She’s missing from the library, and once again we scour the hotel, inside and out. But the [Rabbit] had completely vanished.

[https://i.imgur.com/gE4TmNR.png][https://i.imgur.com/PwaOOFU.png]

We return to the main hallway, panting.

[Yuri]: Let’s loop around again. If she’s on the move, we might have missed her.

We’re about to set out again, and then - we pause. The Trial Room door is slightly ajar.

[Ana]: Was it always like that?

I burst in. The familiar chairs, the two screens, everything is there. And she’s there too.

The [Rabbit] slumps in her seat, limp. Her face is pale with a cold sweat, and when I wrapped my hand around her wrist it’s freezing. But…

Thun thun. Thun. thun.

Her heartbeat is faint, but there.

[Yuri]: ‘Executions’ were never a death penalty. Oh my god.

Breaking the rules caused immediate death. But executions just removed you from the game.

When the [Dragon] died, it was probably from his injuries; everyone else perished because they broke the rules.

[Yuri]: If execution doesn’t mean death, then murder at night might not either.

[Yuri]: The [Rooster], the [Tiger], the [Ox]… Lily. They could all still be alive. Hidden somewhere.

But Ana shakes her head.

[Ana]: Something’s wrong. Look. She’s not waking.

She tugs on the [Rabbit]’s shoulder, and the [Rabbit] rolls wherever she pulls her.

[Yuri]: Maybe she’s just resting now that the game’s over.

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[Ana]: No, she’s not making a sound! If someone’s moving you like this you’ll wake up, no matter how deeply asleep you are!

[Yuri]: Explain then why she has a heartbeat! Explain why she's still alive!

[Ana]: She’s alive, Yuri, but she’s dying.

I grab the [Rabbit] myself, and shift her, careful not to injure her but forceful enough to make her stop pretending she’s unaware.

[Yuri]: Open your eyes…! Didn’t you want to survive? All those deaths, everything, wasn’t it for you!

She doesn’t respond.

I know that she’s as good as dead. Her heartbeat, thun-thun thun-thun, becomes so quiet that I have to delude myself to hear it.

But I want to search for the embers. I want to live in a world where there’s hope. Why is it that whenever I decide to try to find it, that it has to be crushed like this…?

It was better never to hope at all. It’s a lesson that I keep learning and forgetting, that even if I try my hardest, it will never be enough. I will never be enough.

I finally stop shaking her. A paper drifts from her blouse pocket and flutters down. It’s the same hospital blueprint that she had shown me before; but this time the ‘research’ wing is circled clearly in pen. Ana interrupts.

[Ana]: …There’s explosives inside us. If we break the rules, they go BOOM!

She spreads her hands as if there’s a bomb between them.

[Ana]: Maybe, for execution and murder, there’s some kind of virus inside us. They press a button somewhere and it makes us sick.

[Yuri]: That’s not true.

My voice rings out clearly, echoing across the chamber til it finally dies down. The acoustics are spectacular, because there aren’t many surfaces to dull or absorb the sound. The floor is clean, polished, hardwood; and all the objects here are flat and laminated.

Even the bodies are gone.

Maybe this sterility should have been a comfort. It is as if all the blood, the crying, the tears had been an illusion. That no one had ever existed except the two of us and the sleeping girl.

As if I go back home, I’ll see Lily, and this was all a strange dream.

But I reach for the wrench that I had tucked away, and put my arm in front of Ana.

[Yuri]: Who’s there?

[Yuri]: The cracked screen’s repair, and the guts from each Trial always being gone.

[Yuri]: Janitor, groundskeeper, the one who cleaned the floor. I know you’re here.

Someone’s clapping. It quickens, faster and faster, louder and louder, and finally - halts. A smiling man in a white coat steps out from behind one of the screens, mop in hand.

[Researcher]: You were supposed to wait in your rooms. Until we were ready for you.

Ana tenses as he reaches within his coat. But he simply presents an ID, attached to a doctor's lanyard.

Lofus Amamai

The last name is familiar - it’s the same as Lily’s.