Snap!
The sapphire forest vanished in a blink of blinding white light.
Before either of them could even catch their breath, the cool dirt beneath Sam and Alice was replaced by the polished floor of the main lobby.
They were back where it all began, standing beneath the glowing hologram of the leaderboard.
“Wow, there really aren’t too many of you left now, are there?”
Nexis’s theatrical voice echoed through the vast room, dripping with artificial amusement.
He floated in the centre of the lobby, slowly turning to point a finger at the scattered, exhausted crowd.
“Let’s see…” he hummed, his eyes scanning the survivors.
“Looks like only eighteen of you managed to drag yourselves across the finish line of Day 7. Quite disappointing, honestly! I thought for sure more of you would put up a decent fight.”
Hearing those callous words, a hot wave of fury surged through Sam’s chest.
Nexis talked about them as if they were nothing more than plastic game pieces on a board—worthless tokens to be discarded without a second thought.
Mira wasn’t a game piece.
She was a person.
“Sam, calm down,” Alice whispered, her voice barely audible as she gently placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
Sam didn’t even realise his fists were clenched tightly enough to turn his knuckles white, or that his glare was fixed on the gamemaster.
He took a slow, deep breath and closed his eyes, forcing the tension from his face and body.
He couldn’t let Nexis or anyone else see him crack.
Not now.
Nexis stared down at the remaining contestants, his gaze drifting lazily across the crowd until it locked directly onto Sam.
Did he notice me glaring at him?
Sam wondered, his heart skipping a beat beneath the gamemaster’s piercing eyes.
“Anyways!” Nexis clapped his hands together, his face twisting into a bright, sickeningly cheerful smile.
“It seems a lot of you are a bit worked up at the moment, so I think I’ll send you all back to your rooms to cool off!”
He snapped his fingers.
An invisible, violent force instantly lifted the contestants completely off their feet.
Before anyone had time to react, they were launched backward through the air, propelled at breakneck speed straight into their respective rooms as the doors slammed shut behind them.
“Ouch!” Sam groaned, wincing as he slammed face-first onto his mattress.
“He didn’t have to be so rough…”
As he pushed himself up, he stared down at his hands.
They were perfectly clean, no longer stained with dried blood and forest dirt.
“Must be the lobby reset,” he muttered bitterly to himself.
His body was fully healed, yet his mind felt heavier than ever.
Stumbling into the bathroom, he cranked the tap open and frantically splashed ice-cold water over his face.
He snapped the tap shut and gripped the edges of the sink, staring hard at his reflection in the mirror.
Instantly, memories crashed through his mind: the face of the elf girl he killed, the tear-stained body of Mira lying in the dirt, and Nexis’s mocking, cheerful voice.
A suffocating wave of frustration exploded through him.
Unable to contain the rage a second longer, Sam roared and slammed his fist directly into the glass.
The mirror shattered with a deafening crack, sending sharp shards flying across the tile floor as his reflection fractured into a thousand broken pieces.
He looked down at his knuckles.
They were completely unblemished, without a single scratch or drop of blood.
As he stared, a faint hum filled the air.
The sharp shards of glass on the tile floor began to lift, defying gravity as they floated backward and seamlessly clicked back into the frame, reassembling the mirror as if nothing had happened.
Maybe I just need to get some rest, he thought, rubbing his throbbing temples.
But the universe wasn’t going to let him sleep.
The moment he stepped back into the bedroom, a sharp pop broke the silence.
The blank television on the wall suddenly flickered to life on its own, casting a harsh, pale glow across the dark room as loud, crackling static filled the air.
“So freaking annoying,” Sam muttered to himself.
He snatched the remote off the nightstand and aggressively pressed the power button, forcing the television back into darkness.
He turned to walk away, but a sharp click echoed through the room.
The television immediately flashed back on, the blaring static filling the space once more.
“Now, just a moment!”
Sam froze.
The voice that cut through the white noise was one he did not know.
The static suddenly snapped into a solid, pitch-black background.
On the screen, a dark silhouette emerged.
Twin, piercing eyes glowed fiercely from the shadows.
It bore a striking resemblance to Nexis’s ethereal form, but something about its presence felt completely, terrifyingly different.
“Hello, Sam Miller. My name is Andromeda.”
Sam’s breath caught in his throat.
Andromeda… The name echoed in his mind, sparking a memory.
Nexis had mentioned that name before.
“What are you?” Sam demanded, his hands tightening into fists as he forced his voice to stay steady.
“I am the god responsible for your world—for Earth,” she responded smoothly.
The silhouette shifted slightly, her glowing eyes narrowing into a serene smile.
“And as for what I want? I simply wanted to chat with you for a little bit.”
“About what exactly?” Sam asked, his stance remaining tense and on guard.
“Advice,” Andromeda replied, her voice echoing with a cold, absolute certainty.
“With the way things are currently going, you are bound to lose this game. You need to be fiercer. You cannot afford to concern yourself with the lives of the other players.”
Sam’s brow furrowed, a chill running down his spine.
“What exactly are you trying to say?”
“Stop worrying about the cost of taking a life,” she said, her glowing eyes flaring with a sinister, unyielding intensity.
“Do what you must in order to win.”
“No,” Sam said, his voice entirely resolute.
“As much as I want to win, I will not murder innocent people to do it.”
“The dead cannot make wishes, Sam.”
Her words hit the room with the heavy weight of a death sentence, but Sam refused to back down.
He stepped closer to the screen, his gaze locking onto her glowing eyes.
“And why do you care so much anyway?” he demanded.
“What do you get out of this? What are your actual intentions here?”
“I simply want you to win,” she replied smoothly.
“But why?” Sam pressed, his disgust growing by the second.
“Why do you care if I win?”
“Because when you win, I win,” Andromeda stated, her glowing eyes narrowing with a cold, aristocratic disdain.
“Earth has never once won this competition. Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to be the ruler of the only world that has never won? But now, looking at you… There is actually a chance.”
Sam stared at the screen in utter disbelief.
A sickening realisation washed over him: none of these higher powers had a decent soul.
From Nexis to Andromeda, they were all rotten to the core.
“Screw you!” Sam yelled, stepping right up to the television.
“I am going to win this. But I’m doing it my own way!”
“Sam Miller,” Andromeda’s voice chilled, her glowing eyes flaring with a dangerous intensity.
“Discard that Ashcroft girl. Don’t let her overtake you in points. In the end, only one wins.”
Those final words were the absolute last straw.
Rage blinding him, Sam turned on his heel and stormed out of his quarters, slamming the door behind him with a deafening crash that echoed down the corridor.