The shock doesn't last longer than a heartbeat, but the pain stays. Tears are again blurring your sight, and you feel how your body is pressed into the chair as if it could help you to retreat from the buckles.
Your breath has quickened as if you just finished running a marathon, and your hands continue to twitch slightly for a few more times until they calm down again. You swallow a couple of times while you wait for your hearing to return. Right now there's only the rushing of your own blood, but you can see from the blurred faces on the monitor that they're speaking.
Whatever leaves your mouth was supposed to sound like "I can't hear you", but it's probably just a mingling of guttural sounds. Luckily for you, neither of this takes long to cease, except the burning pain around your wrists.
And then, finally, you can hear them again. Just that it's not Chishiya calling your name or the schoolgirl asking you what's wrong that reaches your ear first, it's the rattling laughter you have grown to hate so much.
"Listen to this! This is what punishment should sound like, eh? Honestly though... you sound more like the nightly visitors my brother used to have before he died."
You know there is no use to argue with him, but it feels good to imagine how he'd walk out of this building, with that ugly grin on his face, only to be shot by the sniper King immediately. A nice and accurate bullet hole would suit his head just perfectly.
Chishiya calls your name again and you blink away the remaining tears so you can see him clearly. He has stepped up to the one camera they mostly stare into, probably because this is also where the sound comes from, and a deep frown covers his face.
"...switches again."
"I'm sorry... what?" It feels as if there's water in your ears and you want to rub it out so you can hear him better, but cold metal is in your way. What you can hear though is the tremble in your voice, and there is no doubt the others hear it too.
"You need to tell me the room currently active before it switches again. Otherwise it will complicate figuring out the sequence."
Yes, I love you too. You roll your eyes automatically about Chishiya just being, well – him, while you probably just experienced the worst pain of your life. Although he is not wrong, and you quickly glance towards the green lamp. It currently glows right over the Diamonds room, and you wonder why it hasn't switched to Hearts until now, not even once.
"What he is trying to tell you, is-" Schoolgirl looks up into the camera as well after throwing a scolding yet unnoticed glance towards to Chishiya while she holds her arms tight around her stomach, "-make sure to remember what you see. Maybe if you wait for the next one and tell us both symbols at once, the punishment will be less hard?"
You grunt as a sign that you understood and don't take your eyes off the screens as you take a few more deep breaths. That second shock was way harder than the first one, and you doubt that its intensity is completely random. Just as the doors, there seems to be a system behind it.
"Where's the fun behind that? The mouse should scream for us!" The big guy turns away from the camera, crossing his arms as if he is sulky.
The light over the monitor flickers, but remains on Diamonds. You clear your throat and speak slowly so it won't hurt too much. "It might still be too early to tell for sure, but I think the shocks are not that heavy when I tell you the right door without someone passing through. Only when it actually saves someone, the punishment gets hard."
And again, there is only one way to find out if you're right. Shouldn't the room have changed already?
"Where's the point in finding out the sequence if we still rely on their help to find out when another room is activated? It doesn't seem like anyone here has some kind of inner clock." The words are spoken with a rough and heavy accent, and they've come from the punker with the blood-stained suit who hasn't said much so far.
"You're right, except..." Schoolgirl scratches her chin and even through the camera you can see her face brighten, "assumed the shocks really are not that hard when the tip doesn't actually save someone. Couldn't they just tell us that xy is not the door anymore as soon as it switches? I'm pretty sure it'd still count as a minor tip."
You smirk grimly, even though no one can see it, and you really hope the theory can be confirmed since the light has just switched again. "That could actually work, yes. It was Diamonds and is Spades now."
The shock doesn't come unexpected, and while it's heavier than the first minor one, it is still nothing compared to the last that still causes your wrists to burn. You grit your teeth so the whimper won't get out, but those tiny shocks are bearable.
"Hope you don't mind?" Punker doesn't even wait for anyone to react and heads to the Spades door, faster than you can realize what is about to happen. The big guy tries to stop him, but Punker manages to dodge under his arm with remarkable swiftness, the brightly dyed hair of his side-cut waving as he disappears behind the door.
"Hey, I'm not- NGAH!" Bolts of energy rush through your body once more, burning fire takes over the place of every single cell inside of you. Your legs both start to cramp as the muscles contract with too much force, but it's a pain you barely notice besides the fire. Everything is black around you and it remains that way even when you open your eyes, only accompanied by an uneasy tinnitus and a headache worse than death.
The shock doesn't last longer than the other ones, but you don't even feel any ease when it dies away. Your throat seems tense as if you're screaming, just that you can't hear it yourself. On top of that, a metallic taste is spreading in your mouth, and your tongue hurts as if you have accidentally bitten on it. Pain jolts through your legs when you shake them, but it's the only way to get rid of the cramps.
There is no time for pain. You need to remember the next room. You need to remember...
It doesn't come surprising that your sight returns while your sense of hearing is still on vacation somewhere far behind the annoying beeping noise. And by now you have managed to memorize the positions of the rooms, so you don't have to recognize the symbol on the carpet to know it's the Diamonds door, the second from left.
You couldn't see if anything happened in the room the guy went in, but assuming from the shock and the fact that you don't see a corpse, he must still be alive. Two down, three to go.
As soon as your sight clears enough for you to see details, you search for Sweatpant's face. He has been surprisingly silent during the last minutes, but the smile on his face is similar to the one of Mr. Muscle. Both of them seem to enjoy the pain you're going through, only that one of them is a hopeless sadist and the other one might be the death of you all if you don't hang on long enough.
The schoolgirl is screaming something into the camera, you can see her pause and turn to Chishiya who answers her question with a nod, then she shouts something into the microphone again while wildly flailing with her arms.
Since you still can't hear anything through the annoying tinnitus, you try to make it clear to the other ones and hope that a sound actually comes out your mouth. With success as it seems, because the girl throws her hands up in despair, only to stir as if she just got an idea.
It's not hard to imagine the triumphant laugh accompanying her huge smile, and you watch her run to the four doors. She points at one, then runs to the right, points again. Something she repeats two more times while the others watch her as if she has gone mad, all except Chishiya, until you finally get what she's up to. Above the upper monitor, the Diamonds light flickers again.
Diamonds. Then Clubs.
"...please! We need to know if it's right!"
You sigh in relief as soon as you can hear their voices through the beeps and rushing in your ear, and you swallow down the blood in your mouth. "Wait... for the next change." Speaking feels unpleasant in your hoarse throat, but there's also hope.
"Do you think he made it through?" Sweatpants has taken a seat in the middle of the room and is now resting on the floor with his legs crossed. He is talking to Freckles, the one who seemed to have the most doubts about your credibility.
"I- I hope so. It didn't sound acted, if you ask me. This was real pain. Which means that he's still alive, doesn't it?"
The hum coming from Sweatpants sounds almost amused. "That's the point about this game. You can't tell for sure until you're on the other side yourself."
"We just have to trust them." Schoolgirl sounds confident, even though she looks a bit pale. But it could be the fault of the monitor as well. "And if we really manage to find the sequence..."
"Trust inside a Hearts game, eh? Dunno if that's the right way, girlie."
"In this case, trust can keep us alive, but it can kill all of us as well. It just depends on the person sitting in the other room."
No one except you seems to notice the undertone in Sweatpant's words. With you on this chair, there's a realistic chance you will win this game. But if Sweatpants really is the King, and there is not much doubt left about that, and he'd be here instead of you, it would have been Game Over long ago.
The scene in the other room has distracted you from the other monitors, and you realize with a gasp that it has switched again.
To Clubs, just as Schoolgirl has predicted.
"I think you guys actually did it!" Somehow it feels wrong to grin in this situation, but at the same time, it feels as if you have tricked the Game Masters themselves. If you are really able to tell now which door will be next without having to suffer the heavy punishment, you'll manage to keep going till the end. "It has changed again, just the way you predicted."
The minor shock comes even though you didn't reveal the symbol itself, but it's okay. The burning pain around the buckles is omnipresent by now, and you don't really feel the difference.
Schoolgirl jumps excitedly and raises her hand for a high-five. At first it seems as if Chishiya won't join in, and the familiar warmth spreads inside your chest as you watch him shake his head with a smile only to raise his hand as well eventually. The young girl slaps hands and throws a fist in the air, completely ignoring the glances from the other people.
"How did you figure it out?" You ask Chishiya, and it feels just as if your voice isn't trembling that much anymore.
Chishiya hums and moves on his heels, turning from the doors to the camera and back. "It was a bit tricky, but only because there was one piece that would not fit into the puzzle at first. Didn't you have a feeling that Diamonds has a longer time of being activated than the other doors?"
You startle at his words, though there is indeed something conspicuous. "I can't tell for sure, but... I've seen the lamp over Diamonds flicker already twice now. No other lamp has done that. Maybe it is broken or something?"
"No, that's not it. I'd even go as far as to say that Diamonds is active precisely twice as long as the others, because it is always chosen twice in a row."
"Yes! It's pretty easy once you see it. Diamonds twice, then Clubs, Spades, Clubs, twice Diamonds again, Spades. And then repeat. Your boyfriend is a genius!!" The way the girl even seems to admire Chishiya for his cleverness makes you giggle, and for a moment you even forget about the game you're in.
Chishiya chuckles as well. "I am, indeed."
"What, my boyfriend or a genius?"
His eyes focus on the camera, but it feels like they're directed at you. It doesn't matter that he shouldn't be able to see you, because you're completely mesmerized by those brown orbs nonetheless. And by the words coming out of his mouth.
"Maybe both."
For the first time since the day has started, your heartbeat doesn't increase out of pain or fear. It is just a maybe, but it is enough, considering you're sitting on an electric chair in a game that tries to kill you.
"Jeez, I'm going to vomit! Can't you save those things for later?" Mr. Muscle looks part annoyed and part disgusted, and the grunt he lets out is self-explanatory. "You can't tell me you want to save our lives by counting the few symbols we've had so far."
"Oh, it is part of a mathematic algorithm that I already calculated much further in my head, but I will spare you the details because you won't understand it anyway. I should now be able to tell you with a hundred percent accuracy what symbol the next door will have, even the next hundred doors. The algorithm will cause the sequence to repeat at a certain point, no matter how far you calculate."
You don't understand much of mathematics, but you love the fact that Chishiya has been able to turn a Hearts game into Diamonds. Although...
"It never chooses the Hearts door." It's Freckles expressing what you have thought before as well, and you wonder if this has been made on purpose. The lamp has unsurprisingly switched to Spades, and you have no doubts that it will next return to Clubs and then choose Diamonds twice.
Sweatpants shifts on the ground, grinning to himself. "Subtle irony, isn't it."
Someone clears a throat, and you see the granny walking up to Chishiya. She looks tired, but her lips are still curled into a smile. "Bless you, my friend. Because of you, I'll be able to take revenge for the friends I've lost in here."
Chishiya snorts, and you too have to chuckle over her choice of words, even more because of the blunt answer he is about to give.
"I am not your friend, and I don't care for your god's blessings. But you can have your revenge as soon as it swaps back to Diamonds."
Granny turns to you, or rather to the camera, and you nod before realizing that she can't see it. "I will tell you."
Somewhere on the edge you listen to the following conversation between Freckles, who still has huge doubts about the whole thing, and Granny, who tries to convince him that it can only be right. And they don't have to rely solely on Chishiya's calculations after all. If anything changes or steps out of the line, you'll be there to mention it. No matter the pain.
Staring at the green lamps brings tiny drops of sweat to your forehead, and the longer you stay quiet, the more you can see Granny's hands tremble despite their praying position. And then it's time.
"Now."
Even the minor shocks increase noticeably now, but you try to focus on the wrinkled face carefully opening the Diamonds door. She stumbles over the carpet and your hearts skips a beat, worried that something might have gone wrong. But it was just a bump on the ground, and the older woman makes sure to reach the opposite door as quickly as possible.
She will get her revenge, and she will live on to tell the stories of her deceased friends.
... twice Diamonds, yes? So no time to lose!"
You barely listen to the sound, but you suddenly start to feel sick when Granny turns around, her fingers already on the door knob, eyes widened with surprise while at the same time, Schoolgirl shouts out a warning from the other room.
Freckles rushes inside as well, and he too stumbles but doesn't manage to stay on his feet. They probably would both have made it through if it wasn't for the bump in the carpet, but with things happening the way they do, their fate is sealed.
As soon as the door falls shut behind the freckled man, flames emerge from dozens of nozzles hidden in the ceiling and the walls, turning the whole room into a deadly inferno within a mere second. You can barely see how Granny staggers through the exit while covering her face to keep it safe from the flame, and you really hope the two survivors so far will be waiting for her to put out the fire before she burns alive.
Freckles is not that lucky. He doesn't even manage to get halfway through the room before his body gives in to the hungry flames lashing into his clothes and skin. All that remains is a lump of black coal that barely resembles the form of a human body, and it is soon swallowed by the floor opening like a huge trap-door.
Only a handful of charred spots on the carpet remain, together with an almost unbearable silence.