#krprologue

You weren’t fast enough to stop her.

When Iki smashed her hand into the button, nothing happened. No alarms, no sudden spikes or crumbling walls or poison gas—but certainly no click of the door unlocking.

She pulled back, disappointed, before collapsing.

One of the others managed to catch her just before her head could hit the ground, but her lips had already tinged blue. You tried not to get trampled as half the students backed up and half of them surged forward in a claustrophobic mess of trepidation and concern.

“I can’t find a pulse—”

“Someone has to know CPR, right?”

“I’m not sure that would help, man—”

“What even happened?”

As students shifted, some pressing themselves into the wall, some forcing their way towards Iki to help, murmurs of panic built. Only when all attempts to revive the girl failed did you pause for breath.

“It seems we have our first victim,” called the voice beyond the door. “Thank you, Ms. Kadou, for breaking the ice. Though you can no longer hear me, of course...”

The voice had to pause as a flurry of objections and outrage interrupted. Despite questions and demands, it continued unperturbed.

“This is death. For those of you not accustomed to it, I suggest you learn to quickly, as the game has only just begun. Now, as promised, I will let you leave this room... Though first I’d like to explain what just happened. The collars that all of you wear contain a certain general anaesthetic. It’s really quite harmless—at the proper dose. I have remote control over the injections and can adjust them to a lethal dose if necessary. But rest assured the collars are currently carefully calibrated for each of you.”

Feels like there’s a seam on the metal just over her spine. It’s not about to split with so little prompting, though.

It’s locked from the inside. Unless there’s a nice sledgehammer hiding in here somewhere, she’ll probably just have to wait until the timed lock shuts off.