Chapter 8: The Unbroken Circle
"What do we do now?" Sakura whispered, her voice raw, looking at the plastic bag of phones as if it were a ticking bomb. "We've stopped the game from being played... but it's still out there. It still wants something."
"We're exhausted," Akari said, her voice heavy with fatigue. "And scared. We need to try and get some rest. Staying awake won't help us think clearly." She looked around the vast lobby. "We can sleep here, together. It'll be safer in a group."
Slowly, the others nodded.
The idea of going back to their individual rooms, even in groups, felt too isolating.
The lobby, despite its eerie grandeur, offered a sense of shared vulnerability.
They found what blankets and pillows they could from nearby couches and settled down on the dusty carpet, huddling close for warmth and comfort.
The silence was thick, broken only by their ragged breathing and the distant tick-tock of the grandfather clock.
Sleep came fitfully, haunted by nightmares of screaming faces and self-inflicted wounds.
When the first rays of dawn finally peeked through the heavy velvet curtains, painting the lobby in weak, grey light, a collective sigh of relief swept through the group.
They had made it through the night.
Nothing else had happened.
The bag of phones remained untouched in the center of the room.
Haruto's body was still there, a stark, gruesome reminder, but at least no one else had been taken.
But their relief was short-lived.
Mr. Sato was still nowhere to be found.
And their phones, still, had no network signal.
The hotel's Wi-Fi remained dead.
They were completely cut off from the outside world.
"Okay now we have to do something," Kaito said, his voice grim, looking at the grim faces around him.
"We have to go outside. We need to see if that white line is still there. If it's all around the hotel. Maybe there's a break in it."
The entire class, a nervous, tired group, gathered their courage.
The daylight made the Grandview Hotel seem less menacing, but the lingering smell and the quiet still felt wrong.
They pushed open the heavy front doors and stepped out onto the hotel's front lawn.
The morning air was cool and fresh, a welcome change from the stale, heavy air inside.
The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, painting the sky in soft, hopeful colors.
They started walking towards the edge of the property, their eyes scanning for any sign of Mr. Sato or another person.
The town seemed quiet, almost too quiet.
As they reached the edge of the hotel property, they stopped dead.
The bright white line was still there, glowing faintly even in the growing daylight.
They walked along it, their eyes meticulously searching, hoping for a gap, a break, anything that would offer an escape.
They walked the entire perimeter of the hotel grounds, past the ancient trees, across the gravel driveway, through the manicured bushes.
The line was unbroken.
A perfect, glowing circle.
"It's everywhere," Yui whispered, her voice filled with despair. "There's no way out."
"And no other landline phones outside," Akari added, having checked the small garden shed and a few other outbuildings. "We're completely isolated."
The realization sank in, cold and undeniable.
They were compeletely trapped.
And this is compeletely real.
Terrifyingly real.
"So, if we can't get out," Kaito said, looking back at the imposing hotel, "then the answers have to be in here. We need to find out why this is happening. What is this place? What is this game?" He gestured towards the Grandview. "This hotel... it might holds the key."
yui, his face still pale but with a flicker of desperate determination, nodded.
"We have to. It's our only chance. We need to find out what this 'Midnight Game' really is, why it's here, and how to stop it. Before it takes anyone else."
She looked at the plastic bag of phones, then at the distant, silent figures of Daiki, Emi, and Kenji beyond the line.
The sweet floral scent seemed to deepen, a silent, mocking presence.
The whispers, though not audible, felt like they were swirling in the very air, waiting for their next move.
They returned to the lobby, their shoulders slumped with the weight of their grim discovery.
The bright morning light filtering through the large windows only made Haruto's body stand out more starkly, a horrifying centerpiece on the ornate rug.
The metallic smell of his blood was beginning to grow stronger, mingling with the ever-present sweet floral scent.
"We... we can't just leave him there," Sakura whispered, her voice barely a thread. Her gaze was fixed on the dark, spreading stain on the carpet.
"No," Kaito agreed, his voice grim. "It'll... it'll start to stink. And it's not right."
He looked at the group, then back at Haruto.
The thought of touching him, of moving him, made his stomach churn, but the alternative was unbearable.
"But where do we put him?" Yui asked, her eyes wide with a fresh wave of panic. "We can't bury him. We can't even get outside the line."
Akari, though pale, forced herself to think practically.
"We need to move him somewhere. Somewhere out of sight. And we need to clean this up. We can't... we can't live with this."
She gestured vaguely at the blood.
"We'll need sheets, water, cleaning supplies. Anything we can find in the hotel."
Ren, who had been sitting silently, his face buried in his hands, finally looked up.
His eyes were red and swollen, but a flicker of grim resolve appeared.
"I'll help. It's... it's my fault. I have to."
The others looked at him, the anger still simmering, but the immediate, overwhelming need to deal with the horror in front of them pushed it aside.
This was about survival, about maintaining some semblance of humanity in a nightmare.
They found old sheets in a linen closet on the second floor, and a bucket and some harsh-smelling cleaning solutions in a janitor's closet near the kitchen.
The sweet floral scent seemed to intensify in these forgotten corners of the hotel, as if the house itself was watching their grim task.
With heavy hearts and trembling hands, Kaito, Ren, and a few other strong students carefully, reluctantly, lifted Haruto's body.
It was cold, unnaturally heavy, and the sight of his wounds made them gag.
They wrapped him in the sheets, a makeshift shroud, and carried him to one of the unused storage rooms in the basement.
The basement was dark, damp, and filled with the musty smell of decay, a fitting, if horrifying, resting place.
They laid him gently on the cold concrete floor, covering him completely.
Returning to the lobby, they faced the gruesome task of cleaning the blood.
It was a long, sickening process.
They scrubbed the polished floor, trying to erase the dark stain, but the memory, they knew, would never fade.
The metallic smell lingered, a phantom presence even after the visible evidence was gone.
"What about the others?" Sakura whispered, looking towards the front doors, her voice filled with a desperate sadness. "Daiki, Emi, Kenji... out there. We can't do anything for them."
Kaito shook his head, his face grim.
"No. Not yet. We can't cross that line. Not until we understand what this is. What this hotel is."
He looked at the plastic bag of phones, then around the vast, silent lobby.
"This hotel... it holds the key. We need to find out why this is happening. What is this place? What is this game? And how do we stop it?"
The sweet floral scent deepened, a silent, mocking presence.
The whispers, though not audible, felt like they were swirling in the very air, waiting for their next move.