~Y/n pov~

"Players, welcome to the third game."

We were led into this white room and down a staircase to the main area of the room.

"For this game, you will play in teams. All players, please divide yourselves into teams of ten people. Your time limit will be ten minutes."

We already have six people so all we needed to do was get four more.

"Something that has teams of ten players. So maybe it's Tail Tag or Why did you come to my house?" Gi-hun suggested, "Maybe running is involved or it's based on luck."

"Our team already has two girls and an older guy. We need to get men." Sang-woo stated.

Okay. Calm down, asshole.

"What if they make us play Gonggi or elastics? Then, what do we do?" Gi-hun asked, "Girls are usually better at those."

Sang-woo gave him an annoyed look, "That's true, but when it really comes down to it, usually men are better. So let's all split up and look for teammates."

~*~

Now there were two men and another girl added to our group. That only made nine.

Gi-hun counted everyone and realised this.

Sang-woo looked at the other girl who had joined us, "Who invited you?"

"Her." She gestured to Saebyeok.

"I said to bring only men back here, didn't I?" Sang-woo gave her an annoyed look.

Damn. Rude much.

"This doesn't sound good. You want me to go?" She got up to leave.

I grabbed her arm and stopped her, "No."

When she sat back down I leaned closer to her ear and whispered to her.

"Ignore that asshole. I swear he has a stick so far up his ass that it's stuck and won't come out."

She laughed slightly at that and seemed to feel more comfortable.

I offered her a small smile.

"We don't even know what we're doing yet." Gi-hun stated, "And the time's almost over. At this points, let's just find one more person and be done."

"We put together a weak team, who would want to join it?" Sang-woo asked, "That means we'll end up with anyone who's been kicked out."

Weak? Just because we're girls.

I wish he'd chosen umbrella.

"Well, nobody kicked me out, huh!" The loud woman came over to us, "I'll play with you as a special deal here, okay? Man, you guys lucked out today."

She pushed me and the other girl over and plopped herself down between us.

I raised an eyebrow at her.

"I'll be way more help than either of these wimpy little girls. Plus, I'm good at everything except the things that I can't do." She smirked.

Everyone looked at her with an uncomfortable expression.

"The time for forming your teams is over."

Well that's just great.

"Hey, did that asshole betray you? Shouldn't expect much from a guy like him." I whispered to her.

She frowned, "That bastard."

"If I were you, I'd be getting my revenge."

She smirked, "That's what I plan on doing."

~*~

We were all sat down in our teams.

In front of us were two giant platforms.

They were up really high.

You'd die from that height.

Two platforms opposite each other.....

We're in teams...

Tug of war!

Oh no.

"I would now like to welcome you all to the third game. Today's game is Tug of war. In order to win, you must pull the rope towards your platform in an attempt to drop your opponents down below."

This doesn't look good.

"Now, I will draw numbers to decide which two teams will play first."

The first two teams were the team with player 101 and another team.

It was already obvious who was going to win.

I watched as they were led up to the platforms.

We were to far to see properly but it looked like they were being attached to the rope.

Player 101 led his team.

A flag was waved and the square masked dude shot a gun into the air to signal its start.

Player 101's team started pulling.

The other team tried to pull back but ended up slipping and being pulled towards the edge.

When the first person fell, all the others started to fall until they were all dangling off the edge.

I could hear their screams as they fell.

The rope was cut and they were hurtling towards the ground.

There was a sickening crunch as they met the ground.

Pools of blood surrounded the bodies.

Some guards came and started to prepare everything for the next game.

I gulped at the sight.

If we don't win.. that's us.

"I will now draw the teams for the next round. Team four."

That was us.

We all stood up.

"Team five."

The team beside us stood up and looked us all up and down before smirking confidently.

If they get too confident we could easily beat them.

We were then led up to the platforms.

We passed player 101's team on our way.

He smirked at us, "Oh, man. I was looking forward to killing your guys."

No one replied and we were led to a lift.

Everyone was tense.

They all thought we were doing to die.

"Come on. Don't lose your spirit." The old man tried to encourage us, "Tug of war needs more than just raw strength."

"Well then, what's it about, huh? We just go out and speak to them?"

The old man ignored him and continued to talk, "All you need is a good strategy in tug of war and combined with good teamwork, you'll be able to win when you are against stronger teams."

"Only one thing can help us now. It's the lord himself."

I almost scoffed at that.

"You can barely stay standing, old man."

"Let's at least hear him out." I said, effectively silencing everyone.

"When I was young we would always play tug of war. And back then, I would always win, even if there was a wrestler on the other team, and it seemed the odds were stuck against us."

~*~

Gi-hun walked out first and we got attached to the rope.

I held my hands out to the guard and stood just behind Gi-hun as they handcuffed me to the rope.

"First off, having a good leader is very important. The person is at the front and keeps an eye on how the other team is performing. And the rest of the team focuses on the back of their leader's head and follows their lead. If the leader seems weak or looks like their spirit is beginning to falter, then the game is already over."

I looked back and watched as everyone was attached to the rope.

Ali was right at the back and we all stood on different sides of the rope.

"And then at the end of the rope, you'll need to have someone strong and dependable like the anchor of a ship. After that, it's all about how you arrange the rest of your team. If one player is on the right side of the rope, the next should be on the left side."

The guard waved his flag and walked off.

"Both of your feet should be facing straight forward, and then, hold the rope in your armpits. That way, everyone can put in all of their strength."

There was a gunshot and it began.

We all leaned back as far as we could and held our ground as the other team pulled.

"Finally, and this is the most important thing. Once the game begins, for the first ten seconds... you have to hold your ground. You should lean back, practically lie down. Push your lower abdomen up to the sky, as hard as you can. And throw your head back to the point where you can almost see the groin of the person behind you. If you do that, the other team won't be able to pull us to their side."

I watched as the other team pulled and grew increasingly frustrated.

"Just hold like this for ten seconds. Then the opposing team will start to get frustrated because they are thinking, 'why won't they budge?!' Because they believed that they were much stronger. If you can hold out for that long, you will be able to catch a moment in your opponents' hold, and their rhythm breaks."

"Nows our chance!" Gi-hun yelled, signalling us to all start pulling.

It was working for a while and we were winning but they quickly got their bearings and started pulling back.

The rope was back to the middle again.

If this was kept up, we were going to lose.

We need to do something quick.

"Take three steps forward when I signal!" Sang-woo yelled as we were being pulled towards the edge.

"What now? That's the edge?!" Player 212 yelled in reply.

"Look, just trust me and they'll fall."

Player 212 continued to scream and protest.

"Now!"

We all took three steps forwards.

My eyes widened when one of Gi-hun's feet slipped off the edge of the platform and he almost fell.

I noticed the other team had fallen.

We started pulling again.

I reached out and grabbed Gi-hun's arm, pulling him back up.

The other team scrambled to get up but they kept slipping.

We managed to drag them over the edge.

Once the first person fell they all followed.

The weight made us all stumble forward and we got nearer to the edge.

What if we all die?

I tried to stand my ground and not slip.

Luckily, the rope was cut and we all fell backwards onto the ground.

We came so close to falling off too.

Everyone laid on the ground panting for a few moments and catching their breath.

The guards undid the handcuffs and we stepped onto the lift.

"Oh, Lord, protect me."

One of the men was mumbling prayers.

It was irritating me.

"Hey, dude. Who do you think you're praying to, huh? To God?" Player 240 asked.

He ignored her and continued praying.

"You think you made it out there because of God, don't you?" She bent down to his height, "The reason you're still breathing and thanks if that nice God of yours is because of that old man there. And that guy over there who came up with that awesome last-minute trick. You know if there's anybody that you should be thanking it's them, not God."

The man stopped praying and glared up at her, "You sad lost soul. What would you say about everybody who was nailed to the cross for our salvation today? They sacrificed themselves for us. We are here, thanks to their blood. I pray to the Lord on behalf of all us sinners. I gave thanks for their sacrifice. God made a decision to help our team win."

This dude's batshit crazy.

"That's why we're all here."

"Bullshit. You killed those guys out there."

The guy looked down and started mumbling prayers again.

"Oh." Player 240 put her hands together, "If we say some prayers, do we all get to go to heaven? I should really pray too if that's how easy it is. Our God who art in heaven, we worked as a team to send people to your side. And we sent a bunch of them today. And please help us with a whole lot more to be with you."

"Be quiet." Sae-byeok stated.

"Me or him?"

"All of you." Sae-byeok looked really annoyed.

The lift stopped and we all got out.

~*~

Player 101's team looked shocked when we walked into the room.

They probably thought we were going to die.

Player 212 smirked and gave him a little wave before following us to the steps.

Minutes passed and other teams came into the room.

That game cut us in half.

Is there only going to be one survivor?

I'm sure the other games will be set up to get rid of a lot of us.

~*~

"You know what? I really thought we were going to die out there." Player 212 waved her food around as she made gestures, "And then, as soon as we're all leaning back, I felt so powerful."

She was stood in front of us all as we ate and just glanced at her every now and then.

"Like, 'Whoa it works, really?'. Hey, old man, how do you know that?"

The old man laughed, "As a kid, I would always.."

Player 212 cut him off and started talking again, "Oh, you copied that one thing. From that movie. What's it called? The guy who dodges bullets like this."

She started acting it out.

Ali smiled, "Matrix."

Player 212 paused and glanced down at him, "Hey, when you got to Korea, is all you did watch movies

Ali stared back at her silently.

Damn, why so rude. She's a real character, huh.

"And our man," Player 212 smiled at Sang-woo as he looked up, "Everybody, three steps forward when I signal."

She gasped.

"Oh. My God, I can't believe how cool that was. How did you come up with it under all that pressure?"

"Earlier, you were the one who said no." Ali stated.

"Yeah? What was that you heard?"

Ali mocked her and did an impression of her voice, "You cried and said, 'But that's the edge. There's no way I'll go.' Like that."

I laughed quietly at the accurate impression.

Damn. Got 'em.

"Hey, you. You got a visa? I bet you don't. You're an illegal alien." Player 212 retaliated. "Hey, boys, how about it? Why keep the strange foreigner when we could just ditch him?"

She wasn't even addressing any of the girls.

"Ali's been a part of our team for a long time. He's actually very dependable. You're the one who's new to the team so if I were you I'd be more worried about myself. Why shouldn't we kick you off?" I raised an eyebrow at her as if to challenge her.

I wasn't going to just sit there and let her be rude to Ali like that.

He's helped us get this far and he's a really good guy.

She glared at me, "Oh yeah? Why don't we kick you off? Are you even good at anything?"

Sae-byeok glared at her making her flinch.

"Anyway, who's the captain here?" Player 212 pretended it never happened and just continued to talk.

She smiled and looked at Sang-woo.

She tryna seduce him or some shit?

He won't be as easy as that jerk from earlier.

"Mr. Brains, you've got to be the captain, right?"

Sang-woo finally spoke, "We don't have a leader. We're all equal on this team."

Player 212 smiled, "Even better. An egalitarian society! Shit, it's totally different to some damn thug who thinks he's the king and does whatever he wants."

How long has it been? I swear she's been talking forever.

How do you even talk this long with basically no response? Does she love the sound of her own voice that much?

God, why can't she shut up?

"But, why did you get kicked out, missus?"
Gi-hun asked.

"Babe. I'm not a missus." She put her hand over her heart, "My name is Han Mi-nyeo. Just call me Mi-nyeo. And I wasn't kicked out. I chose to leave the team."

Gi-hun looked at her with an uncomfortable expression and just decided to stay silent.

So she's that kind of girl?

Hangs out with boys and thinks they all love her and shit.

Wake up, bitch. The world doesn't revolve around you.

"Those thugs and I were on a completely different level." Mi-nyeo said, trying to convince us she wasn't kicked out.

"They only abandoned you and then picked the big guys. Right before the game at that."
Sang-woo furrowed his brows, "It's as if they knew what game was next."

It was silent for a few seconds as we all glanced at their group.

"Lights out in thirty minutes."

My heart stopped.

What if it's like last time?

Can we even trust our own team?

I glanced at the newcomers. The ones we had just met today.

I didn't feel safe.

But I wanted to protect Gi-hun and Sae-byeok.

Maybe I should stay up to make sure nothing bad happens.

~*~

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2767 words

A/n she had no right to go after Ali like that. Also it was hilarious when he mocked her.