Words: 3206
(Edited)
Lars was the first to get out of the roller coaster cart, then Li Yan followed. It was a bit nerve wracking to balance on the junk at first, but he eventually got the hang of it. Though, he did have to use the broken mechanical parts in front of him to balance, so his walk became similar to a bear. Lars seemed to be fine with balancing along with the other veterans, perhaps due to experience or the difference in physique.
“Does anyone see an exit?” Li Bao asked, but no one answered.
Although Ji-Yoo was injured, he was still better at navigating through the broken machines than Li Yan which made Li Yan really realize he really needed to get in shape before the next room. Or just hope the next room wouldn’t involve so much moving. He sighed and continued to make his way down the pile of trash.
It was an unsaid consensus that they would all split up around the junkyard and search, so that’s exactly what they did. Since the place was pretty spacious it gave off a bit of an echo, so if one of them got in trouble they just had to yell out.
Li Yan finally reached the floor of the big storage room and started walking in a random direction that no one else went towards. This way they could hopefully try to cover more ground. Hopefully, there were no ghosts or monsters in this area.
The veterans all had duos except Lars, so Ji-Yoo stayed with Soren and Li Bao with Hailey. Although, Hailey would be counted as a newbie to Li Yan. This left Nikolas, Lars, and Li Yan to which Li Yan went on his own and Nikolas followed Lars.
After some walking, Li Yan reached the wall of the storage building. From here, he decided he would start his search. It was at this time he decided he would look at his chat while he scavenged but after reading the few comments in the room he closed it. The livestream chat wasn’t interesting at all to him. They just talked about how scary the place looked or how handsome he was, neither of which amused him.
Ever since IER started he has talked to more people in such a short amount of time than ever before. He was now even being constantly watched, although he ignores it that doesn’t mean the video has stopped rolling. On the good side of it all, they no longer had to use the restroom so the issue of privacy was solved for the most part.
He looked around until he finally came across a gruesome looking scene. In one of the broken mechanical bears, the body was hollowed out with a child’s torso in it. The torso was bloody around the wounded edges from where the limbs and head were cut off, making it have a horrible stench. Somehow none of them managed to smell it, and even Li Yan didn’t smell it until he walked closer to it. Almost as if it was deliberately hiding its scent.
The torso had a ripped up T-shirt covering it with some bugs crawling over it. Although it was very likely to have the key piece they needed, Li Yan really didn’t want to touch it. He instead used a piece of cloth from a nearby doll and wrapped it around his hand to grab the torso and put it in his storage space, successfully filling all his available space.
Now that he had the torso, his first thought was “Where is the head?” He looked around the bear animatronic in which he originally got the torso from, but found nothing. After more searching, he got tired of moving heavy pieces of metal and toys so he gave up and went to search for the others.
Li Yan soon found Nikolas and Lars, except it seemed as if they were in a predicament.
“Give it to me!” Nikolas growled at Lars, fully looking like someone who has gone feral. He prowled around Lars as if he was his prey and periodically attempted to grab at his pockets.
“I have the last key piece anyways! If you don’t give me those, I’ll swallow this one whole.” Nikolas seemed to have gone off the deep-end. Though, it made sense. Any average person would probably go insane after going through this kind of situation. Stuck in a whole new world with no one you knew, and the false expectations of the trial versus the actual survival games. It’s normal to have broken down quite a bit or become desperate for escape.
Of course, the idea of dying for freedom would also appear, but as someone who just escaped from death they would most likely be unwilling to die again. So, the rational option from there was to reach the goal without any interference, in this case the goal would be to live. Nikolas is only trying to live.
“I won’t.” Lars shrugged, spotting Li Yan who was standing near them. Nikolas didn’t notice, and continued to try to snatch the key pieces from Lars. While at the same time, in Nikolas’ hands there was indeed a final key piece. Li Yan didn’t bother to dig into the corpse, so he couldn’t judge the authenticity of it. But, he had a feeling Nikolas probably had the last key piece. As for the torso, Li Yan was sure that they would figure out the need for it soon.
“Do you think you're better just because you’ve been through more rooms?” He let out a mocking laugh. “This whole time I’ve always been the follower, the next in line to die next to that Li Yan guy!”
“Anyways, just give me the key. It won’t matter anyways, we can all get out once I put it together.”
“I don’t trust you to hold onto them.” Lars said.
Li Yan looked towards Nikolas and knew he was just trying to distract Lars. He at first taunted him to make him angry, but Lars wasn’t the type to get angry easily so his efforts quickly went to waste.
But, Nikolas isn’t stupid. He must have something up his sleeve if he felt confident enough to fight Lars.
And Li Yan was correct. Nikolas quickly let out a sinister grin as he tapped on the circle around his neck. What appeared shocked Li Yan and even Lars. Although Li Yan didn’t know this, Lars knew that a person could only put two types of things in their space system. Plot objects and items. And since it didn’t look like a plot object, it could only be that Nikolas had found an offensive item. It was fitting for the theme park as it had colorful stripes down the sides and took the form of a ball launcher. The balls inside were half-see through capsules that children would use from the gachapon machines, but they seemed to hold nothing in them.
He had some items to use against Nikolas, but before he could get them out Nikolas had already shot blindly. Lars had to quickly dodge and curse the IER system on their convoluted methods of inventory. But, instead of being an offensive item like Lars had thought, it was actually a support item! The key pieces in his pocket suddenly felt a strong pull, ripping his pocket as the piece got sucked into one of the capsules and put into Nikolas’ hand.
Nikolas gave a laugh as he quickly jumped blindly behind him into the pile of toys and dirty stuffed animals. Lars quickly went to look through the pile but let out some curses instead.
“Fuck, there’s an exit there. You see this is why I hate working without my team.” Lars complained. Li Yan, who had stood as a bystander the whole time just watched as he looked down the vent that was uncovered.
“I’m going first, you can get the others.” Lars waved at him and then jumped into the ventilation shaft. Li Yan looked at where the two left for a bit before finally turning around and grabbing some toy drums behind him. He started to loudly play the drums until the rest of the players arrived.
“Ohhh, the exit?” Li Bao said as she walked over. “It goes into vents?”
“I guess so.” Li Yan decided to leave the explaining to Lars later on what happened as he went ahead to go into the vents first. He had to crawl in them which felt a bit awkward and very cramped. It also gave him a bit of anxiety when he thought that the person behind him was probably staring straight at his ass right now. His hands started to sweat profusely, and tried to speed up a bit and use his knees to wipe the sweat trail he left.
“Why is the vent so wet? Is this blood?” He heard Li Bao ask behind him. He inwardly cursed her out, suddenly glad he hadn’t tried to team up with her. Family obviously couldn’t be trusted.
“Yeah it’s blood.” Li Yan had a deadpan look on his face as he quickly got to the end of the vents and escaped to the entrance of the castle.
“Weird, it doesn’t smell like it.” Li Bao frowned, trying to use the moonlight to see her hands. “It doesn’t look like it either.”
“I must have been wrong, sorry.” Li Yan gave her a small forced half-smile before turning away to look for where Lars and Nikolas went.
“Where are Lars and Nikolas?” Ji-Yoo asked. Li Yan just said it was complicated and that they’d meet up later to which the others asked no further questions. They all decided that because of the rollercoaster ride they’d go to see the gift shop.
“Do you believe that story was the truth?” Li Bao asked Ji-Yoo to which he simply shook his head. “Of course not. Children won’t ‘fight’ adults in such an unrealistic manner. Maybe throw some tantrums but not to the point of abuse. The owner was presumably a middle aged man, so he was probably able to easily overpower them.”
“But what if it was an incapacitated elderly man?” Hailey asked. “He could have been very ill which is why the security guard was going to step in and take advantage of him by using the girls?”
“Seems like we will have to find out who the owner is to see.” Ji-Yoo said.
“King is the name of the security guard at the beginning.” Li Yan suddenly added, making everyone look at him. “The owner will also come tomorrow.”
The others began to ponder as they walked towards the gift shop, but instead of a gift shop it seemed like they walked into some kind of stuffing factory. All the dolls from the shelves were cut open or the shelves themselves were broken. It seemed as if the whole shop got ransacked.
“A thief?” Ji-Yoo asked to which Soren just smacked his shoulder. Li Yan looked at the wreckage and immediately thought of Lars and Nikolas.
“Perhaps it was a thief.” He said to Ji-Yoo, to which Ji-Yoo returned him a goofy grin. Although Ji-Yoo looked like a fool, he wasn’t truly one. His eyes held a bit of disappointment, but he seemed to also understand the fact that not everyone could be saved.
Before Li Yan could turn on his flashlight, Lars came out from one of the piles covered in blood. The blood didn’t seem to be his. Ji-Yoo just sighed and shook his head while the others looked at him in slight curiosity.
Lars seemed to have also gotten a flashlight, and it was shining right at them. “We are still missing a piece.” Lars crushed the slightly relaxed atmosphere making everyone tense. No one bothered to figure out where the blood came from anymore or whether or not Nikolas was still alive.
“That can’t be? There are no other attractions. Unless the junkyard and rollercoaster were two different ones?” Li Bao said.
“I didn’t see anything on the rollercoaster.” Lars shook his head. “It’s likely that we are missing something.” He casted a glance at Li Yan. “It had to do with the body parts you have. Did you find any more?”
Li Yan nodded. “A torso.”
“No head? It appears that’s what we are missing.”
“You’re saying that if we can find the head that’s where the last piece will be?” Hailey asked. Lars was now less suspicious of her due to Li Bao’s leniency with her so he nodded honestly. Hailey also seemed a lot more relaxed now and didn’t bother hiding that she wasn’t a newbie.
“That is the most likely scenario.”
Everyone seemed to be a bit at a loss. They only had 2 days left, and this day would probably end soon. They somehow needed to find a head in that time, but even though the park is small, it could be anywhere. Plus, they didn’t know the use of the body parts kept by Li Yan nor the real backstory behind the park.
“Let’s split up?” Li Yan suggested. “We can all explore different areas.”
Li Bao and Hailey naturally were a group along with Ji-Yoo and Soren. That left Lars and Li Yan to be left together once again. But, before they could all split up, a huge animatronic bear was seen sprinting towards them from a distance.
Everyone looked on in horror as it came stomping towards them. “Can anyone fight against that?” Li Bao asked. Everyone else just shook their heads. Though they are veterans with items, the items themselves are very rare. Nevermind trying to get a good item, most of theirs were trash.
“Isn’t that Bunny? The X on the cheek is Bunny, right?” Hailey asked. “Yes.” Li Yan agreed and looked at the menacing bear coming their way. It was the traditional brown bear design with cartoonish features meant to draw in kids. The X on the cheek was a neon blue and its eyes were of the same material. But, instead of being blue they were red with an angry expression similar to an emoticon. If it wasn’t running intently at them then the scene could have been quite cutesy.
“Do we run?” Li Bao asked. “Do we look like we can outrun that?” Hailey sighed. Hailey wasn’t wrong either, the bear was three times their height, two steps for the bear would be equivalent to around thirty or more for them.
“Hide?” Li Bao suggested again. “If you want to get crushed.” Soren spoke.
“...” Li Bao decided to no longer help this group.
The animatronic bear was getting closer, and they all stood there staring up at it, knowing it wasn’t going to be useful to run.
“The body parts.” Li Yan suddenly spoke, taking out all the body parts. They all watched as he threw the body parts of a child in front of them like it was a sack of flour.
The bear stopped running and slowed down until eventually it reached right in front of them. The bear tilted its head to the side a bit in a childish manner, almost as if it was confused on what the little ants in front of it meant.
“This is your sister isn’t it?” Li Yan asked.
The bear kept silent.
“We need the head so we can leave.” Li Yan saw that the bear wasn’t immediately going towards violence and tried to barter.
Then, something quite miraculous happened. The bear that was three times their size shrunk down to the little bear that chased them before.
It picked up the pieces of Alice’s body and turned its small head to look at Li Yan. “Bring them.”
The bear nodded and left, dragging the body parts with it. They all gave a sigh of relief. “How did you know it was Alice?” Li Bao asked.
“I guessed.” Li Yan shrugged. For the most part, he really did guess, but there were a bit of clues that helped him. “First, Alice and Bunny, as said in the newspaper, went missing in this park. The roller coaster also gave us a clue on how close the sisters were with each other. They naturally only had each other to depend on. The body parts we have been collecting were too small to be an adult, so it could only be either Alice or Bunny. Which means that the owner or security guard are most likely the targets of revenge.”
“So, the owner or security guard killed Alice and Bunny?” Li Bao asked. “Wouldn’t it be the security guard?”
“In Alice in Wonderland, the main antagonist is the Queen of Hearts.” Li Yan explained. “While Mr. Heart and King could both refer to her, I’m inclined to believe that Mr. Heart is most likely the murderer.”
“But, Bunny said something important. To bring them. Which means neither are innocent.” Lars added. “Mr. Heart may be the main villain though.”
“Now, it’s finally starting to feel like easy mode.” Li Bao sighed. “I’m so tired, I really thought we were done for.”
“I wouldn’t have just stood there waiting for the bear to kill me if I didn’t have a plan.” Lars said. “You did good.” He patted Li Yan on the shoulders. “You should really joi-”
“No thanks.” Li Yan shook his head. Lars just gave a regretful sigh.
“DIE!” An animatronic bear voice came from behind them, surprising the whole group.
“Damn, I thought she left?” Hailey said, grabbing Li Bao and running back.
“She did. That’s not Bunny.” Li Yan said, looking at the bear with a heart on its right cheek. “That’s Alice.”
“Alice?!” Li Bao asked.
“Did giving the body parts away bring her here?” Lars muttered, running away along with the others. Luckily, this bear was tiny, so outrunning it wasn’t as useless as before.
“Perhaps.” Li Yan frowned looking at the bear chasing them with a big toy hammer. He wondered if it would actually kill them, but he didn’t need to think about it for long. The hammer slammed down right between where his legs were, but luckily he managed to run away in time. The hammer created a big hole in the cement of the amusement park, showing just how painful it would be to be hit.
“That hammer is bigger than her!” Ji-Yoo complained, his spirit seeming to have recovered enough to joke around again. “Shut up!” Soren complained, but he looked slightly more relieved than before.
Li Yan had no time to further bother with the insider feelings of the group because he was slowly falling behind them. They were all veterans except him, with Li Yan being the only newbie left. He naturally struggled to catch up with their upgraded bodies.
Unlike the other times before, he didn’t get enough room for a head start, so the amount of time it took Alice to catch up with him was fast. Especially because it was a surprise attack they were all less prepared. Li Yan used all of his breath to run, hoping this wouldn’t be his first and last official room.
~~~
