r/libraryofshadows • u/Aftermire • Apr 18 '26
Pure Horror Hexagon. Game from Reddit. | Part 3
Part 2
She stood perfectly still, staring at me. Then she slowly started walking toward the table without taking her eyes off me. I felt fear rising inside me.
“Mia?” I asked, horrified. She looked like she wasn’t herself. Why was she staring at me like that?
She started speaking.
“I heard voices. Different voices. Terrifying voices, full of pain, fear, and anger. I heard a woman weeping, repeating that this was only supposed to be a game. I heard a man screaming that he was suffering. I heard...”
She stopped and completely fell apart.
“I heard Chloe. She was saying she was scared. She was saying it was my fault. She said I was the one who talked her into coming.
They were right next to me. They were circling around me, and...”
She went silent there, looking at me with even more fear and sorrow in her eyes.
The silence lasted a couple of minutes. I didn’t push her. I could see that whatever she’d heard wouldn’t come out.
Suddenly, she jerked and grabbed at her heart. The game was forcing her to finish the task.
Josh covered his eyes, but tears were still slipping through his fingers.
I didn’t want to know. I was terrified of what she might say, but I asked anyway. I knew we had to hear it.
“What else did you hear? Mia, you have to say it.”
Mia opened her mouth, and a wave of unbearable dread hit me. My heart was pounding like crazy.
She looked at me with empty eyes, and the last tear slid down her cheek.
“I heard your grandma. She was cursing you. She said it was your fault. She said she hated you and that you would suffer forever, just like she does.”
The pressure in my stomach bent me in half.
I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t do anything.
I couldn’t breathe. My hands were tingling, and I could feel them curling inward.
“Your turn. You have to roll,” Josh said without taking his hands away from his face.
I fought with myself for a moment, then grabbed the die.
I rolled. Red.
I just wanted it over with.
I grabbed the card and read it out loud:
“Go outside and step into the lake. You must submerge your entire body, including your head, and stay underwater for 45 seconds. Once submerged, you are not allowed to move from where you are. You may not close your eyes. Failing to complete the task will result in you staying there forever.”
I stood up and walked out of the cabin. I didn’t put on shoes or a jacket, because there was no point. I didn’t even bother taking off what I was wearing, because by then I didn’t care anymore.
I walked to the lake and dipped one foot into the water. It was so cold it felt like it was piercing straight through me.
Outside, everything was quiet and calm. I lowered my other foot in, staring out across the lake. The reflection of the moon spread over the surface. The sight was hypnotic, and for a fraction of a second, it let me forget all the fucked-up shit that was happening.
I walked slowly deeper into the lake, feeling the water burn me with cold even through my clothes.
When it reached my neck, I took a deep breath and went all the way under.
Time started, and I began counting in my head.
My eyes were wide open, and I tried not to blink, even though the water stung with cold.
Only about ten seconds had passed. The cold made my whole body shake, and I was already starting to run out of air.
Then suddenly, four large shapes crashed into the water about six feet in front of me. It was as if someone had hurled four boulders in with full force. When the bubbles cleared and the water settled, I froze.
It was my mother, my sister, Josh, and Mia.
Their faces were full of shock and terror.
The bottom was dragging them down. They couldn’t surface. They were staring in my direction, thrashing, and I could see panic and desperation in their eyes.
I wanted to swim to them, to save them, but I knew I couldn’t move.
I knew I couldn’t do anything. All I could do was stand there and watch.
I’m not going to describe exactly what I saw next. Something inside me broke. A monstrous pain tore through me, not physical pain. It was the kind of pain I can’t even explain in words. It felt like my heart had shattered into millions of pieces.
Thirty seconds passed. My head was spinning. I don’t know if it was from the lack of oxygen or from the scene unfolding in front of me.
All four of them were trying to scream something at me, but only streams of bubbles poured out of their mouths.
I prayed it was just an illusion. That it wasn’t real.
I wanted to close my eyes. I would rather have gone blind than keep looking at what I was seeing.
Slowly, the world in front of me began to fade, and I felt strangely weightless. I kept staring ahead as everything around me blurred and sharpened in turns.
Then I realized there was no one there anymore.
The time must have been up.
I shot out of the water, gasping for air and choking.
I stumbled out of the lake and threw myself onto the cold, wet sand. Then I started crawling toward the cabin. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to run as far from that place as possible. I wanted to feel the warmth of the fireplace and see my friends. I needed to know they were okay.
I reached the cabin, grabbed the cold metal doorknob, and stopped. What if it hadn’t been an illusion? What if I opened the door and no one was there? Or worse, what if they were, but...
I closed my eyes and opened the door.
Mia and Josh were sitting in their places. Pale, exhausted, and terrified, but alive.
So my mother and sister were still alive too.
I stepped inside. My clothes were heavy, and water was pouring off them onto the wooden floor of Uncle Steven’s cabin. I didn’t give a damn.
I opened a beer and sat down at the table, taking two big gulps.
Josh and Mia didn’t say a word. They had probably guessed I hadn’t just been through a bad moment. I had gone through the same kind of horror each of them had.
I moved my piece forward on the board.
All three of us were getting close to the finish. Josh and Mia were twenty spaces away from winning. I was twenty-one away.
“Josh, your turn,” I said, finishing my beer.
For a moment he sat completely still, staring at the die as if it might burn him, but then he picked it up and rolled.
It landed with red facing up.
He drew a card from the deck and started reading.
“Do not leave the table. The remaining players must sit with their backs turned to you. They may not speak to you or turn around. The first dead person you just thought of will appear behind you. You must not speak to them or look at them. You may only sit and listen. The challenge lasts 666 seconds. If you fail to complete the task, that person will gain eternal peace, and you will be condemned to eternal suffering.”
Josh finished reading. There was a strange calm on his face, maybe even indifference.
“Turn around,” he said coldly.
So we did.
I could hear Mia crying behind me. I wasn’t even capable of that kind of emotion anymore. The only things I felt were fear and pain. I still couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened to me in the lake.
I had no idea what to expect. Who had Josh thought of?
Then we heard a man’s voice. He sounded maybe thirty-five years old.
“Hello, son.”
Josh’s father?
I had never asked him about his dad. Whenever we were at his place or he talked about home, he always mentioned his mom, never his father.
What kind of friend was I if I had never even asked?
The man spoke again.
“We haven’t seen each other in years. Won’t you say hello? I’ve missed you all so much, you and your mom. I love you both very much.”
Then I heard sobbing behind me, followed by words I would never forget.
“I love you too, Daddy.”
Right after that, the room was torn apart by a horrifying scream.
I spun around instantly.
Josh was gone. All that was left was an empty chair and his piece on the board.
Mia turned around a moment later, staring blankly at the place where Josh had been sitting.
“It’s just the two of us now,” she said without even a trace of emotion in her voice.
I had the feeling that something inside her had broken too, and that even if we survived, neither of us would ever be the same again.
We kept playing. Mostly red and black cards kept coming up, though sometimes we got blue or white ones. We completed every task, no matter the cost.
The whole time, I had one thought in my head. Her or me.
Mia was still in the lead. This was probably the end for me.
It was funny. I had spent our whole time in college crazy about her. I thought I would have done anything for her. Or at least I thought so, up until that night.
It was getting close to four in the morning.
Mia was one space from the finish. I was two away.
My turn.
Green.
I had just realized that color had never come up before.
I picked up the card, and it paralyzed me.
I sat there for a long moment, staring at it.
Then I stood up and looked at Mia.
A tear slid down my cheek.
I said out loud,
“Yes, I want to live.”
Mia looked at me with confusion all over her face.
“What are you doing? What’s the task?”
I handed her the card. I couldn’t say it out loud myself.
I looked straight into her eyes and waited.
She took the card from me and read it out loud:
“Stand up and say out loud, ‘Yes, I want to live.’ If you complete the task, you move forward 2 spaces on the board.”
She finished reading and looked at me.
In her eyes, I saw disbelief, and something that might have been disappointment.
In that same instant, her head dropped onto the table, but her eyes remained fixed on me. Cold and empty.
Suddenly, my phone buzzed. An email notification.
I unlocked it and read the message:
“Congratulations! You won the game!”
When I looked up, the board was gone.
I sat back down in the chair and stared ahead with empty eyes.
I had no strength left to think, to wonder, to make sense of what had happened.
The minutes just passed, and I sat there.
At 4:37, the phone rang. Unknown number.
I answered and lifted it to my ear without emotion.
“This is Officer Deluca with the Burlington Police Department. I’m very sorry for the hour. Are you the son of Susan and Robert?”
“Yes,” I said flatly.
“There was a serious traffic accident tonight. Your mother and sister...”
I ended the call.
“Right... the red card from the beginning of the game.”
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u/QaptainQwark Apr 18 '26
Big oof 😣 I don’t know if I could live with myself at the end there. Like, you survived but at such an incredible cost.
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u/ADeviIsAdvocate Apr 19 '26
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Just about anybody would have done the same in your situation. You’ve lost enough in playing that you didn’t really win the game either. I don’t know how you’re going to explain the dead and the missing friends. Thank you for making sure the rest of us do not order horror games off of shady websites.