--Sky's Perspective--

I felt a cold breeze gently caress my face, opening my eyes to the bright sunshine. I lifted my body off of the grainy sand underneath me, rubbing my head as it pulsed with pain. I guess I had been asleep or dreaming... but for how long? Where was I? Nothing seemed familiar to me, not my hands, not this scenery.

"Ah! He's not dead!" I heard a girl's voice stunned as I rubbed my eyes and opened them to face backward. Standing next to her were three other people, all with different features. The only exception was the two men who had the same color of eyes: Brown.

The girl speaking with the light-colored hair stunned me. I wanted to respond, but I found myself speechless until one of the men started talking.

"'Sup, I'm Carl. This is Domin, Dani, and Red. What's your name?" One of the men said. It seemed that Dani had been the one talking to me originally, and Carl was the taller man with brown eyes.

At first, I didn't know how to respond. I wasn't sure what my name was, but it felt like it was close to being on the tip of my tongue. While lost in my thoughts, I felt a surge of even more pain hit the left side of my head next to my eye. Words appeared in the center of my left eye with red lining around the text. Even if I didn't know anything, I could still easily read it.

[System Alert! Name is Registered as Sky]

[Authority: 0]

I focused on the text. If I wanted to look past it, I easily could, but reading it was more enticing than looking at the ocean in front of me.

"He was the last one to wake up. Now that's all of us." Red explained. The text vanished and I looked ahead at the several other people just wandering on the beach. Just like the rest of us, they were confused, looking all around. Some of them stared at their bodies like they didn't belong.

"What is this? Where are we?" I asked, watching everybody move strangely. Carl slapped me in the back.

"I asked you what your name was. I'm going to refer to you as nothing. So, what is it?" He repeated. I forgot about his initial question. Everything was far too surprising around

both of us.

"It's Sky. Nice to meet you. Now, what is this? Where are we?" I asked. Everybody shook their heads. A sense of dread and worry began to overtake my mind. I couldn't remember anything before. Who were these people? Who am I? What are these words in my eyes?

I had a limitless number of questions as I walked closer to the beach. My shoes hit the wet sand as the waves climbed up the shore. The water was cold. Way too cold for any time of the year other than the winter...

[System Alert: The date is December 17, 2445]

"It's December? Why is it so late in the year?" I asked everybody, but they just looked at me with confused stares.

"How do you know what month it is?" Dani asked.

"You didn't see the words in your eye?" I asked her, pointing right under my left eye.

I soon found out that she didn't see the words, nor did everybody else. The words were exclusive to me, as was a shining White Stone on the back of my left hand.

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It was simply a diamond-shaped stone sticking out of my hand. It appeared as if it would block me from using the complete function of my left hand, but it formed accordingly no matter how I bent it, whether in a fist shape or an open palm.

"Woah, cool rock. Where did you find that?" Domin asked me.

"I woke up with it. Nobody else has one?" I asked, looking around to see if any prominent glow. There wasn't a single person with the same glow as me.

"So, you're our timekeeper then! See, now everybody has a job!" Dani smiled as she reassured me.

"Dani, you still need a job. Being a 'taste tester' does not count." Domin replied. Dani looked the opposite way with a pout.

I watched them argue about eating sand or something. Every person here seemed so okay with the fact that we don't remember anything. Just by looking at the other people talking on the beach, I could tell we were all confused, yet so content with it.

"Carl, it's that mean guy again," Red said, hiding behind Carl. I looked behind them to see a muscular man walk with his shoulders out. He looked annoyingly confident, sort of pretentious. I prepared for the worst while seeing his sour look.

"Yo, Bitch Boy, you ready to listen now?" The man said. He soon introduced himself as Ullr. He explained that he was the strongest man on the beach and deserved to be the leader.

"Why do we need a leader? We're capable of controlling ourselves, aren't we?" I asked him. He threw his head back in laughter that sounded like it was meant to belittle me.

"Another scrawny kid? Are you kidding me?! What is it with you guys?! Listen, we're all lost and need guidance, and that's where I come in. I have people building fires and shelters, and what are you two doing besides staring at the fucking sky? You can either join my ranks or get the hell out of here." Ullr walked off after yelling at us.

"Geez, what's his problem? Those people are just standing around too." Dani said, walking towards the beach.

"Are you seriously walking over to him? You can't join him, that would be giving him power!" Red complained, "He's way too rude to be the one who represents us all."

I walked off from the group and met Ullr and two of his friends sitting by a campfire. Dani profusely tugged against my shirt as I finally arrived at Ullr, she then proceeded to hide behind me when Ullr turned his head towards me.

"Finally think about your decision? If you want work to do, go help those people over there." Ullr said, pointing in front of him. The people were sitting about fifty feet away from the forest behind us in the middle of the beach with a campfire in the middle of a circle formed with rocks. They sat equidistant from the fire, holding their hands out to warm up.

"No. I'm here to call you an idiot." I told him. Ullr stood up and turned around, walking up to me and getting closer to my face. He was about four inches taller than me, but the difference in muscles was far too great.

"I think I might've misheard you. Wanna try that again?" Ullr asked me. I promptly shook my head. I was confident the way he went about this was wrong, and somebody needed to tell him.

"You won't get anybody to listen to you by threatening them. Try being their friend first. I won't listen to you, but hopefully, everybody else will. I'll start packing my things." I told him. As soon as I turned around, Ullr slammed his fist into my face and sent me to the ground. With a face full of sand, I pushed myself back up as several people started to gather around us.

"Yeah, I figured you were about that weak. Tell me again, why I should listen to you?" Ullr asked with a smile.

At this point, the pain wasn't immense enough to make me care, but I was starting to feel a heat in my chest that only got worse. Ullr was starting to piss me off. I would be a hypocrite if I fought back. I have nothing to prove to anybody, so I pushed myself up and walked off.

"Stay silent Scrawny Boy. The world will kill off the weak soon anyways." Ullr yelled out to me.

Something bothered me about what he said though. What does he mean? He doesn't know anything, just like the rest of us, so why does he think the weak would die out?

"What makes you say that? I'm still breathing." I said, smiling as I walked into the forest. Carl, Domin, Red, and Dani all followed behind.

"Hey, are you alright?" Dani put her hands on my shoulders with a look of concern.

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine. He doesn't hurt as much as you think he would." Whenever Dani spoke directly to me I felt nervous. I brushed it off, I'm sure it was nothing.

"We'll find someplace to camp out for the night," Carl suggested. It was then that Red mentioned a weird statue in the forest. I willingly followed her to see a statue with a White Stone on its left hand, just like I had.