Chapter 4: The Game Turns Dark

Kai's POV

The morning after our ridiculous mop dance-off, the energy at school was still buzzing with laughter. Students whispered and giggled as they passed us in the halls, clearly impressed by our impromptu dance battle yesterday. For a moment, it felt like we were legends. But that feeling didn’t last long.

It started as a normal day. We were all hanging out after school, gathered at the basketball court, lounging around and joking about the next prank the game might throw at us. Tae and Rubin were trying to one-up each other on their trick shots, while Marianne and Mark were lying on the bleachers, scrolling through their phones.

Suddenly, a familiar notification sound went off—this time from all our phones simultaneously. The buzz was so synchronized that we all paused, exchanging uneasy glances.

"Looks like the game’s got another task for us," Mark said, his voice light but tinged with something else—nervousness, maybe.

We pulled out our phones and read the new message together.

> "Level 2 complete! Congratulations, players. Time for a real challenge: Hurt someone to level up."

I felt the blood drain from my face. Hurt someone? That was way beyond the realm of harmless pranks and dares. This was serious. And twisted.

"Is this some kind of joke?" Marianne asked, her voice shaking slightly. "This isn’t funny anymore."

Rubin tried to laugh it off. "It's probably just to scare us. Like a horror movie jump scare. No way it’s actually serious, right?"

"Maybe," I said, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the game had crossed a line. The smiley face icon that once seemed quirky now felt sinister, like it was mocking us. "We should just ignore it. It can’t force us to do anything."

We decided to leave it at that, shoving our phones into our pockets and heading home with an unspoken agreement to pretend the message never happened.

...****************...

That night, as I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, I tried to convince myself that everything was fine. That the game was just a twisted prank by some bored hacker trying to mess with us. But then my phone buzzed on my nightstand, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

I hesitated, then picked it up, expecting another task. Instead, it was a photo notification. I opened it cautiously, and my heart dropped. It was a picture of Mia, one of our classmates—a sweet, quiet girl from my math class. She was lying unconscious in what looked like the school’s storage room. Her arm was bent at an awkward angle, and there was a gash on her forehead.

My screen lit up with a new message:

> "Time's up, players. Refusal to comply comes with consequences."

"No way," I whispered, my hands shaking. I quickly texted the group chat.

Kai: Did you guys get a picture of Mia? Please tell me I’m not the only one seeing this.

Within seconds, everyone responded.

Marianne: What the hell?! How did they even take this photo?

Rubin: Is this for real? We didn’t even do anything!

Tae: I think we made a mistake. A big one.

...****************...

The next morning, the school was buzzing with rumors. News spread quickly—Mia had been found injured in the storage room late last night by a janitor. She was in the hospital now, and no one knew how she got there. The official story was that she fell, but those who saw the injuries said it looked like something—or someone—had hurt her.

We huddled together in a corner of the courtyard, whispering urgently.

"This can’t be a coincidence," Mark said, his usual cocky grin nowhere to be found. He looked pale, almost sick. "The game sent us that photo before she was found. It’s like it knew."

"How is that even possible?" Marianne snapped, her eyes wide with fear. "Are we saying this app can predict the future now? Or did… Did we somehow cause this by ignoring the task?"

"We didn’t do anything!" Rubin insisted. "We were at home. We didn’t hurt anyone!"

"But the app said there would be consequences," I muttered, my voice barely above a whisper. "It knew we wouldn’t do it, so it punished us by hurting someone else."

Silence fell over us as we processed the implications. The game was real. It wasn’t just a prank or a virus. It was controlling things, and we had no idea how or why.

"What do we do?" Tae asked, his voice small, almost childlike. "If we don’t play along, what if it targets someone else next time? What if it’s one of us?"

I swallowed hard, looking around at my friends. Fear was etched into their faces, and I knew they were all thinking the same thing. We were trapped in this game, whether we liked it or not. And if we didn’t play by its rules, more people could get hurt.

Just then, our phones buzzed again. We all looked down, hesitating before checking the notification.

> "New task: Break a mirror in the school bathroom. Do it within 30 minutes, or someone else will pay the price."

I stared at the screen, my mind racing. It was a minor act of vandalism, but it was still wrong. And now, it felt like a test. Was the game trying to see if we would follow through? Or was it simply enjoying watching us squirm?

"We have to do it," I said finally, the words tasting bitter in my mouth. "We can’t risk someone else getting hurt."

"Are you serious?" Rubin asked, looking at me like I’d lost my mind. "You want us to break school property now because some stupid app said so?"

"Look," Marianne interjected, her voice firm but filled with dread. "We don’t have a choice. It’s either that, or we risk another person getting hurt—or worse."

"Fine," Tae muttered, shoving his phone into his pocket. "Let’s get this over with."

We snuck into the school’s bathroom, our footsteps echoing eerily in the empty hallways. The usual bustling noise of students and teachers was absent; it felt like we were the only ones there, the silence pressing down on us.

I took a deep breath and grabbed a trash can, smashing it against the mirror. The glass shattered, fragments raining down into the sink, sparkling like deadly shards of ice.

We stood there, staring at the broken mirror, the realization of what we’d just done sinking in.

Our phones buzzed one last time:

> "Congratulations, players. You’ve leveled up. Get ready for the next challenge."

I looked at my reflection—or what was left of it—in the shattered glass. My face was fractured into a thousand tiny pieces, each one staring back at me with the same expression of fear.

We had played the game. And we had won this round. But at what cost?

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