Someone was controlling this world, and it seemed that I was nothing more than a pawn for them to use.
My bubble wouldn’t let me leave this world no matter how many times I tried to dock in the transport station. I screamed and pounded against the shell of the bubble, pleading with it to let me go.
I didn’t want to kill these citizens, this wasn’t my world and I certainly wasn’t God - nor did I want to be. At this point, I would be happy to go back to my boring life and never come back here. I prayed to some unknown entity that if I could be released from this world that I would be happy and satisfied back in my world, I would never utter another complaint.
“Please,” I sobbed, not sure if anyone was even listening to me.
Eliminate three unholy.
The bubble never said anything different. The same cold, robotic voice pinged monotonously.
I flew around, smashing my bubble into buildings, trying to destroy it. Or at the very least, cause it to have an error like when that man shot at me.
The man. The man in full colour.
Maybe if I could find him he could help me. After all, it seemed that he had been able to see my bubble.
The day passed by painfully slow, the citizens sat inside their office buildings, completely unaware of my plight. I floated around, peering into the alleyways and around the back of buildings.
If I was the only person in colour in this world, where would I hide?
He must be inside a building somewhere, I wondered if there were any abandoned buildings in this city.
I travelled further away from the city center, determined to find a way out of this hellscape. My bubble glided silently above the ground, no sounds entering or escaping.
I used to think this city was so peaceful - no traffic, no children, no animals. But now, it was eerie. A shiver ran down my back, this was the longest I had ever spent in this place.
A quiet noise startled me out of my thoughts. It sounded like someone knocked over a garbage can. To my right was the entrance to an alleyway, I floated over and peeked inside.
Laying on the ground was a solemn trash can, its contents spewed all over the ground. My heart started to pound, there was someone else here.
Eliminate three unholy.
“Shut up.”
Eliminate three unholy.
I brought my hands up to cover my ears, desperate to drown out the voice. No matter what I said to the bubble, it never said anything different.
Taking a deep breath, I lowered my hands to my sides and advanced into the alleyway. The alley stretched three different ways, zigzagging behind the office buildings.
This city had quite an extensive set of alleyways, I wondered what the purpose was for having so many.
Reaching the intersection between the alleyways, I swivelled around, trying to figure out where the person had gone. I decided to take a chance and go to the right.
Whipping down the corridor, I looked for any sign of life. I desperately hoped that it would be the man in colour.
Then I heard it.
A click.
Before I could react, the world exploded in front of me.
I flipped head over heels inside my bubble, with nothing to grab on the inside I tumbled around violently.
My bubble smacked against the side of the alley, causing me to come to an abrupt stop.
Target in the vicinity.
I sat upright, feeling nauseous from the tumble. Someone had shot at me.
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Whipping my head around, I couldn’t locate the source of the shot. Where were they hiding?
Another click.
My heart leapt into my throat and I forced my bubble to move, smashing into the other side of the alley in a desperate attempt to get out of the way.
The sound of a gun went off and a bullet struck the brick on the wall where I had just been.
On the control panel, a set of numbers flashed up. 100m.
The person was 100 meters away from me?
Click.
The ground in front of me exploded, dirt and chunks of cement flew up and smacked the front of my bubble.
Eliminate the unholy.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
Tears streamed down my face, I couldn’t see the person and that meant I had no idea where the shots were coming from.
90m.
They’re coming closer.
Click.
“Please!” I screamed, my voice reverberating around inside my bubble. “I don’t want to hurt you!”
100m.
105m.
110m.
Did they hear me?
I watched as the number on the control panel got higher and higher until it disappeared.
Unable to eliminate target. Mission failed.
I had a raging headache, I wanted nothing more than to just crawl into my bed and sleep for three days straight.
Oxygen percentage 18%.
My breath caught in my throat. The bubble was punishing me for not killing that person.
“I couldn’t even see where they were!” I yelled to no one.
Eliminate three unholy to restore oxygen privileges.
This bubble thought that oxygen was a privilege?
I left the alleyway and made my way back onto the road, by now the citizens were leaving work and heading home for the night.
Breathing was starting to feel a little more difficult, I tried to slow down my breathing so I could conserve oxygen. I didn’t know how I was going to find three people to kill. The other times I had just accidentally stumbled across them.
The citizens milled out of the buildings, forming a stream of endless gray flowing down the sidewalk. Occasionally, parts of the stream would break off and people would get onto buses, or venture down into the train stations.
The bubble seemed to warn me whenever an ‘unholy’ was near. So maybe if I just stayed with all these people, then surely the bubble would alert me to which citizen it wanted me to kill.
Floating alongside the citizens, I carefully observed them. Trying to find anything out of the ordinary.
They bobbed along the street, never acknowledging one another.
A few metres ahead of me, a lady stumbled on the sidewalk. Her high heel fell off and she bent over to slide it back on, causing the man behind her to stumble into her and fall over.
She glanced back at the man, a look of fear plastered across her face.
Bingo.
I picked up speed and started to follow behind her. It seemed that the citizens seldom made mistakes, and when they did, they were considered ‘unholy’.
“Come on, bubble, is she one of the people that you want me to kill?”
No response. The bubble was being strangely quiet.
Sweat was starting to gather on my brow, and I was starting to get light-headed from the lack of oxygen.
Curious, I pressed the joystick forward.
No target in sight.
Groaning, I closed my eyes and wiped the sweat from my face. I didn’t understand the rules of this world.
The woman continued along the sidewalk, never faltering. It was starting to seem that the stumble didn’t mean anything.
But then why did she look so scared?
The woman stopped at a bus stop and boarded the bus. I figured there was no point in following her anymore. I watched as the doors to the bus closed, I looked up to where she was sitting and my heart caught in my throat.
She was staring straight at me.
I froze, could she see me? Before I could do anything, the bus left the station and disappeared down the street, melting in with the other gray buses.
Feeling defeated, I turned around and floated down the street. The number of citizens out now was dwindling, most were inside their homes. I wondered what was going on back home, had anybody tried to reach out to me?
My body ached from sitting inside the bubble for so long, there wasn't enough room to stretch out so I had to always be in a seated position. It was starting to feel claustrophobic.
A plastic bag blew around the empty street, swirling around before gently settling down on the sidewalk. How nice it would be to feel that cool breeze right about now.
Tears flowed down my cheeks, I felt trapped. What had I done to deserve this? This was the cruellest punishment of all, to be a pawn in someone else’s game.
Life had never been fair to me, I thought this world was my escape. But now it was my personal hell.
The lightheadedness was starting to make me feel nauseous and I dry heaved, trying hard not to vomit inside the bubble.
Target in the vicinity.
“Huh.”
I looked up, there was no one left on the streets now. What was the bubble seeing?
Turning my head around, I couldn’t see anything. The streets were empty and quiet, the grayness of it all penetrating my skull.
Then I saw it, a glint of light on top of a building. A person was standing on the roof of one of the apartment buildings, another person in full colour.