The Platform 2

Xiao Chun found a countdown hovering over his head, like a holographic projection.

[90 Days Remaining]

It seemed that only he could see it. Xiao Chun looked over at Yu Gu, but there was nothing above him.

The man who called himself Yu Gu said little after that. At the washbasin, he splashed water on his face and cleaned his wound, then casually tore a strip from the soft hem of his pajamas and wrapped it around the injury as a bandage.

He was far too calm and detached, as though he had not been the one trembling and crying moments ago. Yet he clearly knew something. Xiao Chun scrutinized him. "What is The Platform? What kind of laboratory is this? A hypnosis experiment? Psychological suggestion? Mr. Yu, who exactly are you? How much do you know?"

After bandaging his wound, Yu Gu sat on the single bed against the wall. He patted the space beside him and looked up at Xiao Chun. His lashes were thick and long, and the corners of his eyes still held a lingering flush. "I know a little. Come here."

His tone was so perfectly matter-of-fact that Xiao Chun had no idea how to react.

"Come sit." Yu Gu added a word, as if that might ease the tension. Then he said, "Yu Gu. Call me Yu Gu. I think we're the same age. I'm twenty-eight. My birthday's at the end of July. Leo. What about you?"

"...Twenty-eight." Xiao Chun offered no more. There was something strange about this Yu Gu.

One sat while the other stood. Yu Gu tilted his head slightly up to look at Xiao Chun before him, his gaze moving slowly and almost tangibly across Xiao Chun's features. Once again, he answered a different question. "Your forehead is swollen."

Xiao Chun was about to touch it on instinct when Yu Gu handed him a damp strip of cloth—part of his pajama shirt. "Put a cold compress on it."

Xiao Chun glanced at the substantial piece already missing from Yu Gu's pajama hem. Murmuring his thanks, he pressed the wet strip to his forehead and hissed softly through his teeth.

Yu Gu's expression shifted slightly. "The Platform is a movie. We're inside the movie."

"What?"

"A Spanish sci-fi thriller released in 2019."

"No, I mean, what do you mean, inside the movie?" Xiao Chun couldn't keep up with Yu Gu's pace; the man jumped from one thing to another too quickly. "Are we... taking part in some kind of filming? Behind-the-scenes footage? A prank?"

"This place is the movie itself." Yu Gu's fingers twitched. For some reason, Xiao Chun mistook it, in that instant, for Yu Gu wanting to take his hand. His gaze dropped to Yu Gu's hands: long, beautiful fingers; faint veins raised along the back of one hand, making it look powerful; neatly trimmed nails. The other hand was tightly wrapped in cloth, now soaked through, the glass shards having sliced the bandage to ribbons.

Following Xiao Chun's gaze, Yu Gu glanced down at his own hand as well. "You haven't seen it?"

"...No."

"The movie is a satire of class exploitation and what it means to enforce law and justice. The second one is a little more abstract, but not hard to understand." Yu Gu said, "I won't go into the plot. Once we get out, I can watch it with you."

Xiao Chun froze. Yu Gu seemed not to notice how inappropriate and strange that sounded—or perhaps he did notice and simply didn't care. Xiao Chun had felt it since earlier: Yu Gu looked perfectly normal, but a subtle, incongruous nervousness showed in the smallest shifts of his eyes and expression. Strangely, Xiao Chun wasn't afraid of him.

Yu Gu said, "You only need to remember the main rules. You can't break the rules here, or you'll pay the price."

Xiao Chun was about to ask what that price was when he recalled the fat man from earlier, a man who had clearly had nothing to do with the words living person.

"There are three rules in The Platform that can't be broken. First, don't hide food. Second, don't betray your cellmate. Third, don't eat food that isn't yours." Yu Gu explained solemnly. "If someone breaks the rules, the four-above rule allows the person to be punished first. For example, if the people on the tenth floor break a rule, with two people on each floor, then the people on the eighth and ninth floors can go down to the tenth floor and make them pay the price. Those temporary enforcers represent justice and law here. Every floor must ensure that communication is never cut off, so that the law can reach the very bottom. Only then will everyone understand the meaning of following the rules."

The Platform.

A Spanish sci-fi thriller released in 2019.

It told the story of a vertical prison, where a platform loaded with food descended from the first level through hundreds of floors. The lower the floor, the higher the number; no one knew how many floors there were. Two people occupied each floor. On inhabited floors, the food platform stopped briefly before continuing downward. Once it reached the bottom, it instantly returned to the top.

The platform carried an extravagant spread, but appeared only once a day. The people on the first floor could eat the fullest and finest meals, even wine and desserts. The farther down it went, though, the less food remained after the people above had taken their share. Beyond the fortieth floor, there was almost nothing left on the food platform.

In the end, the people below the fortieth floor, unable to get food at all, descended into mutual slaughter and cannibalism.

"Every month, the floors change at random. Your cellmate stays the same unless one of you dies; then a new cellmate is assigned randomly next month. You might be lucky enough to be within the top twenty floors this month, then unlucky enough to land on the two-hundredth next month. In that case, you're dead."

The floors changed every month?

Xiao Chun looked up at the countdown over his head—ninety days? Three months?

What exactly did this countdown mean? Survive three months without starving to death?

No one could stay blessed by Lady Luck and remain above the fortieth floor forever, nor could anyone go a month without food or water.

Xiao Chun's face went pale. "Didn't you say the rule was that you can only eat your own food? If everyone only ate their own portion, then it shouldn't come to..."

"Someone will always break that rule. It's human nature." As Yu Gu spoke, he suddenly glanced up. At the same time, another image swept before Xiao Chun's eyes, incomparably clear and real: without warning, the man in front of him yanked him close, pulling them into an intensely intimate embrace. Xiao Chun instinctively raised a hand to punch the man in the nose, but Yu Gu's other hand swiftly drew the steel strip slung across his back and drove it straight into something behind him.

Something splattered across the back of his neck, his ear, and his hair. Sticky and wet. He caught the foul, fishy stench of blood.

Xiao Chun turned his head in Yu Gu's arms, but the vision vanished. He didn't see what was behind him.

Just as Xiao Chun thought he was hallucinating again, Yu Gu's eyes, fixed on the ceiling, abruptly changed. One hand swiftly pulled Xiao Chun close while the other drew the steel strip from behind his back—

The scene Xiao Chun had seen was confirmed once more.

As he crashed into Yu Gu's arms, he felt that either he had gone mad, or... after ruling out every impossibility, only one truth remained.

He could see the future?

......

Xiao Chun caught that foul, fishy scent of blood again. He turned, and this time saw the attacker clearly.

It was a bald, tattooed man with huge hoop earrings and a ferocious face. He wore a tattered T-shirt and trousers, barefoot, and the steel bar in his hand never reached Yu Gu; Yu Gu had already stabbed it through his shoulder.

The blood-splattered scene Xiao Chun had foreseen did not play out. Perhaps the stab had landed differently. Only a few drops of blood spattered onto his pant leg.

So even if it was foresight, reality could still differ. It wasn't guaranteed to be completely accurate.

The bald man coughed blood from his mouth, staggered back several steps with a hand pressed to his wound, and sized them both up. In a sinister voice, he said, "Newcomers?"

Yu Gu said nothing.

The man said resentfully, "Did no one tell you that you have to follow the rules here?" His gaze stayed locked on Yu Gu, as if he wanted to devour him alive. "You broke the rules by coming down to the thirty-fourth floor whenever you pleased, and you killed your cellmate. That will cut off communication for your floor!"

Yu Gu's voice was even. "If you mean the cellmate who'd already gone insane, assuming he still counts as a cellmate."

The man narrowed his eyes. "The enforcers have already received word. You'll pay the price for breaking the rules."

With Yu Gu's explanation in mind, Xiao Chun immediately understood when he looked at the man before them—this was probably one of the so-called temporary enforcers under the four-above rule. Yu Gu had broken a rule, so he had come down to punish him.

Xiao Chun looked up and spotted a rope twisted from bedsheets hanging down by the opening. This man had actually risked falling to his death just to carry out a punishment? But what were "enforcers"? Were they different from temporary enforcers?

The man had also mentioned a "cellmate," so was this really a prison? The cannibalistic prison from the movie?

Then Xiao Chun suddenly realized something and glanced sideways at Yu Gu. Why wasn't he focused on the fact that Yu Gu had "killed his cellmate"? Why was he so readily accepting a murderer? Simply because the man had saved him?

Though Xiao Chun had too many questions, the most urgent task was getting rid of this so-called temporary enforcer. Judging by the killing move he had opened with, Xiao Chun didn't think a simple conversation or explanation would resolve this.

He secretly gripped the glass shard Yu Gu had left by the edge of the bed. With nothing protecting his palm, the shard bit into his skin.

His brows drew together slightly. He diverted the enforcer's attention. "A cellmate... means someone like me and that thing from before? Sir? My cellmate went crazy. He wanted to eat me. I killed him only in self-defense, and this gentleman saved me. Can I choose him as my cellmate?"

"No!" the bald man said at once. "If everyone could change the law whenever they pleased, then the law would have no meaning!"

He practically chanted, as though reciting words he had recited countless times before: "First, they change the law whenever they please. Then they can interpret it however they please! Fairness requires every one of us to defend it to the death!"

In contrast to the bald man's fervor, Yu Gu merely seemed distracted as he took Xiao Chun's hand, gently but firmly removed the shard from his palm, and frowned deeply at the bleeding wound.

"I can handle it," he murmured. Then, before Xiao Chun or the bald man could react, he drove the glass shard straight toward the bald man's eye.