“Hey little drop! Congratulations!” Rider greeted his sister. Her brother had always been extremely supportive of her and today was no different.

“To think, my little sister would already have a bachelors at twenty! You must have taken all the good genes in the family! After all, there is no way you worked harder than I did!” Kairi smiled at her brother's teasing.

“Oh? I suppose all those gaming figurines in your closet were just research then?” Kairi prodded back.

“Games are an essential part of my being and happiness, though that is something I am sure that one as uneducated as yourself wouldn’t understand.” He said with an immaculately straight face.

“Still though, it's hard to see you like this,” he said with mocking sadness in his voice, “My sweet baby sister is all grown up and ready to take on the world. It brings tears to my eyes!” he brought his hand up to his face and sniffled.

“Har har, I have to grow up someday and I won't always be dependent on you and dad.” she said mirroring his own mocking.

“Tell that to them,” he said, pointing behind Kairi.

She turned and saw her father and mother walking down the school's concrete sidewalk. Her mother was gorgeous. She had a dress that tightened and amplified her already beautiful frame and her long, silky, blond hair. Her face was smooth and her green emerald eyes shone like the sun on a dark night.

Her father, ever the businessman, was dressed in a black suit with a sky blue tie down his neck. They looked so perfect together. As they came up into range her brother spoke out again.

“That’s so unfair,” he said with genuine displeasure this time, “Who do I need to kill to look that good.”

“First start by getting a job, I’m telling you boy, playing that many games is not healthy.”

“People get jobs for money and I’m set for life,” Rider retorted.

Her brother had purchased a large section of land after buying a share in his fathers company. Years later, it was known as “Rider’s Resort” and after hiring others to take care of it, his money problems had been solved. Nowadays, he spends his time playing games and streaming on Smitch.

“Boys, this is Kairi’s special day, must you argue like this every time?” Her mother asked.

“Yes” they both responded in unison.

Her mother scoffed, “Children! Congratulations honey, I’m so proud of you!” she said as she pulled her into a hug. As she did so, the men of the family looked on, an awkward look on their face.

“Get in here, edge lords.” With that last call from her mother, the men begrudgingly entered into the family circle. She felt so loved, and she hoped this moment would never end. Kairi was pulled from her reminiscing as the wooden door creaked open. Walking in were the people she had called and they all sat in the seats she had prepared for them…

“What is this about?” A question had been asked, pulling Kairi from her memory. Dirt and grime smeared the face of Minato, the young teen who had spoken. His black T-shirt had been worn down from extended use. A pair of blue jeans barely covered hardly anything due to the many holes in the fabric. The black bags under his hazel eyes belied the alertness in his gaze. The boy had slanted eyes and accented English, portraying his Japanese heritage. His head tilted to one side and his eyes twitched slightly as he spoke.

He, along with some ten others were gathered around a table in an old home on the outskirts of the city. All in a similar state to the first. They sat in a living room, a table from the kitchen moved to suit their needs. Shelves lined on one wall of the room showcased antiques of various make in glass paned furniture, neatly aligned. A TV sat in the corner, and many other pieces of furniture lay moved slightly from the wall to accommodate the still unseated people. Jessica, another taller woman in the group, had closed the blinds on the windows, obscuring their view of the outside world. This would also serve as a barrier for unwanted guests doing the same from the outside. Kairi found comfort in the girl's wariness. She squeezed the soft carpet between her toes on her hard and calloused feet, as to draw courage from them, and breathed deeply and deliberately before responding to the young Japanese male.

“The first monsters in the next wave have just been sighted.” Kairi spoke quickly, attempting to cover up the previous moment of hesitation. She could not let herself become anxious, lest lose the attention of the people around her. People needed a voice of reason, and she could not act as that voice if she appeared unsure. Eyes fell silently on her, alarm written on their faces, and she continued. “We are at a mere fraction of where we started, anyone over the age of twenty has disappeared, and the vast majority of what is left has been cut down to a mere four-hundred people, just under one-tenth of where we stood before. As more time passes more and more of us are being slaughtered by the day, without any means of protection, and I have gathered all of you here to discuss solutions to this problem and go over the information we have so far.” Kairi explained. She looked over the small crowd of people, taking in their expressions. She opened her mouth once again before being interrupted by a brutish voice.

“Does that mean that the star falls have been confirmed to cause the beast waves?” A boy intercepted. Josh, the boy who had spoken, had a muscular body and gruff face, with long hair flowing roughly down his neck. He shifted and winced as he adjusted the white bandage straps covering the majority of his muscular upper torso.

“We have confirmed a correlation at the very least.” Kairi reasoned, “This is the third time we have confirmed sightings of monsters the day after the star fall, which have been sighted outside the city several times by this point. The most common theory on how the monsters kept coming in seemingly endless numbers, is that the star fall is causing them to spawn, or that they were the stars falling to the earth.”

“While that's unfortunate, it does mean that it is time to start discussing alternatives, before we get into that however, do you have anything else to report?” Jessica, the oldest among their group said. She had blond hair that no doubt used to be beautiful. But now days of perspiration and dirt soiled the hair, resulting in a mess of stray and matted hairs.

Kairi’s chest tightened, and she felt the moment she had been dreading finally arrive. She still remembered the screams. “Umm… I-” Her voice caught in her throat as Kairi locked eyes with Skyler. A blond haired boy with freckles, a large scar peeking out of his right sleeve.

“Go on…” encouraged Jessica.

“Y-yes…” Kairi stuttered forward, struggling to say the words she knew had to be spoken. And took one last, unsteady breath. “The other day, my team and I had a run-in with a particularly large monster, a white furred ape-like creature resembling what I imagine bigfoot looks like. We were patrolling the east part of the city when we saw it. I led the group away in a panic. We began running and ducked into a nearby shipping building. There we managed to hide from the creature for a little while, but unfortunately it found us. I still remember the sound of it sniffing at the air for our scent. It stuck its nose to the door before Henry told us to run.” Kairi paused again. She began sobbing as she struggled to force the words out of her mouth. The entire world crushing her shoulders. “I- I'm sorry.” Kairi watched as tears fell through blurry eyes as the room fell silent. She could not look up for fear of what she would see.

“Y-you…” Skylar trailed. He couldn’t seem to finish the sentence. Kairi felt a warm hand touch her on the shoulder, and she looked up slightly, seeing one of the young teenagers who had been there during the incident, his eyes full of sympathy. He seemed ready to speak before Skylar interrupted.

“You can’t mean that… you're lying!” He shouted, voice like poison formed of words. “You're lying!” He lunged over the side of the table, but was held back by Josh and Rex, a man of average if not fit physique and wearing an expensive looking suit, and well kept hair that somehow seemed to survive the last few months. “It wasn’t he-” Rex grunted in pain as Skylar forced his elbow into his nose, causing it to bleed.

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“You little shit!” Rex yelled, a dangerous look in his eyes. Josh stepped forward, interceding a punch from Rex aimed at Skyler. Josh winced in pain and Rex immediately shifted from fighting to helping Josh. Rex appeared almost visibly fuming from his ears as he pulled Josh up from the floor. The room erupted in a collective of yelling and fighting as the group began holding Skyler back.

“This is your fault!” Skyler cried. His arms flailed about, hitting and throwing anybody who objected to his path towards Kairi. Grabbing her collar and pulling the taller woman down to his level, spittle flying from his mouth as he screamed. “You were supposed to be in charge, it should have been you!” Kairi’s chest began to give as fear and adrenaline began to rush through her body before Skylar flew across the room like a ragdoll.

Rex had had enough, he stood from where he had been helping Josh sit and marched across the room. But he was not the first person on the scene. With a loud thump, Skyler was taken off of his feet and his face immediately began to bruise where it had been hit. Towering over his body Josh stood, eyes hardened, “It should have been you? That's a load of horse shit! Who are you to decide who lives and who dies! What do you think we have been doing, sending people off to their deaths for nothing!?” The room fell silent as Josh showed a side that was rarely seen from the calm and collected boy.

“No, if you want a say in whether we live or die, you can make your own team and survive on your own. But we are all working to be a part of this. You can accept that, or not, I don’t care. But If you ever say something like that again, I will personally throw you to the monsters. Now get a hold of yourself.” Kairi stared in shock as Josh angrily held Skyler up by the collar as he spoke.

Josh dropped Skyler and the boy immediately fell to the ground with a thud. Skyler looked like he had been hit by a train, staring at the ceiling in confusion before tears began to well in his eyes.

“He said we would make it together…” Skyler’s tear streaks parted the dirt marring his face. Revealing the child that hid beneath.

There was silence around the room as Josh returned to his seat. Unflinching from the injuries covering his body as he slowly sat down, face somber.

Rex was at a loss for words. He had known Josh since they were kids and he never got angry. The room stayed in deafening silence with the exception of Skyler’s cries. Eventually, he got a hold of himself and the discussion moved on.

“Let’s talk, friend.” Minato said softly as he pulled Skyler up from the floor of the room. He patted him on the back gently as they left the room, momentarily glancing behind him as he closed the door. Jessica coughed quietly, grabbing the attention of the remaining people occupying the room.

“Well, with that distraction out of the way, shall we discuss other matters? For example, what’s our food situation?” she asked. Jessica pushed her chair in and sat up quietly, hands resting clamped together on the table top, taking control of the conversation.

A lanky man with black hair stood up, seeming almost enthusiastic to move on to a new topic. “We have enough food to sustain ourselves for another thirty days at the most. What we do have comes from the stores around town whose food hasn’t been poisoned by the monsters. Every team that has left the city returns sick and have all died within days of their return. Also we have confirmed the lethality of eating the monster meat.” he stated in a business tone that was betrayed by his sour expression. Fortunately, the hospital had enough medicine, food, and materials to keep them alive for the time being.

“And a solution?” Jessica asked. “We don’t have the resources to continue hiding from the monsters, and if something doesn't change, then I fear we are all going to die in this hell hole.”

Josh stood up, a resolute look on his face, “We need to send a team of people to the location where the star falls are happening. Maybe if we send someone there, they can stop the monsters from coming, or remove whatever keeps enraging them.”

“We can’t do that you idiot, did you not hear it said before that none come back alive when they leave the city?” Rex said.

“I don’t intend to come back alive.” Josh said with gravel in his voice.

Realizing that this had been the man's intention from the beginning, the man in the business suit looked at his friend, and for the first time that anyone in this room had seen, he smiled. “Well shit, guess I’m going, too.”

Josh looked back at him in confusion, “Didn’t see that one coming.”

“Piss off.” Rex retorted..

“I-I’m going as well,” Kairi said, emotions affecting her moments before fading. “We will leave when the next star fall starts. We will not make it through the oncoming wave of monsters. Plus we can use the week to say goodbye to the friends we’ve made.”

Objections were raised, but the truth of the matter was, they didn’t have any other choice. And the proposition was accepted. One thing was clear for Kairi, no matter what happened, between the three of them, they would stop the monsters from coming.

____________________________________________________________________________

Opening his eyes for the first time. Riolu saw a field of grass spearing up from the ground. It shimmered black in color and shined like blades under the moonlight provided by the blue sphere that hung overhead. Across the meadow, large white crystals rose out of the ground. They gave off a dull white light providing even further ambiance. In the sky, Riolu saw what looked like hundreds of shooting stars, or perhaps it was a meteor shower.

The scene was enough to take his breath away, however his awe was soon interrupted as the cold prison he was in finished ejecting him. It wasn’t until he started falling that he realized how high up he was.

He felt the wind caress his face serving as a warning to the black blades of grass rushing towards him. Desperately, to protect his delicate face, he shoved his hand forward and landed onto the ground, a sharp pain rising from his finger that served as the cushion to his fall.

“AH! SONOVA…” Riolu’s voice trailed off as he began dancing around the beautiful meadow like a chicken with its head cut off. Smothering his finger in a vain attempt to dull the pain.

This carried on for longer than he would like to admit, but eventually, Riolu managed to regain his bearings and only slightly winced with every throb of his finger.

“Look on the bright side Riolu, at least you can move it. And who knows, if you're lucky, there’s no fracture.”

Riolu’s habit of talking to himself served to calm him down. And soon, he found himself looking all around him, truly taking in the beautiful scenery.

“Where am I? And what happened? Is this some kind of afterlife? I know they say you aren't supposed to head into the light at the end of the tunnel but if what I’m seeing here is anything to go by, then those people were sorely mistaken.”

He walked over and placed his hands on one of the white crystals that grew out of the earth. It felt smooth and hard, and he felt the energy he conned as Energy ‘A’ pulse, almost like a heartbeat. As he did so, he idly noted that some of the crystals nearby were gray. No that wasn’t right, it was more like they were dull, the luminosity less vibrant than the one before him. Some of the crystals shone brighter than others.

He turned to the place he had been before. There, he saw a crystal standing at almost forty meters high, with a diameter of half that distance. It was truly colossal. Looking around, If one was to peer across the meadow surrounding it, they would find that there were no crystals in sight that measured up to even half the size of the one Riolu came from.

His was by far the most dull to the point that if you weren’t paying attention, you could easily say it wasn't glowing at all. It was as if all of life had been pulled from it. And if Riolu’s musings were correct, that might actually be what happened.

“Was that some kind of egg or incubator of some kind? Am I in some kind of nest?” Riolu thought, turning his attention back to the crystal in front of him.

It was quite a bit smaller than his own, roughly a tenth of the size. That's not to say that this one was small by any means, just that this one was smaller than his own.

He thought about what that could mean but was rudely interrupted as a bright light shone from his right.

Turning, he saw one of the smallest crystals out of the bunch, standing at only a meter tall, shining brilliantly.

Before his eyes, Riolu watched as one of the “shooting stars” fell from the sky and landed on the crystal. The crystal’s surface rippled like water, changing from its prior luminosity to a dull color, matching that of his own.

Around six seconds later, the surface of the crystal parted, revealing one of the cutest bunnies that Riolu had ever seen. It soon also fell to the floor, though only for around half a meter.

Its fur was white as snow and looked so well kept that the breeze made it look majestic. Its eyes were two solid balls of red that shone like rubies in the light.

It kicked at the air as it righted itself from the fall and its black nose twitched with the wind. It turned and gazed at Riolu, the eyes so beautiful, seeming ice cold.

He stood there, like a deer in headlights. Up until this point, Riolu would have said that this was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. But there was something about that bunny's gaze.

It was like being stared at by a hawk, and those ruby eyes so beautiful before, now seemed to shine with a promise. It was like every warning signal in his body fired off at once before the creature ever even moved. But when it did, it did not take Riolu long to understand why.

The albino bunny opened its mouth, and in the dark maw of the creature were two fangs surrounded by other smaller razer teeth.

It let out a screech that had no place coming from the mouth of such a small creature and, like a gunshot had fired, the deathmatch had begun.