The house was silent. Cold. She passed her parent’s room, moving as slowly and quietly as she possibly could, not wanting to be discovered. Her phone told her it was 02:03, even if she didn’t believe it. Crept towards the stairs as if any noise could permeate the darkness and wake her parents. Alert them that something was wrong and that their only daughter was sneaking out. She reached the top of the stairs and avoided the squeaky floorboard on the fifth step down. In the hall, the clock was silhouetted, the ghostly outline of time shown.

Two-ten.

She had never been out of the house at that time. Never needed to be. No late nights out, in town with a group of friends. No late-night parties. Nothing. She had always been tucked up in bed by this time every night.

That was about to change.

Holly slipped on her coat, picked her keys up from the hook where they lived near the front door, and turned them in the lock slowly. She heard the click and pulled down the handle. A rush of cold air came in as she stepped outside, pulling the door closed behind her. She moved the handle up and locked the door.

She didn’t know if she could do what she’d been told to. The fear of her secrets being discovered was enough to get her this far, but whether it would be sufficient to take the next step, she didn’t know.

Forty minutes later, on the banks of the River Mersey, she broke out onto the waterfront. She was at the outer edges of the city now, before it turned into Southport, into Lancashire. The north of the city where she’d grown up, living her boring, uneventful life.

Holly looked at the phone in her hand, knowing one phone call would bring them running to her. Driving their little car in pyjamas and slippers, that worried look plastered across her mum’s face. Exasperation on her dad’s. They would pull up and wrap her in their arms and tell her everything was going to be okay.

And then, well, hundreds, thousands of people everywhere, knowing she was a liar. That she had told people she was dying and it hadn’t been true.

As she looked down at the phone, it began to vibrate, making her jump in shock. She almost dropped it in surprise, but then composed herself quickly. ‘It’ll all be over soon,’ she found herself whispering, and she almost believed the words.

She answered and lifted it to her ear.

‘Second thoughts?’ the voice said, and it was an oddly comforting sound.

‘No,’ Holly replied, but she could feel her own tone betray her. ‘I just…’

‘You finish playing The Game and no one will ever know what you’ve done.’