Lukas stood there, running through his options in his mind.

No matter how he thought about it, the flashing tiles had to carry a negative meaning.

Before the conductor had left, he’d deliberately introduced the room to them as the switching room. Why would he bother telling them what it was if that wasn’t a clue?

This had to mean that something was going to get switched when that timer hit zero.

And the most logical candidates for switching were the people standing on the flashing tiles. The flashing had to be a signal.

But the question was... what will they be switched with? Each other?

He didn’t know and couldn’t afford to take this gamble.

So he stepped off his green tile and moved three paces to a glowing blue one.

Trent watched him with an amused expression. "Why’d you move?"

"The conductor called it the switching room," Lukas said, keeping his voice low. "Something is getting switched. My guess is whatever happens at zero involves the people still standing on flashing tiles."

"Plausible," Trent said. "But we won’t know until the timer runs out."

"I’d rather not find out firsthand."

Trent chuckled but said nothing further, his eyes moving to the countdown.

Lukas looked around the room properly for the first time since the lights had changed.

That was when he realized that his count had been wrong.

During the time he and Trent had been talking before the conductor arrived, more people had filtered in.

The room held well over fifty contestants now, maybe closer to sixty, each one standing on their chosen tile, eyes on the ceiling.

While most people on flashing tiles had left them, four people still stood on their own flashing tiles.

They were basically gambling that the flashing meant something advantageous.

Lukas said nothing, focusing back on the countdown, which continued to click downwards.

Twenty. Nineteen.

The room had gone completely silent. No one was trying to talk, not even Trent, and nobody moved any longer.

Everyone simply held their breath in anticipation, watching the fiery numbers.

Ten.

The tiles kept flashing.

One of the people on the flashing tiles made a last minute decision, stepping off the tile and onto a glowing tile.

Now, only three people were left on the tiles.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Zero.

The red light on the ceiling extinguished.

For one full second, nothing happened.

Then every flashing tile in the room dropped simultaneously.

The floor opened in multiple places at once, pure darkness yawning up through the gaps, and the three people still standing on flashing tiles were gone before the sound of their surprise had finished leaving their mouths.

Shock filled the room.

The tiles of darkness did not return to normal. Instead, they stayed open, the pure darkness within them acting as a new color scattered across the checkered floor.

Lukas could tell they were not actually black, but couldn’t tell exactly what they were. It was as if they were holes that had been punched in reality.

Someone nearby cursed under their breath.

Trent turned to Lukas with a small smile. "Your gamble paid off."

Murmurs filled the air and Lukas could see the person that had made a last minute decision to step off their flashing tile collapse to their knees.

They’d been just a few seconds away from death and hadn’t even known.

Everyone in the carriage didn’t doubt it. Those three people had to be dead by now. There was no other option for what could have happened.

His gaze swept across the room to see that some were visibly shaken by what they’d just seen, but most kept a composed expression on their face.

But before they could do anything else, the ceiling lit up again.

The fiery red numbers appeared and began counting down from sixty.

This time, no one needed to be told what the flashing tiles meant.

The moment squares began flashing around the room, people moved, stepping off their tiles and moving to the solid glowing ones.

They all stood there, watching as the countdown hit zero.

The flashing tiles dropped immediately. There was no one second wait like last time.

But this time, there were no casualties, as no one had been standing on them.

However, the dark gaps in the floor had multiplied, while the safe surface area of the room was visibly smaller than it had been sixty seconds ago.

The countdown appeared again almost immediately. The moment the tiles began flashing, people began moving to the safe tiles once again.

Lukas frowned at what he was looking at.

"I see," he said quietly.

Trent was beside him, his earlier amusement long gone. His expression was now serious.

"The safe tiles keep shrinking," he said. "Round by round, the spaces get fewer. Eventually there won’t be enough room for everyone to stand safely."

"And then people will start competing for a safe tile," Lukas said.

"Competing is a polite word for it." Trent glanced around the room. "The dark tiles will take whoever is standing upon them. But the contestants will take whoever they can push off a safe tile."

"The game ends when only one person is left standing." He paused. "Or a number the conductor decides is sufficient. Either way, a lot of people in this room are not walking out of it."

Lukas looked down at the floor.

The darkness was spreading, creating shrinking islands of color. And there were around sixty people already calculating how many spaces remained and how many people they were shared between.

The math was not encouraging.

Everyone stood there, watching as the countdown hit zero once again.

More tiles dropped into darkness, with the safe floor shrinking again and the gaps spreading wider. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

The fiery numbers appeared again, counting down from sixty. But this time the number of flashing tiles had doubled.

People began scrambling for the available spaces, dashing to claim them before someone else did.

Near Lukas, two people arrived at the same tile at the same moment. For half a second they stood there, snarling at each other to find somewhere new, then one of them shoved the other.

The person stumbled backwards, arms reaching for something that wasn’t there, and stepped onto a dark tile.

The darkness took them instantly and silently.

Quiet filled the room as another realization appeared.

Don’t step on an already dark tile.

The countdown kept running.

The first kill had occurred, and everyone understood that it would not be the last.