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Taehyung spun around in a panic. "Games?! What are the games? New batch of players?!" He ran around to the other souls in the room and saw them crying, but they were not able to communicate with him as he asked them if they knew what was going on.

A loud voice came over the room. It wasn't the guards voice and it didn't seem to be coming from any visible intercom. It was as if the concrete walls themselves were the ones speaking.

"Game one will now commence," the voice said. It sounded robotic and demonic all in one. Taehyung didn't want to know who was responsible for this, all he wanted was to go home and pretend it never happened.

The eerie voice continued, "For this game, you will be playing one most of you will be familiar with. A game that you may recognize from your childhood."

Taehyung froze as he intently listened. Childhood games? I'm good at those. The members and I play childhood games together all the time.

"The game of Ring Around the Rosie."

Taehyung burst into laughter. "Seriously?! That's it?! Ring Around the Rosie?! I've been playing that game since I was like three!" He turned to the rest of the souls who seemed to be reacting in their own ways. "Guys, we can all win this one! This is the easiest game ever! I mean all we even have to do is just-"

Taehyung was cut off by the voice speaking once again. "In this game, the rules are simple. You will listen to a children's tune while you hold hands. You will rotate in a circle, and when the words get to "fall down," that is when you drop."

Taehyung thought this had to be some kind of joke. He figured maybe everything that was going on wasn't so bad. He thought he would have to fight monsters, bears, or maybe even aliens. Hell, in this realm nothing seemed unrealistic anymore. But...Ring Around the Rosie?

All I have to do is spin in a damn circle and fall down. How is that even a game? How do you even win tha-

The song started immediately. Panic ensued as everyone raced to form a circle and hold hands with one another. The souls of these strangers worked together to start rotating in a clockwise direction.

The song blared through the room. It seemed to be sung by a chorus of children.

Ring around the Rosie
Pocket full of posies
Ashes, ashes
We all fall down

As soon as the word "fall" came on everyone dropped to the floor as fast as they could. Taehyung looked around to see that it appeared everyone had passed round one.

He didn't understand what was happening when he suddenly heard explosions, and saw souls burst apart right in front of him. He fully expected to see blood start painting the floor and walls, however there was none.

The souls were gone, along with any indication that they had ever existed at all. There was no trace of something that once was. Nothing for them to even be remembered by.

Exterminated.

Forgotten.

Erased.

"Wait, what?!" Taehyung shrieked. He turned to the one guard who was standing in the room. The guard was not even holding a weapon. It would appear that the souls exploded from the inside out, with no external force causing them to shatter into nothing. "They sat in time! What the hell is going on?! Those people beat that round! Where did they go?!"

Every other soul was too distraught to pay Taehyung any mind, and the singer knew nobody could communicate anyway. Not even the guard answered him. However, the voice that seemed to be coming from the walls did.

"The rules are simple. The last ones to fall, lose."

"The last ones?! That was never in the rules before!" Taehyung was frantically turning in circles, trying to find the source of the voice that appeared to be in charge of these rules. "That's cheating! The rules said that all you had to do was fall at the right time, not that you lose if you're one of the last ones to fall! That's not fair!"

"In death, nothing is fair," the voice replied. "We play by our own rules here."

Taehyung gritted his teeth as he scanned the room for the source of who was making up these rules, but he didn't see anyone. He turned back to the guard. "Who is in charge? Who is it that is making up all these rules? Where the hell is that voice coming from?"

"The voice?" The guard finally acknowledged Taehyung. "The voice is everywhere. It is not here nor there, but it is all around."

"Yes I know that! I mean who is it?!"

The guard stepped towards Taehyung and then tapped him on the head with his finger. "It's here."

"What the hell does that mean?! Where did those souls go?!"

The guard stepped backwards to his original spot, and before getting an answer, the song started again.

Ring around the Rosie...

Pocket full of posies...

Taehyung felt his heart leap into his throat as he sprinted to get back in the circle with the others as they began to move. He could see the faces of everyone else drenched in tears. He didn't recognize any of them, but knew each of them was here by mistake. Whether it be the same mistake as him or by something else, he knew that nobody deserved this. He didn't believe any of these people deserved to be wiped from existence over something he felt was so mundane.

A simple mistake. A simple error. Something born out of slight curiosity, and this is what it had cost him. He broke from his thoughts when he heard the next line begin to play.

Ashes, ashes...

He looked to see people already beginning to drop to the ground before the words even got to "fall down".

Is that too early? Or will waiting until the right words be too late?

He decided to wait.

We all fall down.

Taehyung dropped as quickly as he could. He saw others, who had already been sitting on the ground, shouting and crying yet no noise was actually coming from their mouths. Silent souls, destined to a room full of others but trapped in their own solitude. Their own form of a personal Hell.

He watched as one by one, everyone else began dropping. It became easy to pick out who the last ones to have dropped to the floor were, and the terror was evident in their expressions as he made eye contact with them.

He knew and they knew what was to come.

Exterminated.

Exterminated.

Exterminated.

More souls vanished into the air.

Shockingly, even souls he saw drop to the ground before him were exterminated.

"No! No!" Taehyung screamed. He thought this meant that he, too, would be among those to be taken out, as surely he must have sat down too late if people who sat before he even did were gone.

He squeezed his eyes shut and didn't bother to wipe the tears that were streaming down his face. He awaited what he felt was the inevitable...the erasing of his entire existence. That never came.

The exterminations ended, and there were only a handful of players left sitting on the floor.

Taehyung was too busy hyperventilating, whether from absolute fear or the adrenaline of knowing he had passed another round, he wasn't sure.

"B-but...w-why..."

The voice spoke. "The rules state that you must fall when the words "fall down" are sung. Failure to do so will result in extermination. Falling too late will result in extermination. Falling too early will result in extermination."

Taehyung threw his head back. This bastard keeps adding their own rules and only saying them after the rounds are over. How is anyone supposed to beat this game?!

He didn't think a simple game of Ring Around the Rosie could turn into such a treacherous feat, but he realized he had clearly been mistaking.

This realm of existence played by its own rules.

And this was only game one.