Guilt crossed Lex’s face as he watched Rina escape. “Damn, I wish I could have apologized to her. What happened?”

Iliya licked his lips. How much of the truth should he tell? Roman was dead. Iliya didn’t want to badmouth a desperate dead guy. Especially when Iliya still felt some responsibility for his death. “The four of us, Me, Roman, Rina and Wolf were all in the warm-up room. Peaches- the cat- had warned me and Wolf about this piano that was in the room. She said it smelled bad?”

“Like stinky old rotting meat!” Peaches confirmed.

“Right. So before we could warn Roman and Rina about it, Roman went up to investigate the piano. Folded up inside the main section of the instrument was the body of a murdered clown.” Wolf looked at Iliya, and raised an eyebrow as if asking why he was lying. Iliya ignored him. “The dead clown shot up out of the piano, and like a flash he uh,” Iliya’s voice lowered, “he snapped Roman’s neck.”

Lex sucked air in through his teeth. “Fuck. That’s... “ His eyes scrunched up, and he shifted from side to side on his feet. “You can actually die here? In these games? Is he gonna like, spawn again outside or something?”

“No,” Wicker answered Lex. “If you die in the games, you die in real life.” Another flash of Roman’s lifeless eyes.

Lex chuckled, uncomfortable. “Funny joke guys. Hilarious.” He looked around. “I’m sure Roman will pop out any second…” It looked like Lex was trying to find a hidden camera clue for a prank television program.

“Oh, he will pop out,” the clown Moderator chimed in with a grin. “Just not at you guys this time.” Iliya remembered some of the things the Moderator had said earlier. About puppets. How they had broken his puppet.

The door Rina had left through was dark again, no names above the door. Had it returned to the room as it was previously? Was Roman’s body back? “Is Roman still there?” Iliya pointed towards where the warm up room had been.

The clown looked up, and put one of its elongated fingers on its chin coquettishly. “Something like that!” It winked.

Puppet. Puppet. The word kept reverberated in Iliya’s head. “Will he… His body, it’ll be a new puppet. Right?” Wolf put his hand on Iliya’s shoulder, grounding him.

“Smart as always, Red!” The clown pointed at Iliya. “The old one was getting a bit smelly anyway. I’ll just dress the new one up and bam! Perfect new fit.” Iliya choked. “Thanks so much for the gift, honeybuns!”

Wicker let out a quiet “fuck” and shot a look at her door. She clearly wanted to leave, but there were still some things she probably wanted to clear up. Lex, meanwhile, looked more and more freaked out. Sweat was dripping down his forehead in rivulets.

“Are you serious?” Lex let out a string of expletives. “Oh man, that’s heavy. That’s…” He whipped around and dashed to his door. “I’m out of here. No more of these games for me, nope.” Before Iliya could warn him that he would likely be pulled into another game against his will in about two days, Lex had shot through his own door in a panic. He was still cursing out everything under the sun in quite creative ways as he went.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“That kid won’t get through pvp unless he shapes up,” Wicker said, her face caught somewhere between amusement and pity. “Shame about Roman though.”

“Shame,” Wolf echoed, clearly not feeling too upset.

“Mm, clearly you think so,” Wicker said, sarcasm lacing her tone.

Anger bubbled up in Iliya, crawling up his throat and into his mouth. It coated his teeth like blood from a split lip. “What’s that supposed to mean,” he spit out. “You think we’re happy he died? You think this is what I wanted? Shut up!” Iliya panted for a moment.

Surprise filled Wicker’s face. “Hey,” she started, putting her hands up in appeasement.

“No!” Iliya yelled. “No, you don’t get to look at us like that. Not after I gave you my spot in that goddawful hot dog cart.” Iliya could feel his face heating up from anger and shame.

“Hey,” Wicker said again, this time getting angry too. “What am I supposed to think? You two go off with a damn cat and when the game ends, I hear a challenger is dead and you two are the only ones coherent enough to talk about it!”

“Watch it,” Wolf said, taking a step forward. It was clear that he was much more threatening than Iliya. The line of his body was straight, and his glare was oppressive. Unless Wicker had a surprisingly combative ability, she couldn’t match up with Wolf, let alone Wolf and Iliya teamed up. Besides, if there was any kind of altercation with Roman, these two were the obvious winners. After all, they were still here. Roman was gone, and his partner Rina was an emotional wreck.

“Fine, I’ll be civil,” Wicker met eyes with Iliya. Iliya exhaled, and tried to release his anger with his breath. She was right, in a way. He wasn’t sure he felt bad about Roman’s death so much as he felt bad for not feeling bad. It was just his first time seeing a dead body, or watching someone die in front of him. It made the stakes of these games suddenly much more real to Iliya.

“I’m sorry. The stress of all this,” Iliya waved his arms, sure to include the room, the clown, and Peaches “it’s getting to me. I didn’t mean to lash out.”

“Good,” Wolf told Iliya, and patted his head. He kept his hand there as he turned to address Wicker. “We have plans. What do you want?”

Iliya was surprised, and a bit pleased. Wolf still wanted to get coffee with him even after seeing his ridiculous outburst? Maybe they really would make a good team when they became official players. There was something grounding about Wolf, and it helped Iliya feel calm.

“Okay, Okay. Here’s what I wanted to ask. You two went to investigate, didn’t you?” Wicker asked Iliya and Wolf. “I’m guessing you two found something.”

“We did,” Iliya confirmed, still not fully trusting Wicker. He wasn’t frothing at the mouth anymore, but he was still pretty annoyed with her.

Wicker snorted. “Well, I definitely learned my lesson.” She pulled out her phone, and wiggled it. “I might have thought you were dumb earlier, but you did give me your hiding spot. And I guess you helped us from becoming clown food. Want to become friends? I don’t want to face you guys in pvp.”

“Really?” Iliya blinked rapidly in shock, and let the rage run out of him. “After all this?” He waved between them.

“Definitely after all this. Are you kidding?” Wicker raised an eyebrow. “I’m not too proud to admit that I should have taken the initiative. I was more focused on immediate survival than continued survival.”

The Moderator wiggled his shoulders, happy to learn that one of the challengers was indeed coming away from the challenge with the intended lesson learned. He reached out and pinned another gold star on Wicker’s forehead. It looked really dumb and helped to absolve Iliya of the rest of his anger. How could he be mad at a person with two gold stars on her forehead? She looked like a disgruntled kindergartener.

“You should have,” Wolf confirmed, as if challenging Wicker to argue with him. She did not rise to the bait.

“Well?” She asked Iliya, aware that he would likely be the one making the choice in the end. “What’s it gonna be?”

Iliya sighed, and pulled out his phone again. He didn’t have any fondness for Wicker. Even without his misguided rage from Roman’s death, the way she spoke to him got on Iliya’s nerves. Besides, she still smelled faintly of hot dogs. He knew it was from hiding in the hot dog cart, but it did not make the smell any more pleasant. “Let’s be friends.” Even if he didn’t like her much, he didn’t want to face Wicker in any pvp games. He knew her name (or alias) and her face, and she hadn’t done anything egregiously wrong. Nothing bad enough that he wanted to see Wicker gone for good. It was also complementary, in a way. Wicker believed Iliya and Wolf were good enough to pass their final challenge and become full players like she was about to be. Iliya appreciated her confidence in them.

Wolf followed Iliya’s lead, and pulled out his phone. Iliya and Wolf became friends with Wicker. Her name sat right below Wolf’s and Myrtle’s name. Wait. Myrtle had accepted his friend request! Iliya’s mood finally returned to its optimistic state. That meant Dassi was still alive and kicking, and he wouldn’t have to face her in pvp. Wolf watched Iliya’s eyes scrunch up happily, and allowed himself to smile too.