"Son, we're going to ask you a few questions. I know this is difficult, but—"
"I understand," Liam said quietly. He sat on his bed, watching as police officers combed through every inch of the dorm room.
Tyler's body—along with three others from campus—had already been taken away by ambulance. But none of them looked salvageable. They were soaked in blood long before help arrived.
"Can you tell us exactly what happened?" asked the officer. Though the dorm had been marked as an active crime scene, the officer allowed Liam to stay inside while the others searched.
"I woke up... I saw him climbing onto the desk. He opened the window. Then he just... jumped."
"Did he say anything beforehand?"
"No… nothing."
"I see." The officer didn't take notes. He stood with his hands in his pockets, glancing around the room. "Had he shown any signs of being suicidal before? Was he withdrawn? Any signs of self-harm?"
"No."
"Hmph." The officer knelt down to Liam's level, watching his face closely. "Are you absolutely sure that's all you want to tell me?"
Liam hesitated, finally lifting his head. He wanted to speak. The story was unbelievable, but he felt the weight of it pressing on his chest. He'd warned the others: reporting the truth could be dangerous. The people behind the game—if they were even people—might be powerful. Untouchable. Still, a part of him needed to tell someone.
"Will you believe me if there's no proof?"
"Your job is to give us your perspective of events. Ours is to find the proof."
Liam studied the officer's face—it looked oddly familiar. "Earlier, you mentioned your name. Officer Quinn, right?"
"That's right," Quinn replied. He noticed Liam's curious look and answered before the next question could come. "Yes, Jason from this college is my son. We look ridiculously alike, don't we?"
"Yeah… yeah, you do."
"He should be about your age."
"We're in the same course. He sits behind me during lectures."
"Really?" Quinn stood again, relaxing slightly. "How is he in class? He doing well?"
"Yeah… he's good. Top of the class."
"No, he told me he's second."
"Still pretty much at the top." Liam said. He'd scored the highest on every test so far, just like he did on the entrance exams, forcing Jason to second. Still, Liam wasn't popular—his introverted nature and gloomy aura kept most people away—but his academic record was flawless.
"That's good to hear," Quinn said, then tilted his head. "So… what about that unbelievable story you were about to tell me?"
"Oh… right…"
—
"YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!" Samantha's voice cracked as she shouted at the investigators seated across from her. Her injured right arm was bandaged and hung in a sling, while her left fist trembled in anger.
"Calm down, Sam," Heather said gently, seated beside her on the couch.
"No! They're not listening!"
"Miss, we're sorry," one investigator said, trying to keep his tone professional. "But your story… it doesn't add up. We're not trying to ridicule you. We just need something to work with."
"It's the truth!" Samantha cried, her voice breaking. "What more do you want?"
"Alright, alright. Please sit down. Let me summarize what I've heard so far."
"Baby, just sit," Heather urged, lightly tugging the hem of Samantha's pajama top.
Reluctantly, Samantha sat back down.
"Okay, so you and your father went on a strange website and played a game of Would You Rather. You chose an option that transported you into a survival scenario in an abandoned mall—"
"An empty mall," she corrected. "It had stock, items, everything. Just… no people."
"Okay. An empty shopping mall. You had to survive alongside your father and about a hundred others. There were aggressive dogs the size of grown men, strong enough to bite off limbs."
Samantha nodded.
"Your father was killed by one of the dogs. But then the next morning, you woke up back in your bedroom, and your father was alive. He didn't speak, walked into the kitchen, picked up a knife, and killed himself."
"We tried to stop him."
"Right. And this... game thing happened last night?"
Samantha nodded again.
"You said he slept in the same bed as you last night?" he asked, now turning to Heather.
"He definitely got into bed with me. He was there when I woke up too. But I can't say for sure if he was there all night."
"And no security cameras in the bedrooms?"
They both shook their heads.
The officer glanced toward a camera in the living room. "What about that one? Can we check the footage?"
---
"That is one unbelievable story," Officer Quinn said after hearing Liam's full account. "You have anything to back it up?"
"I believe I was kidnapped. If that's the case, there should be fingerprints on me or in this room that don't belong."
"We'll run that test for sure. But even rookies wear gloves nowadays, you know?"
"It's still worth checking."
Quinn sighed. The case had already become a nightmare. Part of him wanted to dismiss Liam's story as the rambling of a traumatized teen—but the timeline, the suicides, the patterns...
"There've been hundreds of suicides reported in Chicago today, haven't there?" Liam asked, watching Quinn's face. "My story explains them. Doesn't it?"
"You'll hear it on the news. Not from me."
"So there have been others." Liam pressed. "And I bet they all happened around the same time."
Quinn was silent for a moment. Then he sighed. "Even if your story fits, that's not proof. I still need hard evidence. You need to show me how this... 'game' made people kill themselves. I want to believe you—but I can't without something concrete."
"Then talk to your colleagues. Ask how many others gave the same story. If dozens of us tell the same thing, it's less likely that we all invented the same tale—than that it really happened."
"It's actually easier to believe you all planned that tale together than believe some underground entity created a deadly, reality-bending game."
Liam clenched his teeth. "Tsk."
—
"It matches your statement," the officer at Samantha's home said, looking up from the living room security footage. "It clearly shows Nick attempting suicide, just as you described."
"What about that website?" another investigator asked. "You said it's where you played Would You Rather?"
"Yeah," Samantha said. Liam gave the same answer at the dorm.
They both typed in the URL.
[extremewouldyourather.com]
[This site can't be reached.]