And thus ends the story of the world who went mad.

It is an unhappy one, riddled with betrayal, death, and cruelty. There was no true winner in this death game, no victory. This was no fairytale with a joyous happy-ever-after. Every step the players took seemed doomed, and from the start it seemed they would be fated to die.

Trapped in a deadly game, the fourteen "Third Lifers," as they were called, dissolved into brutal violence and bloodshed, losing hope of ever escaping. They turned on one another. Friendships fractured and broke beneath the strain. The very sanity of the players slipped from them. In the end, good people turned evil and unforgivable cruelties were committed. The game ended and every player lost.

A red curse spread throughout the land, turning good men to the darkness. From this emerged the Red King, a personification of the evil festering beneath the surface of the land. His vessel was the first to succumb to the curse, torturing and enslaving his former friends, losing his morality and empathy to the curse.

The others were soon to follow, devolving into needless conflict and fighting, destroying each other unsympathetically, needless conflicts sparking from the smallest of things.

Fourteen players died in a cruel, cold world, turned on by their own minds and friends.

The joyfulness of the three longtime best friends residing in the swamp was buried under layers of hopeless worship to a god that failed to save them. Eventually, they fell to the violence of the red curse.

A lone wolf and a wolf-tamer each suffered separately, although in the end they were not so different, one losing solitude and one losing companionship.

Two chaotic forces formed an unforgettable friendship in a Crastle on the plains. In the end, they lost all the friends they had to the red curse.

The desert ruler's sad tale told of a man who lost his mind to the curse, all the others around him suffering on his cruel whims.

A pair of two kind, peaceful lovers who wanted no more than to spend their lives together were nearly the most tragic tale of all. No matter how much they wanted peace, they couldn't stay safe from the brutality of the world. Despite optimistically looking for shards of hope, they were torn apart. And yet they stayed together even in death, so perhaps they did succeed.

Another heartbreaking tale is that of the Red King's most dedicated follower, who only ever wanted safety and friendship, killed as he attempted to escape. His life was cut unfairly short, as were the lives of all those lost in the death game.

Let their stories remind you never to take friendships for granted, because they can fracture in an instant. And although evil infests this world, inherent in all, the strongest are those who may overcome it and find love and hope even when such a task seems impossible.