1ST DAY IN THE
BORDERLANDS

VISA :: UNAVAILABLE

That same recorded voice explained the rules, but Marlene only caught disjointed words, her foot tapping incessantly on the ground.

She leaned toward Arisu. "What is it saying?"

The boy didn't answer, and she saw him swallow hard.

She was about to press him further when the voice announced, "Game Start," and Marlene couldn't tell if that was a good thing or not.

"Okay . . . okay . . . " Arisu murmured.

The rest of the players rushed toward the stairs and the elevator, as did Arisu and Karube. Marlene hurried to follow them.

"So, can someone explain what's going on? Are we supposed to play, uh, tag?"

"They said we have five minutes to position ourselves somewhere in the building," Arisu explained quietly. "Then the tagger will start moving."

The girl nodded, still confused about the situation. "And how do we win? Where's the base?"

"A—Apparently one of the rooms is the tagger's base. If we find it, we'll be safe." They had reached the fourth floor, a row of orderly doors lining the entire hallway. "It won't be easy."

Karube erupted into a series of colorful words, of which Marlene only caught the general gist.

She huffed. "Look, I get it, you don't like me—and honestly, the feeling's mutual—but couldn't you use an extra pair of eyes?" She pointed to her face with a finger to emphasize the point. "You know, to find the base and all."

The other didn't reply, and Marlene rolled her eyes. "I know you speak English. You wouldn't have replied like that if you didn't."

She ignored the fiery glare he shot her. "You're a rookie," he finally said in a language Marlene could understand. "We don't need dead weight."

The "dead weight" huffed. "I wasn't half bad at tag when I was a kid."

"This isn't just tag!" Karube turned to her, teeth bared. "This is a Game! I wasn't kidding when I said you could die!"

Marlene laughed. "Stop talking nonsense! Die as in, what, lose? Oh no! How sad!"

The boy was about to retort when that same recorded voice from earlier echoed again.

Karube swore under his breath, a stark contrast to his earlier thundering tone.

"Hey!" Marlene called out, still grinning. "Answer m—mmhh!"

Arisu clamped a hand over her mouth, his eyes wide, a finger pressed to his lips in the universal gesture for silence.

For what felt like an eternity, no one, nothing, moved. Once again, Marlene hated it.

She tried to escape Arisu's grip, but he shook his head. She ignored him. "What—"

A series of sharp, repetitive noises echoed from a few floors above. The American flinched, covering her ears.

"What the hell—"

A scream and those same noises. Then, nothing.

She grabbed Arisu's wrist in a flash.

Those were gunshots. They were definitely gunshots. Marlene knew because she had heard them more than once at her old school in Nevada.

"We need to move," Karube whispered.

"What's happening?" Mars whispered back, her heart pounding. "Who's shooting?"

"The Game has started," Arisu announced, his chest rising and falling rapidly. "The tagger is free to move. We need to find the base."

"The tagger i—is—" It was absurd.

Karube nodded grimly, giving her a contemptuous look. "This is a game where people die, remember?"

Oh.

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Marlene wasn't a stranger to adrenaline. She felt it every time she was on stage, with music coursing through her bones; every time a high note came, and she felt it vibrating around her. Mars loved adrenaline. It was synonymous with happiness.

Arisu tried another door, but it remained stubbornly shut. More gunshots, someone screaming. Marlene pressed herself against the wall, squeezing her eyes shut.

That night, adrenaline made her want to vomit. And she didn't like it. She didn't like it at all.

"This is impossible," she whimpered. "There are too many rooms; we'll never find the base. We'll end up—"

"Shut that mouth," Karube growled, yanking at another doorknob. Still nothing. "You're going to get us killed."

"But she's right, Karube," Arisu spoke up. "It's impossible to check all the rooms on our own. There—There has to be another way . . . "

"Well, I don't see it!" the other snapped, perhaps a little too loudly. "Not with this crybaby clinging to us like a barnacle!"

Marlene didn't even try to argue, her gaze distant and her hands beginning to tremble.

Then, a sound.

The three of them froze.

Footsteps at the end of the corridor, long and heavy. Marlene's breath caught in her throat. Arisu pulled her and Karube around a corner.

Something appeared at the top of the stairs.

It was a man, presumably, wearing a large leather coat, a submachine gun slung over one shoulder, and a rubber horse mask covering his face, its glossy black eyes staring at them, empty and unsettling.

If it weren't for the situation, Marlene would've burst out laughing.

Instead, a shiver ran down her spine, and she didn't wait for either of the boys.

Suppressing a scream, she turned and ran, her vision blurred by tears.

Gunfire echoed behind her, but she couldn't worry about Arisu or Karube. All that mattered was getting away.

She climbed two flights of stairs. She was on the seventh floor.

Sliding down to the ground, she clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs.

Her chest rose and fell heavily, a knot in her lungs, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat.

For a second, her vision went white, and she thought she might faint. She needed air.

"They're watching you." That voice hadn't invaded her head in years.

She curled up even tighter against the wall, squeezing her eyes shut.

"They're watching you, and you're crying. What will they think?"

Suddenly, she was sixteen again, on stage, having a panic attack.

The lights blinded her, the stares suffocated her, and afterward, she would go to the dressing room only to be met with her parents' disappointed faces.

"What else can you do but quit?"

They had said that to her, and Marlene had believed them.

More gunshots echoed below her. A faint whimper escaped her lips.

Her head spun. The noises grew muffled, and suddenly, all she wanted to do was rest. She was exhausted, her chest aching, her legs trembling.

Then, someone shouted.

A sharp, sudden sound that made her ears bleed.

It took her a moment to realize it wasn't a scream. They were words. Someone was speaking to her.

It was enough to make her open her eyes, the light momentarily blinding her.

" . . . lene . . . Mar . . . lene . . . can you hear me?"

She tried to ignore the pounding in her head, her vision clearing.

Arisu's face came into focus, staring at her with concern, his hands on her shoulders, his eyes wide. "Can you hear me? We need to move, okay? We need to find the base! Come on!"

She let him pull her to her feet, swaying, using the wall for support. They were alone, just her and Arisu. "Ka . . . Karube?" she asked weakly.

The boy clenched his teeth. "I lost him." Then, quickly, as if to convince himself, he added, "But—But I'm sure he'll be fine. You don't know him, but he's great at this! Now, you and I just need to find the base, okay?"

She didn't respond, her gaze unfocused.

"Marlene!"

She blinked, forcing the fog in her brain to clear. "Yes . . . Yes," she repeated, more firmly. She took a deep breath, finally looking at Arisu. She shook her head. "I'm fine," she said. "Let's go."

For a moment, he hesitated, but then he nodded.

Marlene followed him, the fear tightening in her stomach once more.

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At the umpteenth closed door, Marlene decided that tag was terrible.

"It’s all pointless," the girl whimpered. "There must be at least twenty doors per floor, and we don’t know where the tagger is. We’ll never—"

As children, the base had never been a closed, hidden place, but a simple wall that you just had to touch to end the game. It had never been so complicated, but she told herself that, in that case, the tagger hadn't been a psychopath with two submachine guns hanging from his neck.

"There must be a way," Arisu told himself. He rested his head on the wall, squinting. "We’ll never make it on our own—". His eyes widened, black, shiny, and bright.

"What?" Marlene sniffled.

For a moment, the boy didn’t answer. Then he rushed to the railing and shouted, "Listen to me!"

Mars's breath caught in her throat. "What the hell are you doing?" she hissed, alarmed.

The boy ignored her, continuing to move. "We’ve—"

She couldn’t make out any more words, the Japanese sentences blending in her head as she tried to understand them.

"Arisu," she cried helplessly.

After a while, a female voice, a few floors above, responded.

More gunshots echoed, and Marlene covered her ears.

"Marlene," the boy whispered. "We have to move! The tagger will be here soon!"

"No, no!" she blabbered. "He's still at least two floors above, we can—"

How much time was left? And what if they couldn’t find the base? She felt tears welling up in her eyes and shook her head.

"Mar—"

"Arisu!" Karube appeared behind the boy, and both Marlene and he staggered.

"Karube, where were you—"

"I met other players," he explained, his forehead dripping with sweat, his breath heavy as if he'd run a marathon. "They have a plan. To defeat the tagger."

"A plan?!" Marlene hissed, her eyes wide. "Did you forget the two submachine guns hanging from his neck?"

"They’re not ordinary people," Karube replied. He added something in Japanese, and Marlene huffed, frustrated by the language barrier.

Arisu shook his head. "Right now, we need to—"

A slow sound of footsteps nearby made him freeze. Mars froze too.

"Let’s go!" whispered Karube, starting to run down the hallway, heading for the stairs at the other end. Arisu followed him closely. Marlene didn’t.

"Marlene!" Arisu exclaimed, trying to keep his voice low, his eyes wide in alarm. "What are you doing? Come on, hurry up!"

But the girl didn’t move, her legs rooted to the floor. She trembled. Her irises, shiny with tears, locked onto Arisu’s.

She shook her head. No, she couldn’t do it. They wouldn’t survive. It was impossible. They were alone. She was alone.

Karube cursed under his breath and grabbed Arisu by the arm, pulling him with him. "Karube, no! Wait! Don’t—". But the other didn’t respond, the steps of the tagger booming against the walls, growing closer, and he ran off, taking his friend with him. In the end, Arisu had no choice but to silence himself, the survival instinct overriding everything else. He threw one last desperate look at Marlene before disappearing around the corner.

Mars shook her head again, as if trying to erase that image from her mind.

In what twisted nightmare had she gotten herself into?

She felt her legs give way, and she collapsed to the floor. She placed a hand on her chest, struggling to breathe.

She had imagined many times how she would die. Alone, but not at the hands of anyone but herself.

Some gunshots echoed behind her. She flinched.

Where was Dae? Was he still alive? Was he somewhere in this world she had ended up in? Or had he disappeared into nothingness?

She lifted her gaze, blurry with tears. The tagger was near now; she wouldn’t make it to the end of the hallway in time, not in this state. But a few meters away from her, there was a small niche at floor level, one of those used to put fire extinguishers and emergency kits. Empty.

It would be hypocritical, she thought. She had abandoned Arisu and Karube like a coward, and now she wanted to save her own life.

Hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite.

Yet, despite everything, she felt her body move, as if guided by some outside force. Unconsciously, she pricked up her ear: the tagger’s footsteps were close, but still seemed far enough away for her to do something. They must be on the stairs at the end of the corridor. She realized that the footsteps she, Arisu, and Karube had heard earlier must have come from above, not from their floor.

She started dragging herself across the floor, small pitifulsounds escaping from her lips.

She curled up, hiding her head between her legs, and closed her eyes.

Now, the footsteps were right there, at the beginning of the hallway. Tap, tap, tap.

Her heart pounded in her chest, matching the rhythm of those cursed steps. Thump, thump, thump. She tried to remind herself that the tagger couldn’t hear it.

Marlene wasn’t used to being unnoticed. To hiding, staying quiet. Silence twisted her stomach. It felt like hundreds of eyes were staring at her, making her sweat cold.

She forced herself to swallow the lump in her throat and focus.

Tap, tap, tap.

It was there.

Maybe sixteen feet. Twelve. Nine.

She held her breath.

Five feet. Three feet.

Marlene didn’t believe in any God, but in that moment, she found herself praying to one.

Tap. Tap. Tap . . .

With sweat running down her back, she heard the footsteps fade away, until she could hear nothing but the gentle night breeze on her hands, gripping the fabric of her pants so tightly that her knuckles ached.

A minute passed. Two. Three. Until her heartbeat was so loud she could hear nothing else in her ears, and darkness enveloped her.

jade speaks! —— if you read the manga, you've probably recognized the way marlene hid!! i just love that scene in the manga, and i wanted to incorporate it here! i'll try to quote it more times because it's just top tier.

thank you for reading <3