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GAME OVER !

The air was thick, the kind of stillness that felt like the calm before a hurricane. The light from the screen painted the room in soft, red glows. The timer ticked like a heartbeat that had lost its rhythm. Every second that passed felt like a warning they didn't understand yet.

"MISSION: FIND THE KILLER."
"THE ONE WHO STARTED THIS GAME MUST FINISH IT."
TIMER: 47:59:12

Seorin stood frozen, her hand over her mouth, eyes glassy from tears she couldn't stop and couldn't control. Ni-ki's body was still warm when she'd held him. Still soft, like a kid who was just tired and had dozed off next to her. Now his face was grey, lips slightly parted, and her arms were empty. Her baby — their baby — was gone. It didn't feel real.

The rest of them — just five now — stood in a loose circle, the shape of their group painfully incomplete. The hole Ni-ki left behind was something none of them could describe, but all of them could feel.

"Two days," Jungwon said, voice low, serious in a way that was still strange on him. His arms were crossed tightly across his chest like he was trying to hold himself together. "We have two days to find the killer before the next person dies."

Jay, standing near the television, looked back over his shoulder. His face was unreadable, his jaw locked. "Or before all of us do."

Sunghoon scoffed under his breath and started pacing again, hands shaking as he ran them through his hair. "This is so fucked. How are we even supposed to figure this out? What, are we supposed to play detective now?"

"We can't fall apart," Jake snapped. He was sitting on the edge of the coffee table, knees bouncing with nervous energy. "That's exactly what the killer wants."

Sunghoon whipped around, eyes blazing. "Don't you dare act like you know what they want. You don't know shit."

"Neither do you!"Jake shot back, standing up so quickly the table tipped. "You've been pointing fingers since Heeseung died—"

Seorin flinched, that name slicing through the fog in her brain like a knife. She turned away, eyes burning, but didn't speak. She couldn't. Not yet.

"Stop," Jay said sharply. "Just—stop. We're all that's left." His voice echoed through the room, making the silence afterward feel even louder. "We can't waste time fighting."

For a few seconds, no one spoke. Then Seorin turned suddenly, the numbers flashing in her mind.

"The blood in Sunoo's room," she whispered. "There's more. I missed it before." Her voice wavered. "There was another number. A new one. Just below the others."

Jay looked up at her, brow furrowed. "What number?"

She met his eyes. "Seven."

Seorin didn't wait. She walked quickly back to Sunoo's room with Jay trailing behind her, his silence heavy. The room was just as they'd left it — untouched, cold. The kind of silence that clung to your skin.

She dropped to her knees beside the bed again, ignoring the sharp sting of her knees against the hardwood. Her fingers trembled as she lifted the edge of the bed skirt, revealing the smeared trail of dried blood beneath. And just like before, the numbers were there, faint but deliberate. The original sequence still scrawled across the floor like a code they hadn't cracked — 9201910121 — but this time, a second set had joined it.

A single, sharp 7.

"It's separate," she whispered, pointing. "Like it was added after."

Jay crouched beside her, leaning in to see. "Why seven?" he murmured. "What does that mean?"

Seorin shook her head, her mouth dry. "Maybe... maybe it's a countdown? Or maybe a list of victims?" Her chest tightened. "Or maybe it's us."

Jay turned toward her slowly. "What do you mean?"

"There were eight of us," Seorin said, her voice brittle. "And now... Heeseung's gone. Sunoo's gone. Ni-ki..." She paused. "Maybe the game never counted the killer as a player. Which means... the rest of us—" her voice caught, "we're the seven. We're the targets."

Jay stared at her, his eyes dark. He didn't argue. He didn't need to. It made a sick kind of sense. "You're right..we started with 8 players..and one of us was the killer since the beggining , so there was only 7 real players."

"But why the killer will write that ?"

Back in the living room, the mood had deteriorated. Sunghoon was hunched over the back of the couch, head in his hands, while Jungwon sat silently on the floor, just staring at the numbers that Seorin had scribbled on a notepad after returning.

Jake was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, his breathing shallow. "So what? We're the seven? That's it? This number is just a freaking hit list now?"

"I don't know," Seorin admitted, holding the notepad like it might protect her. "But the game said the one who started it has to finish it."

They all looked at Heeseung's computer, now shut down but still glowing faintly.

"We all saw him open it," Sunghoon muttered. "He clicked it. But he didn't start it."

"No," Jay said slowly, his tone thoughtful, too careful. "He might've opened it, but it was already waiting for us."

The silence that followed was unbearable.

Jungwon suddenly stood. "Then what's the next step? We sit here and wait for another body to drop?" His voice cracked. "We don't even know if the killer is sleeping next to us or plotting in the bathroom."

The five of them stood in the middle of that room, surrounded by invisible walls and memories of the dead. The weight of the clue — the 7 — sat heavy on all of them. Not just as a number, but as a mark. Like it had been carved into their fate.