Not a single scream escaped my lips this time.

I was getting used to this. Instead, I let out a yell of relief. This was the final proof I needed to be one hundred percent sure. I had somehow found my way into a death loop. The emotions I felt were strangely conflicting. Relief, for starters, for not having died. Confusion to the whole situation. Anger, also towards the whole situation.

More than all that, I felt empowered.

The exit to the building, and presumably my way out of the death loop, would open itself once only three people remained. All I had to do was find the perfect loop in which all the others would kill one another and leave me alone until enough had died. Should be good.

What. The. Fuck.

I felt sick. Had I really just considered that? I didn’t know who I was, but this way of thinking didn’t feel like me. To speak of hundreds of people dying that casually… I rushed to the corner of my room, my stomach emptying itself before I knew it was happening.

Just as quickly as the nausea had begun, it ended again and I felt a familiar numbness come over me. The same numbness I had felt when I had first fled from the axe maniac and knife girl and seen all those bodies in the hallway. The same numbness that had empowered me to let myself be killed by 17 to test my theory.

I shuddered. Something was seriously wrong.

The bell chimed and the feeling of compulsion surfaced.

I wondered…

I stayed in my room as the feeling grew stronger and started hammering down on my skull. With every heartbeat, every breath, I felt it pressing down on me stronger and stronger until I collapsed onto the ground, writhing in pain.

I screamed.

And I woke up.

With a sigh, I stood up from the bed.

So, not going to the main hall didn’t seem like a possibility. Whoever had put me here seemed insistent that I hear the same announcement over and over again. The thought somewhat reassured me though. It meant this place, whatever it was, had rules. Rules of which I already knew two.

I made a mental note. Rule number one; make your way towards the main hall when you wake up. Rule number two; be among the last three survivors to be able to leave the building.

I smiled to myself despite just having died for the fifth time in less than an hour. Two rules already figured out, how many more were waiting to be discovered? The more rules I knew, the easier my escape of this place would become.

Remembering the words from 17 I flipped the mattress from the bed, but was greeted by an empty wooden panel. I cursed softly. Had he lied? I grabbed the side of the bedframe and flipped the entire thing over. I smiled triumphantly. Attached with velcro to the underside of the wooden panel were several weapons. Five knives, some short swords, one longer sword and an axe. The same axe the maniac had used to bring down my door.

I tested every weapon in my hands, feeling their balance and ease of swing. This felt familiar somehow, I realized. I couldn’t remember who I was, but once I had a weapon in hand a sense of calmness washed over me.

“Let’s see then,” I said to myself as the announcer voice resounded outside and the feeling of compulsion sat in. I had infinite attempts at this, there was no need to rush. Hiding the knife in my sleeve, the handle resting in my palm, I made my way to the main hall.

With little regard for the others, they wouldn’t remember anyway, I pushed my way to the center of the hall and positioned myself right behind 17.

“Welcome. You are confined to this building. There is but one exit, which will open once only three of you remain.”

17 stood up and moved towards his unsuspecting victim. In a heartbeat, I was behind him, plunged my knife in his throat and pushed him back into the chair. Serves you right, I couldn’t help but think. Now, had anyone noticed in the confusion? It didn’t seem like it from a first glance.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Then a scream came from somewhere else in the hall. “She killed him!” a voice yelled. “She has a knife!”

Fuck. I patted the dead 17 on the shoulder as the chaos erupted and sat myself down next to him, my knife clear in sight. People mostly ran, but a select few approached me with knives of their own. Once they saw my knife however and the dead guy next to me, they quickly changed target. No need to risk their lives just yet.

I waited until the hall was mostly empty before I moved again. Again I shuddered as I barely felt anything at the sight of over a dozen bodies. How many people had found the weapons before coming down here? Too many for me to handle, that was certain. I would have to find a different approach next time.

I was still alive for the moment though, might as well spend the time on something useful. Ah. The sole thing from the announcer’s message that still bothered me. The exit. Where was it?

I looked around the hall, seeing only bland, grey walls and stairs leading up to the upper levels. There didn’t seem to be any hallways on the ground floor. Interesting. I counted the balconies, ignoring the people running and screaming along them. Ten floors. So far the highest number I had seen on someone had been four hundred sixty-four. Did that mean on average forty-six rooms for each level? Or was every level different?

No, I reminded myself. Focus on finding the exit first.

I circled the entirety of the main hall, making sure to keep my knife visible to deter any attackers. So far however, the main hall had almost completely emptied safe for two people who were searching the bodies. Not a bad idea, I admitted. Perhaps some people here would have clues on them.

Completing my tour of the main hall, I concluded there were no ways leading out. So the exit had to be somewhere on one of the upper levels. But where to begin?

I shrugged. I had all the time I needed. If I died, I could just continue were I had left off. I moved towards the nearest stair and made my way up to the first floor. The last thing I saw when I looked up was good ol’ axe maniac jumping down towards me, bloodied axe in full swing.

For fuck’s sake.

I woke up.

“Next time,” I told myself as I walked down the hallway towards the main hall, “I need to remember what his number is. Keep my eyes off that damned axe.”

I decided to test a new rule. Did I need to make my way all the way down the ground floor for the compulsion to disappear or was being on the balconies and within earshot of the message enough? So I made my way against the flow of the crowd and up the stairs. To my relief, the headaches didn’t start and I was on the fifth floor by the time the message played, the screams began and the chaos erupted.

It would be a good minute before anyone made it this far up, so I took my time investigating the fifth floor. And best of all, axe maniac would be all the way down on the first floor.

I made my way down the first hallway I could find and was greeted by a familiar sight. Doors on one side, a bland grey wall on the other and LED lights lining the ceiling. The first door had the number one hundred fourteen above it, the following doors counting up from there. Huh. So in one hallway the doors always lined up by number, but there seems to be no continuation from the previous floor. If the first floor held numbers around eighty and the fifth floor around a hundred fourteen, that surely couldn’t mean the floors in between only held some thirty rooms.

Time to figure that out later on, I decided, and entered room one hundred fourteen. It was an exact replica of mine and curiously, I lifted up the bedframe. There they were, the exact same weapons I had found strapped to my own bed. After a quick inspection of the room in case there was anything different – there was not – I grabbed the axe and continued my way down the hallway. Vaguely, I could hear the screams and yells from the main hall growing closer. Doesn’t matter, I thought bemused as I flipped the axe with remarkable ease. I was the axe maniac now. Not that I would go around just killing people of course, but this weapon would be a good detergent for any well-spirited attacker.

I reached an intersection and took a moment to observe every hallway. The doors up until now had counted up all the way to one hundred thirty, but beyond the intersection the hallways seemed to be void of any doors. Interesting. Had it been the same on the first floor? I couldn’t remember I realized, I had been a bit preoccupied running away from axe maniac.

I turned left on a whim and made my way down the dull hallway, accompanied only by the soft buzzing of the LED lights and the axe resting on my shoulder. After a minute or so, I reached a second intersection. Looking left, I saw the familiar sight of doors lining the hallway on one side, the first one showing the number three hundred and one above its frame. At the end of the hallway, I thought I could see the outline of the balcony. The grip on my axe tightened as several people ran past the opening in a hurry.

I had lost track of time. By now, there would be people on nearly all floors. Axe maniac had probably already finished chopping down door seventy-nine by now. Poor guy, I thought. Always finding his end at the end of axe maniac’s axe.

I ignored the doors to my left and turned right, deeper into the building and away from the main hall. I walked for another minute or so before I reached the third intersection. No way forward this time though. My only options were going either left, right or turn back. Turning right would bring me back the way I had started, so left it was.

I halted ten seconds later. There was a door here on the left wall. I hadn’t seen it from the intersection as the frame was placed well within the wall, but it was here. It was a steel door this time though, and a padlock had been secured around the handle. My heart skipped a beat as I read the panel above the door.

Maintenance.

Without hesitation, I lifted up the axe and started beating down onto the padlock. It took me three swings, but eventually I hit it just right and the lock broke apart. I grabbed the handle and pushed.

A flash of red, a deafening boom, a second of intense pain.

And I woke up.