Soulless Players

As the sun slowly disappeared below the horizon, bright orange light illuminated the forest. Along with every tick of the clock, trees started casting their shadows wider and bigger, slowly waking the sleeping crickets up.

Inside the forest, while everything was undergoing transition, Philip's mind was chaotic. It kept on bringing itself back to the past.

While his legs were active, and his arms were swaying back and forth, his eyes looked absent from any life.

Following his mother's last cry, he ran and ran, with no destination to go.

His world was blank and dark, only the word 'run' was written on it over and over until there was no space left to fill in.

Although he had seen what happened earlier and somehow understood how it occurred, his brain still refused to recognize it.

Why is this happening?

Philip looked back more deeply at the past and managed to recall every interaction with his parents.

From his mother teaching him how to weave a scarf to his father teaching him how to read, all of them were one by one reflected inside his mind.

"It was fun," he murmured.

They were supposed to be happy. With a day to celebrate, they should have been laughing and eating the cake right now.

'But why am I running right now?' Philip's mind was in a mess. He was confused.

He continued to look back but this time, it was earlier. And when he did it, his whole being instantly shook and awakened.

In his vision, he saw a child singing a Happy Birthday song lousily. The way he sang the song made Philip's face red and abnormally, his emotional state instantly became disordered.

Along with the feeling of anger and annoyance, he finally remembered the source of his unhappiness.

'It was the child. He made me like this!' Philip gritted his teeth and rolled his fist tightly. How could he forget his enemy? He, who killed his father and forced his mother to death, how could he forget him?

As an image of his homely house turned red resurfaced in his mind, Philip furiously put more force in his legs, unbothered by his sole aching.

As the twigs of trees and bushes slipped through his arms and face, small drops of blood slowly crept from within his skin.

With every step he took, Philip's small body became more horrendous but he never stopped and remained unfazed.

He focused his mind on remembering the face of the child. From the mole in his thumb to the dirt in his clothes, every detail, he kept on imprinting them in his mind.

Philip ran more deeply inside the forest and happened to pass through a particularly large tree.

Upon seeing this, his nose soured and his eyelids became misty. This was the place where he met his adoptive parents for the first time - the place where he thought his life would finally turn okay.

But misery befell him. The game that kept on haunting him had finally caught him. And the once dreamlike life had turned into a nightmare, implicating the reality.

'If only I did not appear in their life…' Philip guiltily thought. He blamed himself for this tragedy. His presence had killed the innocent couple.

With the existence of the game, he knew he was a magnet of catastrophe and had a chance of involving others in his misfortune.

However, he chose to be greedy and lived as if he were a normal person belonging to the world.

'It was my greed that killed my parents. It was my fault.'

His legs started to lose their strength and the wind passing through him became weaker until it disappeared.

Philip stared at the sunlight coursing between tree branches, panting.

'Should I just die?' Philip whispered silently. He was helpless and thought maybe dying was a better option. For the first time, Philip felt tired of living.

While he stared through the distance, he noticed a group of men moving towards him as if covering the entire forest from the outside and slowly trapping him in the middle.

Philip trembled and his body curved downwards. Shortly, he covered his face with his hands in frustration.

After a while, his shoulder shook upside down uncontrollably. Philip raised his shaking head and looked out from the space between his fingers.

With his lips curved upwards, his eyes squinted playfully, and let out an inaudible laugh.

Philip finally realized his mistake. He was not greedy, but a coward.

The child was right. Why hide in this damn forest when he can fight others?

Why did he always insist on being weaker compared to other players? Although his author killed him in the end, he was still the strongest in his world.

'Even though my life ended terribly, I was still a main character in my own story.' Philip thought and declared, 'And my story continues even in this world.'

Something had broken inside his mind. It was as if a new orb was forming deep inside his consciousness. This orb beat like a heart, giving Philip a surge of adrenaline to become stronger and wiser.

Feeling this unconsciously, he smiled wider and laughed ever more crazily.

Philip had never felt free and confident before.

'If you want to die, then you should do it while resisting.' Philip told himself, amused. He will fight fate itself and win an identity of his own.

'Let's not waste Mother's sacrifice, okay?' Philip tapped his shoulder in comfort.

'Let's start with this one.' He glanced at the incoming men and turned around. He knew that he was trapped in an encirclement and had a slim chance of escaping. But he was still laid back, looking self-assured.

He had been living in the forest for four years. In short, the forest could be now considered as his home ground.

Philip walked towards the bushes, looking for bear traps. Aside from being a woodcutter, his father also did hunting as a side hustle. And being his child, he also knew where the traps were located.

After finding a single bear trap, he then disassembled it by separating the upper from the lower portion.

"Perfect!" Philip voiced his satisfaction. After separating the trap into two sharp-teeth-like semi-circle objects, he held them like a knuckle, making his hands look like they had grown some claws.

As time passed, the sounds of crickets were getting louder and louder. Seeing the sun getting closer to the horizon, Philip moved quickly to a nearby tree and lodged the sharp objects in his hands to the trunk.

After placing them like a steeping board, Philip took off his outer shirt and threw it at the top of the nearby bush.

When it was done, Philip ran towards the closer bird trap and took the fowl inside it.

Following that, he hid deeply inside the bushes, waiting for the men to arrive near him.

***

After a couple of minutes, the group of men that Philip had seen from a distance earlier arrived, meeting the men who had been following Philip's trail from his house midway.

"Hey! Look, I found this!"

The shout of a man attracted the attention of other men. Nine men quickly ran and gathered in his direction.

"What did you find?" asked the muscular man while scanning his surroundings attentively.

The man who yelled earlier then pointed at the shirt and voiced his confusion, "Why did he take off his shirt?"

As he looked back and forth from the shirt to the confused man, the muscular man narrowed his eyes and asked, "You called us just to ask this?"

The man thought for a second and nodded innocently. He seemed to not know what was wrong with it.

Seeing him like this, the muscular man became annoyed. "Why do you care about that? We are looking for the child, not his clothes."

The man blinked incredulously and retorted back naively, "Because maybe it's a clue?"

The other men laughed and the muscular man's ears instantly became red. "This is not a clue! Clues should be like… his footprints or the like!"

Others just glanced at him and snickered. Although they knew he was not entirely correct, the shirt provided them only an indication that the child had been here and not pointing out where he exactly was.

When the men were about to disperse, the innocent man shouted again, "Look!"

This time, they saw the bear claw trap embedded in the tree like a stepping board.

Everyone's eyes widened and quickly looked above them.

"Don't tell me he climbed the tree and jumped from branch to branch to escape?"

"That's impossible! His limbs are too short to do that." The other denied.

"But the boss said he's not an ordinary child. And remember, he's an enemy of the government!"

Everyone looked at each other in panic. As hired mercenaries, they were informed beforehand about their mission and knew a little about the child's history.

But they never expected him to be this skillful. He was only eight years old!

They quickly dispersed and resumed their search. But unlike earlier, they were now more focused on searching above.

A few moments later, one of the men heard a rustle a few yards away. He glanced at the bushes, suspiciously. However, when he saw a fowl coming out and flew away, he shook his head and continued his search above, not bothering the bushes anymore.