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!

I could not sleep all night. After finally drifting off, the intercom broadcast rang out again at dawn.

“Ding-dong! It’s voting time. All patients, please gather at the church on the first floor within ten minutes!”

At the command, everyone once again filed into the church in perfect unison.

This time, an LED screen had been installed inside the church, displaying the photos and names of all forty patients.

Three of them were already eliminated. Their portraits were marked with an [OUT] label.

“Voting begins!”

Everyone was instructed to form a circle and point at the person they wanted to vote out.

Confusion was written all over their faces. Some looked around at each other without making a decision, while some hesitated and kept switching their choice.

This was until a little girl suddenly stepped forward and pointed at the young man. “He’s the one who killed the man. Vote him out!”

Clearly, her words did not convince everyone. No one followed her instructions right away.

The little girl noticed that and continued, “Didn’t that man say yesterday that he caught an impostor and told you all to vote with him?”

A lot of people nodded.

“But none of you actually knew who it was, because he never said it!”

Then, everyone nodded.

“It’s him!”

She pointed firmly at the young man.

“When that man was talking to me yesterday, he just happened to walk past us. He pointed him out to me.”

If what she said was true, then I really had been fooled. I had escaped the man’s suspicion completely. The person he wanted voted out was not me, but the young man.

He had used me as a pawn to kill the man.

“Damn it!”

Regret hit me hard. I cursed myself for being stupid and impulsive.

The little girl had successfully swayed the crowd. One by one, everyone began pointing at the young man.

The LED screen updated in real time. There were thirty eight votes next to his face, nearly eighty percent of the total.

Just when it seemed like the outcome was sealed, the young man suddenly pointed at me and shouted, “Wait! She was the one who killed him!”

I was screwed. He was about to sell me out!

“Last night at dinner, I saw her sneaking something into the man’s bowl.

“Check the cafeteria cameras if you don’t believe me.”

Damn it! There was no way I could clear my name now.

At everyone’s request, the administration switched the screen to last night’s cafeteria footage.

On the screen, I was seen sneaking toward the man’s table while he was in the restroom.

A smug smile appeared on the young man’s face.

Second by second, the footage played. I was already standing in front of the man’s food. My hand was slipping into my pocket for the poison.

Just as everyone thought the evidence was airtight, something unexpected happened. Someone suddenly stepped in front of me and blocked the camera’s view.

By the time that person moved away, the shot had cleared, and I had already finished the act. The camera had captured nothing useful.

“Why are you framing me?! I didn’t kill anyone! I didn’t kill anyone! I didn’t kill anyone!”

I lunged at the young man, grabbing his collar and screaming.

My performance was so convincing that everyone thought I had a breakdown. Several nurses rushed forward and pinned me to the ground.

Less than ten seconds remained before voting closed. The young man’s baseless accusation still was not enough to sway the crowd.

The final vote tally was I got eleven votes, and the young man got thirty-six.

Bang!

The moment the result was announced, the young man’s head exploded. Blood and brain matter splattered onto the people nearby.

“Congratulations! You have eliminated an impostor!”

I once again witnessed just how brutal this game was. The tension that had already been stretched tight inside me pulled even tighter.

“Today’s notice: The church is a sacred place. Anyone who lies here will have their tongue cut off.”

I clamped my mouth shut after hearing that, no longer daring to say the words “I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Are you an impostor?”

The hot-headed guy in chains grabbed someone at random and barked the question.

“I’m not.”

Nothing happened. The man was not lying.

The hothead shoved him aside and grabbed another by the collar, asking the same question.

“Are you an impostor?”

…

He went through ten people in a row and nothing happened.

This was until the eleventh.

“Are you an impostor?”

“I… I… I…”

“Talk! Or I’ll kill you!”

As he spoke, the hothead slammed the man to the ground, straddled him, and wrapped both hands tightly around his throat.

Within minutes, the man’s face turned ashen, barely clinging to life.

With the last of his strength, he forced out three words,

“I’m not.”

The hothead let him go after that.

The man finally got a chance to breathe, but what came next was far worse.

Foam poured from his mouth as his whole body convulsed on the ground, like he was having a seizure.

After a series of spasms, he suddenly went still. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and a chunk of flesh about the size of an egg slipped out.

If I was not mistaken, that chunk of flesh was his own tongue, bitten clean off.

That was the price of lying in the church.

Seeing that it worked, the hothead grew even more energized and continued questioning.

This is bad! He was going to use this rule to check everyone.

I briefly thought about faking a faint to get out of this.

Still, after thinking it through, that would not work. It would only be a temporary escape.

Even if I avoided it today, the next round of voting would definitely target anyone who did not answer.

In the blink of an eye, he had already gone through more than half the group. If I did not figure something out, I would end up just like that guy.

“Are you an impostor?”

Perhaps my guilty expression gave me away. He skipped past several people and came straight for me, asking with absolute certainty.

I did not answer for a long time, which only deepened his suspicion.

He used the same move again. One hand clamping around my neck.

“Last chance. Are you going to answer or not?”