Hour 28

Akachukwu covered his ears as a gun detonated outside, a bullet piercing his common room wall and shattering an opulent pottery platter holding a kingly portion of Matungulu fruit. He despised gunfire; though it was a normal response, he hated it even more than the average person. When he heard a gunshot, all he could picture was the body of his brother, Sizwe. He had been part of the village search party looking for him, and he had been the first to stumble upon his body, more than 20 bullet wounds perforating his flesh. As another round of gunfire started, he clutched at his pocket, In it was a golden pen, the only physical memory he had left of him. The pen had been a gift from Sizwe, supposed to have brought good luck for his goal to enroll in Cape Town University, but he had died just 2 days later. Whenever he felt scared or uncertain, he held that pen and could almost feel his brother's warmth. He couldn't hide forever though, so after the gunfire had stopped for a while, he left the safety of his room to peek out the door.

Sang-Wook, still cloaked with invisibility coated in an outline of erratic colors, hobbled into the elevator, trying to keep his weight off the ankle Sasha had slit, and pressed the first button he saw. It had been natural, a part of his muscle memory, yet it took a second for it to sink in. He had punched 3rd-floor oncology, just like he normally did back home. The elevator jolted, lumbering past the 2nd floor with a mechanical rumble, and stopped at the 3rd floor. As the doors finished their opening sequence, he was speechless. He hadn't expected to be so abruptly presented with a place of comfort, the place that felt more like home than his actual home. He was mesmerized by his surroundings, an environment that almost beckoned him to continue forward. As he ran his hand along the immaculate white paint of the wall, each room it touched coaxed his mind to conjure memories related to it.

One of the Chemotherapy rooms in the infusion center brought back memories of Han Mi-Sook, an older patient of his that had been in her late 80s. She had been a bitter person he hadn't enjoyed the company of at first, but sometimes her family would join her for her infusion treatment and bring her 6-year-old great-granddaughter Jang Min-Ju. Her great-granddaughter would bring out the best in her, and after he spent some time playing with them, Han Mi-Sook warmed up to him. He would always share some Maejakgwa with them, a type of ginger cookie he made for his patients on infusion days.

As he passed one of the Surgery rooms, he couldn't help but remember Yun Ha-Joon, a young male surgeon who was part of an internship program to foster the next generation of doctors. He had viewed Sang-Wook as a stepping stone to his success, more of a rival than a mentor, but became friends with him when he covered for his tardiness due to taking care of his sick father.

As he ran his hand along the wall, it glided across the area that transitioned to the nurse's station countertop, where he recalled Byun Ha-rin and Kim Seo-ah, two beautiful and kind nurses who always brightened everyone's day. On more than one occasion he had thought to try his luck with one of them, but besides the fact he was dying from cancer he knew it wouldn't be right, he was a little too old for them, and mixing work with pleasure wasn't a good idea, so instead he became close friends with them, grew to see them more as daughters as the years went on.

But these people were not alive anymore.

Suddenly he realized he felt tired, very tired. As his ankle compressed in pain with each step, he brought his phone out and bought a heal, lowering his 307-hour total to 257. He recalled a heal being the first thing he had purchased from the app store, praying it would purge the cancer from his body. He continued to cough up blood though, meaning the cancer that had metastasized to his lungs remained thriving, forcing him to conclude the heals could only heal injuries or illnesses sustained after the game had begun. Even the revive he had been forced to use during truth-or-dare when his anemic body had been dared to lose 1 liter of blood had brought him back with the cancer very much alive. He stopped walking as his hand moved across a nameplate displayed with authority, "Jeon Sang-Wook, head of oncology." He entered the room and saw all his awards on the wall, most notably his graduation certificate from Seoul National University and his acceptance into Asan Medical Center, the hospital he was currently in, the largest hospital in South Korea and one of the most prestigious. He shook his head, realizing a little too late all this was an obvious plot to stir his sentimentality and weaken his mind; the game was trying to impair his mental fortitude.

As he made his way back to the elevator, he felt the syringes shift in his shirt pocket. He had 4 left, though he had started out with a backpack of over 100. He had a deadly vile of Hydrogen cyanide (HCN), enough to kill anyone in a couple of minutes if injected correctly, as well as a bottle of sodium arsenite NaAsO2 for good measure. Originally he had been looking into these substances for suicide, but after the start of the game, he changed his mind. He was just about to make it to the elevator when its doors opened; someone else was in it.

Rico's undeniable physical advantage against Margaux was frightening. Not only did he have deadly skill with the machete he wielded, but he was also at least 10 years younger than her and toned with highly effective muscles from years of practice. Margaux was thin with an indisputable malnourishment debilitating her frail body, her innate shy and bashful nature also not helping at all. Even when her Ex-husband would hit her, she was too afraid to fight back, and her Ex wasn't half the man Rico was. She blocked another strike from him with the handle of her hammer, but he had telegraphed his movement on purpose; the second his blade met her steel, he shifted it sideways and cut down the length of its base, flaying a layer of skin from her hand. She screamed in pain, and before her scream could even finish, Rico twirled the blade in his hand, perfectly repositioning it with a lethal fluidity as he swung to decapitate her. She fell backward in a desperate half-step; though this caused Rico to miss his mark to behead her, he was still able to steer his blade across her face, mauling her left eye and missing her right by only a centimeter or two. She couldn't even scream this time, everything was happening too fast for her to process. The severed flesh on her face pulled down with the help of gravity and began to discharge an alarming amount of blood down her features. Her hands had already started to move before she could consciously call for them, but as she drew her phone Rico was ready to prevent her from using it. A normal person may have taken her phone and ended the game painlessly for her, but not Rico, he Slashed down in a deadly sideways slant, cutting her from her left shoulder down across her belly button. In a desperate last effort, she swung her hammer, but he avoided its steel, the head catching his shirt at the opening for his neck and ripping it even wider. She fumbled for her phone again, blood still rushing from her hand, face, and body, but Rico lodged his blade in the delicate flesh of where her neck met her shoulder. Though the blade carved a fatal path into her, bisecting her clavicle and severing vital tissue, it had been meant to decapitate her; he realized when she swung and ripped his shirt, blood had sprayed down on his hands with the power of her motion and caused his grip to slip. Margaux, bleeding profusely, typed one final thing on her phone. Before Rico could withdraw his blade and finish her, she was gone. He was perplexed for a second but then realized, "She changed location." He laughed as he rubbed his forehead, "And took my weapon with her, too. Pretty impressive for an old lady." He ripped his flapping shirt off the rest of the way and used it to mop up the blood that had spritzed him while he thought of how he would kill her.

As Akachukwu left his room, he couldn't believe what he was looking at. The tanned man standing a few doors down from him had a tattoo on his right pectoral muscle with an unmistakable flag, the same flag used by the gang that had killed his brother, a Colombian cartel group that had been trying to cash in on cocaine sales on another African gangs turf, the one Sizwe had joined and been forced to defend. All the fear and uncertainty in Akachukwu's body was converted into a vengeful hatred.