Sleep? Forget sleep.
The last hour.
12 am.
The entire tunnel sat in silence, though it was almost overcrowded with strangers.
Fear shook though every person, anxiety they never thought to be real.
What would happen after the time was over? Would everything go back to normal? The most normal human response to something new was questioning it.
Just, normal people asked simple questions—some certain people, on the other hand, could only think, ‘What even is the System? What is Galactix?’
It was the only question that not even Zeifar’s knowledge of fiction could answer. The only thing that could not be singled-out, the only question without a single possible answer.
Zeifar stared at the fire in front of her, lost in thoughts.
When she’d said all that back in the car, it was almost like the System had completely deleted it.
So did that mean what she had said was a possibility, or had it been a fact?
She wanted to ask, but nobody would have a clue.
Well, there was one person—honestly, she wasn’t even sure if he was a person—she could ask. She just had to wait one more hour. One more hour and she could ask—though she doubted the extent of his knowledge.
****
“Hey, Zwolinski.”
Raymond flinched, “Hmm?”
“Who did you say sold our world?”
All the Luxeour racers went silent, eyes darting to the ground. An air of fear clouded their faces.
“…” Raymond muttered.
“Hmm?”
“Jack Dalton.”
“…what do you—actually, never mind,” Zeifar stuttered. Not the time.
When was it ever the time?
“Let’s get this over with first,” she got up, “I wanna’ walk around the Tunnel. Alone.”
The others stared at her, a little curious and a little concerned—but they knew there was no point in going after her. The only entrance area of the tunnel was crowded, and inside was just rampaged-through nothingness, cold, dark and only a shell of its former beauty.
Looking around made Zeifar realize that maybe it was much more real than she felt. Places she had grown up in ripped apart and shattered, yet she couldn’t really feel much. It was embarrassing to realize how stupidly heartless she was—in her mind, most of these places held no value. She couldn’t feel any attachment to her own childhood places—wasn’t that funny?
It felt a bit ridiculous to her.
How could someone have such crappy memory? She didn’t even remember most of her life. It was all just jumbled up.
“Why is all of this even happening?”
‘Clink’
She’d kicked something tiny.
A ring.
It was certainly pretty, deep green stones—they weren’t recognizable stones. Something foreign maybe.
Someone had probably dropped it while running from monsters. She wondered if it was an engagement ring. Had the person who had dropped it proposed to someone they liked? Did they manage to survive?
A part of her was glad the tunnel was so dark—maybe she was still alright because she had not seen truly how messed up the place looked.
“Gosh, I really am selfish.”
[24 hours have been completed. Congratulations.]
The same giant screen appeared in front of her, and probably everyone else in Dubai.
“Congrats on surviving for a day!” Mika waved, grinning with his overly white fangs, “Gotta’ say, the amount of survivors the higher-ups expected were lower than this,” he said, looking directly into Zeifar’s eyes.
Zeifar rolled her eyes, “Cut the acting.”
Mika only shrugged and went on, speaking to everyone, “Congrats on surviving. Then next rounds are still being calculated…I believe you will all get at least 2 days to adjust, so in that time please do collect info from the System—and as you all are so curious,” he sighed, “The current population of Dubai has come down to 1 and a half million.”
1 million? 3 million to 1 million? In a day?
“Cut it out now man, your speech is over anyways,” she snapped.
The masked boy on the screen sighed as the screen began glitching and went blank, like a TV with lost signal. A silhouette leaned into the screen and jumped out of it.
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“You remind me of my seniors at work, mademoiselle,” Mika sighed.
“And you remind me of a stupid child.”
“Pff,” he replied, “What do you want?”
“Many things, mainly answers—don’t worry, I won’t ask anything you don’t know,” she answered.
He laughed, “There’s no question you could possibly ask that I wouldn’t know.”
Zeifar shook her head, a smirk at the corners of her mouth, “You shouldn’t be so sure, Dragon-boy.”
Mika froze, his eyes much darker now, “And how did you happen to learn that?”
There was an aura of danger around him, fumes of fear, like ghouls—but it wasn’t anything a mirror couldn’t reflect.
[All Skills have been returned to normal.]
[Conscious Skill: ‘Mirror Void’ has reflected off effects of ‘Ghouls of Misery’ from Mikhaenil.]
“I wonder why you’re working for this Galactix-thing, but you don’t need to answer that,” she smiled, “I wanted to ask if Jack Dalton really did sell our world.”
“What makes you think I’d—”
Mika never stuttered. But the girl in front of him was smirking as if his presence had no effect on her. He was quite powerful, and he was feared by his colleagues too.
But the aura before him was odd. It felt like his own energy amplified—as if it was some sort of over-powered reflective force.
“What the hell even are you?” he mumbled, still fazed.
“Zeifar Nadir. Anyways, answers, pretty-boy.”
“H-huh? Oh—yeah, yeah,” he stammered, “He sold you all, yeah.”
“And these…’rounds’, they’ll continue?”
“Ah, about that,” Mika plopped down on the floor, “Take a seat, it might take some time.”
****
“Ok, so you were pre-Categorized, you know about the Noviar Effects right?”
Zeifar nodded.
“See, everything in our universe, or multiverse or whatever you call it, has limits. Nobody knows anything outside of that so I don’t know about that, but about Noviar Effects; they are laws that control everything and everyone in this universe. Restrictions on everything to keep certain balances, so that all these different worlds don’t collapse over eachother—like cement holding bricks together in a wall, ya’ know?” Mika explained, “And on how your world got to this, some people sign a contract to gain power, depending on how much power it is they need to sell something in return. Like a really messed up trade. When someone sells something as big as a world, to keep the ‘wall’ intact, a.k.a keep the universe intact…” he sighed,
“The world suffers, basically. An eye for an eye, the sacrificed world for power.”
“…and what happens then?” she asked.
“Either the people of these worlds must complete the required amount of Rounds…or everything falls apart and ends before they can,” he looked up at the ceiling of the tunnel, “If it helps you to know, the Rounds must be continued as long as there is even one person alive in these worlds.”
“What?”
“That means even if your world only has you left alive, you’ll need to continue—but don’t worry—the difficulty level isn’t that high yet-uh-you have time to prepare!” he stammered, realizing it may have sounded a bit scary.
Zeifar stared at him, horrified.
Did he really think that made it any better???
She sighed, unsure what to say, when a message popped up in front of her.
[Stellar: ‘Guardian of Graves’ finds you interesting. +1000 Sterlings.]
“…since you’re here, can you explain what the heck a Stellar is?” Zeifar asked.
Mika laughed, “They’ve started messaging you already? You really are interesting, mademoiselle.”
“They’re the higher-ups of Galactix, the people you’re entertaining. They can manipulate certain parts of the Noviar Effects due to their level of power,” he explained, “But they can’t directly expose their actual names. I used to think it was just them being mysterious but,” he had an odd smirk on his face,
“I later found out that if they, or any contestant uses their real name in the middle of a Round, it might put severe Noviar Effects on them…” his face said loud and clear that he’d learned this in some concerning way.
Zeifar sighed, “My Skill…actually, something tells me they can hear me too, can’t they?”
Mika nodded, “But I can turn of the cameras and mics.”
Her look made it clear that she wanted him to turn them off.
Though slightly annoyed, Mika was curious. He coughed a bit and turned to a corner, swiping on a System window.
After a few minutes, he turned back to her, “I did, nobody can hear you. What is it?”
“Thanks a lot,” she said, though it didn’t sound that genuine, “A Skill of mine lets me see.”
Mika made a face, “Lets you see what?”
“Their names.”
His eyes widened as he shook his head, laughing, “Funny joke, that’s impossible.”
The person in front of him did not change her expression, there was not even a bit of humor in her eyes as she asked, “Do I look like I’m joking?”
He could feel his breathing suddenly get caught, “…why are you telling me this?”
She grinned, “Now that’s a good boy. I’m telling you this because,” she let out a breath, “Give me access to your shop.”
He blinked a few times. Was that really a human?
“How do you know about—”
“Ya’ think I’ll tell you that? Give me access, I’ll buy things with my own money anyways—oh! And give me a way to communicate with you,” she blabbered along.
Mika’s eyes sharpened, “Let’s say we do make a deal, what am I even getting in return?”
“What an observant little boy you are!” she laughed, her eyes darkening with odd intensity, “Money, of course.’
“And how is that?”
“C’mon, I know you earn money the more these ‘higher-ups’ watch Dubai-Centre’s Rounds,” she said, “I mean, in the logic of Galactix you’re basically like a streamer, aren’t you? So the more interesting the Rounds in Dubai are, the more money you’re making—the look on your face tells me I’m correct?” she asked.
Not sure whether amazed or afraid, Mika replied, “…you know about this?”
“Nah, figured it out,” she shrugged.
“Huh—how could you figure it out?”
She made a face, “Well, I read a lot of fiction so I was just kinda’ blabbering the most likely trope…” she rubbed the back of her neck, “And me knowing would be impossible, seriously, I was just guessing!”
“So they weren’t joking when they said these ones were crazy,” he muttered, at a loss of words.
Mika sighed and held out his hand,
“Fine, you’ve gotten yourself a deal.”
She raised an eyebrow, “This easily?”
“I don’t have much to lose anyways and well,” he glanced up, “I kinda’ wanna’ see how this plays out. So, deal?”
The girl laughed as an answer and shook his hand without even flinching,
“Deal, pretty-boy. I’ve got lots of questions to ask you—let’s hope we both live long enough for that.”
Mika shook her hand, losing the last of his vocabulary. She was an absolute menace, that was certain.
Deep purple sparks surrounded them—the signing of a contract.
“I need to restart the cameras now, the Stellars are complaining about too many ads,” he said and disappeared at a snap of his fingers.
Zeifar sighed, walking back to her team.
[Stellar: ‘Guardian of Graves’ wishes to see you in the upcoming Rounds.]
[Stellar: ‘Master of Darkness’ finds you interesting as well.]
‘Huh,’ she thought to herself, ‘Anubis and Persephone?’
****
“We can’t stay in this tunnel forever, so where do we go?” Ethan asked when Zeifar returned.
She thought for a bit before saying, “I know a place, but let’s see these messages first.”
[Congratulations to all participants of Dubai-Centre for surviving.]
[Earth#9739 has been granted 3 days for adjustment. The information on the 2nd Round will be disclosed after 3 days. In that time, kindly sort out the basics of the System. The Rankings of Dubai will be sent as personal messages.]
So only you could see your own Ranking? Zeifar made a face. It made her a little uneasy, why hide each-other’s Rankings for no reason? Unless, of course, it was a part of a plan…
‘Gosh these people have terrible script ideas,’ she thought to herself.
As everyone freaked out about their Rankings, she marched off.
“Oi, wait for us!!!” her teammates yelled, running behind her.
****
“You guys…want to join us?” Zeifar asked, staring at the three outcast Luxeour racers before her.
Raymond gave her a puppy-like smile, which made everyone (in a 10-foot radius)’s heart skip a beat, and said, “Please? We’ve got nowhere else to go.”
Unfortunately, his looks and cuteness had zero effect on Zeifar, who stared blankly at him and said,
“Look at my teammates’ pretty faces, Zwolinski. You think those puppy eyes of yours will persuade me?”
The three hopelessly looked at each other as the Royale racers snickered behind them.
“Honestly, I’m growing tired of all of you…and will all of you even fit in the car?” she looked at the car, which had been a gift from one of their sponsor brands. It was a jeep, definitely expensive.
“We can squeeze!” the three said in unison.
Keilan Rodriguez, she had never met him before, he was with them too. She wondered why the three had gotten cut off, but did not ask.
“Alright,” she said, exhausted, “Get in the car, I’ll drive you all to the safest place I know.”
****