SPACEOUT

Red dove under the table, scrambling for both his phone and Pomi’s. His own was barely functional—the cracked screen flickered, though the app still worked, the livestream was hard to see.

He grabbed Pomi’s phone and opened the app to a much clearer stream.

Jaw clenched, he chewed at his thumbnail as the livestream followed Pomi sprinting through the market, the harsh spotlight from the buzzing drone locked onto her. Close behind, gaining ground, was the crazed salaryman—hungryhungryhippo29.

His tie whipped in the wind as he ran, drool trailing from his mouth. He breathed in ragged, desperate bursts, clutching a knife in one hand and his phone in the other.

The chat was exploding.

Some unhinged corporate reject, cast aside after falling out of favor.

Red shook himself, forcing his thoughts back into focus.

He noticed something off—Pomi’s app layout wasn’t the same as his. Her username, irlPOMI, was highlighted in bright pink. A message blinked beside it:

CONGRATULATIONS. YOU’VE BEEN SELECTED AS A SPECIAL TARGET.
YOU ARE WORTH 50 POINTS. WHAT AN HONOR!
YOU WILL REMAIN TRACKED FOR ALL PLAYERS TO SEE.
AN ADDITIONAL RULE HAS BEEN ADDED TO YOUR LIST.

Red tapped into the PLAYER LIST (1000).

Coordinates.

Each highlighted name had them.

He quickly matched the numbers beside Pomi’s username to the district map loaded into the app. The entire Hlum Lang District was laid out in a grid—numbers aligning perfectly with the coordinates. Anyone with access could track targets with ease.

But his stomach dropped seeing another name.

PLAYER #7: Yui Somsri.

Not a username or online moniker.

Her real name.

His sister.

Red’s vision tunneled. Without thinking, he slammed his own broken phone into the concrete, the crack echoing under the table. He crawled out from beneath the table, clutching his chest—the pain from Pak’s kick still sharp. Rage and confusion hit him all at once.

Her name was highlighted—like Pomi’s, in bright pink.

Someone had dragged her into this—or is she awake now?

Are you awake, Yui? Why would you join the game? No. No. No. 

He slapped himself hard, forcing clarity, then staggered out from the market shed.

No time to think.

———————

On the livestream, Pomi’s foot clipped a pile of empty crates, sending them clattering as she stumbled forward. She caught herself—barely—but in that split second, it was enough.

From behind, hungryhungryhippo29 lunged, wrapping his arms around her waist and lifting her just enough that her feet scraped helplessly against the ground.

“I caught you!” he hissed, grinning wide.

Pomi screamed, kicking wildly. He wasn’t strong enough to hold her cleanly, and the two of them crashed to the ground. She grabbed his wrist as he forced the knife downward, his spit flecking her face as he babbled.

“Fifty points, fifty points! I’m not going to kill you! I just need your points—I’ll beat it out of you out again and again until you hit zero! Stay still you, blueberry!”

“Y-You’re drooling on me, you creep!” Pomi shouted.

She drove her knee up hard into his groin. As he recoiled, she shoved her palm into his face and twisted free, scrambling out from under him.

Ahead, a large warehouse loomed by the harbor, its silhouette washed in cold moonlight. A narrow tear in the fence nearby—just wide enough to squeeze through.

Pomi bolted for it.

Behind her, hungryhungryhippo29 grabbed at her sleeve as she forced herself through the gap.

“Come here, goddamn it!” he screamed.

The knife flashed.

“Agh!” Pomi cried out as the blade sliced across her arm.

She tumbled through to the other side, blood already dripping down to the ground. Turning briefly, she saw him trying to force himself through the same gap, snarling in frustration.

Pomi ran, a trail of blood marked her path as the drone hovered above, its spotlight locking onto her. She sprinted toward the warehouse, wrenching open a rusted metal door with her bare hands and then slipped into the darkness.

———————

Red reached the fence bordering the warehouse, lungs burning as he fought for air. He knew he was behind—by minutes, maybe more. The gap in the fence had been stretched wider. With his eyes, Red followed the thin trail of blood leading to the entrance—a smeared, crimson handprint marked the rusted door. Pomi’s phone was still clutched in his hand, and the livestream open. The drone hovered above the warehouse, its spotlight sweeping across the rusted rooftop, searching but finding nothing.

Pomi’s in there.

So is that freaggin’psycho…

Red released Pomi’s phone from his grip, it dropped onto the ground beside fence.

I can’t go in there.

This is the best time to leave, I can escape the drone while it searches for Pomi. Don’t look back, don’t waste anytime. Yui, she's—awake? No. I don't know. 

I’m sorry.

I’ll leave your phone here, so you can find it... I’m not abandoning you, but this is the best chance I have to get away.

Red marched along the outer rim of the fence, away from the warehouse.

He dragged his feet along the harbor coast, the water waged softly against the flat concrete. Cold. The sea air invaded Red’s body. He buried a hand in the open zip of his jumper suit while moving forward. Behind him, the drone’s spotlight continued to circle the warehouse—a mile away. A distant floating buoy blipped red light in intervals between each step that he took. All noise became faint, but the water and the buoy.

Don’t look back, don’t look back.

He focused on each step, marching in the night.

The darkness made him conjure an old memory, desolate in strange solitude.

———————

It was a scorching summer’s day, the kind that set new benchmarks for heat. The relentless chorus of cicadas droned on, a ceaseless hum in the oppressive air. A teenage Red lay sprawled in his bed, eyes fixed on the motionless blades of his broken ceiling fan. He could almost swear he saw the heat haze shimmering off its dormant surface.

“It’s too freaggin’hot. I’m going to die like this. It’s like my bed and I are melding into one.”

“Are you going to lie in bed all day?”

Yui stood framed in the wide-open doorway of his room, hands planted firmly on her hips. Her dark hair, mirroring his own, cascaded around a frame taller than his at the time. Even in the stifling heat, she was a vibrant, fiery youth.

“Leave me alone,” he mumbled.

"'Get your ass-,” Yui launched herself into the air,"-OUT OF BED!" -dropping onto him with a heavy frog splash." They had spent the entire summer watching WWE, and the Frog Splash was her signature move on her little brother.

“Guah!”

Yui had successfully dragged Red out of bed. They now stood before a small house, facing its owner—an older man in an apron and bucket hat, arms crossed, tapping his shoe impatiently. Beside him, a small garden lay in disarray, bike tire tracks scarring the planted tomatoes, like a crimson crime scene.

“Go on. Apologize,” she nudged his arm.

Red rubbed the back of his head, eyes cast down at his feet.

“I don’t want to.”

“It was his faul—”

“I’m so sorry, my little brother has caused you so much trouble. I’ll help tend the garden every weekend for the next month.”

“What?! Yui! But the WWE Championship finals!”

Yui shot him a sharp glare.

“You can’t keep running away from your mistakes, Daeng!”

The buoy’s faint red light brought him back to the concrete coast.

Red’s damaged phone vibrated, a video ad appearing in the corner of the FIGHTDIRTYAPP’s livestream. A cheery voice chirped, “Hi! Have you been feeling down lately? Can’t muster up a smile? Depressed beyond belief? Do you want to be anywhere else rather than where you are now? Call now and receive a free one-month trial of Eltadon! We’ll take you to paradise! Guaranteed. So give us a call now at—” Red raised his arm, pulling it back over his shoulder, contemplating tossing the phone as far as it would go over the ocean. But he brought it back down, his eyes drawn to the livestream where the drone continued to circle the warehouse.

I can still go bac—No. I have to go make sure Yui is okay. Maybe, I could try-

Red tapped the chatbox, his phone flickered with the crack on his screen, but it worked.

He typed in the chat for first time.

MANGORICEPUDDING137: pls someonhelp irlPomi!

mrmarina243: u left her?!

staticgorillaz89: dam dats cold didnt she cary him?

unknownuser7585199: She is going to die because of you. She is going to die because of you. She is going to die because of you.

unknownuser7585199: She is going to die because of you. She is going to die because of you. She is going to die because of you. She is going to die because of you. Pomi is going to die because of you.

stunted99degenarate: thats crazy hes in the chat

fizzywizzly4: spammer alaert lol

unknownuser7585199: Pomi is going to die because of you. She is going to die because of you. She is going to die because of you.

Several messages piled on, but unknownuser7585199 continued to spam the same message over and over again, at the end of each sentence was a “face with tears of joy” emoji.

Red dropped to his knees, feeling a knot in his stomach, and crawled to the edge of the harbor on all fours—stroking at his own throat while choking until he threw up chunks; orange and brown splunged into the rocks beneath the edge before being washed away by the sloshing water.

———————

Ahead of Red, a neon green and red serpent coiled around the building, its glowing body wrapping from the base all the way up to the top, casting shifting, light into the night. The display pulsed endlessly, a spectacle that wouldn’t shut off until morning. The Serpent’s Box Casino Hotel was one of the few major entertainment spots that existed in Hlum District and housed a Rapid Transit Station perched at the top levels of the building.

Red made his way inside.

The air immediately hit him: a stale, heavy blend of cheap perfume, forgotten dreams, and the acrid tang of stale cigarette smoke that clung to everything. He was on his way to the elevator, passing by rows and rows of slot machines. Here, under the indifferent glow of the casino lights, sat figures hunched over, their faces etched with the weariness of years and the faint, desperate hope of a payout. They were mostly older, their movements slow as they fed coin after coin into the hungry machines, their eyes glazed over, fixed on the spinning reels. An eerie silence, stressed by the mechanical clatter and the incessant, almost mocking jingle of slot machines, crowded the floor.

It was a sound that unnerved him, a reminder of the grinding despair of the Hlum Lang. It bled out into the streets.

At the entrance to the elevator was a small line of people and at the end of the line was something akin to a walkthrough metal detector with large chrome-plated machine beside it. Red stood in the line awaiting his turn to enter the elevator. It was a system to detect any non-citizen attempting to enter the rapid transit system without a permit or visa. While Red wasn’t an official citizen of Ruam Mai, he was able to obtain a temporary travel visa through his workplace at the arcade. This allowed him to go and see his sister when time permitted.

The machine, its optical sensors glowing with an internal light, extended a series of articulated arms. With a precise and near surgical motion, it plucked Red's visa from his outstretched hand. The document vanished into a slot, the machine's belly, with internal scanners whirring to life. Red stepped through the field of the metal detector. A soft, green glow pulsed from the detector's arch, and confirmed his identity. The machine had recognized the data-ghost of him encoded on the visa.

The way was clear. A utilitarian elevator, it took one passenger at a time; its steel reflected his weary face. It hummed to life, ready to take him to the upper echelons of the hotel, to the very top where the station would be.

Rain had come again.

It poured in heavy sheets, drumming against the overhead canopy, the steady pitter-patter filling the space. Red sat hunched forward, forearms planted on his knees, head hanging low. Across the platform, Red half-listened to two men talking on a nearby bench—he avoided looking at his phone at all cost, afraid of what he might see.

One of them exhaled a plume of cigarette smoke. “Where’d you end up finding the guy?”

“In his bed.”

“…Pills all around him. I’m guessing, he chose to dream forever.” The man scoffed. “I don’t get it. Throw on a VR set and dream up anything you want.”

A low hum grew louder as the rapid transit car approached.

An intercom crackled overhead.

“Please stand behind the yellow line, for your own safety. Thank you, and have a wonderful day.”

The rapid transit car slid into the station.

These rapid transit lines webbed through the entire city—above, below, threading between high-rises, diving underground, reemerging at street level. A sprawling network. The cars shot along rails like streaks of light through the sky with beams holding them up from underneath.

Beyond the platform, the lower pits stretched out—muted and gray, wrapped in fog—like a damp blanket, all the way to the ocean.

“Ah, jeez… what a bummer,” the other man continued as they boarded, “I don’t touch those pills. Some of my coworkers love that stuff, even after hearing stories like that.” He gestured lazily toward the lower levels of the city. “Can you imagine the people who can’t even afford them? Though… I hear they’ve got stronger stuff down there. Stuff that’ll crack your mind wide open—some kind of euphoric explosion.” He gave a dry laugh. “Don’t think I could handle a drill in my skull—”.

Rain streaked across the window in thin rivulets, distorting the night city lights outside. A flicker of artificial glow bled through the clouds—then vanished, swallowed by darkness until everything became shades of black and gray.

The tracks led toward a giant wall, a looming presence that watched their district like a silent, artificial mountain. Its vastness stretched across the land, disappearing into the haze at the horizon. This monolithic wall separated the lower pits from the inner sanctum of Ruam Mai, a city segmented into sixteen districts. The more you ventured deeper into Ruam Mai, the more it became different worlds. Red’s eyelids felt heavy, the dark mountain wall pressing down on his consciousness. He struggled to keep them open, his gaze fixed on the rain as it slid and merged across the glass, mirroring the blurred lines of his own fatigue.

———————

The rapid transit had arrived at the next stop, within the wall, and into one of the many tunnels.

A woman stepped in.

She had damp blue hair that clung to her face, obscuring her features. Water glistened faintly on her skin under the flickering lights. She moved silently to the far end of the car, barefoot, her back to Red.

Pomi?

No, not quite. He knew there was no way she could’ve caught up.

The intercom buzzed—A twenty-minute delay before the rapid transit car would continue.

The lights went out.

Pitch black swallowed the train.

Red's pulse heightened, pounding in his ears. For a beat, the dark held its breath—then the emergency lights flickered on, casting everything in an ugly, yellow glow. His anxiety grew. A second later, the regular lights returned, humming overhead—but the unease within his body only tightened its grip.

A whisper broke the silence.

“Why did you leave me?”

Red's skin prickled. The voice was soft, gentle, and he wasn’t sure if he’d actually heard it. He swallowed hard, throat dry.

“Huh?”

The woman hadn’t moved, still facing the opposite direction.

Red blinked hard, his vision blurring from fatigue. No—It’s not Pomi, he assured himself, though the nagging itch of doubt lingered at the edges of his thoughts.

“Do you know how much longer?”

The woman’s voice reached him again—soft, muffled, yet oddly distinct. She hadn’t moved. Her head remained low and looking the other way, hair draping down like a veil over her face.

Red hesitated, “N-No, sorry.” his voice cracking slightly.

She sat, still as stone, the air around her thick and cold.

Red’s pulse thrummed louder in his ears. He swallowed hard, forcing himself to breathe evenly. It’s nothing, he thought.

My phone would’ve buzzed, if she was a player. I’m fine. It’s fine.

The lights flickered, dimmed, then buzzed back to life—but now the woman was... closer? Was she closer now? Still, she faced forward, head tilted slightly as though listening to something only she could hear. The transit car jolted forward.

"Do you have any pills?"

"What? Space Out? No." Red's heart beat thudded hard against his ribs.

The woman remained still, but something shifted beneath the veil of her hair—a faint, unsettling ripple, like something slithering just beneath the surface at the back of her head. Okay, that's it, she's tripping me out. He tried to move, to shift in his seat, but a strange heaviness pressed down on him, pinning him in place. His limbs felt like lead, his muscles unresponsive. Panic, cold and sharp, began to claw at his throat. He could hear his own ragged breathing, amplified in the quiet of the car.

The lights flickered again, harder this time, then cut out entirely.

Darkness swallowed the car whole.

A beat passed. The emergency lights flared to life, bathing everything in a muddy yellow.

Red’s breath hitched as the woman was suddenly just one seat away. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again, half-expecting the woman to be gone.

She wasn't.

Her hair swayed, parting. Warped and wet fingers emerged from beneath the tangled strands, impossibly thin, with bone visibly pushing hard to escape her thin and decaying flesh—like meat pressed against saran wrap. The fingers pulled the dark locks aside, revealing something that shouldn’t exist.

It was still the back of her head—or maybe it wasn’t.

A grotesque face pushed forward through the curtain of her hair, wrinkled and pale, with black pits where eyes should have been and a jagged frown formed. The mouth stretched wide and low, lips curling into deeper resentment. The thing reached for him, her hair close enough to scratch against his face.

Then she whispered with flakes of dead skin touching against his earlobe—a voice like maggots and roaches crawling over rustling leaves, "You never should’ve called."

I can’t move. I can’t speak. I can barely breathe—like I’m drowning. Someone, help me, please.

Red’s muscle locked in tight with terror. Something black shined for a moment from the darkness of her mouth and on the tip of her dead tongue—the last thing he saw was that twisted, frowning face closing in and the black pill, Space Out. 

"Ding-dong. The next stop is Arattani, Rangtana Station."

———————

The rapid transit had slowed and prepared for Rangtana Station within the Arattani district.

Sleep paralysis had worn off.

Red awoke, he peeled his own face off the window, almost sticky; dried up drool at the side of his mouth. He could feel the mess on his face—the blood and grime that stuck with him for the last couple of hours. He wiped his face and felt the dryness of his skin against his fingers. Fifty-seven minutes had passed.

"Now arriving, Arattani, Rangtana Station."

Though he felt the weight of his phone inside his pocket, there was an invisible barrier preventing him from looking at it. I can't look or rather—I don't want to. 

The rapid transit car made a full and smooth stop.

Red grabbed the standing bar, getting up and off the seat. Once the double doors had opened, he dragged himself into the cold and sterile station and out of the car. His chest was inflamed, he curled his shoulders and held himself, the pain made him wheeze—there was a brittleness in his walk. Rangtana station was empty upon arrival and the transit car had gone away. 

He was alone.