Hide and Seek: The Mad Girl Sees All novel Chapter 1

Chapter 1 She’s from the Asylum

[Welcome to Round 44 of Global Hide-and-Seek. Today’s instance: Rose Manor.]

[Participants for this round are in position. Players, take note — once the game begins, you’ll have thirty minutes to hide.]

[After thirty minutes, the Wraiths will enter the field and begin the hunt. Hunting window: three hours.]

[If caught, you die.]

[Your home nation will lose one region to a Wraith invasion.]

[Survivors will receive rewards.]

[Countdown begins now.]

Lyra Vance froze. She glanced down at herself — still in the same hospital gown, white with blue stripes, slippers on her feet.

Then she looked up at the crowd around her — every skin tone imaginable, jabbering in languages she couldn’t understand, faces twisted with panic and despair.

When the strange voice finished, a door appeared out of nowhere on the open ground, and everyone surged through it.

What was going on? Lyra felt completely lost.

*****

Draconia. Strategic Game Command Center.

On the enormous screen, livestream feeds of every participant popped up at once. In the column marked ‘Draconia,’ a girl in a hospital gown stood at the instance entrance, glancing around, her hair a mess, a dazed look on her face.

The chat exploded.

WhenWillTheyDie: [We’re done we’re done we’re done.]

DontHitMe: [Who did we draw this time?! Lyra — a little girl?]

DetailFreak: [Is she wearing… a hospital gown?]

NeverAteVeggies: [Draconia’s down to twelve regions. Lose another and where the hell do we squeeze in?]

NutrientGooSucks: [Can we please get a swap? Game gods, I’m begging you.]

PickMeGame: [Forty-three rounds in, we’ve already lost twenty-two regions. Looks like number twenty-three drops today.]

momo: [I am so sick of you people. Whoever gets drawn is fighting for the country. You can’t cheer for her, fine — don’t go breaking her down. And girls have pulled it off before.]

AureliaIsGuilty: [Exactly. If these players hadn’t won us living space, we’d still be holed up underground. No gratitude, get out.]

AnotherDayAlive: [Still, she’s in a hospital gown. The debuffs are maxed out.]

LuckyKoi: [Heavens above, please send every drop of my luck to this player.]

ApplyingToEmigrate: [Hilarious. Aurelia drew a special-forces operative, already scouting the terrain. Ours is still spacing out. Thank God my emigration application went through. I’m out of here.]

GoDraconia: [Traitor. Get lost.]

Inside the command center, no one spoke. Everyone snapped into work mode. Chief of Staff Lana Sterling kept her eyes locked on the screen, the rattle of keyboards the only sound in her ears.

The keyboards stopped. “Reporting. Participant’s name is Lyra Vance, female, twenty-two, from Everbright. Records show—” The officer broke off.

“What is it?” Lana frowned.

“Records show Lyra Vance was admitted to a psychiatric facility at age seven. She’s never been discharged,” a staffer reported.

Lana’s frown deepened. “Seven? You’re telling me she’s been institutionalized for fifteen years? Never once left?”

“Correct, ma’am. After the nuclear war, her entire family died. No guardian ever came to sign her out,” the staffer replied.

Lana ordered, “Pull every medical file she has.”

An aide replied, “Yes, ma’am.”

Lana watched the chat skew uglier and turned to another aide. “Steer the public mood upward. And monitor the networks, anyone running her down, ban the account.”

An aide replied, “Yes, ma’am.”

*****

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