Chapter 2

The hand holding the pill started to tremble uncontrollably.

I quickly clenched my fist, hid the pill in my palm, planning to slip it into my pocket when no one was paying attention.

Just then, a chilling voice rang out from beside me.

“Miss, why aren’t you eating it yet?”

It was a man in his fifties, smiling as he stared directly at my clenched fist.

He was standing too close. His breath lightly brushed the skin behind my ear. Goosebumps crawled all over me.

He did not seem stupid.

If I did not swallow the pill right in front of him, I would basically be telling him that I was the impostor.

If he exposed me, I would be the first one voted out.

After what I had just seen with the poison pills, I knew how insane this place was. I could not afford to be careless.

As such, I carefully put the pill into my mouth and made an exaggerated swallowing motion.

After that, my eyes slowly slid to the left, glancing at him from the corner of my vision.

He looked satisfied. With his hands clasped behind his back, he leaned his neck slightly forward and walked away in another direction.

Only after he disappeared into the crowd did I finally breathe out in relief.

I immediately ran to the restroom and spat the pill out from the side of my cheek, then rinsed my mouth frantically with water.

The tap water rushed loudly.

I cupped my hands, caught the water, and brought it to my mouth.

I rinsed over and over, swishing it around several times before spitting it out again.

I repeated the process dozens of times, terrified that even a trace of poison might still be left behind.

Just as I bent over to spit again, a hand suddenly landed on my shoulder.

“You’re an impostor too, aren’t you?”

The moment the voice rang out, my heart skipped a beat, and I felt everything around me freeze.

Had I been exposed?

No, he said “too.”

So, was he one of us?

I did not answer. I just slowly turned around and studied his face.

He looked to be in his early twenties. It seemed like he could read my hesitation. Before I could even speak, he quickly revealed his identity.

He opened his palm. A red pill lay in his hand.

No words were needed. He, like me, had been given a red pill — and was a so-called impostor.

Great! I found an ally!

I grabbed his hand excitedly and asked what was going on, and how many impostors there were besides us.

However, he only shook his head. He was just as new here as I was. He knew nothing.

He told me he met a man in his fifties earlier. That man claimed he had already identified an impostor and told him to vote along with him the next day.

Then, by coincidence, he passed by the women’s restroom and saw me washing my face, which led him to believe I was the impostor the older man had mentioned.

As he spoke, he tilted his eyes toward the pill in his palm, signaling me to take it.

I did not understand.

He continued, “When dinnertime comes, slip the pill into that old man’s food. Don’t let him make it through the night.”

So he wanted me to kill someone? I instinctively stepped back anxiously.

In an instant, the young man moved forward and shoved the pill into my hand.

Before leaving, he said one last thing in passing. “If I had to guess, he’s probably telling everyone the same story. Whether you do it or not, that’s on you.”

I wrestled with the decision all afternoon. In the end, I crushed the pill into powder and secretly mixed it into the man’s soup.

He died on the spot.

The hospital’s response to his death was cold. There was no investigation into the cause and no interest in finding the killer.

They simply disposed of the body in silence.

It was as though they were signaling to everyone that killing was allowed here!