6: ONCE.wav

Episode Description
Have you ever had a song stuck in your head but you don’t remember enough about it to look it up?

Content Warnings
This episode contains a description of self-harm.

Plot
Mike begins the episode talking about puzzles and Rubik's cubes, noting that any puzzle can be solved, given enough time and people.

Mike meets CANNONBALL at their usual café to talk. CANNONBALL reveals that the third challenge took him six years, as he was arrested after the first time and had to do it twice. After trading information, CANNONBALL drops the name Aliza Schultz and says he wants to kill the second place player, who Mike knows to be Anne. He also mentions that he has completed the fourth challenge, but does not give Mike any hint as to what it will be.

A couple of hours after returning home Mike gets a message from WOE.BEGONE telling him that they're giving him a bonus challenge. Mike then receives a file titled ONCE.wav. It contains what appears to be a portion of a song, noticeably only containing the lyric "once." Mike deduces that the full lyric is likely "once upon a time" due to the "uh" sound following the word "once."

After much Googling, Mike finds the song, titled "Heartbreak" by Cut Off Your Hands. He messages the game runners, hoping that he does not have to cut off his hands. Mike receives a text back containing a clip of him saying "can't I just cut off my arm again?" This implies that he does, in fact, have to cut off his hands. He then proceeds to cut off both his hands, taking care not to die in the same way he did in the second challenge.

After completing the challenge Mike researches Aliza Schultz and plans to send her an email.

Trivia
The song featured in the episode is “Heartbreak” by Cut Off Your Hands.

Transcript