Principal Mike was giving the manager a note of 500 rupees. The manager subtly stored that money in his pocket. As the man went on his way to leave the cubicle, he saw Abhi, the man subtly smiled at him, and walked away without looking back…

Abhi stops in his tracks, takes a bit to process what he saw and walks again after 10 seconds. For Abhi, 500 rupees was a sizable amount of money, something he earned after multiple days of work.

Suddenly he came to some sort of realization, but decided not to react and calmly approached Mike.

"Hey I'm back, got the tiffin full of mom's favourite snacks ha-ha, thanks a lot again," Abhi said as he settled down and kept his tiffin back in his backpack.

"No problemo" Mike replied without moving his eyes from the computer screen.

"By the way, who was that person here just now?" Asked Abhi as he sat in the chair next to Mike.

"The manager of this establishment, just showing me some of the settings and registration process like putting in the name, phone number and other stuff," Mike replied blandly.

"Wow! This has registration built inside that is so cool. Do you have to put in that information every time? I saw you put the membership card in for one of the slots, so if it has a similar feature to the door for verification then why do you need to register?" Curiously asked Abhi as he observed Mike using the computer.

"Oh, uhm! I think they got some kinda update or something which is why we needed to refill our info, we don't have to do this every time," Said Mike. "And yes, the membership card acts as an authorisation tool, so registering your info is completely obsolete, so we obviously don't do that every time" Said Mike with the tone of a charlatan.

"I see, very fascinating. Also one more thing, I saw you giving the manager money while coming back here, is it because of me? I thought the food and other stuff was free." Abhi said with a soft tone while looking down.

"..."

"You ask a lot of questions, my friend," Mike replied while turning to his right to look at Abhi.

"I'm sorry! I was just curious, and I didn't want to burden you with anything. If my coming here cost you, I'm very sorry. I'll apologise to the manager, keep all the food back and leave, I'm really sorry." Joined his hands and looked down in shame while apologising.

"Don' worry 'bout it cuh, it's all good," Mike replied without paying attention. "The 500rs was unrelated, and even if it wasn't, it ain't that big a deal don' worry 'bout nothin cuh," Mike replied as he supported Abhi's shoulder with his hands.

Abhi looked up and finally seemed to calm down, though still in subconscious shock about how people valued 500 rupees far less than he did.

"Anyways let's play a game."

"Game?" Abhi asked with his left eyebrow raised

"Yuhuh!"

///

"Alright, I'm in" Mike launched the game and started his playthrough.

Abhi didn't say a word and kept observing, as he rested his head in his palms, and his eyes didn't leave the screen for even a second.

"So, I'm guessing you haven't played one of these before." Asked Mike blankly.

"Nope. First time seeing it, truth be told I didn't know you could even play games on it." Abhi replied.

"I see, so I'ma let yah see me play for a bit so you can get a bit of an idea of what it's about. And then I'll give you the control, alright?" Mike looked back at the curious and attentive Abhi for confirmation.

"Really? I can play too?" Abhi's eyes sparkled with excitement.

"Yessir," Mike replied frankly and went back to gaming.

"So look here, This little guy over here is what we call the 'Gaming Avatar', he is essentially 'you' inside the game," Mike said.

"Oh so kinda like Lord Vishnu's Dash Avatara?" Abhi asked in enlightenment.

"Yup, pretty much like that," Mike Replied.

Mike started to move his humanoid gaming avatar around with the use of the keyboard and mouse, while also teaching Abhi about how everything worked as Abhi watched keenly with a willingness to learn and excited attitude.

"So this game is called "One of Us". The premise is similar to a find the odd one out quiz. In a group of 6 players, a single player is chosen to be an 'Imposter'. This imposter's goal is to fool everyone into thinking that he or she isn't an imposter and stay alive till the end of the game." Mike explains the game with enthusiasm.

"That is very very interesting, but then what do the other 5 non-imposters do?" Abhi asked while paying attention to the gameplay.

The ultimate goal of the other 5 non-imposters or as we call them "friends" is to complete some tasks between each round, if they manage to do every necessary task before the imposter kills them, they win, Or if they fish out the true imposter and kick him out of the game, they also get the instant victory.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"They have the opportunity to kick out 1 member per round and there are 4 rounds total. If they fail to kick out the imposter in 4 rounds then only 1 imposter and 1 friend remain. This instantly makes the imposter win, as he kills his last friend."

"Damn! That's quite dark. Are you sure it's not scary? I don't like scary things." Abhi said with his eyebrows slightly creased.

"Ha-ha don' worry, we dressed as cats and rats cuh." Mike replied with a grin.

"Bruh!" Abhi retorted while chuckling.

"Alright, so we are all cats and the imposter is a stinkin' RAT!" Mike said with a silly accent.

"Hmm, wouldn't it make more sense for the imposter to be a cat? As a cat kills rats?"

"Don' think too deeply about it cuh. In the original version 'friends' were all sheep, and the imposter was a wolf in a sheep's skin. But the problem with the model was that it got too repetitive, you can only act like a sheep and do sheep tasks for so long. So I recommended the creator to add more animals and maybe even other fictional creatures, each with a set of unique tasks. So you can be pretty much any animal now and get its corresponding tasks both as an imposter and as a 'friend'."

"I see… wait you recommended the creator to do that?" Abhi furrowed his brows at the implications

"Uhm, yeah this game is being developed by one of our Ex-students from Kolar, this isn't even publicly available to be played outside of the social circles of Kolar," Mike explained frankly.

"Wow! That is very impressive, do all video games here come from Kolar?" Asked Abhi curiously.

"Eh, no. I just got this game through the internet right now" Mike said without making eye contact with Abhi.

"Internet…" Abhi said softly.

"You don't know about the internet?" Mike asked intently.

"Uhm well… I have heard about it ha-ha."

"That's too deep of a topic bruh I ain't teaching allat right now, let's see to it in class we just be playin' games for now cuh." Mike focused back on the game.

"Okie!"

///

The screen transitions into a pixel art background inside a mansion gallery with a wide view of a green garden and other scenery outside. At the centre of it all, the character

avatar, a classy-looking rat in a tux stood upright with his two little legs.

"Less go! We da imposter he-he-haw-ha" Mike exclaims enthusiastically.

"So at the beginning of each game, one of the players is randomly selected to be an imposter and then he/she stays the imposter for that game. This time the game is only gonna have 3 rounds," Mike explained

"Why only three rounds this time?" Abhi asked casually.

"As this game is only available to the people within the social circles of Kolar its multiplayer base isn't large, so sometimes we have to play with 4 players instead of 5, which leads to there being one less round," Mike replied.

"Makes sense. Also, If you are dressed as a… I mean if your character avatar's skin is a rat wouldn't it expose your identity as an imposter?" Abhi asked with a curious tone.

"Nope, the skins are purely decorative, You just get a rat skin by default as an imposter in this game because your character is a a rat. I can wear a lion's or an elephant's skin but I would still appear as a cat to everyone else and be a rat hidden inside." Mike replied with a frank tone.

"Wow! That's very cool." Abhi was impressed.

"Yeah, it's one of the newer features. The creator of this game is a mad perfectionist, he wants to make this game as perfect as possible before publishing it. My predictions… that ain't happing for a decade or two with this pace." Mike said with a sarcastic chuckle.

"Ha-ha, I know someone like that too…" Abhi replied.

"Oh really? Who?"

"...Uhmm… I forgor!" Abhi answered as he scratched his head.

"Huh? Well anyways let's change to the skin I actually want." Mike said as he was moving his mouse to locate something on the screen.

"You don't want the rat skin?" Abhi asked.

"Nuhuh… let me ask you something; What should an imposter do, to not look like an imposter?" Mike turned to look Abhi in the eyes.

"Hmm… maybe you understand the cats in order to better blend in with them." Abhi took a second to answer.

"Correct! And what is the undisputed best way to understand and blend in with cats?" Mike asked a rhetorical question.

Mike clicked on his mouse and opened a menu, the menu was filled with all sorts of skins and costumes. Mike quickly selected one of the skins, the skin that had huge adorable eyes, perky sharp ears, small paws with sharp retractable claws, a wiggling tail with yellowish golden fur all over, oh! And also a tux…

"The undisputed best way to understand and blend in with cats is to… BECOME a cat!" Mike said with a huge grin on his face.

"..." Abhi held in his urge to laugh out loud.

...….