Killer Addiction - (Squid Game)

Chapter 38 - Four Ewes And A Ram

The sound of tires and industrial machinery filled her ears as a side door opened in the wall, revealing several forklifts that began advancing into the room.
Each one carried familiar items.
Coffins.

Those jet black things tied with pink ribbons.
As if presenting death as a sick kind of gift.
It made Dae-eun want to gag, regardless of the scent of blood that now hung heavy in the air.

Workers went about their tasks, unbuckling the straps from the dead player's ankles, separating the once great unit into just a few bodies to be burned.
After all... sick sheep are culled so their weakness won't spread to the rest of the flock.
Another thought that made the white-haired girl scowl, hating how her mind was beginning to cloud up again now that she was past due her meds.

As they loaded one of the players into a coffin, she noticed something.
A cross... drawn furtively by a bloodied black-gloved finger on the corner of the coffin.
Though... when they put the lid on- they were stopped.

"Open it."
The firm voice came from a soldier, who now stood tall over the two workers, gun clutched firmly in hand.
She noticed the way they hesitated, heads tilted at each other before one stood up, as if challenging the authority.

"That's an order."
The second sentence made Dae-eun pause.
That's a woman.

All the guards she'd seen before had been male.
Then again... the guards had even more of their humanity stripped from them than the players did.
Branded as nothing but a number was nothing, even all traces of their face and body was concealed, deemed 'unimportant' by this place.

The workers begrudgingly lifted the coffin's lid, setting it aside to expose the body.
"...you can save me." She heard a weak voice from within the coffin whimper, barely lucid and hoarse.
He's alive...?

BANG. BANG.
She didn't flinch.
Two gunshots, to the chest, then the head.

...he was alive.
The executing solider spared the corpse one more look before turning on her heel and marching away.
Dae-eun watched her go, squinting at the back of her hooded head.

How can you sleep at night?
"Will the next two teams please rise."
Right... the next teams.

The players who stood up made her heart sink a little bit.
Four women, and a single man.
Four ewes and a ram.

As if the fact of their genders was enough... one was elderly, and another looked on the verge of pissing herself in fear.
Oh- and that fucking shaman is there, too.
"Think they'll make it...?" Dae-ho muttered.
"...hope so." Was all Dae-eun could muster.

"Team 3 and Team 4, get ready to play."

With their legs bound together, the players linked arms together... all except the shaman.
She prayed with clasped hands frantic before her, completely in her own world. The two ladies beside her shared a glance before forcefully threading their arms through hers and dragging her forward at the gunshot.

The players still waiting for their turns watched as they moved along the rainbow track, approaching the worker with the ddakji tiles.
The trembling girl had this game apparently.
She threw down the tile.

"Fail."
Picking it up, she threw it again.
"Fail."

She threw a third time.
"Fail."
Dae-eun could taste her fear from all the way from where she was crouched, the uneven way her lungs compressed and rasping gasps fell from her lips, desperation in her frantically flicking eyes.

"...Try with it flipped. Use the other side."
She heard one of the girl's teammates suggest, a calm smoother voice that seemed to cleave through the panic.
Rotating the tile, the shuddering girl slammed it down forcefully.