She hears knocking on the door.

Shuri generally doesn't dream when she goes to sleep, or if she does, she doesn't remember it when she wakes up. Now, though, all she dreams of is her mother's sobbing of her name, her father screaming something unintelligible, shapeless and shadowy men chasing her and calling her name until it merges with her mother's voice and it's a hellish cacophony of noise.

Then it changes. "Shuri--Sh--Shuri--Shuri--help--help--help me--help me, help--hel--"

It keeps playing like a broken record until the bizarre voices' scream ends with a shriek so loud that something in her jolts, and then there's a loud thump, a bang, and her eyes jerk open.

She blinks, squinting up at the ceiling, briefly wondering what the hell happened until it slowly sinks in again. The Virgin Game. The safe house. Five hours. Shit.

Next to her, Kayo's dead to the world and turned on her side away from her. Shuri listens, and she hears it.

"Help! Help me, oh, please!" There's a girl's screaming and sobbing, punctuated by loud thumping and bangs against the heavy airlock door. "Help! Is anyone there?! I need help! Let me in! Please, help me!"

Shuri stiffens. Oh, god.

She glances at the alarm clock, which is as quiet as when she first set it. It's six forty. Well, at least she'd woken up before it'd gone off.

But the girl's screaming and banging against the door hasn't gone away. If anything, it's increasing. Just as Shuri's starting to wonder how on earth Kayo is still asleep with that kind of noise going on, there's a yawn and movement as Kayo turns over.

"Wha...?" she mumbles. "What--?"

"Shh!" Shuri hisses. The last thing they need is for the girl, whoever she is, to hear them inside and keep begging. Their time's almost up, anyway.

But if anything, that encourages Kayo. She sits up, blinking, and stares up towards the door as the screaming and pounding of fists continues. Her voice is cracked. "Shuri, we have to--"

"No, we don't!" Shuri snaps, trying and failing to keep her voice at a whisper. "It's almost seven, we need to leave anyway. She can come in when our time's up, we don't need another--"

"She needs help!" Kayo retorts. "Who the hell are you to deny someone that? We can't let her get--we can't--"

"A man or more's probably following her!" Shuri gets up and, stumbling slightly off of the bed, reaches for her backpack. She slings it over her shoulders, snatching up her stick. "I don't know about you, but I'm not taking that fucking risk for competition. It's me or her, that's the entire goddamn game."

"What is wrong with you?" Kayo spits, and the sheer ferocity takes Shuri by surprise. If the girl didn't hear them before, she definitely hears them now. "She'll be **** if we don't help her! How can you be so--"

"She's right!" The voice is crying. "They're--they're following me, they're--oh my god, please! Please let me in, I swear I won't do anything--"

Shuri grits her teeth and steals another glance at the alarm clock. Six forty-two. There's not much time left in the safe house, and she definitely doesn't want to find out what exactly happens when the five hours are completely up.