===Charī Kasutoro===

Niko was looking through a magazine rack when I entered. The other two had split up, looking at the posters on the wall.

I went to the back, which was out of sight from the stairs that had led up due to the wall in the room's center that contained the elevator.

On the wall facing away from the center was a light blue poster, reiterating the rules to the game. Above the poster was a second clock that ticked down with the time limit.

The tables scattered across the room were draped with velvet tablecloth, a vase and candle in the center, and a plate next to each chair. I walked closer to a nearby table. On top of each plate was a napkin folded into a swan, and the left and right side contained a fork and a knife respectively.

I backed up, looking at the other tables, and gasped.

Niko approached me. "Did you find something?"

"These napkins and silverware." I waved my finger at all the tables. "They're all pointing the same direction!"

This caught the attention of the other two. I walked out the door that was in the direction that the tableware was pointing to, and was met with a gap in the railings. A sign was fixed onto where the railing still was planted.

Feel free to jump off

"Eh, not very interested in suicide." I muttered.

"Yeah, no thanks." The businesswoman said, turning to go back inside, her dark hair flapping in the breeze.

"But look what I did find." Niko said, pulling out an array of the magazines he had gotten from the rack. I leaned forward, reading the titles.

Can you list every capital in the world? Annual geography contest—¥100,000 grand prize!

Ladies: are periods a pain? Use these useful hacks to alleviate your trouble at that time of the month!

We've all been there: you're on a date and can't string a single sentence! For vital dating advice, turn to page 27.

I raised an eyebrow. "Capital, periods, sentences. Japanese writing obviously doesn't have capital letters, but I know English uses them."

"So could this be hinting the fact that our responses all have to be in complete, grammatically correct sentences?" The woman questioned.

"It looks like it." Niko said. "In the end, this is less of a riddle and more like an escape room. We have to keep looking for clues."

"Um... Hey! Guys, look what I found!" I whipped my head at Kotake's voice.

"You've finally decided to get up?" I asked, walking over to him.

He pointed to an advertisement on the wall. It was for a writing contest.

"What's the point of this?" I asked. He pointed to the corner of the paper, and my eyes widened.

Entry requirements:
16+ years of age

"More clues!" Niko said, chuckling. "We're getting close, I feel it. Nice find, Kotake!" Niko gave him a good-natured pat on the back, to which he flinched.

'Holy crap.' I thought. 'He's so timid. How's he going to survive once we clear this game, if this is meant to be one of the milder ones?'

The bodybuilder was looking through some of the cabinets. "There's nothing good here." He said, pulling out a shaker, bottle of vodka, and two shot glasses.

"Maybe this bottle has something on them." Niko said, taking one and squinting at the cramped nutrition label. The text had faded almost beyond legibility.

"Unless these numbers are some insane cryptogram, then I don't think this is anything." He said, sighing as he put the bottle back down.

"There's this, though." The woman said, near the pamphlet display. She held out a car dealership advertisement.

NO BUTS
NO IFS
Just expect the car, nice and easy!

"I didn't find anything else suggestive as to what we can or can't say in our answers." She said. To confirm her guess, me and Niko did a second viewing through each pamphlet. Most were just advertisements—a variety of homes, banks, gardening, and carpentry.

"Okay, so here's what we know so far." The bodybuilder began. "Our answer has to be between five hundred and a thousand words long. Proper grammar and sentence structure has to be used. It cannot contain any profanity, nor the words 'but' and 'if'."

I scanned the room from where I stood. "I don't see anything else in the room."

"Fifteen minutes remaining."

"But how about question two?" Kotake asked. "The question has only a numeric answer."

"Then we probably have to elaborate on why we chose the number we did." I suggested.

"I'm pretty confident, as of now." The businesswoman said. "I'm willing to take question six. Please watch me typing to make sure I don't make any speaking errors. Does that sound alright with you guys?"

I nodded, and Niko verbally agreed. The more sacrifices before me, the merrier. The woman took a deep breath, before walking out of the interior and onto the sixth platform. She wiped her hands on her cardigan before putting the noose around her neck, followed by the initial blare signifying someone had begun typing.

"Good luck." Niko said.

We watched as she began typing her answer. Her fingers flew across the keys, and sweat ran down her face. In the end, she was able to finish her essay by the time the clock hit the ten minute mark.

"Did anyone catch any grammar or speaking errors?" She asked, turning her head with a frown pressed into her face.

We shook our heads. "Okay... Here goes nothing." After a slight delay, she hit the submit button. The tablet's display turned white.

Then it turned red.

I covered my ears as the alarms started again.

"Wait!" She yelled. "No, this can't be!" She ran up to the gate, trying to force it open, and clung on as the platform opened up.

She screamed, her hand wrapped tightly around the metal bars of the gate and her body flailing freely above the drop. However, her grip lasted only a second before she fell.

Her shriek carried the whole way down. Her running had caused the rope to fall at a slight angle, so when the rope finally reached its maximum length, the crane clicked, and it jolted.

The force ripped her head apart from the rest of her body.

Niko immediately turned around, his face paling. Kotake slouched over the edge, and retched.

I froze, my eyes stuck at the sight. After a slight pause, the head fell from the noose, trailing blood the entire way down.

"I... I can't do this anymore!" Kotake cried. "What is this place? Let me out!"

He ran to the elevator, repeatedly slamming his fingers into the call button.

"Hey!" Niko ran, pulling him away from the elevator. "Did you forget? If you go into the elevator without clearing the game first, you'll die!"

With a chime, the elevator door opened. On the inside of the elevator was a sign, on it a symbol of a person falling.

DANGER - FALL HAZARD

The doors closed again.

"Hey! I found something!" The man's voice ripped through the air, and I turned around, the sign in the elevator slipping from my thoughts.

"Look at this." He pointed to the bottom of the platform five tablet. "Charī, you said your name was? It'd probably be best if you looked, since you're the smallest here. I can't really see it that well, but there's some text here."

He wasn't wrong—I was barely one and a half meters, or five feet. I guess the genetic lottery really decided to make a joke of me.

I got onto my knees, crawling on the hard wooden planks. "Rope: Thirty meters."

"From here to the bottom doesn't look like thirty meters though." Niko pointed out. "If I had to guess, maybe ten or fifteen."

I turned back to the crane that had already claimed the lives of the older man and businesswoman. I squinted my eyes, walking closer to it. The roll of rope actually had a thick layer of rope still remaining, and a metallic grip was in place, preventing any more rope from falling down.

My eyes widened. "Guys, I'm too good. I figured it out!" The three of them looked at my direction, and I pointed to the crane. "Look! There's a clip or something, holding the roll of rope that probably activates after the rope has fallen a certain distance.

"However, what if we climbed onto the railing after the platform opens up, and pry open the clip? Then the rope will continue to fall until the person reaches the ground!"

"Still." Niko said. "Can someone survive falling the rest of the distance?"

I paused, casting an uncertain glance back towards the crane. "The rules just said your neck had to be in the noose. What if, when you prepare for launch, but also have your hands around the noose too.

"As soon as the platform opens, you pull your head out of the noose. You climb up a slight way up the rope, then we release the clip, and the rope drops the rest of the way down, but your body won't be slamming into the ground."

Niko shook his head. "Nuh uh. I reckon the force from the drop will be enough to rip your arm out its socket."

I huffed. "I'm... Really starting to run out of ideas here, then."

"Damn it!" The man said, his hands shaking, slowly backing into the platform. "I hate Diamond games! Wasn't built for them, never will be. I..." he paused. "I just want to get this game over with, I've never been so stuck on a game before. Screw it."

He jumped onto platform five, equipping the noose with shivering hands and punching each letter in. After two minutes, he had already finished.

"Any grammar errors?"

"I don't think so?" Niko said. "Maybe you should—" but he hit the enter button before Niko could finish. "I have faith in my body's strength. Surely I can make it." His voice was hesitant, as if he was more so trying to convince himself rather than us.

The buzzer flashed red, which was expected. He gripped onto the noose, preparing for the plummet. When the floor opened, Niko leaped onto the railing, clamoring onto the crane with careful footing. A single slip, and he'd be a puddle of red alongside what remained of the woman.

He pried the clip, but it didn't budge. "It's not releasing!" He continued prying, his hands flushing red. From below, the man gurgled; he hadn't released himself from the noose in time before the drop, and now he was desperately flailing, trying to free himself before he suffocated.

I turned back, grabbing a knife from the closest table, and extended my arm towards Niko.

"Cut the rope, so grab onto it and lower him to the ground!" I ordered.

Niko took the knife, sawing at the rope, but there wasn't any space to cut laterally, so he cut it at a vertical angle.

The rope slacked, and after another few seconds, it split, and the half attached to the man fell down.

Niko grabbed ahold of it and peeked down. It was too late, the man had died in the midst of his struggle.

'It's just us left.' I thought, glancing at Niko and Kotake. Niko was still holding onto the crane with one hand, rope in the other, his chest heaving. After a moment, he let go of the rope, and a thud sounded as the corpse made contact with the ground.

I turned towards Kotake, who sat at a table, his head buried in his arms.

Niko had gotten down from the crane. "Can't work. Too risky."

"Five minutes remaining."

A slight breeze came through the door, ruffling my hair. Looking at the direction of the wind, I was once again met with the sign.

Feel free to jump off

I approached the edge, casting a glance towards the benches, bushes, and pavement, all mixing into a blur of colors from the height.

Kotake's footsteps sounded besides me. "What happens if we run out of time?"

"The building explodes, or something like that, I'm guessing." I scratched my head, still staring at the ground.

"What if there isn't a correct answer... So any answer inputted into the platform thing is wrong?"

I shivered. "Could be a possibility." I paused, rereading the sign. There was something on the tip of my tongue.

"Hold on. I think I saw a manga like this once." I walked back inside, taking a plate, and tossed it over the ledge. "They had to figure out how to get down from an impossibly high height, but the solution was that they just had to jump off; it was all a simulation to test their willpower, or something like that."

The spot of white fell, and no sound could be heard.

"Hey, Niko!" I yelled. "Check this out, I threw a plate off the edge and it didn't fall to the ground."

Niko got onto the balcony, leaning over the railing to observe the ground.

"We're really high up." Kotake said. "So we wouldn't even hear it."

"Oh, yeah. I'm stupid."

"So did... We pass by a net on the way up?"

"And the venue... An observation tower. What if it was a game of observation? And everything else has been a red herring? Even the rules said we were free to jump off, and so does this sign. And the elevator said 'fall hazard.'"

"You guys, I don't think that's worth risking." Niko said, shrugging. "I'm just going to try to answer, then try to free myself from the noose and climb up. Time is running out." He walked back to the platform and chose the first, where the question was whether free will and fate could simultaneously exist.

"I don't mind testing the falling theory..." Kotake said, grabbing a hold of the railing. I shifted my eyes towards his hand, which shook with sweat. "I haven't exactly done much in the last thirty minutes. But you sound pretty confident."

"Actually, I'm obviously not completely certain. Just know that there's a chance this won't work, alright?" I asked. He nodded his head.

"I don't know... Part of me feels like this is still one all big dream. And in a dream, when you're about to die, you wake up." Kotake mumbled. "So maybe this'll wake me up from the strangest dream I've had in years."

"Niko!" I yelled from the blacont. "Don't risk your life yet, he'll test the falling theory!" An alarm blared.

"Uh, a bit too late for that, I reckon."

I looked back inside to see Niko with a nervous grin, the rope already secured around his neck and the keyboard already on the tablet interface. "Don't worry about me for now."

"Alright then." I said, turning back to the ledge. "So then, ready to jump off the ledge?"

"Um... I guess."

Kotake put his left foot out and tilted forward, before shifting his weight and plunging off the edge.

"Down he falls!" The idea, surely, would work.

His body got smaller as it approached the ground. Any second now, he'd hit the net. I watched, anticipating the moment.

"HUH? THERE'S NO—"

Splat.

"Oh."

I looked back at Niko, whose mouth was open in shock.

I shrugged. "Well, he volunteered. It's not necessarily my fault."

Niko was stone faced. "What did you tell the kid?"

"I thought the game was a trick. That the solu—"

"One minute remaining."

"Aw crap." I muttered. Niko's screen had already been filled with a wall of text. I had one minute to write five hundred words.

"I... I assumed that there was a net at the bottom. That that was the solution. But I guess I was wrong, and now I'm screwed."

Niko frowned. "Sorry, kid." He reached the press the submit button as my eyes drifted back to the rules poster on the back of the room. I gasped.

"WAIT!"

Niko paused.

"Don't press the button. In fact, delete everything you've written." I rushed forward to platform two, putting on the noose.

"Another theory?"

"I was rereading the rules—remember how there was a poster of the rules on the back?"

Niko nodded, and pressed and held the backspace button after a slight hesitation.

"Think back to what it said."

"A player must approach one tablet and answer the question. If they input the correct answer, it's Game Clear. If not, then it's Game Over."

With careful fingers, I entered my response; it was only three words long: 'the correct answer'.

"Oh my god..." Niko shook his head, following suit. "So everything, all those clues, all those signs..."

"They were all red herrings." I finished.

"Thirty seconds remaining."

Taking a deep breath, I pressed the submit button. Niko did too.

The alarms dinged instead of blaring, and the screens turned green.

With a creak, the metal gates opened.

I took off my noose, exiting the platform. "See?"

"Congratulations to players who answered on platform two and platform five. You've inputted the correct answer, so it's Game Clear. Please use the elevator to exit the venue."

Niko remained silent, following me into the elevator.

The elevator chimed, and what followed was a silent ride down. I busied myself, staring at the view through the glass windows as we made our descension. Niko broke the silence.

"Why'd you make him test your theory?"

"He volunteered. I told him there was a chance he'd die."

We reached the bottom, and the doors slid open. What laid in front of us was a table with some sort of register on it, which whirred out a playing card and my Visa.

"So this is the Borderlands?" I questioned, taking my card and looking at it against the dying sunlight.

"Well, I'm going to go now. See you around, Niko!"

"Yeah, see you." He responded quietly.

I walked into the street, my clothes lightly flapping against the wind, reflecting on the events of the past hour.

If this was the Borderlands, then it wasn't that bad.

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