Witnessing the gruesome death that took Harvey's life terrified them, and the thought that one of them might die being forced to shoot themselves in the head was sadistic beyond words.

"W- why do we have to keep playing these games?" Natasha questioned. Her legs were trembling terribly and she had to hold the staircase's handle in order to sustain herself. "Can't we just choose to let the games be?"

"We went over this so many times before," Shirley said, starting to lose her patience. Every passing second was precious. "We don't have enough food to survive for long."

"Well... I watched a movie whereby a group of people became cannibals in order to preserve life a little bit longer," Natasha blurted out without much thinking, watching the disgust on their faces.

"Are you actually suggesting us to eat Harvey's dead body? How sick and twisted can you be?" Ashlyn retorted loudly, looking at the other girl as if her presence was filth in sight.

"He's dead anyway," Natasha mumbled inaudibly and was quickly pulled away from their circle by Jay.

"She's mentally unstable. Let's not attack each other," Madison attempted to calm them down.

"Besides, there is no way to escape this game," Mark suddenly remarked, gaining everyone's attention. "If you noticed, Harvey was shot by an arrow none of us expected. That means the Game Master was watching us and is capable of attacking us at any moment."

"So we could get killed even if we play the game?" Jay asked in rage. Everything he had believed so far was partially a lie. If he survived until the end, who was to say the Game Master wouldn't be greeting him with a sickle in his hand?

"Does that mean he is in this house together with us?" Ashlyn posed a question that got them thinking. Silence fell upon them. Considering the number of mysterious and locked up rooms, the possibility that one concealed the Game Master was very likely.

"What if we hide and ambush the Game Master when he appears to attack us?" Madison suddenly suggested. "There are no cameras to show our whereabouts, right?"

When others started to see her idea as another hopeful solution, Oliver hated to be the one bursting their bubble.

"That won't be possible," he muttered lowly. Despite his faint mumbling, the others heard him loud and clear.

"Why?" Natasha demanded. Her face was so red and swollen from tears. She no longer looked like the elegant lady they usually saw performing on stage.

"Because there are actually cameras installed everywhere," Oliver confessed.

"Really? I thought you said there were none," Ethan frowned.

"None to the human eye," Oliver sighed and shut his eyes. "But I did some experimentations last night. I began to measure the sound sources in the house, and it turns out it picked up several external input devices. This means there are cameras that not only records our movements, but also our speech."

"Can't we detect the camera's location using your program?" Mark asked.

"I can only pick up a rough estimation of the audio input source, but I can't exactly pinpoint its location," Oliver said regretfully.

"And we can be sure these cameras aren't for broadcast," Madison spoke, remembering the fact none of the TV channels she watched broadcasted this game. "There goes our plan to ambush him."

"The Game Master is watching our every move. We need to be careful," Ethan concluded.

Damon rolled his eyes lazily, not knowing why he coped up with these bunch of irresponsible idiots. He descended the stairs to do what he should've done all along.

"Where are you going?" Of course it was Ginny who questioned him.

Damon halted and turned to her with a smirk. The others were staring along, and he genuinely hoped they'd be smart enough to understand their only chance of getting out.

"To play the game, of course."

One person holds the gun; pull once, twice, or thrice and then you're done.
Hand it over to the player on your right; there is no need to be polite.
Figure out the appointed number before it's due, if survival is what you pursue.
You may find them some place familiar, try looking between the room's pillar.

The second mission repeated in Damon's head like a chant. The rhyme was quite literal with the clues it gave out, judging on the electrifying surprise that bathed Harvey in doom.

He could make out the Russian Roulette game was mixed with the traditional game known as Baskin Robbins 31. Every player got a chance to say either one, two, or three numbers during their their turn to add up to the previous person's count. The player who ended up calling out 31 would lose. In this case, the number wasn't 31, and the punishment was immediate death.

"Try looking between the room's pillar," Damon muttered to himself, in search for the next clue. He had been standing in front of his room for the longest time. He tried looking for a crack in the wall, some secret handle he could push, or anything that looked out of the ordinary, but to no avail. The appointed number had to be hidden somewhere.

Maybe the room's pillar didn't refer to the wall space between the two rooms. Perhaps it was the door that uphold a room as if it was a pillar. But everything looked so ordinary with the olden style wooden door. It had their names on a laminated paper taped in front, but that was all.

"Unless..."

Damon finally noticed something odd about the supposedly ordinary sight. The names were well treated in laminated papers. They were even pasted on the door using such great precision at a perfect 90 degree angle. So why would such a fancy signature receive the poor treatment of being stuck on the door using cheap transparent tapes he could easily find at any dollar store? The value didn't match up.

It was almost as if those names weren't meant to stick on the door forever.

His fingers reached out to the paper plastered on his door and gently removed it. He heard the tape unsticking itself around the corners. In no time, he had retrieved the seemingly ordinary looking paper. And upon turning it around, was met with the clue to the appointed number.

The alphabet

"What is that?" A sudden female voice caught him off guard.

Damon was surprised he was even capable of being surprised and had to give some props to Ginny for achieving that. Though she may seem ditzy, her presence was sometimes so mysterious.

"Did you find the clue?" Ginny assumed correctly.

Sometimes it made Damon truly wonder whether her ditzy persona was the true her or just a cover up for the genius that laid within.

"You should check if you have the same clue or whether it's different," he told her and showed his paper so she knew what to look for. If there was someone he could manipulate, it was her.

Luckily, Ginny's room wasn't located too far away from his. So she quickly sprinted to her room, took off the nameplate, and returned to him with a vague expression.

"Mine says 2 June." She showed him.

"The clues are all different," Damon realized. "We should look at the others' before they get their hands on it."

Ginny diligently obeyed his orders and they spread out to read and write down what was written on the other's paper. Everyone had a different clue, and for some it was even more confusing.

It was until he reached Bree's room when the door opened the exact moment he wanted to snatch her nameplate. Their eyes met, and for once he showed slight panic in front of her.

Bree was sharp and immediately noted the stack of name plates in his hand. "What are you doing?"

"We're collecting the clue for the next game. You should come join us!" Ginny's friendly invitation before Damon could even utter a word proved she was not a genius—not at all.

"Clues?" Bree raised her eyebrows and took the paper with her name from his hand by force. She turned the paper around and read the word 'Rhombicuboctahedron.'

"What the heck?"

"You can keep that, cause I am sure no one could get the number based on that," Damon scoffed at her.

"You saw my clue, at least let me see yours!" She insisted and began pulling on his arm. Damon partially used his strength to keep the girl away. He was not planning on cooperating with her.

"Let go of me, you freak!"

"We need to work together, you self-centered jerk!"

Ginny wasn't sure what to do when the two had their arms locked over the other's neck. Rather than dying of the second game, these two might end up killing each other first.

"What's going on?" Jay opened his room, revealing Natasha and Oliver walking out with him.

Even the others quickly ascended upstairs to see what all the ruckus and yelling was about. Knowing the cause were Damon and Bree, they were less than surprised. But the stack of paper in Damon's hand did make things more suspicious.

"What are those?" Oliver asked.

"Clues for the second mission. This guy has been hogging them all!" Bree shouted in the midst of pulling his red dyed hair.

As if on cue, Mark ran forward to retrieve the paper from Damon's hand and returned it to their respective owners. He didn't care when the move left a soft cut to the red-haired  guy hissing in pain.

"You guys don't even know how to play this game properly!" He shouted at them in frustration. They were all helping each other out and it wasn't going to help them progress any faster. Their mission was to kill one another, he believed.

"Whatever. As long as we're alive, we're playing good enough." Bree finally released her grip from him and stepped back.

Damon grunted a little and walked away, brushing past the few who were still gathered at the top of the staircase.

"I'll make sure he doesn't do anything stupid," Ginny said, receiving an approving nod from Shirley before she took her leave.

The rest were now left with the clues in their hand. The question was whether they could find the appointed number.

Everyone had pretty much separated afterwards, and without realizing it had formed their own groups with the people they trusted.

"We know for sure that it's an even number," Oliver said, looking at the back of his paper that said just that.

"Not the multiplication of 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9," Jay read his paper and began to massage his forehead. "That's a lot of numbers."

"It's basically a multiplication of 2. But I can't understand my clue!" Natasha complained, almost crumpling the paper in her hand that read: The Wendy Chicks.

"I guess Jay and my clue can be combined together to figure out the possible numbers," Oliver said and took a piece of paper to write down all the possible answers of the multiplications not mentioned.

"So it is an even number and a multiplication of 2," Jay concluded, looking rather lost at Natasha. He decided to ignore her confusing clue for now.

"This actually leaves us with several options," Oliver said as he wrote down and crossed out several numbers. "The problem is that we don't have a benchmark for the numbers."

"Do you reckon someone else was given a clue about it?" Jay questioned.

"I don't think Damon would tell us his clue," Natasha concluded. "We should approach the nice people."

***

Ethan and Madison found the empty living room a nice place to brainstorm in. Their clues were pretty obvious but left exactly nine possibilities.

Ethan's clue stated that the number was bigger than 20, whereas Madison's stated it was smaller than 30. It was the perfect pair of clues that worked well together but did not reveal a definite answer.

"As long as we avoid any number in between, we should be save," Ethan concluded.

"But we can't control how others will play the game." Madison pressed her lips together. "What if we manipulate the others and arrange our seats in a way so that it won't be our turn when the number reaches between 20 and 30?"

"How will we do that?" Ethan questioned in surprise. Seeing the grin play out on her lips, he sensed she actually had a plan.

"Everyone is in a state where they need reassurance. If we can give it to them, wouldn't they agree with the things we tell them to do?"

"Is that even possible?"

"I am a psychology major, Ethan. I learn how a person's state of mind works. And when all hope is lost, any form of a savior will delight them."

Ethan watched her confidence as she spoke those things, unsure how much of it was a bluff and how much she was actually capable of. Madison sometimes had the habit to force her will on people, that much hasn't changed.

"You are so sly," Ethan then told her and let a laugh escape him. The thought of little Maddie trying to manipulate others was such a funny idea. Maybe she would be capable of it now, but he still remembered her as the little girl next-door he used to have a crush on.

Madison flinched when the guy started to laugh. It had been years since she heard that joyous sound enter her ears. She had secretly been stealing glances at him even when they were no longer on speaking terms back then, so she would've known.

"I'm glad you remembered how to laugh," she suddenly said, abruptly stopping him as he stared back with raised eyebrows.

"You're saying that as if I haven't been laughing for ages," he remarked with a slight chuckle.

"Not for the last five years," Madison uttered, noticing the change in Ethan's glint. She probably shouldn't have spoken about the topic again considering how reluctant he was about it. Thankfully for her, the arrival of several friends steered the conversation to a different direction.

"We should work together," Jah spoke, his voice was rather unsure despite the demanding persona he tried to exert.

"Why?" Madison dragged the papers belonging to her and Ethan away from the small coffee table and shifted to sit next to Ethan while the other three took her previous seat on the couch.

"If we want to win, we need to work together," Jay repeated again.

Madison watched them attentively. Natasha and Jay didn't carry their papers with them, but Oliver was openly fanning himself using his. She tried her best to get a peek at his clue despite his constant movements.

"What clues do you have?" Ethan asked calmly, just to comply to their request.

"The Wendy Chicks," Natasha uttered, and the other two frowned at her like she was speaking some gibberish language.

"What?" Madison frowned.

"The. Wendy. Chicks." Natasha enunciated the words again, but this time slower so the other could figure it out. She even wrote the invisible letters in the air, as if it would amount to anything.

Madison watched her face carefully. The way she rolled her eyes and expressed her utter annoyance was genuine. Though Natasha was a performing theatre student who studied acting, she was certain this wasn't an act.

"My clue says that the number isn't the multiplication of 3, 5, or 7," Jay then said. He wasn't exactly lying, but he wasn't relaying the full truth either. A part of him wanted to see how trustworthy the other two were.

Except that he didn't discuss this with Oliver and Natasha first. So the moment they threw him a confused look, Madison knew something was wrong.

"What about the rest? Could it be a multiplication of 4?" Madison decided to test it out.

"Yes." Jay's pupil dilated a little, and there was a slight quiver in the stare he was trying to hold.

"He's lying," Madison whispered softly to Ethan. "But I don't know what part of it is a lie."

"Can we see your paper?" Ethan asked.

"I'm afraid we don't have them anymore," Jay said, raising his hand up to the air.

"If you really want to work together, you better tell us the truth," Madison urged.

"We are. Show us yours," Jay shamelessly uttered.

Madison n and Ethan exchanged looks with each other. They now had a choice to lie to those people's face, or to state the truth after they were being lied to. However, part of them hoped those three would speak the truth once they were faced with the act of honesty.

Madison placed her paper back on the table, showing their two clues to the others. She watched three pair of eyes examine the words.

"It's a number between 20 and 30!" Oliver yelled with excitement. They found the benchmark for the appointed number and could easily narrow it down now.

"So what does your clue say, Ollie?" Ethan then questioned.

"It's an odd number." Oliver grinned widely without a second of delay. It was almost as if he had rehearsed the answer beforehand or tried too hard to convince them it was the false truth.

"Thanks guys! We'll be off solving the clues now!" Jay uttered and jumped off the couch to head back upstairs. The other two followed him.

Ethan immediately turned Madison for a confirmation. By that disappointment on her face, he could already guess her answer.

"I managed to read his paper. Ollie is lying. It is an even number," she muttered.

They both had no idea why the others would even choose to lie when they could be working together. It just showed the true reality they lived in; how every person wanted to live for themselves out of selfish desires. Even when the chance to unite knocked at the doors, they turned their backs on it.

"Okay, at least that narrows it down to a few possibilities," Ethan tried to stay optimistic, but met Madison's eye smile.

"No need, I already got the answer."

He was at a loss and opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

"Natasha's clue." She grinned. "I got the answer from Natasha's clue."

***

Damon watched in silence when Ginny sat him down on a wooden chair in the kitchen. She busied herself to retrieve a first aid box, which was quite ironic considering they might end up being killed eventually. She picked out a pink band-aid filled with cute cartoon characters, and returned to Damon.

"I am not wearing that," he prompted once his eyes set on the tacky design.

"There is no other choice," Ginny lied. She couldn't help but smile when Damon gave in and offered her his hand. She immediately helped him wrap the band-aid around his bleeding ring finger after cleaning it up.

"You seem like you have done this a lot," Damon remarked, shooting her a curious glance before looking away again when she tried to meet his eyes.

"My mom used to make me play the piano 20 hours a day. My fingers would cramp. Sometimes I play until they start to bleed. I like to use the beige colored band-aid to hide the scars from my mom," Ginny told him.

A part of her expected Damon to say something, but another part of her knew he wouldn't. He was always rather closed off and only said things that were necessary. He had always been ambitious in the things he did, and that was partially what made her afraid of him.

"I thought about the things you said," she broke the silence. Her eyes anxiously watched her fingers fiddle among each other. "I'd like to play the game right."

At that, Damon looked up at her, finally meeting her eyes. In that small glance they shared, he saw the determination in her. Whatever determination prompted her to hold on to the anchor of life, their desires were now aligned.

"Good."

***

Four people united and were busy trying to figure out their clues. Unlike the others' that indicated towards the number, theirs were more mysterious.

"FE," Shirley read hers for the nth time. She had hoped saying her clue out loud would eventually start making sense.

"In Chinese it has a total of eight strokes," Ashlyn was mumbling hers.

Mark kept quiet and looked at his card that read 'Integer that is one greater than a square.'

"The way I see it, our clues are related to our field of study," Bree argued. "It's not a coincidence we received these clues."

"Knowing that  doesn't make it any easier," Ashlyn mumbled. She got a notepad in front of her and had written out the different numerical characters in Chinese. "I need to count them all."

"I actually figured out what a rhombicuboctahedron is. I wanted to Google it to be sure, but we have no wifi connection." Bree was about to share her findings when a knock against the door appeared followed by Ginny popping her head inside.

"Have you guys figured out the number?" She questioned innocently like the lost lamb she always was.

"We're trying to figure it out," Shirley said and showed their papers to Ginny. The eldest had the habit to see the good in people and trust them unconditionally.

Ginny stared at their clues, letting out a loud gasp for each clue. She quickly glanced at the others to check how genuine and believable her reaction seemed. No one suspected a thing.

"FE stands for iron in chemistry. But what does iron have to do with this? Iron consists of five letters," Shirley wondered.

"But the number five in Chinese has four strokes only," Ashlyn murmured, still scribbling on the notepad while some numbers were crossed out. "Based on this, the ones with eight strokes are the number 15, 16-"

"It's 15!" Ginny suddenly uttered, and the others turned to her with shock.

"Really?" Mark looked at her with interest, watching her anxious confidence.

"Ollie's clue said that it was an odd number," Ginny uttered the first lie. She met him on the stairs and was informed the number was an odd one, though she had taken a look at his paper before and knew he was lying.

"My clue says..." She then trailed off in a way it seemed she was hesitating whether she should be trusting them or not, but really thinking of something that would lead to the false number. "C and G. In music language, those are the first and fifth notes in a C major scale."

Matk kept his eye on the girl, studying that satisfied grin on her face after her convincing lie. This was an interesting twist of events, especially since it came from Ginny Hale. Why was she trying to lie?

"Mark, you've been awfully quiet. Don't tell me you already know the answer," Shirley stated.

He smiled teasingly. "Okay, I won't tell you anything then."

Shirley exhaled and rested a hand against her hips. "Did you get 15?"

The others stared at Mark like a thief at night about to be busted for his crime. Despite his innocence, he would forever be doubted in the spotlight. Even when his number did not equal Ginny's, he would still be at fault.

"Does it matter?" He answered calmly without putting any effort to defend himself. "We might as well trust Ginny for once."

Mark gazed at the girl with a hollow smile that did not camouflage the condemnation hidden within. It was his way of telling her he knew of her lies, but wouldn't sell her out on it.

And in that slight moment, just for a split second, Ginny felt the slightest bit of guilt. She was like a fish trapped inside the river of sin, forced her way downwards towards a spiral of twisted lies and deceit, with no way to swim back upwards. What was done, was done.

She wanted to play the game right.