..." Kasey paused, choosing her words carefully. "Because sometimes the only way to understand a system is to break it."

Before Kaitlyn could respond, her phone—no, not her phone, one of the phones in the trash can—chimed.

Then another. And another. Until all of them were chiming in unison, a discordant chorus of notification sounds.

Travis pulled back the cardboard, revealing the pile of glowing screens.

ONE HOUR REMAINS FOR VOTING.

"The countdown is active," Samantha said.

"It's fine," Kaitlyn said, trying to keep her voice steady. "It's just a reminder. We're not voting. We're sticking to the plan."

But she could see the doubt creeping back into people's faces. The fear.

"What if Sev is right?" Sarah asked. "What if the game punishes us for not voting?"

"Then we face that punishment together," Kaitlyn said. "But we don't turn on each other. We don't kill one of our own."

"Easy for you to say," Sev called from across the foyer. "You're not the one who's going to die when this plan fails."

"None of us are going to die," Kaitlyn said, with more confidence than she felt.

The hour passed in agonizing slowness. People fidgeted, paced, whispered to each other. The tension in the room was thick enough to choke on.

THIRTY MINUTES REMAIN FOR VOTING.

"Maybe we should reconsider," Lexus said. Her voice was shaking. "Maybe we should just vote. Pick someone random, get it over with."

"No," Kaitlyn said firmly. "We're not doing that. We're not killing someone just because we're scared."

"But what if—"

"No."

FIFTEEN MINUTES REMAIN FOR VOTING.

Ricky was pacing now, his movements agitated. "This is wrong. This feels wrong. We should vote. We should—"

"We're not voting," Travis said. His voice was hard, determined. "We made a decision. We're sticking to it."

TEN MINUTES REMAIN FOR VOTING.

Savannah still hadn't come back from the bathroom.

"Should someone check on her?" Marley asked.

"I'll go," Samuel volunteered. He stood and headed down the corridor.

FIVE MINUTES REMAIN FOR VOTING.

"Oh God," Sarah whispered. "Oh God, oh God, oh God."

"It's okay," Kaitlyn said, though her own heart was hammering. "It's going to be okay."

ONE MINUTE REMAINS FOR VOTING.

The group huddled together, some holding hands, others with their eyes squeezed shut. Kaitlyn found herself gripping Kasey's hand on one side and Ailyn's on the other.

The seconds ticked by.

Fifty-nine.

Fifty-eight.

Fifty-seven.

Kaitlyn could hear her own heartbeat, loud and frantic in her ears.

Thirty seconds.

Twenty.

Ten.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Midnight.

Silence.

Nothing happened.

For a long moment, no one moved. No one breathed.

Then Ricky let out a shaky laugh. "We did it. Holy shit, we actually did it."

"We did it," Samantha said. "The game backed down."

People started talking all at once, relief and joy flooding through the group. They'd done it. They'd refused to play, and the game had backed down.

Kaitlyn felt tears streaming down her face. They'd won. They'd actually—

Her phone chimed.

All the phones chimed.

The celebration died instantly.

SID BUCKLEY HAS BEEN EXECUTED. SARAH MCCARTHY HAS BEEN EXECUTED. RICKY RODRIGUEZ HAS BEEN EXECUTED. SAVANNAH SUNSHINE HAS BEEN EXECUTED. ASHLYNN CASSIDY HAS BEEN EXECUTED. ALL WERE CIVILIANS.

"No," Kaitlyn whispered. "No, that's not—"

Sid's eyes went blank.

It happened so fast that Kaitlyn almost missed it. One moment he was standing there, staring at his phone in horror. The next, his expression went completely empty, his pupils dilating until his eyes were almost entirely black.

Then he ran.

He sprinted across the foyer with inhuman speed, heading straight for one of the large windows. People screamed, tried to grab him, but he was too fast.

He hit the window head-first.

The impact was sickening. Glass shattered, blood sprayed, and Sid's body crashed through the window and disappeared into the darkness outside.

"Sid, no!" Samantha called out, but he was already gone.

But there was no time to process, no time to react, because Sarah was moving now.

She walked calmly toward the second level, her movements smooth and purposeful. A rope appeared in her hands—no, not appeared, it had been there all along, hanging from the railing, and she was putting it around her neck.

"Sarah, stop!" Crystal lunged for her, but Sarah stepped off the edge before anyone could reach her.

The rope snapped taut. Sarah's body jerked, her feet kicking, her hands clawing at the rope around her throat.

"Cut her down!" someone shouted. "Someone cut her down!"

But before anyone could move, Ricky was running.

He sprinted for the stairs, taking them two at a time, heading up to the second level. People chased after him, but he was fast, driven by whatever compulsion had taken hold.

He reached the railing and didn't hesitate.

He jumped.

Kaitlyn watched in horror as his body fell through the air, visible through the large windows, tumbling end over end before hitting the ground outside with a wet, final sound.

"This isn't happening," someone was saying. "This isn't happening, this isn't happening—"

Savannah appeared from the corridor where she'd gone to use the bathroom. Her face was blank, her movements mechanical.

She walked straight to the wall where exposed electrical wiring hung from a damaged panel. Samuel, who'd gone to check on her, was running after her, shouting her name.

Savannah grabbed the wires.

She yanked them down with both hands, the copper ends sparking. Then she opened her mouth and shoved them inside.

The electrical current hit her like a physical blow. Her body convulsed, arcing with blue-white light. The smell of burning flesh filled the air.

The lights flickered.

Then went out.

The mall plunged into darkness.

Emergency lighting kicked in a moment later, but it was weak, barely enough to see by. In the dim glow, Kaitlyn could see Savannah's body on the ground, smoke rising from her mouth, her eyes staring at nothing.

"Oh God," Marley sobbed. "Oh God, oh God—"

A scream cut through the darkness.

Ashlynn.

Kaitlyn spun toward the sound and saw movement near the escalators. The escalator was running—it shouldn't have been running, it hadn't worked since they arrived, but it was moving now, the steps grinding upward.

Ashlynn was at the bottom, her shoelace caught in the mechanism.

"Help!" she screamed. "Help me, it's pulling me in!"

People ran toward her, but the escalator was faster. It dragged her forward, her body sliding across the floor, her hands scrabbling for purchase.

"Cut the lace!" Travis shouted. "Cut the fucking lace!"

But there was no time. The escalator pulled her in, and Ashlynn's screams became something inhuman as the mechanism caught her foot, then her leg, then—

Kaitlyn turned away, but she couldn't block out the sounds. The grinding of metal on bone. The wet tearing. The screams that went on and on and on until they finally, mercifully, stopped.

In the darkness, someone was vomiting. Someone else was crying. The emergency lights flickered, casting grotesque shadows across the walls.

Five people. Five people dead in less than two minutes.

And it was Kaitlyn's fault.

She'd proposed the plan. She'd convinced them not to vote. She'd killed them.

"The phones," Travis said. His voice was hollow, distant. "We need to get our phones."

People stumbled toward the trash can in the darkness, scrambling for their devices. They crawled over each other, desperate, panicked, grabbing at anything that glowed.

Kaitlyn found hers and clutched it to her chest. The screen showed the voting interface, still active, still waiting.

But it was too late now. Midnight had passed. The voting window was closed.

She looked around at the carnage. Sid's blood on the broken window. Sarah's body hanging from the second level, still swaying slightly. Savannah's burned corpse. The spreading pool of blood from where Ashlynn had been torn apart by the escalator.

And somewhere outside, in the darkness, Ricky's broken body.

Five deaths. Five civilians. All because Kaitlyn had thought she could outsmart the game.

Travis was on the floor, his back against a pillar, his arms wrapped around his knees. He was rocking back and forth, his eyes wide and unseeing.

"I told them to put their phones in," he whispered. "I collected them. I told them it would be okay."

No one answered him. No one had the words.

Kaitlyn felt the familiar pull of forced sleep beginning to take hold. Her eyelids grew heavy, her limbs sluggish.

Around her, others were already collapsing, their bodies giving in to the game's compulsion.

The last thing she saw before darkness claimed her was Kasey's face, illuminated by the weak emergency lighting.

She wasn't crying. Wasn't panicking. She was just watching, observing, taking it all in with that same calm, analytical expression.

And for just a moment, Kaitlyn could have sworn she saw something else in Kasey's eyes.

Not horror.

Not fear.

Satisfaction.

Then the world went black, and the night phase began.

Eliminated:

Ricky Rodriguez (Civilian) (Forced to jump from second level)

Savannah Sunshine (Civilian) (Forced to electrocute herself; caused mall blackout)

Sarah McCarthy (Civilian) (Forced to hang herself)

Sid Buckley III (Civilian) (Forced to crash head through window)

Ashlynn Cassidy (Civilian) (Caught and pulled into escalator)

J Mont (Civilian) (Voted out; jumped off mall roof)