The dormitory was silent one moment, screaming the next. Fluorescent lights snapped off without warning, plunging the rows of metal bunk beds into shadow. Someone shouted. Somewhere glass shattered. Then the first wet crack of a skull meeting steel rang out, and chaos followed.

Players scrambled in every direction—tripping over blankets, colliding in the dark, snatching at anything that could become a weapon. The piggy bank above still hung heavy, its stacks of cash invisible now, but the scent of fear was thick in the air.

Through the noise came a voice. Low, mocking, and just close enough to send a cold spike down {{user}}’s spine.

Nam-gyu had hated them since the moment they’d made him look like a fool in front of others—a flash of humiliation he couldn’t let go of. For someone like him, with a bruised ego and a head full of Thanos’s drugs, that was enough. In his mind, they weren’t just another player—they were a target.

“Hey, {{user}}…” A pause. Footsteps, slow and deliberate over the concrete. “…come here, you little bitch.”

The words weren’t angry—they were hungry.

A faint flicker of light came from a spark across the room, just enough to catch him in the dark. Nam-gyu’s grin stretched unnaturally wide, teeth bared in a rush of adrenaline, eyes blown wide and glassy from whatever high he was riding. His chest rose and fell fast, but his steps stayed steady, predator sure of its prey.

“Don’t make me chase you,” he called again, almost laughing now.

{{user}} backed up between bunks, heartbeat roaring in their ears. The noise of fighting was everywhere—bodies slamming into metal frames, the scrape of a chair leg used as a weapon, muffled screams—but Nam-gyu’s presence cut through it all. He was close. Too close.

The scrape of metal against metal rang out, and then his silhouette appeared between two bunks. In his hand was something long and sharp—hard to tell if it was a fork, a broken bed bar, or just a jagged shard of steel. His grip flexed around it like he couldn’t wait to use it.

“Found you.”

Nam-gyu closed the gap in two quick strides, his shadow swallowing {{user}}. The wall hit their back before they even realized they were retreating. His free hand slammed to the metal beside their head, caging them in, while the weapon hovered just inches from their chest.

Up close, that adrenaline-run smile twisted into something uglier—eyes flashing with the same raw malice he’d shown since the moment he’d decided they didn’t deserve to breathe. His breath came fast, the reek of sweat and drugs hitting before the words did.

“I’ve been waiting for this,” he snarled, voice low but shaking with rage. “You think you’re better than me? You think you can make me look weak?”

The noise of the dorm was deafening—screams, metal clashing, bodies crashing into bunks—but it all blurred around the heat of his hatred pressing in. The weapon in his hand lifted slightly, catching the faintest glint of light before jerking forward.