What happened? Why do I taste blood in my mouth? …I can't see anything. Darkness. Simple darkness. Where am I? The last thing I remember is the scream. Let's think back…try to remember how this happened. I was riding my bike and decided to do a stunt with my friend, Oliver. We made a bet. Whoever could go down that stupid dirt hill the fastest would win. I started pedaling, and then I fell—but that's not it. I didn't hit the ground, did I? There was a cliff. Yes, that's it. The hill suddenly cut off on one side, leading to a steep fall and I somehow went off of it. I thought I was biking on the other side, but apparently I wasn't. Apparently, I fell of the cliff. Then there was the scream. Oliver's scream. Or did the scream come from me? I can't freaking remember. Am I dead or something? Did I hit the ground? Am I in the hospital or in a coma? This all feels like a dream. I s that all this is? Stupid darkness, just go away. I want to see the light again. I don't feel any pain. ...How strange. It's like I'm not even here. I feel as if I don't even exist. I can't move, I can't breathe, can't even blink. Perhaps I am blinking and just not feeling it. Perhaps the darkness is because my eyes are closed. Whatever the case, I wonder if things will ever go back to normal.
My eyes open slowly, and I let loose a yawn upon the concrete floor. As I slowly get up, I begin to take in my surroundings. No cars, just a bunch of people walking by. No hill either. I try pinching myself, and I feel the pain of it. What happened to the darkness? The people are talking, and none of them seem to have noticed me while I was sleeping on the cold floor. I stick my hands in my pockets, blinking rapidly as I try to figure things out. There is something small and metal that greets my hands. Instantly, the people's voices become louder and I can hear things much more vividly than I did even when life was normal .I walk up to a little girl to figure out what's going on, and I hear:
Where is Phoebe? She was supposed to meet with me a while ago!
The voice is confused and lost, but what strikes me more is that the girl's mouth hadn't moved. Was I hearing her thoughts? Was that the power of this-this-it occurs to me at that moment to pull the object out of my pocket. A black pin, with a strange symbol painted on it. This pin was somehow giving me the power to read thoughts it appeared.
"Hey, do you know what's going on?" I ask her. She doesn't even bother to look at me. I wave a hand in front of her face. She doesn't seem to notice. That's when I tried something that I shouldn't have: I tried to grab her shoulder in an attempt to get her attention. My hand passed right through her form. I don't know if I have ever screamed more loud in my entire life. Tearing away from the girl, I run straight into another person. How come I didn't pass through this one? She gets up, and gives me a glare.
"I'm sorry, I wasn't looking where I was—" I tried to explain, but she just gave me a hug.
"You can see me!" was all she shouted, clearly gleeful.
"Well—yeah. Do you know what's going on?" I asked.
"Of course I do, we're in the Reaper's Game! The first day! All that we have to do is clear all the noise from the Shibuya Underpass, but I need a partner to do so." She rambles excitedly.
"The Reaper's What? And what do you mean Shibuya Underpass? Isn't that…you know…in Shibuya?" I asked.
"Of course it's in Shibuya! We're currently in the Scramble Crossing, so I think we have to head…that way!" she says, pointing.
"But—I don't live in Shibuya." I blurted out.
"You have to! All of us come from Shibuya." She sighs.
"I really don't. My name is Eddie Miller and I—wait. What's your name?" I asked.
"My name's Lio. Now can we make a pact or do you want to wait around, chat, and then get erased?" she sighs, tapping her foot impatiently.
"Um..what's a pact?" I asked, feeling my face go red. In response, she slaps me across my left cheek.
"This is a pact!" She yells, before bringing me into a tight embrace, and announcing that she has found her partner. A man in a red hood approaches us, and she lets me go.
"Pact formed." He mumbles. The world around me begins to sway and blur, and within a moment the darkness has returned. This time, I'm not alone. Lio's there too, and she is staring directly at me. She is not too far away, and I can see her saying something. No words come out of her moving lips, and the darkness fades back into the Scramble Crossing. When the darkness is fully gone, I can hear her:
"—separate zones, so that's why we need to pact." She states.
"Can you repeat that?" I mutter. Another slap across the face.
….
The Shibuya Underpass is dark, and I can hear water dripping from somewhere. There is another man in a red hoodie.
"Okay, do you have your player pin?" Lio asks.
"You mean this thing?" I return, pulling out the pin I found in my pocket. She nods. Finally, I've done something right.
"Scan." She states.
"What?"
"Scan for noise! We can't clear all the noise unless we scan!"
At that moment, two people appear out of nowhere. Both of them are male. One of them somehow forgot to put a shirt on that morning, as his huge muscular abs are out in the open. The muscular one also has hazel eyes and a tanned skin-tone, and seems about seventeen(two years older than me.) He is also wearing long black jeans, and no shoes or socks. The other one is wearing a white button-up shirt and seems about my age. He has green eyes, and is wearing black shorts revealing scrawny legs and fuzzy socks. No shoes.
"Who are you guys?" I ask, stuttering and still in shock.
"Oh, are you two also players? We just got back from a noise zone. Those frogs didn't stand a chance." The muscular one says, with a charismatic grin.
"So you two are partners?" Lio deduces.
"Y-yes." Stutters the scrawny one.
"My name's Bruce, and this is Isaac." The muscular one says, gesturing to himself and his partner.
Lio stares at Bruce for a while before saying anything. I can't tell if she is observing him or just drooling over his muscles.
"Okay, so either of you mind telling me how to scan?" I ask, breaking the silence. Isaac lets out a faint smile and softly shakes his head. Bruce roars with laughter and Lio's face goes red.
"Dude, just hold the pin! Touching the pin lets you 'scan.' While scanning, you can see noise and read people's thoughts." Bruce laughs. The red hooded guy approaches.
"Would you like a combat tutorial before you fight against the noise?" he asks.
Bruce gives me a thumbs-up, so of course I say 'yes.' Lio groans, as everybody around me vanishes except for the guy in the red hood. Three frogs, green with red legs appear out of nowhere.
"Okay, so how do you fight? Do you use pins, cards, melee, what?" the hood asks gently.
"I have no idea." I whimper, as the frogs bounce towards me with malice in their eyes. Where was Lio?
"Fine. Let's go with pins. Do you have any pins besides your player pin?" he asks, approaching me. I shake my head. He reaches into his pocket and produces four pins, which he then hands to me. A frog bounces towards us, but he swiftly deflects it with a punch.
"What am I supposed to do?" I asked.
"Each pin has different properties." He responded. A frog approaches me, and while it is on the ground, I pull out a pin and point it towards the frog. Flames erupt from the ground, damaging the frog. With my arm still stretched out, pointing the pin, I move my hand and the flames follow it fluidly.
"Whoa." I gasp, before the flames suddenly vanish.
"After using each pin to its limit, it has to reboot. Try using another." The guy explains calmly. I obey. One pin sent out bolts of energy, one pin empowered my physical strength letting my arm slash down upon the frogs relentlessly. The final pin sent lightning down from the sky. Each frog vanished into static, the type that you see when your television can't get signal. Instantly, Bruce, Isaac, and Lio appear again.
"Each noise leads you to its noise zone. When you defeat the noise, you exit the zone and return to where you entered it." The guy says.
"Where were you?!" I asked Lio.
"Fighting frogs." She retorts sarcastically.
"Each noise zone is split in two. One partner of a pact goes into each half of the zone. You have to defeat the noise in both parts of the zone to truly erase the noise." The red hood guy sighs.
"Yeah, I know. I told him." Lio squeals.
"While you were in the tutorial, Isaac and I finished up most of the noise. You want to take on the final ones?" Bruce asked, his eyes friendly.
"Why not?" I chuckle. Lio just rolls her eyes. I hold the Player Pin, and instantly red symbols appear. They are floating around the underpass. I walk up to one and touch it with my hand. Instantly, we are warped to the 'noise zone.'
The 'noise' is just a single blue jellyfish.
"Alright, jelly! Prepare to meet your doom!" I declare, before using the slash pin. My arms turn into the slashing weapons from earlier, and I begin chopping up the jellyfish gleefully. In response, it lets it's disgusting sharp stinger up my arm, giving a burn of some sort. The jellyfish floats away, and I find myself immobile. Can't talk, can't feel, can't blink. It's like being in that darkness all over again. The jellyfish floats away calmly, and it's huge head expands. A small pink pod appears amongst the stingers, and then floats out. The pod then expands into a pink jellyfish. Realizing that this thing could multiply itself, I tried the lightning pin. Targeting both the jellyfish, I rained down the lightning upon them. Then, I followed up by shooting bolts of energy at both. The blue one vanished into static, and something shiny plopped onto the floor. I ran to retrieve it and found that it was a pin. The pink one came at me rapidly, so I let the fire erupt from the ground, burning the enemy until it vanished into static as well. Lio apparently had done her part. Bruce and Isaac reemerged from thin air.
"Awesome!" Bruce exclaimed, holding up his hand backwards.
"Am I supposed to notice something?" I asked, confused. Bruce looked at his hand and laughed.
"Dude, the timer's gone!"
"Timer?"
Lio rolled her eyes again.
"L-Let's go, B-B-Bruce." Isaac says quietly, quiet enough as to where I could barely hear him.
"Go where?" my muscular friend laughed. Isaac just looked at his feet.
"Sorry, Isaac's not comfortable around other people." Bruce explained. He then came up to us, and swiftly stole my cell phone.
"Hey! My phone!" I exclaimed. Bruce began toying with it, before handing it back.
"I have added a few features to it. You can add friends onto your phone, namely other players, and call them."
"Why couldn't you have just given me your number?"
"Because you can't call anyone in the game. Phones in the UG are only used to receive missions…but now you CAN call any other person that's within the UG as long as they are on your friend list." Bruce explained.
"UG?" I asked. The red hood interrupted.
"It means Underground. It's why you can't interact with any person that's not a player, like Bruce, or a Reaper, like me. Given that your mission has been cleared, you guys should enter Day 2 soon." He sighs.
"Day 2?"
"Yeah, the game is seven days. If you survive seven days, then you come back to life. If not, you get erased." Lio explains. I feel bad for being the only one that doesn't know the rules of the game. It doesn't really surprise me when she mentions 'come back to life.' What else can surprise me today? Heck, life has just been getting weirder and wei-
Back in the darkness. A dreamless sleep, out of nowhere.
(SIDE NOTE: New chapters coming soon! I intend for the story to be Seven Chapters long, one chapter for each day. Remember to review! Thanks!)