Killer Addiction - (Squid Game)

Chapter 36 - Victors Divided

(A/N: BLITZED THROUGH THIS, HOPE U LIKE THE FOOD, CURRENTLY HALFWAY THROUGH THE NEXT CHAPTER AS WELL, MAKE SURE TO VOTE N COMMENT LOVE U)

There was only darkness in this place.
The girl could scarcely see her own hands before her, though she heard ripples with every shift of her feet.
With no other choice, she moved forward.

Step by step, she could see clearer, though- she soon wished she could turn back.
That splashing underfoot was stained crimson and sticky, clinging to her shoes with every footfall.
She felt bile in her throat as her gaze flicked back up.

She saw him.

He stood just a few meters away, gazing at her longingly.
Jin-sun's face broke free from apathy, bearing a soft smile as he opened his arms.
With a lapse in her stoicism, the girl burst forth into a run, throwing her arms around him.

Around her friend, her hope.
Her reason to be here in the first place.
And he held her like she was gold.

A gentle hug, one of faces buried in neck crooks and shoulders, of hands tightly squeezing around fabric and skin.
Of tears unshed, words unspoken.
Fate unknown.

He was torn away from her by gloved hands and though she tried to scream, her words were silent.
Jin-sun was dragged along the rippling crimson floor by the masked men, his body stained and muddied with every drop that clung to him.
She tried to move but unknown hands held her back, binding wrists and ankles and finally silencing pleas with a muffling palm.

When he was let go, he barely had time to flinch before a gun was cocked by one of the masked men.
BANG.
And he fell dead, blood arcing from the path carved through his skull by the bullet, adding his own crimson to the lapping liquid coating the floor.

Tears raced down her face as she desperately tried to break free, to go to him- to try to do something.
But she remained helpless, stuck.
And she stayed that way until she felt the unmistakable chill of a barrel at her own temple.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she begged and prayed and- Bang!
And she was awake.

Gasping for air, Dae-eun sat bolt-upright in bed, almost smacking her head on the bunk above hers.
She clutched her legs close to her chest as she attempted to rationalise her dreams as the morning music played from the speakers, rocking back and forth on the verge of madness.
Another nightmare...

Having them for the past three years was nothing special but... Jin-sun's appearance had been sporadic.
For him to appear in her dreams now... when she was so close to finding him, finding his fate.
She felt a nervous pit in her stomach.

What if I'm too late?
The question made that pit fill with bile, the sudden urge to vomit making her head spin.
Her wide-eyed horrified gaze must've caught some attention as she was jolted by a touch to her shoulder.

"Whoa- hey."
Dae-ho.
"...you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost..."

The white-haired girl swallowed, eyes flicking back and forth.
She couldn't bring herself to answer.
Dae-ho tilted his head, trying to catch her eye, though when she moved her head away he decided on a different approach.

"...can I sit?"
Sit?
Dae-eun wasn't sure what made her, but she acquiesced to his request with a nod, feeling the mattress bend a little as the young man spoke up again.