I didn't trust her.Not completely.Not yet.
It was dim inside the clothing store's backroom, a narrow space filled with worn mannequins and the lingering scent of dust and old perfume. We had locked the door behind us. The shadows felt safer here—until they didn't.
I turned toward her. She sat against the wall, legs crossed like she wasn't rushing through something that might be life or death. There was a small glimmer of light from a cracked bulb above us, casting half her face in gold and the other in shadows.
"Why are you helping me?" I finally asked.
She didn't look at me.
"Why bother with someone you just met?"
There was a moment of silence, only interrupted by the muffled hum of the world outside this strange pocket of stillness. Then, she said, "Because I fucked it up once. And I won't do it again."
That stopped me cold.
I stared at her. "What do you mean you fucked it up?"
She sighed, pulled her knees closer to her chest, and rested her chin on them.
"I already played this game before," she said.
I blinked. "What?"
"This," she said, tapping the wall of the dressing room lightly. "Noirhaven. This whole cursed performance. The roles, the votes, the murders. I've been in it before."
"You're telling me you're… you're a survivor?"
"Yes. But this isn't just a game. It's the game. And what you're in right now..." She looked up at me. Her eyes, previously mischievous and guarded, were now dead serious. "...it's only the first act."
I didn't speak. I couldn't. My thoughts were sprinting too fast for my mouth to keep up.
"This is the fourth game. Fourth generation of Noirhaven. We're not in the real game yet. Not really. This is Act One. Preparation."
My brain slowed. I couldn't even form words.
"Fourth—what do you mean fourth generation?" My throat tightened. "You mean this happened before?"
"Yes…"
She glanced at me with a strange sort of calm. "Back then, I made it through Act One. Survived Act Two. But by Act Three... I left. I couldn't take it anymore."
"Left?" I repeated. "You mean you escaped? How?"
She looked away again. "No one escapes. Not really. But there are cracks. Ways to slip between the rules. I found one. And I ran."
My thoughts spun. The room felt smaller. The mannequins looked closer. "You said we're not in the real game yet..."
"No," she interrupted. "We're not. Think of this as the testing ground. The world you know, everything around us, is a theater stage. The audience? The ones outside. The real players." She paused, staring into the dark. "In Act Two, you start interacting with them. And Act Three? You're nothing but a piece on their board."
I swallowed hard. "But it's all scripted. It feels like we're being watched. Predicted."
"Because we are."
She sounded too calm about that.
"And you knew all this before coming back?" I asked.
She shook her head. "I didn't plan to return. I thought I was free. But this place... it doesn't let go."
Her voice trembled slightly then.
"I woke up one day and I was back. Different role. But same building. Same damn lights."
I leaned against the other wall, trying to make sense of everything.
"Why not tell everyone?"
She smiled. Not kindly.
"Because no one believes the ones who know. And if you say too much, the game notices. It shifts."
"Shifts?"
"It adapts. Learns. Like it wants to keep us guessing. Keep us afraid."
My chest tightened. "So what do we do?"
"We play smart. We survive. And maybe... just maybe, we rewrite the ending."
I stared at her.
And for a second, I forgot the game.
I saw the exhaustion beneath her sharp words. The deep wells of fear hiding behind her steady tone. She wasn't brave because she wasn't scared. She was brave because she'd been through it and still chose to stand.
"What role did you play before?" I asked quietly.
She didn't answer right away. Her fingers traced the seam of her sleeve.
"Something that doesn't exist in this game anymore," she finally said. "A null role."
"A what?"
"I can nullify the roles skill and passive of the person every night and each attack of the mafia team to me will be nullify and the kill will be cancelled, but there's a catch every heal, every information I can see on ally or enemy team will be void in the discussion room but I found the hole to break it and that's when they removed it after Gen Three. Said it was too powerful."
I felt chills go down my spine.
She continued, her voice hollow. "I watched people vanish overnight. Saw friends become enemies because their cards shifted or gain the upper hand. I saw someone hang themselves with their own voting ribbon just to avoid what came next. And I saw... worse."
She closed her eyes. "So when I say this isn't the real game yet, I mean it. This is the garden before the storm."
Silence stretched between us.
Then I asked, "Why me? Why tell me this?"
She looked at me, not like I was someone she trusted, but like someone she had chosen.
"Because you're different. I've seen the way you ask questions. The way you don't let things go. You're not playing to win. You're playing to understand. And that means you might actually survive. Unlike me…"
I didn't know whether to feel honored or terrified.
I stared at her — this strange woman who somehow knew more about this game than anyone should. If what she was saying was true, then everything so far — every vote, every kill, every whisper in the dark — was just a rehearsal.
She tapped my chest lightly. "You still haven't shown your real card, have you?"
I flinched. "...How did you—"
"Because of my role." And she tried to reach something when suddenly.
"My card… It's not here."
I was confused. "What do you mean?"
And She gave a panic looked on her face. "Oh no oh no oh no, someone stole my card."
"Wait so basically you can't use your ability card
"No. But rather there's 2 role now… Shit I didn't expect to see the role of thief this early…"
"Wait your telling me that the thief role shouldn't be in the 1st act."
She strongly said. "Yes! That role should be at act 2 due to its open world opportunity. But don't worry that role can only use it per night and not morning so I had advantage over it"
I asked. "What was the description of your role?"
"It can manipulate the cards ability for 1 night, so basically if I want to be a doctor I can for 1 night and it will revert back on the morning and I can use it again in the morning but I can't use the card at night. If it's in morning it can only be used in morning if night only night. But the catch is I can't turn myself into a mafia and kill other mafia or any other mafia roles."
It made me speechless on how powerful that card is no matter what you can disguise yourself in every other role and you can't be vote out.
"It also has a passive, I don't know if others know but each role has a passive skill in each card. Mine is that I can't be affected by roles manipulation or roles interference like seduction or sleep."
I asked. "What about mine? Since you know from the very beginning of this game and how it works you should know what this card does."
"Yes, I know your card… But—." She went silent.
"But??"
She hesitated and said. "Sorry I can't tell you."
"Why?"
"I have reason okay?" She nervously said it. "And besides I'll tell you anyway but for now let's deal with your current problem."
She stood suddenly and walked over to the cracked mirror behind the rack of coats. Her reflection looked split.
"The others won't believe us," she said. "Not until it's too late. So we move in silence. We gather people and information in what we can. And when the time comes..."
I rose too. "What?"
She turned, expression dark.
"We burn the stage down."