Chapter 3
When I stepped out of the restroom, I saw the survivors had already split into several groups.
Figuring it was safer to stick with the crowd, I naturally went over to join the action.
In the middle of everyone, a guy in a suit and tie was talking.
He was rallying everyone to work together and face this bizarre situation, sounding just like he was leading a business meeting.
Some people agreed, but most just hung back and watched quietly.
Besides just surviving, the real problems now were what was for dinner and where to crash tonight.
A few people probably had superpowers that could help them score some cash, but nobody was willing to show their hand. The more someone used their power, the more they'd draw attention to themselves.
No matter how one tried to cover their tracks, someone could always figure it out. It wasn't worth the risk for someone to expose their superpower just to get through a temporary jam.
Plus, the rules said only one of us would make it out alive.
That whole "danger brings people together" thing wasn't working at all. Everyone was basically on their own side.
The suit guy was getting desperate, frantically rallying everyone to work together, but it was pretty much a lost cause.
Just then, an old man stepped up and calmed things down. "Look, nobody wants to die, but since we're stuck here, we can only take it one step at a time.
"I doubt anyone's really up for this whole 'teamwork' thing, so let me throw out a suggestion: we're all from the same place, and a lot of us probably aren't making it out of here.
"If you die, your family will never know what happened. So why don't we stick together in small groups? If someone does get killed, the rest of the group can send their final messages back home."
Everyone thought about it for a moment, and most of them agreed with the old man's plan.
But then another problem popped up: everyone was broke, with nothing but the clothes on their backs. We couldn't even exchange numbers, and there wasn't a pen or piece of paper in sight to leave a message for loved ones.
I knew it was time to play the hero in front of everyone.
"I'll buy everyone a phone," I said.
I just got a pile of cash I never expected. Why not go on a spending spree?
I felt pretty safe for now, so I figured I could afford to be generous. With 330 grand to my name, I could buy a whole bunch of phones. Worst case, I'd just hit the restroom again and cash in some more.
Without missing a beat, I led everyone who wanted to entrust their last words straight to the mall.
We swept through several phone shops, grabbing enough phones for the whole crew.
As for those few who didn't want to mingle and quietly slipped away, nobody gave them a second thought.
Thankfully, even though this creepy world didn't hand us any cash, we still had our IDs, so getting SIM cards was no problem.
After a lot of scrambling, we set up a dozen group chats and finally got all the survivors connected.
The old man's suggestion to form small teams really took off, and people started grouping up. In this way, at least everyone had someone looking out for them.
Superpowers were nice and all, but they still needed cash to get food. It was not like everyone had 330 grand sitting in their bank account like I did.
I slipped off to the restroom again while we were at the mall.
The world's will spoke up, [New rule: A giant screen will appear in the sky, showing everyone's guesses about the superpower users.
[If someone's superpower gets fully exposed, they're wiped out instantly. Otherwise, every day, the person with the highest exposure and whose info matches the most guesses gets eliminated.]
As soon as the rule dropped, a massive screen materialized out of nowhere in the sky.
Our names were all up there.
The ones at the bottom were basically exposed.
Right now, the poor guy at the very bottom had teleportation, and people had already cracked his activation method: he just had to draw a letter D with his finger.
People still hadn't figured out the range or what kind of barriers he could teleport through.
But the watchers had eyes everywhere, pulling out all the stops with high-speed cameras and big data. Nothing could escape them.
It was only a matter of time before this guy's superpower got exposed, unless he just stopped using it altogether.
He was right there in our crowd, his face pale as a ghost, totally freaking out.
The folks who were next in line on the screen weren't looking much better.
The whole plan to split into small teams was thrown into chaos by that giant screen.
Everyone avoided teaming up with Ryan Clarke, the teleport guy.