[?????]

He wasn't hungry.

He was supposed to be hungry.

But hunger passed him by, as did tiredness, as did needing to use the washroom or even rub his eyes.

He was briefly aware of these things, but his mind didn't work correctly. Not yet, anyway. Memories of paved streets, of buses and cars, of screens and headphones, of streetlights at night seemed completely opposed to the situation he had found himself in now. What had happened? Who was he? Where did he come from and how did he get into this mess?

Thoughts half-formed occupied his mind until he finally groped his way out of utter darkness.

A slit of light. He walked through it to find himself on a mountaintop. The smell of dew assaulted his nose - Morning? How long had he been in that absolute darkness?

A puddle of water on the ground. He bent over. Not to drink, because he wasn't thirsty, but to see.

A young man looked back at him. Early twenties, maybe? Short spiky black hair, no stubble. His features did not make his ethnicity easy to discover. If you looked at him from the side, perhaps he was Mediterranean, but if you looked at him from head-on he looked Asian. Mixed, he concluded, but of what he couldn't tell.

All normal features, except for the eyes. Pitch black sclerae, so dark that no reflection could be seen across their surface. In that yawning abyss were settled orbs of shocking yellow, bright enough to light up the night sky. The sight of his own eyes startled him, and in that moment of shock it was as if the cobwebs were wiped from his mind.

Then a little window, the same colour as his irises, appeared in the air.

[WELCOME, CAIN THOMPSON]

"...What the hell."

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[THE SILVER SEAT - LAMPLIGHT ABBEY]

The click-clacking of pieces filled the large office air as the game proceeded. Vibrant hues cast by the sunset streamed through the window, casting an orange glow over the proceedings.

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The curtains blew in the wind, and occasionally the breeze would hit the windchimes hung above the window, creating a gentle melody that accompanied the noises occurring below.

“Ballista, F10.”

Two men sat against each other. One was a middle-aged man of seemingly distinguished character, dressed in an elegant overcoat. He looked for all the world like a member of the nobility, save for the green skin and large fangs protruding out of his lower lip.

The other was a younger and shorter man with silver hair who wore the uniform of a butler. He had been the one to make the move.

The green man picked up one of the wooden pieces, rubbing it gently while considering his next move.

“Archer, C8.”

The scene was serene, until it was not.

BANG!

A robed figure burst in from the doorway. Both of the sitting men looked upward.

“S-sir! A new star! Seen in the Eastern quadrant!”

The face of the woman who had just burst into the room was pale, and her shoulders were heaving. She looked up, a ghastly expression upon her face. Dread, that’s what it was called.

“A new Player has descended!”

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[?????]

He was... had been... A university student? Unemployed?

Can't remember. Whenever he tried to, his head hurt.

Visions of a city. Cold. Rainy. He knew the names of places. Asia, Africa, America, Europe... Where was he from? What did he do?

Cain Thompson, since that's what the window called him, shook his head vigorously.

From the entrance of the cave, he had spotted what looked to be a little village, chimneys with smoke rising into the air. A destination as good as any. It took him the entire day to come down from the mountain, and it gave him some time to sort out his thoughts and get them in order.

The brain fog that he felt trapped by had almost completely lifted now. He had memories of things and concepts, but anything about his own life was a big, fat blank. He knew what cars were, but he didn't know if he owned one. If it weren't for the window popping up, he wouldn't even remember his own name.

He raised a hand to his stomach. He still wasn't hungry.

It wasn't until night fell that he received another jolt to the system as he stared at the sky.

Three moons.

Wherever the heck he was, he wasn't in Kansas anymore.