It was nighttime in the park. The birds were chirping their never-ending incessant song; the cicadas buzzing a cacophony of noise. A group of teenagers were hanging out by a tree, waiting for something. Alex recognized them from school, they were seniors like him. One of them appeared to see something in the distance and pointed it out to the others. They all seemed to get excited and jostled each other, cruel looks on their faces.

                Alex couldn’t see what they were looking at, nor did he have any intention of trying to see. This situation didn’t involve him so there was no reason to draw undue attention. He had been unable to sleep, so he’d gone outside for some reason. Thinking about it, Alex decided he wasn’t too fond of being outside at night. There were too many mosquitos and the dark always made him feel paranoid, but he felt like his head would explode if he stayed inside much longer.

                He was about to head inside when he heard an only cheery voice yell out “Hey guys! I saw your text, why’d you want me to come out so late?”

                He recognized that voice, it was that guy everyone always picked on. He didn’t know his name, but he seemed like a nice guy, if a little bit too trusting. The reason he got picked on so much was his weight, he was quite a heavy guy. Alex wasn’t exactly a fitness model, he was maybe on the upper end of average, but still a healthy weight. Not this guy, you could often see him snacking on something. In fact, it looked like he had a granola bar in his hand right at that very moment.

People would often use him for his parents’ money because he was always glad to help someone if they asked. His kindness was often to his detriment.

“So, what are we doing?” the fat boy asked cheerfully. “We gonna play some video games, eat, or maybe just chat?” The fat boy looked so excited, like a golden retriever if a golden retriever was overweight, bipedal, humanoid, Asian, and lacked fur. Then again, he looked like that every time Alex saw him.

One of the teens, Alex remembered his name was Eli, seemed to ignore the fat boys questions and asked his own. Eli looked like your standard small-town all-American football player, which allowed him to get away with his behavior.

“You got any money?” he asked, looming over the fat boy threateningly. The fat boy didn’t seem to get this and cheerfully responded.

“Nope! I forgot it all at home. I came in such a hurry after I got your text.” He responded.

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to take something of equal value then.” One of Eli’s lackeys, Jeremy, said. He was a man of both short stature and fuse. Not only that, but he was unfortunate enough to have been born a redhead. Everyone knows they have no soul, and his behavior certainly doesn’t help the matter.

The group started to walk towards the fat boy, but something else grabbed their attention. A glowing line appeared, slithering along the ground. It appeared to be tracing out something.

Alex had saw enough, he was ready to leave and abandon the others to their fate. Good luck fat boy, he thought as he mentally signed the cross as his mother did so often. He himself wasn’t religious, but now wasn’t the time for that.

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However, before he was able to get away the strange glowing light seemed to pass by him before finishing. He was now in the circle.

He rushed to the edge, but there seemed to be an invisible border stopping him. Part of him knew it was useless to keep trying to escape, but he was a stubborn bastard and there was no way in hell that he’d get caught up in whatever voodoo bullshit ritual was going on. It probably had something to do with the group behind him. Of course he got caught up in all this, despite trying to avoid it.

His last thought before he fell unconscious was him cursing the teens and the gods.

And the gods heard.

He awoke in a pitch-black void, though for some reason he could see perfectly. Although that wasn’t exactly true, there were a bunch of seats and what looked to be a supernatural DMV. Humans and creatures out of myth all sat side by side in hard plastic chairs.

Everyone seemed to be in some sort of daze but him. Inspecting himself, he noticed a glowing formation under him that seemed to be identical to the one that knocked him out earlier, though significantly smaller.

Part of him wondered why he wasn’t freaking out or screaming, but he felt so emotionally drained from before that he couldn’t even muster up curiosity. He decided to sit in a nearby chair that felt ridiculously uncomfortable. Was this some kind of purgatory, he wondered. But then what was with the formation underneath him?

Speak of the devil, the formation under him glowed even more as if it somehow heard his thoughts. It ‘s intensity increased to the point where he couldn’t see anything, yet he kept his eyes open. He wasn’t going to miss this for the world.

Suddenly, the glow disappeared. He was still in the black void, maybe. The pseudo-DMV was no longer around, and neither were the people.

“Really, two of them?” an exasperated male voice said. “The rule was 5 people to form the party, who fucked up this badly?” It was deep and booming, echoing in his very bones.

“It’s not my fault, it was my first time being in charge and I got a little overwhelmed.” Another male voice sheepishly responded. It was high pitched and nasally, it felt like something was attacking his sense of hearing.

“Oh, just shut the hell up you two! I can’t risk this bickering for the next four centuries. And before you say anything, remember the last time you got into and argument? I had to listen to your back-and-forth nonsense for 439 years!” a woman’s voice yelled. “If I wasn’t immortal, I would’ve killed myself.

“Ahem, we have a visitor. Politeness is a must for hosts.” A voice that sound like a kindly old man stated.

“Ah, yes. Ahem.” The booming voice coughed. “Welcome, mortal, to the hall of gods.”

But it’s not a hall, it’s a void, Alex thought. He mentally shrugged, why argue with the voices in his head. He didn’t want to anger them.

“We chose 5 heroes to travel to another realm—"

“You mean I picked the heroes” the nasally voice interjected.

“Fine. He picked 5 heroes to travel to another realm to play a game of ours. You see, we each placed bets on which of our heroes will become the most powerful and highest level. The winner gets a portion of the others powers.”

“Why are you telling him this? It was supposed to be a secret.” The nasally voice whined. “Now he’s gonna tell the heroes that they aren’t really there to stop the demon lord.”

“I’m telling him because you pissed me off and I knew that would annoy you.”

“I have no intention of telling those assholes anything.” Alex told them.

“Good.” The nasally voice replied. “You’d ruin our fun otherwise.”

“Now, since you’re already here we’ll send you as well. However, you won’t have the backing of a god to protect you. You will have the acting method our heroes have.” The booming voice said.

Thank goodness, Alex thought. I was worried they’d send me off without some sort of cheat where I’d have to go from weak to OP all on my own.

“But… I’m still in a bad mood, so you’ll get a shitty role in our game, so you won’t fuck it all up. I did something a little different with the other guy because he pissed me off.”

Alex felt that bad feeling creep up on him again.

“Background Character #4068597”