Alice in Borderland: New York

A Burning Passion (2): Musical Chairs

At once, the room burst into confusion and panic. "A SEVEN?!" Pier exclaimed. "S-seven? That's not good..." Teineji said. Even the man in the corner chipped in. "And a hearts...this could end badly." "Wait, I don't understand." June said. "It's a...playing card? Do the number and suit mean something?" "The number represents the difficulty of the game, and the suit represents what type of game it'll be." Teineji quickly explained. "A Seven means it'll be a difficult game, and...well, I've never seen a Hearts..." "Hearts means betrayal." The man in the corner cut in. "So it's likely we'll have to betray each other." An uneasy silence set in on the room as the speaker began talking again.

"Rules:
-Players may not impair another player's ability to enter a room.
-Players must each decide their turn order.
-Each round, one person will become the "Oracle."
-The Oracle is shown which rooms are safe via their tablet. Attempting to show another player your tablet results in an automatic [GAME OVER].
-During each round, players are free to move around, but must be in a room by the end of each round.
-At the end of each 5 minute round, all of the rooms except for the safe rooms will go up in flames. Players must then return to the starting room.
-Each room has a certain capacity. A player number that exceeds the player capacity cannot be in a room at once. The door locks once a player enters.
-After a round, the number of safe rooms available decreases by one. By the last round, only one safe room will remain.
-If a player is deceived about which rooms are safe, the person responsible will receive immunity to the fire for the next round and an extra visa day per betrayal. If enough players die, the game will end prematurely and all survivors will receive a [GAME CLEAR].

-It's [GAME CLEAR] if all surviving players have gone at least once, or if a certain number of players die.
-It's [GAME OVER] for any player not within a room at the end of each round, or any player that is not in the safe room at the end of each round."

"Wait...not all of us can live?" Pier said cautiously. "We'll worry about that later. For now, we need to decide who the Oracle should be first." Teineji said after a short pause. "Who wants to be the Oracle?" "I volunteer to be the first Oracle." Pier said. "I'll go second." Said the other Asian man. June suddenly found herself speaking up. "I'll go next." She said suddenly. The man in the corner, who June learned was named Charlie, said "I also volunteer her." Rayna nodded. "I'll go after her." she said nervously. "I'll go afterwards." Charlie said. "That leaves me last, huh...alright." Teineji said. "I also think we should all work together. The game wouldn't make us all have to kill each other, surely."
"The game has started. Pier has been chosen as the first Oracle." The voice announced. "You have 5 minutes."
Pier looked at their phone and gasped. "All rooms are safe!" They declared, before running into room 604. "Alright!" June said before walking towards Room 602. A screen beside the door said "Capacity: 1". June checked all of the doors, and all of the screens said the same thing. Some of the screens were also in better condition than others: Room 605's screen was slightly cracked and smudged on the right edge of its screen. June, satisfied, walked into Room 602. The door locked behind her as she looked around. The room was lavishly decorated and contained a television screen displaying a timer, a luxurious bed, and other standard hotel amenities. June could hear other people scrambling to enter a room as quickly as possible, and their doors automatically locking behind them. When the timer ran out, June heard a low roaring noise, and the voice returned. "Round 1 cleared. No players died." "Woo-hoo !" June and some of the others cheered as the doors unlocked. "See? All we have to do is trust each other!" Teineji said, clearly in high spirits. "Round 2 will now begin. June is the new Oracle." The speaker announced. Everyone's eyes widened. "Wait, what?" Teineji said. "Didn't Steven volunteer to be the Oracle?" Charlie said. "Steven?" June inquired. "Oh, Steven's my friend." Charlie explained. "He's the one who volunteered after Pier." Suddenly, June's tablet beeped, and she looked down at it.
The tablet read:

As there are 4 less than the maximum amount of players, 4 unsafe rooms will be introduced this round to balance out the game.

Safe Rooms: 600, 602, 604, 606, 609, 610

Unsafe Rooms: 601, 603, 607, and 608

"Everyone! The safe rooms are 600, 602, 604, 606, 609, and 610!" June yelled. "Alright!" Pier said. Everyone started to move to a separate room, and June moved to room 602 again. "Round 2 cleared. No one died." The voice declared again, as players began leaving the rooms. "Here's where it gets tough..." June thought. "There's still 6 people and, if the rules aren't lying, only room for 5 people." "Round 3 beginning. Rayna is the Oracle." The voice droned as June continued thinking. "The safe rooms are 600, 602, 603, and 604!" Rayna was saying when June tuned back in. Suddenly, Pier started to speak.

"Everyone, I must announce something." he said gravely. "I'll sacrifice myself this round." "Pier, no!" Rayna said. "Go to room 600, please! Then we can all live!" "But the rules stated that the number of safe rooms decrease by one each turn. You saw the capacity on each door, right?" Pier demanded. When everyone stayed silent, he continued. "All rooms were safe in round 1. To accommodate for the player number being 6, there were 6 in Round 2. This round, there are 5. No matter what we do, only 5 of us can live this round." "He's right." Charlie cut in. "One of us is gonna have to die. For starters, how do we really know that Rayna is telling the truth? They could easily just be deceiving us to try and pick a wrong room!"

As the argument continued, June thought back to the rules. "There has to be some way for everyone to survive!" she thought, glancing at the rules. Suddenly, as she reread them, she realized something. "Wait...the voice only said the Oracle had to decieve someone about a room. It never said that it had to lead to a GAME OVER!"

Suddenly, June said, "Room 719 is safe!" There was silence. "W...what?" Steven said, confused. "Just trust me." June said. Suddenly, Tei smiled. "She's right, everyone! It's a safe room!" He said. June, also smiling, ran into Room 609. As it locked, she could still hear the conversation outside: "What was she doing? She's going to get killed!" Rayna said. "No Rayna, she'll be fine. She deceived me about room 719 being a safe room. So, she should have immunity to the fire this round." Teineji explained hurriedly. "If June is right...this allows us to survive even when there aren't as many rooms left!" Pier said. Then, another door locked. There was a pause lasting several seconds after that, in which June caught someone muttering the words "can't trust", "tablet" and "believe me." After this, she heard a shaky voice say "Okay...if you think the tablet is wrong, then I guess...", before the rest of the doors locked, and June heard the familiar noise of fire. However, she also heard something new... the sound of someone laughing. "Round 3 cleared." The speaker said as everyone left their rooms. Everyone but one person.

"One person has died."