4, 8, 16

The Beginning

"Be careful; do not be fooled or the consequence will be deadly. You cannot unravel what you have completed; you can no longer walk a path that you have journeyed. One wrong step, a night full of nightmares will be the outcome."

Literature is engrossing. Encountering different liberal arts with hidden meaning is fascinating. Willow Creek Academy, a prestigious school, is attended by smart and talented young nobles. Most students desire to study in this school because it gives a great opportunity for the students' future.

Targaryen is the best batch and is the top tier of the school. It only has 20 students, and one of them is Zia Natasha, she is very smart and beautiful.

Everything was aligned with the new way of learning. Targaryen's schedule for Literature class was at six o'clock in the evening. 

Every day seemed normal, and it was the same as always until that rainy day. All laptops started glitching and a message suddenly appeared. 

'There are impostors in this class. You cannot relay this information to the upper hand. You can evict suspicious persons, just type their name in the chatbox and a message will appear if that person is the impostor or not. Time is limited. If you didn't find the impostors in time – '

An unfamiliar voice suddenly speaks.

"The system will offer you tasks to do. The impostors may sabotage the task given to you. I know you can solve the task easily because all of you are talented and smart. Let the game begin."

Mr. Wilson, our adviser, and Literature teacher advised us to stay calm.

"It is clearly just a prank. Why are you guys so scared? Scaredy cat. Tsk," Mathew uttered.

'It is just a joke, right'. 'Everything is going to be alright'. These are the thoughts that are roaming in Zia's mind. 

The next day, Targaryen students received horrible news. Mathew is dead. Everyone is panicking. 

Zia is very shocked and she uttered the words, "I'm going to die". Her body is shaking in fear. 

"W-what am I g-going to do? I should tell my parents." Before she stands up, the voice that she and her classmates here yesterday suddenly speaks. 

The message appeared again. "Body Report: Mathew is dead. Do not be anxious just continue your regular class but be alert to what might happen. Hint: They are among you."

Mathew's case was confirmed by suicide. The class was filled with fear. The possibility to be the next victim was high if they did not attend their class. Thus, they decided to have a meeting after class. Having no clue, they decided to skip voting and to end the meeting. 

On the next day, Mr. Wilson grouped the class into three to solve the following word problems. While they were in their breakout room with their teammates, Zia's laptop started glitching and the lights in her room begun flickering.   

She was terrified. While hearing the scream of her classmates, she snapped herself and begun thinking – that she needed to find the impostor quickly. A message appeared stating each group has a dead member – Brian from group 1, Kate from group 2, and Jessica from Zia's group. With the message came a picture of a dead body. Thus, an emergency meeting was called. 

Zia noticed that the killing is based on their ranking. If she is right, then the next one who will die is Josh. She shared her analysis, which everyone agreed to.

"There are three impostors in our class," Cathy said nervously.

The others asked how she knew. With a trembling voice, Cathy replied, "Each d-dead body h-has a hidden number on its neck. The numbers are 8, 4, and 16. We cannot just simply vote someone out, because our lives depend on the result. We can only vote for one person in each session. "

All fell silent until Nathalie exclaimed that Pat is the killer since she is in the top 8 of their class. This made everyone vote for Pat except Zia. 

She did not vote for Pat because her intuition is contradicting their decision. Pat was crying and was begging them not to vote her out, but she could not convince them. They all voted Pat out. Afterward, a message appeared stating that Pat is not one of the impostors. 

After learning about the results, the class received the bad news. Pat is already dead. Only fifteen students are left. The day passed by with guilt in their hearts.