It started in a hospital.
Specifically, the pediatric wing of Halem Memorial, floor six.
The hallway was quiet, lined with white tiles and worn cartoon stickers. Nurses moved silently. The lights above flickered—one by one—then pulsed red.
That’s when the colors appeared.
On the floor.
Red. Blue. Green. Yellow.
In four perfect circles.
They hadn’t been there an hour ago.
Now they led down the hallway, dot by dot, like a trail.
The nurses didn’t see them. The staff walked over them like they weren’t real.
Only the children noticed.
And one by one… they stepped onto the mat.
Six-year-old Nikki Ramos was the first.
She loved colors. She loved games.
And when the speaker in the ceiling clicked on and whispered: "Left hand...red..."
She obeyed.
And reality buckled.
Her body twisted—not from pain, but like a puppet caught in too many strings.
Her feet floated. Her spine curved. Her bones didn’t break.
They rearranged.
And in the glass reflection of the window, her face was still smiling.
But her eyes were gone.
Elsewhere—beneath Sanctuary HQ—Riku’s alarms went wild.
He choked on his snack bar, slapped his monitor, and leaned forward.
“Oh no. Not this game.”
His fingers flew across the keyboard. He triggered the signal.
Two floors up, Maya and Tenchi were already preparing for deployment.
“Twister?” Maya asked, lifting an eyebrow.
Tenchi nodded, sliding his dagger into its sheath. “We’ve only seen one variant before. That team didn’t walk out standing upright.”
“I guess we’re going in sideways, then,” Maya muttered.
Tenchi turned toward the lift.
“No.”
He pressed a button on his comm.
“Riku, you’re with us.”
From the speaker: “Aww yeah. I call right foot green.”
Part II – Into the Spiral
The world twisted before they even crossed over.
It began in the elevator—floor lights blinking: 1… 2… 3… 4… 4… 4…
The numbers refused to rise.
The air grew hot.
Riku was the first to notice.
“Uhh… guys?” he said, slowly backing into the wall. “Why is the emergency brake breathing?”
Maya squinted. The red lever on the elevator wall was slowly expanding and deflating, like a lung.
“That’s new,” she muttered.
Tenchi pulled out a glowing charm from his jacket, holding it between two fingers.
“Layer’s already leaking,” he said. “We’re not traveling to it—it’s coming to us.”
The doors opened.
Floor six.
But not the real one.
Not anymore.
They stepped into a hallway of impossible angles.
The tiles had melted into a warped checkerboard—curving, rippling like waves frozen mid-motion. The ceiling stretched away like elastic. The lights swung slowly, attached to chains that weren’t there a moment ago.
And the colored circles were everywhere.
Red. Blue. Green. Yellow.
Perfectly spaced.
Endlessly repeating down the corridor like a never-ending game mat.
Each one pulsed faintly, beating like a heartbeat.
“Okay,” Riku said, adjusting the scope on his multi-lens goggles. “The good news is: I’m not dead yet.”
Maya blinked. “Bad news?”
He tapped the green circle in front of him. It hissed. The color changed.
Left foot… green.
Maya yanked him backward just as the tile opened like a mouth, jagged teeth made of folded plastic snapping closed where his foot had been.
“Oh,” he said cheerfully. “So that’s why the last team didn’t walk out.”
They moved in slowly.
Step by step.
The hallway pulsed, adapting to them. The further in they walked, the more unstable gravity became. Walls became floors. Floors became staircases angled at 45 degrees. And behind them, the doorway vanished.
Tenchi marked it with chalk—but every time he turned back, the symbol disappeared.
“We’re not in a loop,” he said. “But the path is breathing.”
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“Meaning?” Riku asked.
“Meaning it’s learning us.”
They reached the first Twister Node—a giant spinning dial floating in the air.
It was shaped like a child’s toy, but the pointer was a long bone needle that spun on its own.
The moment they approached, it clicked.
“Right hand… blue.”
The tile lit up.
Riku snorted. “Do we play along?”
Maya stared at the tile, which had begun to retract like a muscle, revealing a shifting void beneath it.
She cracked her knuckles. “If we don’t, we fall.”
“Into what?”
Tenchi looked down into the opening beneath the tile. Inside, dozens of twisted bodies floated, frozen mid-twist—arms backwards, legs inverted, mouths open in silent screams.
He looked up.
“Into what’s left of the last team.”
Part III – Spiral Collapse
“Right hand… blue.”
The hallway shuddered.
The voice echoed from nowhere—and everywhere—like a child trapped inside a megaphone that had been underwater too long.
Maya stepped forward and pressed her hand on the blue tile. It pulsed beneath her palm, cold and soft like cartilage.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then the tile beneath her vanished.
She dropped.
But she didn’t fall far.
Just enough to scream.
Just enough to disappear.
Tenchi spun around. “Maya!”
Riku didn’t hesitate.
He dropped his satchel to the ground, yanked out a clacking metal box, and slapped it against the wall.
A whirr of gears. A hiss of steam.
The device unfolded like an insect—sprouting arms, mirrors, and a spinning lens. It scanned the space where Maya vanished, then projected an outline of the floor’s geometry.
“She didn’t fall,” Riku muttered. “She was redirected.”
Tenchi narrowed his eyes. “Where?”
“Somewhere in the layer’s compression fold.”
He paused.
Then grinned.
“She’s in the spiral.”
[INTRODUCING: RIKU – THE IRON TRICKSTER]
“Genius. Chaos. Trapmaster Supreme.”
Armed with mechanical brilliance and absolutely no chill, Riku is the only S-Rank Game Ender who beat a cursed arcade cabinet by reprogramming it mid-battle.
He speaks in sarcasm, breathes innovation, and carries enough gadgets to make ghosts go digital.
When the rules break down, he builds new ones.
Riku yanked a brass cube from his coat and twisted it.
The cube unfolded into a grappling spider drone.
He tossed it into the air, aimed it toward the pulsing blue tile, and whispered, “Don’t mess this up.”
It zipped in, dove through the collapsing tile, and shot a steel-thread cable back to Riku’s glove.
“Got her!” he shouted. “Reel assist in three…”
Maya spun.
Not with her body—but with the space around her.
She was trapped in a twisting corridor that rotated in impossible directions. Her fingers bent in ways they shouldn’t. Her eyes saw colors that didn’t exist.
She wasn’t Maya.
She was a piece of Maya—being pulled apart like taffy.
At the far end of the spiral corridor… a girl stood.
A red-haired version of her.
Younger. Smiling.
“Left foot… regret,” the girl whispered.
Maya stumbled.
“Not this again,” she growled.
The charm on her wrist flared. Heat pulsed through her limbs. She grabbed hold of the memory illusion and tore it open.
Behind it—darkness.
And a thin cable.
She grinned.
“Thanks, Riku.”
With a jolt, Maya flew out of the tile floor above—landing in a crouch beside Tenchi. She was bruised, scraped, and grinning.
“That was awful,” she coughed. “Let’s do it again.”
Riku flipped his goggles up and winked.
“Next time, I’ll add music.”
The dial above spun again.
“Left foot… yellow.”
The tile began to glow.
Riku raised a brow. “We really playing this to the end?”
Tenchi stepped forward and whispered, “No.”
He pointed to the far wall—where a pulsing, spiral-shaped anchor spun like a clock made of flesh.
Maya followed his gaze.
And for the first time… she saw a name etched into it.
Written in blood.
Not a child’s name. "RIKU"
Part IV – The Final Twist
“Right foot… yellow.”
The hallway convulsed.
The walls began to fold in on themselves, shifting and grinding like a mechanical jaw. The Twister nodes along the corridor all activated at once, spinning rapidly, needles clicking in random directions.
“Left hand—green.”
“Right hand—red.”
“Left foot—blue.”
“Backbend—please.”
The voices overlapped.
Louder.
Faster.
The hallway shrank with each command.
They weren’t playing anymore. They were being played.
Tenchi stabbed his blade into the floor to anchor himself. “It’s collapsing,” he said. “The entire Layer’s going to fold inward.”
Maya braced herself beside him. “We’re in the spiral’s throat.”
Then came the sound they didn’t expect.
Laughter.
Not from the Game Master.
Not from an entity.
From Riku.
He stood in front of the spinning anchor—a spiral made of bones, memories, and twisted mechanical parts. In the center, something moved.
A projector lens.
Playing the worst moment of his life.
Riku, eighteen.Cocky. Wild. Brilliant.
A cursed arcade game swallowed a mall in Sector 9.He hacked it from the inside using improvised code and raw guts.
But he didn’t save everyone.
One girl didn’t make it.
“I tagged in too late,” Riku muttered now, watching her image flicker on the anchor. “I let her play one more round. She didn’t walk out.”
The spiral pulsed.
“Would you like a rematch?” it whispered.
Riku’s smile disappeared.
His glove hissed.
He stepped forward—and shoved his entire arm into the anchor’s spinning lens.
Maya shouted, “Riku!”
Tenchi moved—but stopped. He saw it in Riku’s face.
This was his fight.
The spiral tried to twist his arm—but Riku's glove locked into place with snapping teeth. Gears shifted. Metal fingers burned bright.
“I build the rules now,” Riku said.
He pulled.
With a scream and a shattering blast of light, the anchor exploded into shredded gears and burning fragments.
The hallway stopped collapsing.
The tiles crumbled back into reality.
The lights flickered once—and stabilized.
Silence returned.
The three of them stood among the aftermath. The hallway still pulsed faintly, but the game was over.
Riku flexed his arm.
The glove smoked, but held.
Maya exhaled slowly. “That’s twice you’ve saved us today.”
Riku dusted his coat. “You owe me snacks. Fancy ones.”
Tenchi looked back at the anchor remnants.
The projector lens was cracked… but one final frame played before it shut off.
A birthday photo.
Five kids.
One boy—his face scribbled out.
In the corner: a new note.
“Red Rover waits.”
“Tell Tenchi he’s next.”
FIELD REPORT — ENTRY #04
? Game: Twister
? Entity: The Spiral Host
? Anchor: Reality projector node (Layer 4 memory trap)
? Survivors: 3 (Maya, Tenchi, Riku)
? Status: Game Terminated
? Notes:
-
Layer was compressing space in recursive loop, threatening permanent distortion.
-
Anchor created from Riku’s past trauma.
-
First observed crossover from previous cursed zone (Arcade Game Loop – Case #921).
-
Final clue references Red Rover—again.
Maya’s Note: “These games are learning from us. Reflecting us. That’s why they’re getting stronger. That’s why we have to win.”
Tenchi’s Note: “Red Rover is no longer optional. We play… or more will die.”
Epilogue – After the Spiral
The hallway had returned to silence.
No more shifting walls. No voices whispering from the floor. Just the soft hum of hospital lights and the muffled beep of machines behind glass doors.
Inside Room 614, Nikki Ramos lay asleep under warm blankets, her breathing steady.
A nurse had found her curled near the elevator, murmuring colors and smiling through tears. No visible injuries. No broken bones. Just the lingering imprint of something impossible.
Now, she stirred.
She blinked.
Her hands were okay.
She smiled.
Beside her on the nightstand was a blank sketchpad and a handful of crayons.
No one had left them there.
At least, not officially.
But when the nurse checked in hours later, Nikki had already drawn a picture:
Three strange figures standing on a colorful spiral mat.
One held a glowing chain.One carried a blade.And one wore goggles bigger than his head.
Above them was a rainbow title scrawled in shaky but bright letters: “You beat the game.”
Outside, on the rooftop of the hospital, Maya sat on the ledge eating a rice cracker.
Riku was on his back beside her, goggles propped up on his forehead.
Tenchi stood near the edge, his coat catching the wind.
The sky was a bruised purple.
“Think she’ll be okay?” Maya asked softly.
“She’s stronger than she looks,” Tenchi replied.
Riku chuckled. “She drew me taller than Tenchi. That kid’s gonna be just fine.”
Tenchi didn’t laugh.
His gaze was fixed on the skyline.
On the horizon, faint red lines danced across the clouds—too straight, too sharp to be natural.
“The next game’s already starting,” he said.
“Red Rover.”