"Hey guys, who should we leave behind?" one of the boys asked looking at the others and they all just looked at him petrified.
"Are you really thinking about this? Seriously?" another boy asked him.
"I mean, they said they will let seven of us go. It’s better than getting all of us trapped here," he said and they could see the desperation in his eye. He wanted to escape from this situation and back to safety and he was ready to take the chances even if that means he would be left behind. That sounded way better than the certain death they all think they would have.
They all looked at each other, scared of what was going to happen but soon, one by one, they were ready to start discussing who they had to leave behind. Why? Because they were scared and the only option, they have to get out of there safely is to take the offer they were giving the little boys.
"Quickly, we don’t have all day!" he said and slammed his hand against the metal wall making a loud "BANG" noise scaring them and they all started trembling in fear.
Wait, with that strength, it should have broken if it were a vampire.
They were not?
My eyes scan all the men but soon I realized something. Only one of them was a vampire.
The others were under his control. Normal humans are under the control of a vampire.
"We should let ____ behind," one boy said mentioning the boy who made the map his body shivered and he got up straight.
"Me? Why me? Why should I be the one left behind?" he revolted but most of the guys were agreeing to this idea.
"You were the one who wanted to come here, you made the map, you brought us here so this is all your fault, to begin with. You should be the one who should stay since you were this excited to be here."
"Yea, he’s right. All we did was follow you here, if you didn’t choose this place, we would never be here nor will we be stuck in this position like this."
"B-But…"
Updat𝓮d from freewēbnoveℓ.com.
Everyone was agreeing to leave the guy who made the map behind, everyone but my younger self. He didn’t want to think of that option. He wanted all of us to get out of there. This didn’t feel right for him. Having to leave a friend behind like this isn’t something he was ready to do. He just couldn’t accept the fact that they had to leave someone behind like that.
"What do you think Kazuki?" one of the boys asked and broke my younger self out of his thoughts.
"Huh? What?" he asked them with a worried expression.
"Hey, what’s with that look? Do you think we should leave ____ behind?" he asked and my younger self looked sad. "Come on, say something!"
My younger self flinched because of that and retracted a little. The faces he saw back then, the looks on they had. he couldn’t recognize it anymore. It was nothing like something he had ever expected to see in my entire life. The selfishness was clear in their eyes. No man left behind? No, they were ready to let one of them behind and get out of there.
The fear.
The anxiety.
The desperation.
He could see all of that on their face.
I moved a little towards the screen where the memory was being played extending my arm wanting to enter but I couldn’t do that. It got stopped as if it wasn’t a go-through screen but just a wall. Something kept me from interacting with the memory.
"Say something Kazuki!" they shouted startling my younger self and his mouth trembled a little.
"What are you guys doing? Why are you so ready to let one of us behind? No man left behind, right? That’s what we decided on right?" he said but the looks on their face didn’t change at all.
"Are you serious right now?" one of them said to him. They all looked at him as if he was a madman. "Are you seeing the situation we are in right now? If we don’t leave one behind, we will all be stuck here. It’s better if seven of us go."
"He’s right. Moreover, there is no way for all eight of us to escape," the other one said.
"We don’t care, it’s still six out of eight who agree to leave _____ behind," they said and they all nodded.
"Wait, wait, wait guys," the boy with the map said backing away from the group. "Yes, I brought you all here but why did you even come inside? I never asked you to come inside with me. Weren’t you going to not enter?"
"That’s because Kazuki…told…us…" one boy said and all their eyes turned towards my younger self. There we go. It was about time they showed him their true colors.
"It’s Kazuki’s fault all of us are stuck here."
"What?" my younger self thought.
"Yes, if we didn’t listen to Kazuki, only one of us would be stuck and there would not be any place for us to even decide."
"What are you guys starting to say?" his mind could no longer process what was going on.
"Yes, it’s all Kazuki’s fault."
"My fault? I wanted to help our friend," he revolted in his mind.
"Yes, Kazuki should be left behind."
"How can you all just change the target like this? You all were targeting the boy with the map before. I shouldn’t be on your mind at all," he tried reasoning all in his mind but these thoughts never got out of his mouth.
My younger self’s thoughts went wild but he could see, the predatory look in their eyes. The look of someone who just wanted to survive and get out of there alive. They don’t even know what would happen to the boy who would be left behind. He might be killed for all we know. Their eyes started to turn red in front of me. My image of them started to distort. They looked no less than monsters to my younger self.
"We have decided," the boy with the map quickly spoke. "We want to leave that guy here," he said signaling at my younger self and they all nodded their head.
"Yes, we want to leave him."
"Yes, let us go."
"Please."
They started pleading with the man and he chuckled and looked at his partners. "Let the other free."
On his command, they started freeing the boys and my younger self just looked at the scene with horrified eyes. He couldn’t believe what was happening right before him. The friends, the guys he trusted back then was going to leave him behind this easily. To my younger self, it was a nightmare come true honestly.
He looked at them pleading to not go but they didn’t even spare a glance at me. The moment they were freed, they started running for the exit without even looking behind once.
One.
Then another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And the last one.
They all just vanished, from his sight. He just looked at them helplessly seeing their silhouettes disappear and he was left all alone in the dark room with the five men. As soon as the last one left, their eyes turned towards me and he froze in his place. After he just got abandoned, he couldn’t say anything. Words would not come out of his mouth. He wanted to shout, to scream for help but the fear let those words in.
"See kid, how easily your kids just left you like that," the man said walking towards my younger self and picking him up by his hair.
"AAAAH!" he shouted in pain.
"SHUT UP!"
SLAP
He got slapped across my right cheek and he stopped shouting but just grunted and whimpered in pain. Tears started falling out of his eyes and he wanted this to end.
"Take this as a lesson from us. Don’t ever trust anyone except for you ever in your life," he said and threw my younger self on the ground and he whimpered in pain. "Don’t worry, we are not going to kill you now. We are not murderers here you see. Whatever we do is for money and that’s the only thing we want. We want money and we just found a way to get that money. You seemed the smart one, right? Then let me ask you a simple question. If we wanted money, we could have just got all of you here and asked your parents to get the money. Why did we not do that?"
He asked the question to my younger self but he was still too scared to say anything. His lips were trembling and he was still crying because of the pain his body felt being thrown against the ground. His arms and legs had been badly scratched and they were also bleeding.
"I got abandoned," I said placing my hand on the screen. "Left all alone by the friends I made. Never trust anyone in this world except for yourself. That was the saying I had been taught that day. I went by it for this long. Also, why did I just cut myself off from everyone back then."
I pressed my hand against the wall it turned into a stretched inwards as if I was pressing against rubber and my hand slowly entered the memory through the screen. Looks like things are getting easier to control here now. Little by little, I entered the memory and stood there but to them, I did not exist. They didn’t even bother because of my existence in the memory. Since I was not supposed to be here in the first place. It’s all in my mind right now and that was the truth.
Nothing I could do right now would be able to change anything from my memory.
"Speak up you prick!" he said and slapped my younger self and he grunted in pain. "Okay, I’ll tell you then, because the more people we call, the higher the chances we get caught. We are just five people, here you know. The most we can take on making sure nothing goes wrong is two."
"Wha..."
"Now, tell me your parents’ number," the man said kicking my younger self in the stomach and making him spit out some blood.
"I…don’t know…" he decided to play dumb a little in the hope that they leave him.
"You don’t?" the man asks him and he shakes his head. "Then looks like we have to kill you."
"What?"
"You have seen us kid, we can’t let you live now," he said and then approached me taking out a knife from his pocket. "We are not murderers kid, killers though, that’s what we are. None of the bodies of the people we have killed has ever been retrieved so technically, they are not really murdered you know. They just disappeared without a trace."
He got closer to my younger self and placed the cold blade of the knife across his face. Scared, he gulped a little.
"And the same will happen to you."
"No!" my younger self shouted in fear and the tears fell on the blade. "I’ll tell you, wait."
"Okay then," he said and pulled out his phone. "Quick now, I don’t like waiting."
"It’s…" my younger self started.
"KAZUKI!"
Wait, this voice. Oh no.
"M-Mom?" both I and my younger self said.
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