Breaths, cold and silent, escaped Sage's lips. He couldn't fathom what had happened. What was this strange app about and how did it obtain information on him? How would it know his name?

With shaky hands, Sage picked his phone up. He could not exit the app no matter how many times he clicked the button. He jabbed the button once more, but the black screen and the white letters still stared at him. He didn't understand just how his phone was hacked.

On the screen, two rectangles bordered by a thin white now appeared, with the red words "Healer" and "Killer" on them.

「Sage, you are the last person to enter the game. Five other students have joined. These cards can only be used once. Use them as you see fit.」

The message faded and new words appeared.

「In the end, only one of you can live.」

"Yes, this is a prank," Sage muttered.

"What if it's real?" Zayn turned to the door. "I have a bad feeling about this."

「Now, let the game begin. The game only ends when only one of you is left.  So kill la kill!」

"You know what?" Zayn slammed the bed and Sage jumped up with a start. "Let's go find Yuzu. Maybe she knows something about this."

"So she's the one behind this?" Sage got up and headed for the door, his roommate behind him.

"No. I mean, this is some spicy stuff to gossip about. She's like the Gossip Queen, so... Yeah. She might know about it." Zayn scratched his head and glanced at the phone in the boy's hand.

「Enter your username. You don't want others to find you easily, right?」

「Shitshit」

It came to him so automatically, as if a calling he had to obey. There was some form of temptation there and it was as he learnt, that the only way to resist such temptation was to yield to it.

「Confirm username?」

"You're not planning to use that, are you?" Zayn cocked his head slightly to the right. In his peripheral vision, Blade grunted.

「Sanguine」

That's the only humour that seems right. Whoever would have a username like black_bile_xox or choleric_ or phlegmaticalculus (is that a disease?) anyway?

As Sage clicked the "Yes" button, a smile set sail on his lips. Yes, that was much better. But, Shitshit had a nice ring to it.

"Hey, Zayn, can you change your Tweet-shit— Tweet-twit username to Shitshit?" Sage turned to the yellow-haired boy and winked at him. "No. It's not a request. It's an order."

「」

Amity leant forward and brought the video camera closer to the dismembered body, zooming in on the frozen pained expression when death awakened. A frisson of excitement surged within her as she skipped over a broken collarbone near it and panned her gadget left. She eyed the third-year who looked back at her with eyes that sparkled. The older girl gave her a thumbs-up and Amity placed the gadget on the tripod in between of them.

"Perfecto!" The third-year squealed and applauded. "Amity, let's pack up and leave."

"Yuzucchi," Amity said while holding her gaze on the corpse, her excitement vaporising into thickening, steam-like fear that forced perspiration out of her skin. "What do we do with it?"

"C'mon, this is your second year with me! Of course we edit the video and render it well!"

"No, I mean... that," Amity mumbled. She wanted to be away from the lifeless Pidove they scooped up from the river. Pinching her nose and backing away, she gripped onto the hem of Yuzucchi's dress. Her face was ashen, as if it was sculpted with bleached bone so intricately that everything was written on her face. Her green eyes shifted away from the bloody soil.

"Leave it be." Yuzu adjusted her bra straps. As she squeezed her breasts, she tilted her head upward and gave the younger girl a radiant smile. Her hands flew from her chest to the girl's face, bringing it closer to hers till their lips touched. As they remained in that position, a crunch broke through the air. Then, she let go of her junior. "Better?"

"Uh... You broke its head."

"I kissed you as a distraction. Why did you have to look?" Yuzu wiped her lips while her left leg extended to the dead Pidove and kicked the corpse into the river. A huge ripples formed in the water's surface. "Crap! My heels must have crushed the poor Pokémon too hard. Oh no!"

"Yuzucchi," Amity began with sweat dotting her forehead. "You should be a thespian after graduation."

"Perfecto, but we better get going. I'm returning to my room, and you should too. I'm going to realise my dreams and film my final project before graduation!"

"Oh, sure. All the best then!"

Amity was met with silence as Yuzu removed the video camera from the tripod stand and folded the tripod.

"By the way, before I go, you said your phone was hacked?"

"Yup. I can't delete this strange app I never downloaded."

"It's not dangerous, is it?" Yuzu stopped to look at her junior and combed her scarlet hair with her fingers. Her puckered lips parted. "Is it?"

"It said to heal or kill the other players. Will I really die? And... I need a username." Amity whipped out her phone.

"Oh. It's just a game, right? I don't think you'll really die." Yuzu blinked. "Citrus. If we're close friends, not just junior and senior, your username is Citrus."

When the younger girl did not reply, she said, "I think I have to start plotting the outline of my film. Gotta go. If you want, come to my room later at midnight, which is... three hours later."

"Yup. Bye." Amity waved at her senior and turned to look at the red river.

Yuzucchi's such a nice person. I must mean a lot to her then! She smiled at the thought. That kiss must mean something too.

"Anyway, I have three hours till then." She glanced at the trees, the faint blue glows flickering amongst the shadows. "Will-o-wisps? Didn't Yuzu's video have that too?"

Amity trod toward an eucalyptus tree and stroke the smooth white bark. A leaf landed on her hair and she brushed it off. She shifted. A twig snapped. Amongst the tiny blue fires were two spheres of red and orange that turned full circle and inflated a little before charging towards her.

That moment, she didn't know why, but she just couldn't control herself. Amity jumped into the river despite her fear of blood.

「」

Sage rubbed his eyes. Yuzu, the Director of the Film Club, had gone into her dream world. It was only ten o' clock, a few minutes after he and Zayn saw her enter her room.

Standing outside her room, he heard the incessant snores and tiptoed away. Zayn smacked his back and nudged him, and they both walked silently down the corridor. They passed by golden doors with silver frames, the room numbers engraved in the oval plates attached to the doors, and beneath them the red carpet threatened to cause their grand fall. That would be worse than Sage's nosedive hours ago.

Heck, they weren't supposed to be there. Boys should never be in the girls' dorm and vice versa.

As they turned the bend, Zayn paused. "Strange. She's usually still awake. She must be hiding something."

"She knows something and she's not guilty about hiding it. That snore had some light static to it, like it's from a radio or something."

"The app can't be deleted. She knows. She knows we're here to ask about it."

"That's kind of like a 'delete me not' warning, don't you think? As if, its existence is necessary for something else."

They passed by a sign that read "No teleporting in school compound". A number of lampposts became part of their blurring surrounding as they began to sprint. Clutching his phone, Sage gritted his teeth.

"What do you think about Mei?" Sage asked when they entered the basketball court. He did a sidestep with an imaginary ball and Zayn caught up with him, displaying his talent for slam dunks.

While hanging from the hoop with a sweaty hand, Zayn looked as if he enjoyed flexing his biceps to the moon. "I only want the best for her. I think Sayo is overpowering her. Her schizophrenia might be worsening."

Letting go, Zayn landed a backflip and joined Sage in running back to their dorm.

The night seemed too quiet. The moon's serene grace calmed Sage down a little, but the night had never been deadly silent like this. A rush of cool air, a few leaves breaking away from branches, a movement in the shadows, all happening without a single sound. It was as if a deafening silence took over the world, a kind of raid that stole all voices, noises and music. A pirate that stole even the rhythmic thumps of their heartbeats.

They reached the room in the third floor of the dormitory and unlocked the door, closing it gingerly behind them. Zayn glanced at Sage and the phone in the boy's hands. It was back to the home screen. A notification popped up at the top of the screen, in portrait.

「Healer Killer
Inukai: If you see this message, please reply ASAP.」

Feeling the vibration, Sage turned the phone so the screen now faced him. A smile danced on his lips as he figured there was a chat function in the app. That meant communication, and communication was key in wars, only that this was not exactly a war. A battle, not one involving Pokémon, but wits. If it was a Pokémon battle, he might have lost before it even began.

「Sanguine: Inukai, I don't know who you are.」

「Inukai: Meet me in my room. 707. Come alone.」

「Sanguine: what if I'm a girl?」

「Inukai: come anyway. I don't know if you're bi-gender or gender-fluid.」

Is he for real? Sage thought and looked up to see his roommate at the door, opening it wide for him. Zayn nodded to Sage and his blue eyes glinted in the near-dark of the room. The brown-eyed boy hugged him and exited the room, looking back and smiling at his roommate. Zayn tossed Sage's only Poké Ball to him and the drummer caught it with his right hand.

I'll be fine. Sage mouthed, whirled around and ran for the stairs. He stopped, returned to the room and bandaged his hand. This was no performance, but if anything, the bandage could be a warning that he wasn't one to be messed with. He continued his journey up the stairs.

Then, he was one with the darkness.

「」

It took two knocks for the red-haired girl to open the door and greet her junior. Yuzu was glad that Amity had come just like she told her to. Pulling her in, she promptly swung the door shut and bolted the door. Amity sat on the girl's bed and watched as her senior strode over to her laptop to close a tab on the web browser and the snoring came to an abrupt end.

"Why did you have to watch a video on a snoring Snorlax? It's not so interesting," Amity remarked.

Yuzu sat beside her and ran her fingers through the younger girl's short brown hair, looking at her green eyes. "I thought Zayn or Jade might come for me because of Mei's video. Faking my sleep makes things easier."

"About that, Mei kept calling out to a 'Sayo' just now..."

"You know who Sayo is?"

"Someone in that strange app, Healer Killer, had the username Sayo." Amity showed her phone to the Director of the Film Club.

Yuzu got up and waddled over to a vase of laburnums on her table. Somehow, the school had an odd number of students so she had the whole room to herself. That meant that she could put her laburnums in her room and watch them grow without anyone else judging her. For that, she was glad.

Her back was facing the brown-haired girl now. Not even looking at the girl at the corner of her eye, she said, "Things are starting to get interesting. The death of a Pidove, Mei, the existence of Sayo..."

"What are you suggesting?"

"What if the app was all this Sayo's doing? What if she wanted to avenge Mei? Amity. Kind, sweet Amity, you are a bystander when Mei was bullied. Don't you think... it's revenge?"

"So Sayo will slowly take everyone out till the only ones left are Sayo and Mei," Amity concluded and brought a fist to her palm. Anxiety flashed across her green eyes.

Too cliché. Amity thought and her thoughts surfed to the incident that happened about three hours ago. Just now, I regained all my memories somehow thanks to that. Who locked them? At least now I know that most likely everyone have some sort of amnesia. But why?

Yuzu turned to the window. The full moon brought light into the dimly-lit room through the window. The white beams were stripes on her figure.

"Full moon... Amity, isn't that beautiful?"

"Yup," Amity mumbled and bit a fingernail, unsure of where the conversation was heading to, wondering about the suddenness of the question.

"It's been some time since we watched the moon together, no?"

"You don't mean... I am here to watch the moon with you?"

"No, of course not. But, what if in the game, like the moon, there are two sides? Say, someone is made a spy."

"A spy? How is that even necessary?"

"Oh, maybe someone who works for the dark side and plans to kill all of you bystanders and bullies. The victim and the victim's spy, Sayo. Two heads are better than one after all. Or maybe Mei is unaware." Yuzu sighed and walked over to the laburnums. "You know, if you can't delete this app, you can play the game. It'll make a great film if you film it. We can always make use of the surveillance cameras in the school too."

"Then we can expose Sayo, right?"

"Perfecto." Yuzu folded her blankets. Her face darkened. "Mei... Possibly a Jekyll and Hyde."

Amity grinned and nodded. "This is definitely going to be a great film. I've never seen someone with split personality before. Yuzucchi, you're smart!"

"Ah, of course. Whoever this Sayo is, we'll unmask him or her." Yuzu scratched her chin. "Make sure he or she doesn't die so soon. Else, we can't let Sayo spill the beans."

"So I don't kill her with the Killer card. I get it now," Amity said and walked to the door.

I wonder if what she said is even true. A potential red herring? I feel like she knows more than she lets on.

Regardless of the thought, Amity thanked her senior and left the room.

When the footsteps died down, the red-haired girl returned to her computer and yawned. Typing away, she thought she had things under her control. "Of course not. Kind, sweet Amity has a fear of blood. She can't kill anyone. No one will taint my Amity. Amity is mine and she'll listen to whatever I say. Yes, no one else will taint my Amity."