The heat from the fire engulfs the area around me, and the only thing that can be seen is the light from the fire illuminating the surroundings and the small sliver of moonlight that breaks through the trees. I stare at the smoldering flipped car on the road the heat pounding my face “Help” I hear a young boy’s voice whisper, but I stand still.
I open my eyes slowly “another dream, just like last time” I look at my surroundings dirty clothes on the floor and scattered papers all over the desk the TV still running.
“15 children all around the age of 13 have gone missing, and this comes as unexplained disappearances all over the globe, detectives believe it could be an increase in mass human trafficking.”
“More disappearances? It seems the world gets worse every day” I say as I get off my bed.
I walk into the shower and turn on the water as I let the water heat up, I stare into the mirror that is beginning to fog, I see myself and my dark unkept hair and my violet eyes with a hint of blue that seems to pierce the fog on the mirror and the scar running down my cheek and the rest on my bear chest, which I’ve had for years, now looks natural.
I feel the water, which is now warm, so I hop in and quickly shower.
After the shower I quickly change into a white-collar shirt and some black jeans as I look around my messy room, what a mess, I head downstairs, and I look at the dusty dog bowl on the ground, the words ‘Bolt’ written on it “I hope your happy Bolt” I say as I pass the bowl.
“I’m off,” I say as I walk out the door, the house stands empty and quiet as I close the door.
As I near my college I hear a familiar voice “College is hard, right? Kiyo?” I look over and see Ken, he stands next to me, I look at him with brown hair messy as always, and brown eyes always glowing and walking around with a smile. “Yeah, it is,” I say as we walk from the campus entrance toward the main building. I met Ken when college classes began, we kept running into each other before classes began and friendly conversations got us to become pretty close friends.
We walked a sidewalk lined with dry leaves, fall seems to be transitioning into winter the chilly air piercing through my clothes.
As Ken and I walk into class I look over at Ken “Hey Ken what are your plans for tonight?” I ask but as the words leave my mouth a wave of darkness shadows my vision and I start to see a tall silhouette in Infront of me.
“Welcome, Kiyo Takahashi” I look around confused “where the hell am I?” I yell but something is wrong a feeling of fear envelops me as I look around looking for a reason why something is wrong it doesn’t feel like a hallucination and this feels too real to be a dream. “You are a chosen player” I hear from all directions. My body feels a sharp pain like a million needles piercing my skin slowly and a numbing feeling “you will become a man of this world, that pain is only temporary” I fall to my knees in agony as my surroundings go dim “A game? What do you mean? What the hell is this?” Is all I can say as my vision begins to blur, “What is this for? Why me?” I yell as I start to feel lightheaded, I try to stand up, but my legs fail to lift me. The shadow lifts his hand and conjures something, a pure silver blade appears out of thin air it shines brightly illuminating the surroundings like the sun, and he points it straight at me “For the time being you will entertain me,” the silhouette says, I look around it looks to be a room made of space-time itself, “What do you mean entertain you? Who are you? What are you” I ask the silhouette while still trying to stay conscious, whatever this thing is It’s powerful. The silhouette looks at me and although I can’t make out its face completely, I can see its face make a grin “Good luck” I hear as it pushes the sword into my chest, I feel the metal pierce my heart, and the warm feeling of blood crawling down my body.
I open my eyes and reach for my chest as I sit up in a lightly dimmed room, my head hurts, and my body aches “where am I? what the hell that felt so real” I look up and see other beds with some people in them, most seem to be asleep.
I hear heavy breathing coming from my right, I look over and see a guy sitting up in bed. The guy looks a bit younger maybe around 18, his messy blonde hair and glasses with sharp blue eyes “Hey” I say as he starts to look up, his breathing gets lighter, it seems he has good self-control “ugh my head” he holds his head in pain and looks around, he looks slightly disoriented.
I try to remember the silhouette and what it said, “For the time being you will entertain me,” Entertain? Apparently, we are in a game, we are some sort of entertainment to that silhouette. The silhouette grinned at me, what a snarky bastard, what could it be? This headache won’t let me think straight.
“Where are we?” the blonde guy finally speaks to me, and both of us are clearly in pain, “it seems we are in some sort of game,” I tell him.
His breathing gets heavy once again, but he calms it down a lot faster “but why us?” he looks up at me with a confused look. “I don’t know,” I say as I look around at the other people in the room it seems there are 7 of us with only 2 of us awake.
“What’s your name?” I ask “Hiroshi,” he says while looking at me with a smile, but his eyes still hold fear.
“What’s your name?”
“Kiyo Takahashi”
I say as I start to get up from the bed. The room seems to be a narrow cabin-like structure with a little stove and 7 beds in the same room, a small bathroom, and a single door that must lead to the outside and not a single window to look outside, it feels like a prison. There is a small bag in the corner of the cabin it might have something inside, I shouldn’t leave the building yet, not alone at least.
“Hello, where am I?” I hear from the other side of the cabin.
“Hello,” another voice says.
“What the hell” yet another voice says.
Everyone starts to wake up and realize the situation we are in. Then I hear some people start to cry, 3 of the guys and 1 girl were on the beds near the door panicking, and they start to breathe heavily, then they start to panic.
Their panicking is futile in this situation “You guys need to calm down, panicking won’t fix anything,” I say as I look at the people panicking.
“Who the hell are you to tell me to calm down? I was about to get married and now I’m God knows where” a guy on the edge of his bed with groomed black hair and blue eyes with a polished black suit stands up.
“I need to get back right now I never chose to be here,” He says as he walks toward me tearing up with both anger and sorrow in his eyes, “Nobody chose to be here,” I tell him as he continues to walk toward me “So calm dow-” I try to say but the guy grabs my collar and pulls me closer to him, I look at him and calmly clasp his wrist with my hand, Hiroshi steps up and stands between us “Now isn’t the time guys, we need to figure out what to do” he yells as he pushes us apart.
I look around at everyone who’s awake, they are still trying to grasp the situation at hand, the guy who grabbed my collar slowly sets me down and walks back to his bed, sits down, and holds his head in his hands.
*Ring Ring*
A noise starts to sound from all around and a black square object appears at the end of the cabin, and an image appears, Is it a television? No this isn’t right it’s just floating. The screen shows a planet that looks a lot like images of the earth from space, but this planet has a beautiful blue and magenta ring surrounding it, it glowed compared to the dark space surrounding it.
“HELLOOO, Welcome to Niburus,” A high pitched voice says, it pans over the ring on the planet with a lush green forest all around and what looks to be some enormous cities in it, they remind me of Tokyo “you are here in the land of Osiris,” the voice says as it pans toward the far western side of the planet.
“You are now part of our lord’s game, and if you want to return to your world you have to participate. There are 7 objects you must acquire known as the ‘Artifacts of the beginning’ by any means necessary, and there are 13 teams, the 7 people you are with now are your new teammates.”
I look around and look at my team I see most of them are up and sitting on their beds now paying attention to the voice, 6 others and me, everyone else looks to be around 18-26 in age.
“You will be given 1 month to get ready,” The voice says as the screen splits into 7 smaller black ball objects “This is called a watcher you can use it to contact each other and the other groups, but I wouldn’t recommend contacting the others.”
It’s A lot like a phone I think to myself, how interesting, these could come in handy. “Good luck and don’t forget, if you want to return you have to participate but if you don’t-“ the voice lets out a cackle “Just make sure to give us a good show”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
What is this? Some sort of God’s game? Do we have to participate, is that the only option? Will they really end us?
After collecting our thoughts and calming down Hiroshi suggested we should all introduce ourselves, “My name is Jay Rivera” the man with the suit says as he looks at everyone, he is around the same height as me, but he has a very well-kept beard, and his skin tone seems to be a little darker than mine, he looks to be from a Latin-American country. “Hey, are you Japanese?” I ask him, and he looks up at me with a confused look on his face “I’m Mexican” he says, how curious, it seems that we might be from different parts of the world, yet we can understand each other, maybe we have some sort of language filter helping us communicate.
I look around, I see a slim guy a bit shorter than me with long black hair that covers half his face and a blue shirt with black jeans. He keeps staring at the ground not looking up at me “What’s your name” I look at him and ask, he looks up at me, he looks tired with bags under his eyes “My name is Isaac” he says while staring at me “Nice to meet you, Isaac, anyone else?” Hiroshi exclaims, it seems he has taken the leading position he must be used to leading groups of people.
“How about you,” He says while asking the long black-haired girl who is sitting far from the rest of the group, she has silky long black hair and eyes that seem to be made of the bluest part of the ocean and she’s wearing a long black hoodie with grey pants, she looks around and then looks down toward the hard wooden floor, she hesitates for a second “Abby,” she says while looking at the floor she seems more scared than anyone else.
“Nice to meet you, my name is Hiroshi,” Hiroshi says while looking around before making eye contact with me implying I should go next, guess it’s my turn.
“Hey, my name is Kiyo,” I say as I also look around, all the other people still look on edge while trying to adamantly pay attention.
“Hey there, I’m Nataly” a dark-skinned girl with dyed red hair speaks up with full confidence, she is wearing a red hoodie with black jeans and her hair braided into 1 ponytail hanging low. I look over but I can only see 6 of us I look around and see someone still in bed hiding beneath their blankets. Did he sleep through all of that?
“I think we might be missing one,” I say while pointing at the guy in bed.
“Hey there,” Hiroshi says while pushing him lightly to wake him up.
“5 more minutes,” the person laying down says.
Hiroshi looks at me with a ‘What the hell is he serious?’ look on his face I shrug at him.
He looks back at the guy and pushes him some more until he falls off the bed.
“Even in another world I can never get any good sleep huh?” the guy says as he sleepily wakes up and looks around.
“Huh?” he looks around confused “what the hell are you guys doing?”
He looks to be strong, an athlete maybe? but his hair is messy his brown eyes have bags under them.
He looks around “Is someone going to answer me or are you guys just going to stare?” he says with confusion in his voice.
“Oh, sorry but we are your teammates, I’m surprised you slept through the whole introduction,” Hiroshi says with a nervous laugh.
“Yeah, I heard all of it, that danm voice didn’t let me sleep, why are you waking me up?”
“Well, you see we were brought here against our will and now we are being forced to play some sort of game you see, so what’s your name? We were just introducing ourselves.”
“Huh? I don’t care” the guy says as he starts to fall back asleep.
“Can you at least tell us your name?” Hiroshi asks.
“Shin Takeda,” he says as he closes his eyes and tries to sleep.
“Well Shin you need to get up now,” Jay says as he steps up and pulls the blanket off Shin
“Who the hell are you to tell me what to do? Shin leaps out of bed, grabs Jason by the throat, and slams him against the wall.
Jay struggles to get him to let go “H-H-hey get this bastard off me” he yells, Hiroshi rushes in to push them apart but as he does Shin lets go of Jason and grabs Hiroshi by his arm and slams him against the ground *Ughh* Hiroshi exclaims as he is slammed into the ground.
I walk toward them and look at Shin “You shouldn’t hurt your teammates” I say, “Get out of my face” he yells as he swings at me, I step back and he misses me, I can’t let him hit me, he looks strong, his punch might be enough to break a bone.
*tsk* “Whatever,” he says as he lets go of Jay.
“We need to see what’s outside,” Hiroshi says as he brushes off his shoulders, he can really keep his cool “how about you come with me Kiyo, and you too Jason,”
“All right,” Jason says as he gets up off the floor, he walks toward us he and Shin glare at each other.
I head to the door a shimmer of light starts to break through as I open the door and we look outside the warmth of the sun hitting our faces and slightly blinding us as our eyes adjust to the light.
“Whoa,” we all say as we look at the landscape the beautiful green ground with the grass and plants of many different shades. The trees billowed with the wind and the light blue sky was covered with white clouds, and there it was the giant ring around the planet still glowing a blue and magenta even with the sun out. “What the hell,” Jason says.
“How beautiful,” Hiroshi says as he stares at the rings.
I look inside the cabin through the door and back at the giant ring that is glowing in the sky.
“You guys should look out here” Hiroshi yells toward the cabin. Everyone starts to walk out “whoa” “That’s amazing” everyone yells as they look at the new world in Infront of us, it almost seems like the fear in their eyes is gone just looking at the beautiful landscape.
I look around and as I look over at the cabin one of the black objects from earlier flies out, I’m able to step away right on time, but it flies past me straight at Hiroshi and smacks him in the head *BAM*
“What the hell was that” Hiroshi yells as he rubs the bruise on his forehead and picks up the object that fell on the floor.
“You have been chosen as the leader” the device yells in a robotic-sounding voice “leader?” Hiroshi says as he looks around “Yeah, so far you’ve been the calmest one out of all of us” Nataly says with a warm smile, “yeah seems like you got a knack for this” Jay says, “I think you should too” I say, I might not trust him, but he is good at leading a group.
“Fine I think I can do it if everyone is okay with it,” Hiroshi says as he looks around for everyone’s approval everyone nods except for Shin who is in the back of the crowd that’s gathered around Hiroshi.
“What do you say Shin” Hiroshi asks while he looks at him “Whatever,” Shin says as he looks away toward the trees waving in the distance, Jason glares at Shin but Shin still looks toward the trees almost as if he was yearning for something.
“All right, well we might be here against our will, and I know we are all scared, and we want to get back to our homes and families but for some reason, we are here, it’s going to be a hard journey but there is no other choice, so please I hope you guys will join me and we can all get back home,” Hiroshi says as he bows his head lightly.
Everyone looks at Hiroshi with smiles and nods except for Shin who is still looking away. “All right then let’s go back inside we need to talk about our next move,” we all slowly make our way back to the cabin, everyone slowly follows him even Shin.
Hiroshi looks at the black object in his hand and taps it as he does a screen pops up on the object he plays around with it some more and a hologram pops up, it looks like the planet, he zooms in and everyone watches in awe, a bright blue dot on the screen shows up with a little person on it, “This looks like it’s might be me” he says as he watches the blue dot, he moves around the map and he spots something “There” he says as he zooms in to a small spot on the hologram of the planet. “We should head here first; we can find out more from the locals if there are any and maybe even get some food and supplies,” he says as he looks away from the hologram and at everyone. “Wait, how can we even know if they speak English?” Nataly says while staring at Hiroshi “How do we even know anyone is there?”
“Well, I noticed this earlier, but it seems we can understand each other even though we don’t speak the same language,” I say while I walk around the hologram, everyone looks around at each other finally realizing that they can understand each other. “So, you think this is how we can understand them?"
“Yes, at least that’s what I think,”
“Here everyone,” Hiroshi says as he gives away the black objects from earlier “We need a name for these things,” Nataly says, “I don’t want to call them watchers it seems like a weird name.”
Hiroshi lets out a small laugh “how about shadows?” Hiroshi says as he smiles “why shadows?” She asks “ I just thought it would sound cool!”, “Yeah? Okay? Well, anyone have better ideas?” Nataly says as she smiles playfully at Hiroshi the room stays quiet.
“All right shadows they are," Hiroshi says as he hands out the final one to Shin which he takes reluctantly.
“So, what’s the plan Hiroshi?” I say as I play around with the shadow, “well first we must get to the city, the shadow says it’s a day and a half by foot, and it also says that it’s a moderately dangerous route. I don’t think we should risk everyone going”, “Well true” I say if everyone went and got cornered by something then no one would be able to come help.
“So, we will send a group to go while another group stays here, we can keep in contact through the shadows”,
“All right, but who is going to go?”
“Well, that’s a hard question to answer, it’s hard for me to decide, so does anyone want to volunteer?”
The room stays quiet, “No one? Seriously?”
“Well, what do you expect no one wants to go into an unknown world and risk getting injured or worse” Nataly speaks up.
As I play around with the shadow, “Hey! Kiyo are you paying attention??” I hear Hiroshi yelling into my ear, “Huh? Oh yeah,” I say and look over “okay, I was looking around and there isn’t any food in here, so we have to go get more supplies or we will die, so then does anyone want to volunteer now?” Hiroshi asks.
It might not be such a good idea to go but I see no other option, my chances of survival are slim if I go alone but if I were to go with a team we might actually pull it off without getting killed, “All right then I’ll go, but I need some people to go with me” I say as I look around, I have never been one to step up or be the ‘hero’ of the story but letting myself just die of starvation wouldn’t be a good way to go out.
Everyone looks away “what if we all go?” Hiroshi says “we will have a higher chance of making it”, “good point I was thinking of going with a smaller group- “
*RING* An echo comes from the shadows we all look at our own and a list pops up, “Pick your class?”, the list is long with many options, hunter, mage, healer, and a lot more but my eye is caught by one, the words light up as I click the words on the shadow, unbound spirit, no description but for some reason my eyes are drawn to it “you have chosen” the shadow rings, everyone else has picked a class as I look around, this reminds me of older RPG’s where the class gives you special skills to be able to maneuver the world.
I look around and the shadows all float from everyone’s hand and display their chosen class, everyone looks around in awe as we process the words around us, Jay the archer, Hiroshi the crown, Isaac the hunter, Abby the mage, Nataly the healer, and I look over at Shin and the words above him, Shin the Assassin.
“Interesting seems like we all chose a different class”, “yeah” everyone looks at me and the words, Inei the unbound spirit “Whoa that sounds really cool,” says Nataly who stares at the words displayed from the shadow “Yeah she’s right that sounds really cool”, I look out the door which is still open “Should we head out?” I say as I look around, none of them look as scared as when we first got here.
I grab all the gold coins, put them in the bag, give them to Hiroshi, and we all get ready to leave, “All right then you ready?” I ask Hiroshi “Yeah,” He says as we all start heading out we walk into the forest and continue on the path to the nearest city.