Hey guys, CorbenikTheRebirth here with a sort of project I've been working on for a while now. Now, you guys are probably wondering to yourself how come Nothing Can Ever Stay The Same is not being updated lately. The reason for that is that I have been very busy…like REALLY BUSY. I've had band practice, working out and basically I've been on a road trip with my family and girlfriend for the past couple of weeks. We arrived at Los Vegas a couple of days ago and so far it's been great. I've won lots of money, saw many shows with my girlfriend and even saw a guy get arrested on COPS. If you ever see the newest episode filmed in Los Vegas be sure to look for me. I'm the guy waving with a girl around my arm. But back to business, if you're a fan of my work then be sure to look at this one. I promise you, you will not be disappointed.

With that out of the way, enjoy the very first chapter of my newest work.

Time Is On The Line

Chapter 1. Waking Up

Drip…Drip…Drip

Something was falling, hitting the floor.

Drip…Drip…Drip

Something cold and wet was hitting the floor, making that annoying sound that bugged him.

Drip…Drip…Drip

His hand twitched. He moved his body as carefully as he could, noticing the pain his body was in every time his body moved. He moved his head a little and felt the breath spill out of his body, painfully. It was like someone had placed a heavy box on his body a while ago and had decided to remove just a moment ago.

My body feels like I just lost a fight to Boss. What the heck was I doing last night?

He slowly allowed himself to sit up, ignoring the pain spreading through his body as his eyes scanned the room he found himself in.

To him, it looked like he was in some sort of cabin or something. He was lying down on the bottom bed of a bunk bed with another one just across from him. In one of the corners of the room was a small desk that had a circular window above it. A small mirror was in the other corner, above a sink, which was slowly dripping water.

The teen looked around the room one more time; his eyes searching for anything else that were in the room with him. Unfortunately, there was nothing else in the room.

He slowly rose himself from the bed and planted his feet on the ground as a wave of nausea caused him to lie down on the bed again. A few moments later, he rose to his feet again and walked over to the small sink, turning the taps on as he splashed some cold water on his face before looking into the mirror.

Staring back at him was a lean teen with orange and white hair that fell just a little above his golden eyes. He wore black jeans and a long sleeve shirt that had a white and black, checkered design on it with an orange, sleeveless vest on top of it. The regular clothes that Hamtaro Haruna wore almost every day. He also noticed that on his arm was a strange orange watch that he hadn't noticed before and it seemed it was a little different from a regular watch.

For one thing, the watch was a little smaller then some watches he had seen before and looked sleeker then most watches. Also, the watches screen wasn't like a regular watch with a simple counter on it. This one had four section of it.

DAYS 00:00
HOURS 00:00
MINUTES 00:00
SECONDS 00:00

Each were currently at zero but Hamtaro didn't want to see them counting down at all.

What the heck is with this watch, but more importantly, how the heck did I get in this room to begin with? Maybe the guys are playing a joke on me. Well let's just see what happens when I call them

He reached into his pocket, trying to locate his cell phone, only to come up empty handed.

What the…where is my phone. Did the guys take it away as well?

Hamtaro pulled his hand out of his pocket, hearing something fall to the ground in the process. Looking down at the floor, he noticed a small, crumpled up piece of paper on the ground was next to his foot, which he picked up and started to unfold. Hamtaro noticed that there were numbers written down on the paper as he unfolded it.

856873957

What the heck is this?

He stared at the piece of paper for what seemed like forever before he remembered that he had no idea where he was. Shoving the paper into his pocket again, he quickly rushed to the door, turning the handle in the process. He was about to exit the room when the door didn't budge at all. He tried turning the handle again as he shifted his weight into it once again, only for the door to not budge at all.

Damn it. Can this day get any better?

Hamtaro was about turn around and head back to the bed when he spotted something out of the corner of his eyes. A small gray box, a little bigger then his hand was next to the door with a keypad in the middle with a screen at the bottom that said LOCKED and a screen on the top with 9 lines on the bottom of the screen, signaling that it would require a password.

Hamtaro looked at the screen, his mind screaming that he was forgetting something as he suddenly remembered the little slip of paper in his pocket.

Maybe there connected.

He reached into his pocket, pulling the slip out again as he pressed the buttons on the keypad as he slowly read the numbers over in his head. As the last number was pushed on the keypad, Hamtaro closed his eyes, praying that it would work. There was a moment of silence as the numbers on the screen flashed.

DING

Hamtaro opened his eyes at the dinging sound as he watched the metal door slowly opened. He wasted no time, shoving the piece of paper back in his pocket as he ran out the door before it closed with a heavy bang.

"Hello!" Hamtaro shouted, now stood in the middle of a long hallway. Doors that looked exactly alike ran up and down the hallway as Hamtaro looked back and forth between the hallways.

This looks like a ships hallway. The only question is, how did I get here in the first place?

Finding nobody else in the hallway other then him, he decided to walk down the hallway, taking the left path since he could see that the right path ended in a dead end. "Am I the only here?" The teen asked himself, seeing something at the end. He increased his walk, until he was running down the hallway, pictures and doors passing by as he finally reached the end of the hallway, slowing down his run until it was a walk.

Looking to the left and the right, the teen noticed that each side lead to dead ends, the only other way, were the stairs in front of him.

Nowhere else to go but down.

Hamtaro walked down the stairs, his feet making loud sounds with each step he took.

What the heck…even if there is no one else here besides me, there should still be at least some noise.

The teen continued his walk down the stairs, passing by many pictures and signs along the ways. He noticed that with each flight of stairs he passed, more and more levels of hallways were in front of him. He decided to ignore them as he continued his walk, going down more levels until he reached the end.

The room in front of him was a large room that was completely empty. Four doors lined one side of the wall, making twelve doors in total. "Wonder what's up with this room?" Hamtaro thought to himself, walking to the middle of the room. He was about to turn around again, when the sound of footsteps filled the room.

"Gotta hide now." Hamtaro thought, his eyes looking around the room, trying to find somewhere to hide. When his search came up empty, he decided to wait for whoever was coming for him and attack. As the footsteps became louder, Hamtaro stood his ground.

"It looks like the stairs lead to some room, guys." A soft, famine voice came from the figure as they walked down the stairs, coming into view of the teen.

She was about the same height as Hamtaro, maybe a little shorter. She wore a nice, blue skirt that had white frill on the edges of it and a white top that covered most of her figure. Her white hair was tied up into two pigtails by blue ribbons. Just like Hamtaro, she wore a blue watch that currently all said 0. She walked down the stairs, fallowed by more teens as she finally spotted Hamtaro.

"Hamtaro?" The girl seemed confused for a second before rushed at the boy, catching him off guard as she tackled him into a hug.

The teen was confused for a moment before he finally reacted. "Bijou." The girl nodded into his chest. "Bijou it is you. I was wondering where you guys were."

"It's good to see you too Hamtaro." Another teen said, walking up behind Bijou. He was taller then both Hamtaro and Bijou and wore a black t-shirt that was ripped here and there and a pair of gray shorts. A yellow baseball cap was turned around on his head, and a gray watch was on his arm.

Hamtaro laughed, turning towards the big teen as Bijou let go of him. "Sorry about that Boss, I didn't notice you guys there to begin with. Does anybody know where we are exactly?" He asked.

"I think I might know," A teen moved in front of Boss. He wore a brown turtleneck and a pair of blue jeans that seemed to match with his short, messy brown hair that almost fell into his eyes. On his wrist was a brown watch. "It seems like were in some sort of cruise-liner. But as for how we got here, I honestly don't know that one."

"But I do," A voice came from nowhere, as a screen slowly lowered itself from the ceiling as a figure appeared on it. The figure sat in a chair, his fingers in front of him, in a way that made Hamtaro think of a classic villain. His face was covered up by shadows, but Hamtaro saw that he was wearing a cloak as well so he wouldn't be able to see whom it was even if he tried. "Welcome to the game my friends."

"What are you talking about?" Stan asked, pushing Maxwell out of the ways. He had short brown hair and wore a black, sleeveless shirt and white shorts. On his wrist was a red watch.

"Yah, what kind of game is this?" Another one asked. This one Hamtaro recognized as Pashmina, one of his old friends. She had long, blonde hair and wore a pink tank top and red skirt. One her neck was a pink scarf and a pink watch on her wrist. Next to her, clinging on to Pashmina's leg was a little girl that wore a yellow poncho and a yellow watch. Pashmina's little sister, Penelope. "This doesn't seem like some game to me."

The figure stared at them for a second before continuing. "It's more like a survival game if you ask me. I wanted to have a little fun, so I decided to find myself some teens and put them into a special arena and pit them against each other."

"Like we would do that!" Boss shouted at the screen.

"I don't think you understand." The figures voice didn't change, but Hamtaro just realized that he was using something to cover his voice up. "You don't really have a choice in the matter. As I'm sure you have probably noticed, you are all currently on a cruise-liner. You're probably wondering to yourself, where the boat is right now? Well let me tell you. You are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, hidden so that no one will be able to find you. Even if anyone was able to discover your location, with just one press of a button, this whole ship will be under the water in a matter of minutes."

"You can't do that!" Stan's twin sister, Sandy, a girl with long brown hair tied into a ponytail and wore jeans shorts and a pink t-shirt under a blue jean jacket. Shouted at the screen. One her wrist was a purple watch.

The figure simply snickered to himself. "Oh but you see. I can and did. That's all there is to it."

The group became silent for a moment before Hamtaro took a step forward. "If this is a challenge, then how do we win?" he asked. The others nodded.

"Oh, it seems like this ground has a leader. This will make it all the much more interesting as time goes on." He pressed a button on his chair as Hamtaro felt a sharp pain in his arm with the watch on it. As he looked over at the rest of them, he noticed that the rest were also in pain.

"What did you do?" Stan asked, rubbing his arm.

"I just injected sensors into your body. These will let me sense if any of you are going to commit suicide or are dying. If you even lie to someone, I will know."

"You still haven't answered Hamtaro's question." Bijou said, moving forward.

The figure hummed to himself before continuing on. "Very well then. As I'm sure many of you have noticed, you woke up in a room without knowing how you got there." The group nodded. "Well to answer that question, I knocked you out and brought you here. I needed to make sure you were ready to test."

"You're still avoiding the question!" Maxwell shouted.

"Okay then. To answer Hamtaro's question. The way to win this game is to walk through one of the doors in front of you. Each door leads to the same location, the way out of the boat. Unfortunately, the doors are locked and cannot be open without a key, which is somewhere, located on this boat. There are twelve keys and twelve doors. No more, no less. The object of the game is to find these keys and open the doors and leave."

"Seems easy enough." Stan turned and starting heading to the stairs behind everyone.

"I wasn't finished yet." The figure said, causing Stan to stop. "There are of course some rules to this game. Rule one. Only one person is allowed to go through each door. If more then one person goes through the door, I will destroy the boat. Rule two. You are allowed to team up and search for the keys. But, if one of you tries to kill the other, the sensors will go off and I will destroy the boat. The third and finally rule is that there is a time limit. I'm sure you have noticed that each of you is wearing a watch. As soon as the game begins, the watch will start to count down. If you manage to leave the boat, the watches will automatically remove themselves from you. But, if timer hits zero and you are not out of the boat by then, a deadly poison will be injected into your body, killing you instantly."

"So it's a puzzle game and a timer game as well?" Maxwell asked. "You're trying to make us turn on each other."

"Very good Maxwell, let's see if you are able to survive though." The figure said.

"What should we do Hamtaro?" Bijou asked. The others seemed to be interested in Hamtaro's answer as well.

There was a moment of silence before Hamtaro turned back to the group. "It seems like we don't have a choice. We will play this game and we will all escape. No one will be left here. Is that okay?"

Everyone nodded as Hamtaro turned back to the screen. "We will play."

The figure laughed as short laugh that made the hairs on everyone's neck stand up on edge. "I like your enthusiasm boy. You will make a good contestant. Let's see if everyone else will be able to hold up as the numbers slowly…slowly…slowly tick down. Forcing each of you to turn on each other. That's when the game gets really interesting."

He's trying to force us to turn on each other. But it's true. As the timer ticks down, the more they'll want to escape. And they will do anything to get it.

"So when does this game start then?" Hamtaro asked.

The figure looked at them for a moment before pressing another button on his chair. "Right…now." was all he said, before the screen went dead as it rose to the ceiling. As everyone looked at each other for a moment, a loud explosion was heard far away as the boat started to sway to the side.

"Everyone! Hold on!" Boss shouted as he was thrown into the wall. The others felt their bodies get flown around as the boat continued to sway.

Is this part of the game too?

Hamtaro didn't have time to think as his body hit a wall and his mind started to become fuzzy. As the boat stopped sway, Hamtaro managed to see that everyone was all around the room, leaned up against the wall or lying on the floor. Pieces of the ceiling and pillars were littering the ground and Hamtaro could hear the sound of water slowly rushing as darkness slowly enveloped him.

As everyone lay on the ground, none of them noticed that the watches on their wrists were now glowing as the timer on them started to count down.

DAYS 00:01
HOURS 00:24
MINUTES 00:59
SECONDS 00:45

Chapter 1 Done

Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter.

Peace :)