It was cold.
The kind of temperature you would experience in winter.
Meriel's mind was dazed, and his body suddenly fell onto the cold ground.
The prison's ugly concrete floor disappeared. The environment changed within a moment.
He slowly sat up straight, his eyes scanning the surroundings.
"The Dead Forest," he whispered slowly, and the surroundings fit the name.
It was eerily quiet. The towering trees were tall and thick, not something you would see in a normal forest.
"Where... where is this?" a voice was heard from his left.
Meriel quickly turned his head.
Nine other figures were spread around him in a loose circle. All of them wore the same bright orange jumpsuits.
What?
They all had the same expression as him, their faces screaming confusion and terror.
There was a skinny teenager who looked barely of legal age, holding his own shoulders and shaking. To the side was an old man, his face grey and wrinkled, wheezing on the ground as he tried to find his glasses.
Opposite them were men with tattoos and scars, and men who looked like they had been working good jobs before they ended up in maximum security.
"Stop fucking stalling!" a rough voice shouted.
A massive figure rose from the centre of the group.
He was huge, easily six-foot-five, with a neck as thick as a tree and a shaved head scarred by a knife.
Meriel recognised him immediately.
'Killer' Suho.
He was a gang enforcer who had beaten a guy to death with a plastic pipe. The kind of man who visited prison as if it were his guesthouse.
Suho's eyes scanned slowly, taking everything in. He wasn't scared by the surroundings, but angry.
"Which one of you fucked up the transport?" Suho growled, stepping toward the shaking teenager. "Is this some kind of new confinement trick?"
"I-I don't know!" the kid stammered, scrambling back. "I was just in my cell and then-"
Clink.
A sound cut through the panic.
As the kid stumbled backwards, a smoky black chain manifested around his neck. It pulled closer, connecting him to the woman standing next to him.
"What the hell is this?" the woman shrieked, clawing at the dark collar around her throat. Her fingers passed right through it, but when she tried to run, the chain pulled her back.
Meriel felt a tug at his own neck. He slightly lowered his gaze.
A glowing black chain extended from his collar, connecting him to the Old Man on his right and a nervous-looking man with glasses on his left.
They were all connected.
A circle of ten prisoners, bound together like animals.
[TUTORIAL STAGE 1: BEGINS]
The robotic voice fell from the sky, overtaking the woman's horrified screams.
All the prisoners froze, looking up at the dark, red sky where a massive blue interface window opened, blocking out the strange, two moons.
[Welcome to the Forest of Death.]
[Team 15 assembled.]
"Team?" Suho spat at the sky. "I didn't sign up for a game."
[The rules will be stated only once. Listen carefully.]
Sentences began to form on the giant screen, and simultaneously, a smaller holographic window appeared in front of each prisoner's face.
[RULE 1: THE CHAIN] You are chained to your squad. You are not allowed to move more than 5 meters apart. If the chain breaks, or if a member moves too far... the collars will detonate automatically.
[RULE 2: THE SIN] Your objective is the Sanctuary, located 5 kilometres to the North. You must carry the 'Buddha Statue' with you. It must be carried, not dragged on the floor.
[RULE 3: THE WEIGHT OF LIFE] The statue weighs 100kg. However, the weight is equivalent to the life force of the squad. For every member that is 'Eliminated,' the statue becomes 10kg lighter.
[RULE 4: SURVIVAL OF THE FASTEST] There are 25 Teams in this sector. Only the first 10 teams to place their statue on the endpoint will survive. The remaining 15 teams will be eliminated.
[Time Remaining: 10 Hours.]
A heavy THUD shook the ground in the centre of their circle.
Meriel quickly stepped back as a heavy object fell from the sky.
It was a statue made of black stone, roughly the size of a man. The man was smiling and bald, with his hands raised to the sky.
"100 kilograms," Meriel muttered, his mind instantly doing the math.
"That's nothing," Suho scoffed. He walked over to the statue and kicked it.
"That's 220 pounds. I do this for a normal warm-up. If we have ten people, that's ten kilos each. Even a baby could carry this."
Suho looked around the group, his eyes calculating them not as people, but as tools.
His gaze lingered on the Old Man, then on the shaking Teenager, and finally on Meriel, noting his slender frame and weak body.
"Alright, listen up!" Suho shouted, taking charge naturally. "I don't know if this is a hallucination or a government experiment, but the screen says we die if we're last. And I don't plan on dying today."
He pointed a thick finger at the two largest men in the group besides him.
"You two. Grab the front. I'll take the back. The rest of you, surround us and keep the chains loose. We move fast. And we run if needed. Understood?"
"Wait," the Old Man wheezed, adjusting his cracked glasses. "I... I have a bad hip. I can't run."
The group fell silent.
Suho turned slowly to look at the Old Man. His expression was slowly turning to one of disgust.
"You can't run?" Suho repeated softly.
"I need a cane," the Old Man explained, his voice trembling. "Or maybe... if we walk slowly..."
"Walk slowly?" Suho laughed. It was a dry, barking sound.
He pointed at the floating screen. "Read Rule 4, old man. Only the first 10 teams survive. That means 150 people are going to die today. You want us to walk?"
"We can take turns carrying it," the woman suggested nervously. "If we pace ourselves-"
"Shut up," Suho snapped.
He walked over to the statue and easily hoisted one end of it. "Grab it!" he ordered the other two big men.
They hesitated, then quickly grabbed the statue.
"It's... awkward," one of the men grunted. The statue was slippery, as if coated in oil, and covered in spikes that dug into their hands. "It's hard to hold."
"Move!" Suho commanded.
The group started moving forward. The chain followed their movements.
Meriel stumbled while walking. The ground was filled with mud.
"Agh!" The Old Man cried out.
He hadn't made it three steps before his foot caught on a root. He fell forward into the dirt.
Because of the chains, his fall jerked Meriel and the Teenager forward. The sudden stop made the chain pull hard on Suho's neck.
"Damn it!" Suho roared, dropping his end of the statue. It landed with a crunch, barely missing the Old Man's head.
Suho spun around, his face purple with rage. He loomed over the fallen Old Man.
"Get the fuck up," Suho hissed.
"I... I twisted it," the Old Man sobbed, clutching his ankle. "It hurts. Please, just give me a second."
Meriel watched the scene unfolding, his heart pounding in his chest. He looked at the other prisoners. They were looking at the Old Man with a mixture of pity and annoyance.
But Suho was looking at the Old Man with something else.