Bad Luck, No Mercy

The box was older than the rest of the games in the thrift store—its corners soft, the colors faded to a sickly pastel. CHUTES AND LADDERS, the lid read, smiling children frozen mid-laugh.

Evan bought it because it was cheap.

That night, the rain came down in thin, tapping fingers against his apartment windows. He set the board on the floor, alone, cross-legged, rolling the spinner with no one to argue with the rules.

“Just to kill time,” he muttered.

The spinner clicked.

3.

His token, which was a little red pawn, climbed the first ladder. He smiled. Simple. Harmless.

Then he heard the sound.

A dry, wooden creak from behind him.

Evan turned. The apartment was empty.

He played again.

6.

Another ladder. The board felt… warm now. Not hot. Just faintly alive beneath his fingertips. The smiling children printed on the squares seemed to watch him more closely, their eyes a little too sharp.

The spinner clicked again, without him touching it.

1.

His pawn landed at the mouth of a chute.

The painted slide looked deeper than it should have, the yellow plastic darkening into something like shadow. As he watched, the square seemed to open, stretching downward, as though the board were hollow.

“Nope,” Evan said, standing. “I’m done.”

The room lurched.

The floor tilted violently, and Evan fell forward, his hands slamming onto the board. The world shrank, compressed, colors blurring. The rain outside became a roar.

Then, there was motion.

He was sliding.

The chute was no longer paint and plastic but slick wood and splintered metal, its walls closing in as he tumbled downward. His screams echoed, swallowed by laughter, specifially children’s laughter, distorted and endless.

He slammed onto a square hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs.

Square 14.

He was small now. Token-sized.

Around him, others knelt or lay sobbing on their squares. There were adults, children, and the elderly. All with their eyes wide, bodies twisted in terror. Some clutched ladders desperately, climbing only to be kicked back down by unseen forces. Others were dragged screaming into chutes that snapped shut behind them.

Above them all, the smiling children from the box art loomed, no longer flat and printed but tall, wooden, jointed like puppets. Their painted eyes bled thin lines of black.

“Players must reach the top,” they sang in unison.

“No shortcuts. No skipping turns.”

Evan scrambled for the nearest ladder.

As he climbed, hands gripping rungs that felt like ribs, the spinner’s voice boomed from nowhere and everywhere.

“Bad luck.”

The ladder shuddered. Rot spread beneath his fingers.

He fell.

The chute opened wide, its mouth ringed with teeth.

As Evan slid screaming into the dark, the board above reset itself neatly. The rain outside softened to a gentle tap.

In the quiet apartment, a red pawn clicked into place at START.

The box lid smiled.

Want to play again?