Chapter 2 - The Ire of the Captives

( Happy new year everyone ! Hope y'all like this one!🎈)

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Moments later, after the earlier spectacle of murder and the raw, animal panic that followed, everyone avoided the place marred with blood. The ground there was still wet and dark, stained in a way that made even a glance feel like a sin. People drifted away from it in clumps and clusters, instinctively moving toward the west side of the clearing where the trees opened up and the rocky ground leveled into a natural bowl.

They huddled together beneath a wide gap in the canopy, a place where the branches parted enough for a pale, sickly light to spill through. Pebbles and smooth stones formed uneven ridges underfoot, some jutting out like broken teeth. Groups of people piled together in that one damned space, pressing in close as though proximity itself could offer protection.

He stood off to the side, indifferent on the surface, face etched in thought.

Wearing a faded green jacket over a greyish-pink sweater, joggers for pants and worn slip-on shoes, he leaned his shoulder against the rough bark of a tree. The cold bit through the fabric, but his mind was too crowded to care.

"It was supposed to be New Year's today. 2026..." he muttered under his breath, lips twisting. "And bam, I get sucked into this shitty game run by a wannabe Sebastian cosplayer."

He snorted quietly, thinking of Black Butler, of the immaculate demon butler with his smirk and gloves. Whoever that suited bastard was who brought them here… he lacked the charm and had way too much sadism.

The young man—let his gaze sweep across the makeshift encampment. People had already started forming groups: some by race, others by language, some simply by who they'd been standing next to when the nightmare started. Little islands of nationality had sprung up like reflex. Clusters of familiar faces, familiar accents, shared words.

Makes sense, he thought. In times of crisis, people cling to what they know. Same land. Same tongue. Same type of faces. It gives them a little illusion of safety, a small lie to whisper to themselves: These are my people. I'm less likely to die with them.

He understood it, but he did not feel drawn to it.

He was used to loneliness. Used to being the one pressed against the wall at gatherings, the one listening more than speaking. The idea of throwing himself into a group, trusting strangers when the stakes were life and death, made his skin itch. He wasn't going to cling to anyone until he'd watched them, weighed them, made sure they weren't the type to smile at your face and stab your ribs when the lights went out.

Besides, people from his own place didn't mean much to him either. Ethnicity-wise, he came from a smaller community, a minority within his country's wider, louder populace. Even back home, "his people" had often meant "outnumbered." Here, it meant nothing at all.

He sighed, long and low, the sound slipping out with a cloud of white breath in the chilled air.

What shitty luck.

If someone had told him yesterday that he'd end up in something ripped straight out of a manga or anime, he'd have laughed, shoved them lightly, told them they were watching too much isekai. Yet here he was, standing in a forest that didn't feel like any forest he'd ever known, under a sky that felt a shade too sharp, a degree too wrong, in a game engineered by something that might as well have been aliens.

Aliens, sick billionaires, eldritch gods—whatever. At this point it all blurred together into one ugly truth: he was trapped. The thought slid icy fingers down his spine.

He couldn't help but recall the quick glimpses of Squid Game he'd seen on short videos: masked figures, terrified players, games that looked childish until the bodies dropped. He'd never watched the whole series, but the premise had been clear enough. This place reeked of the same thing—spectacle, cruelty, the entertainment of invisible eyes.

With another exhale, he dug his hands into his jacket pockets, fingers fumbling through receipts, lint, and the faint crinkle of plastic. His fingertips brushed something solid. He blinked and pulled it out.

An unopened packet of cigarettes.

For a second he just stared at it, then let out a huff that was equal parts relief and laugh.

"Well," he murmured, "if there is a god, he's got a twisted sense of humor."

He found a lighter tucked into another pocket and smiled, genuinely thankful for once. Nicotine wasn't medicine, but right now he'd accept any placebo he could get. Maybe it would help steady his heartbeat, loosen the tight band that had wrapped around his chest since the killing began.

Not that he'd ever had blood pressure problems before… he paused, a faint frown appearing.

"…Did I?" he whispered. "Ah, whatever. Not important right now."

Shaking his head to clear the stray thought, he set one foot up on a protruding rock, using it as a makeshift perch. The stone was cold and damp under the sole of his shoe. He slid a cigarette out from the packet, put it between his lips, and flicked the lighter.

The small flame felt jarringly normal in a world that had ceased to make sense.

He took a deep drag, inhaling slow, feeling the smoke burn its way down his throat. It scratched in a way that was almost comforting, something real, something he could control. As he exhaled, the smoke curled into pale wisps and was torn apart by the faint breeze.

Around him, voices rose and overlapped in a chaotic chorus. People kept talking, clinging to the only tool they had to keep madness at bay—conversation. Every sentence circled the same subject: the earlier events, the blood, the rules they'd been given, the possible ways to survive.

It seemed leaders had already started to sprout from each ethnic group. Men and women with strong voices and strong expressions stood at the centers of their clusters, speaking loudly, gesturing with their hands as if shaping the air into temporary safety. Some tried to calm people. Others barked orders, counting, organizing, trying to form lists or roles. A few simply yelled to be heard.

He watched it all, smoke drifting from his lips, feeling detached and slightly hollow. It was like watching humans from the outside, like he'd slipped into third person in his own life.

Under the shade, his gaze drifted and locked, almost by accident, with that of an older man standing a little distance away. The man looked to be in his mid-thirties—though in this place, where fear hollowed faces and carved new lines into skin, age was hard to read. He too seemed oddly indifferent to the panicked masses, though unlike the young man, he wasn't alone. A small group surrounded him, keeping a respectful distance, as if they recognized something in his posture that marked him as their anchor.

An American? He guessed from the man's features, clothes, and the snatches of accent he heard when the stranger spoke briefly to the people around him.

The man's eyes met his. For a moment, the noise around them seemed to dim. The stranger gave him a small nod—nothing dramatic, just a slight dip of the chin. There was no hostility there, no fear, no desperate plea. It was a look that held less toxicity and more… mutual understanding. A silent acknowledgment.

You see it too, don't you?

The young man's chest tightened, a strange, unfamiliar feeling pressing up against his ribs. Understanding of what, exactly? That this was all insane? That the others were clinging to illusions? That no one here was coming out clean?

He didn't like the feeling of someone seeing through him, even a little. He let his gaze slide away, busying himself with another long drag from his cigarette, using the smoke as a makeshift curtain between his mind and theirs.

"Ano…?"

The hesitant syllable floated in from his right, thin and fragile compared to the roaring babble of the crowd.

"Ca–can you speak Japanese, mister…?"

The voice trembled slightly, like someone stepping onto ice that might crack.

He blinked and turned his head.

Two Asian women stood near him, closer than he'd realized anyone had approached. Both looked to be in their early twenties, maybe students or office workers if he had to guess. One had shoulder-length dark hair, neatly tied back with a simple clip, her eyes wide but trying to be brave. The other had slightly shorter hair with light brown highlights, her hands clasped tightly in front of her as if she were physically holding in her nerves.

They looked timid, uneasy, yet there was a polite stiffness to their posture—a Japanese politeness, he thought. Even here, in a nightmare world, their manners hadn't completely abandoned them.

He was a little surprised at being addressed so directly. For a moment, he just stared, cigarette halfway to his lips. Then he turned his head a bit more and gave a small grunt.

"…Mnn."

He followed it with a short nod, the lazy kind that said: Yes, I understand you.

That single motion had an immediate effect. The two women visibly relaxed, shoulders dropping as though someone had removed a weight from their backs. One of them let out a breath so heavily that he realized she must have been holding it while she asked.

"Thank God!" the girl with the tied hair said in Japanese, her words tumbling out in a rush. "We found another person who knows Japanese… Mister, we were really worried it would be just us here who were Japanese."

Her companion nodded vigorously, eyes glancing around the crowd as if confirming that everyone else still looked overwhelmingly foreign.

"We thought we found someone who was Japanese," the first girl continued, "but then she turned out to be a Chinese woman and she got a bit angry at our words… it was so awkward…"

The second girl flushed slightly, her shoulders hunching at the memory.

"So, um!" the first girl straightened, as if reminding herself of the basics. She put a hand on her chest, mustering a smile. "My name is Kaede Hanakawa, and…"

The other girl stepped forward half a step, bowing lightly.

"Konnichiwa," she said with a small, practiced smile. "My name is Akari Satō. It's a pleasure to meet you…? Mister…?"

There it was—the expectant pause, the polite curiosity. In the middle of an alien death game, they were trying to anchor themselves with something as simple and human as exchanging names.

He watched them for a moment, a faint amusement stirring somewhere beneath his fatigue and cynicism. Seeing real-life Japanese women like this—he'd never thought he'd experience it outside of screens and airports he'd never had the money to go through. Yet here they were, their voices and mannerisms so precisely matching what he'd seen in anime, dramas, and variety shows, but more fragile, more real.

The corner of his mouth lifted.

"Akhu," he said finally. One word. "My name is Akhu. That's all for now."

The effect was almost comical.

Both girls froze for a heartbeat, eyes widening. The silence that followed was thick with something unsaid.

"…Aku?" Kaede repeated slowly, as if making sure she'd heard correctly.

Her gaze flickered to Akari's, and he watched them exchange a look that was half confusion, half mild horror. Their lips parted at the same time.

"'Aku'… evil?" Akari blurted out before she could stop herself, then flinched, hands coming up instinctively. "A–ah, s-sorry! I didn't mean—"

Her words ran over each other as she tried to soften the explanation, cheeks reddening.

"Umm… did you say Aku—evil…? Sir, really, is that really your name?" Kaede finished weakly, her voice trailing off as if she'd just realized she might have been incredibly rude.

For the first time since this whole mess began, a genuine, low chuckle rumbled in his chest. Their reaction, their earnest panic over the implications of his name, tugged at something warm inside him.

( In Japanese Aku or Akuma means evil or the Devil more commonly used as a synonym for evil and scum, though it can also be used to symbolise opening like opening a door the former is more widely known)

He lifted a hand, palm outward in a slight gesture.

"It's not 'Aku'," he replied calmly. "It's 'Akhu'

with an 'h' near the end before the U."

He subtly emphasized the sound, letting the breathy consonant linger: A-khu.

The two girls blinked, processing this, then seemed to deflate with relief.

"Ah, I–I see!" Akari said, bowing repeatedly. "Sumimasen, we didn't mean to judge your name. We were just surprised…"

"Really, we didn't mean to look down on it at all," Kaede added, her words tumbling together. "It's just, um, we heard 'Aku' and thought 'evil,' and then we thought maybe it was some kind of nickname, and then we panicked, and—"

He watched them flail, his amusement sharpening into a faint smirk that tugged at one corner of his lips. Their frantic attempts to apologize, their awkward sincerity, felt almost… humanizing. In a place where everything else screamed danger, their embarrassment was oddly comforting.

He took another slow drag from his cigarette, exhaled, and let the smoke curl upwards.

"I didn't say you were looking down on it," he said mildly. "Relax."

Kaede pressed a hand over her chest.

"Thank goodness," she muttered under her breath. "I thought we offended you the moment we met."

"You almost did," he replied, his tone dry but not cruel.

Their eyes widened. Then they saw the glint in his gaze, understood the joke, and both let out small, nervous laughs.

"I'm kidding," he added after a moment, voice softer. "Kinda."

Akhu turned his head, once again gazing at the masses and the two girls who seemed to have found solace thinking they found another person from their homeland..... He didn't fix their misunderstanding as he felt amused and in a deeper sense they approached him first making his heart abit calmer and mood brighter.