A/N: Hi all! First fic in the twewy section! This was inspired by the most random prompt generator and thus, I'm sorry if it's random and all. If I do finish this short story, it may seem like a crack fic of sorts. 5 chapters maximum if I were to approximate. God help me, I don't know. And Neku's wearing a purplish parka because it's winter-ish right now and I like parkas (look up komokuten from Jupiter of the Monkey!) Okay, have fun reading anyways!

He held up the small piece of paper, seeped in sepia, with the faded inking of what seemed like a pawprint etched on it. The wind swirled about the boy in heavy gusts, threatening to tear the fragile looking piece of paper. At the slap of a stray leaf on his face, the boy narrowed his eyes once more at the pawprint before gently slipping it into his parka's pocket.

"Hachiko...?"

His voice was a whisper. But even then, it seemed like a booming force. A few more stray leaves float from the trees, sliding down the haphazard wind currents before resting on the earth. The boy takes a step forward. Crunch. The sudden crisp sound cracked the silence open, sending a jolt down the boy's spine. His eyes immediately fall to the ground. Dying leaves of a variety lie in a scattered array. Each carried with it a distorted symbol of death as carved in its shrivelled appearance.

The year is 2013. As per the chime of a distant bell tower a few hours ago, the world entered yet another new year. But the boy didn't hear the bell. He couldn't have heard it. Standing in the middle of a barren land laden with nature's waste where dying trees stagger upright in a circumferential panorama, the boy squints towards the direction of the sun, frozen in time. Buildings marked with age still stand staunch, ever reaching for the skies in the distance. As expected of the growing concrete jungle that is the city of Japan. But from where the boy stood, the buildings were a great distance away. Looking around again, the boy grumbled a string of incomprehensible words. The purplish clothes that he had on made him a jarring sight in the midst of the orange shade of the landscape. But naturally, that wasn't the thing that the boy was feeling peeved about.

"Grrr..! What's the deal with this place now? I've been walking on for god knows how long and there's not a soul! Plus, I still don't understand where I am or what I'm supposed to do!" His voice, though not by any normal account loud, pierced through the silence again. Frustration clearly lined his words. After all, it wasn't too long ago that the boy found himself waking in the middle of a forested area without any knowledge as to why. All he could remember prior to the forest was him visiting Hanekoma's little café and admiring his favourite graffiti murals in Udagawa's back streets. But like a bad case of déjà vu, here he is now, lost in the middle of some dying forested area.

"Okay, focus, Neku. We've been in a stupid situation like this once and panicking isn't gonna help. Period."

Neku closed his eyes and with a deep breath, flushed out the panic attack that he was just about to have jumped into. Suddenly being struck with a newly discovered piece of memory, his eyes flew open.

"Wait! Wasn't there an old lady whom I passed by ages ago?" Ruffling his bright orange spiked hair, Neku made grunting noises as he forced the neurons in his brain to locate information regarding this old lady he remembered seeing. But after a minute or so of brain racking, Neku let out an exasperated sigh.

"Ughh, it's no good. All I can vaguely remember is that old lady going on about some story about some birds flying away? Crap, I can't even remember what she said exactly!"

Another gust of wind sweeps at Neku's shoes in the direction of the buildings. Leaves ride the sudden wind currents before settling again. Far above in the skies, a single bird flies towards the concrete jungle. Its shrill cry instantly caught the upset boy's attention as he craned his neck towards its direction.

"A bird, huh? I'm gonna assume this is a sign that I should follow."

After kicking at the dead leaves for no particular reason, Neku continued towards the direction of the distant city. The even strokes of a paintbrush dipped in a bucket of evening hues spread across the time-frozen world. A brighter tone of orange is used to create the circular blot of paint that is the sun. Its rays stretch towards Neku like outstretched palms. A beckoning sign or perhaps something else? Not that the boy would particularly notice anyways. With each step he took, the sound of leaves being crumpled beneath his feet grew louder. This was strange because apart from Neku's voice, the crunching noise of leaves and that random cry from a single bird in the sky, everything else that surrounded Neku was silent. The supposed whistling from constant gusts of wind was silenced. The rustling of dead leaves dancing with the wind was silenced. The cackling of branches from the withered trees was silenced. While the silence bore heavily on the boy (he knew without a doubt that there was a lack of sound) he had more important things to address: Where exactly is he right now and how is he supposed to get back to where he was before waking up to a forest.

"At least there isn't a time limit unlike the Reaper's Game." Neku mumbled to himself. He pulled out his right hand that was resting deep in his parka's pockets and stared at his palm. No painful timer present. Check. But as his train of thought chugged through the memories of the missions during his stay in the Reaper's Game and how time limits of each mission were seared onto the palms of the Players, a gnawing sensation gradually inched across Neku's palm.

"Oh no you've gotta be kidding me! Ngghh!"

The all-too-familiar pain from being marked with a timer caused Neku to wince slightly in pain. His eyes immediately widened at the sight of his palm.

'I lied'

Instead of a timer ticking towards potential death, this time, two words were carved onto his skin in that signature Reaper's Game font. Shocked and confused, Neku instinctively flexed his fingers before gently sliding his other thumb across the words. It didn't hurt; at least not anymore. Here he stood in the middle of nowhere with no idea why or where exactly he was. Couple that with a relatively eerie silence and him being marked with the words 'I lied'; Neku had every reason to freak out even if he had been casted on centre stage as a Player in the Reaper's Game before.

"I don't understand anything anymore. But for now, I'd better get back to familiar grounds. Fast!"

This isn't Shibuya anymore.