It is a condition of monsters that they do not perceive themselves as such. The dragon, you know, hunkered in the village devouring maidens, heard the townsfolk cry, "Monster!" and looked behind him.
Prologue 1: Cabins
I woke up to the tolls of a distant clock, reverberating through the metal frame of my bed, and a searing headache. I opened my eyes and quickly regretted it. The lights in the cabin were dimmed, but my head still protested the gesture. My back was sore from laying on the worn mattress. Just moving hurt. I didn't want to do or think anything for the rest of the day.
A full minute passed before I shot to my feet, nearly braining myself on the upper bunk. A bunk bed? A cabin? Where the hell was I? I closed my eyes to stave off the mounting pain in my temple, staggering. I didn't remember coming here, wherever "here" was. Last thing I remembered, I'd been…
I opened my eyes again. I had no time to contemplate my predicament. For some reason, I had the overwhelming feeling that I needed to get out of here. At that moment, a startling sound echoed through the walls – like metal grating against metal. The noise of rushing water rose over it. I turned toward the sound and found myself facing a small, circular window. Before I could react, though, the glass cracked. It splintered before my eyes, and water began pouring into the cabin by the gallon.
Shit. Shitshitshitfuck. The door. I needed – I quickly located the heavyset metal portal that was my ticket out of here. Of course it was locked. Fuck. I was neither slender nor frail, but ramming into the door served no other purpose except adding to my injuries. I tried twice. The door, emblazoned with a crimson 2, remained otherwise unmarred.
"Goddamnit!" I yelled, pounding against the iron. No one responded.
To the right of the door was some kind of scanner. Maybe the batteries were dead or the wiring was faulty, but it wasn't operational. A red indicator reading LOCKED informed me that the door would not be opening of its own volition.
I futilely tried the handle again. Nothing. Then I noticed the thick metal bracelet around my left wrist. It felt vaguely familiar, but I couldn't recall where I had seen it. The contraption resembled a watch, albeit a strange one. It was too bulky for every day wear and, unless it was exactly two o'clock, didn't even display the time. Thus I concluded it was probably not a watch.
Closer examination revealed four buttons along the side of the device, though pressing them did nothing. I ran my fingers against the bottom of the bracelet but I couldn't find a latch or a hook.
The water was up to my ankles now – the watch or bracelet or whatever would have to wait. I scanned the rest of the room for another way out. There were two sets of bunks, each level with its own shitty mattress and old sheets. My arm would have probably sufficed better than those pillows. I saw a sliding door, which I leapt for, but it turned out to be a closet, barren save for a wire coat hanger. The only other exit would be the window; it was currently not an option.
I turned my gaze back to the big metal door. Somehow or another, I needed to open this door. Since the door wouldn't give, I focused on the scanner and easily discerned the problem. There was a rectangular gap on the bottom. The fucking thing was missing its batteries.
I ran for the beds, kicking up water with each step. As an afterthought, I decided I should probably move with more caution; if I got the batteries wet, I'd be screwed.
Rummaging my hands under the sheets and in the pillowcases, I discovered nothing. I spun. There was nowhere in the fucking room the batteries could be. Why would they even be in the cabin? Who would put their spare batteries in a place like this?
No, I couldn't think like that. There were batteries in here. There had to be batteries somewhere in here. Perhaps I was just being optimistic, but a little voice in the back of my head told me I was right. Someone had hidden a battery, and I was going to find it.
"They couldn't have hidden it somewhere easier to find, could they?" I grumbled, marching back to the door. There was literally nowhere else to put a fucking battery unless some maniac stuffed it inside the mattress or something.
I paused. The water was crept past my knees.
Goddamnit.
I flung open the closet door and grabbed the coat hanger. As I raced back for the bunks, I wrestled with the thin metal wires, completely disfiguring it into a usable weapon. The mattresses were flimsy enough, and the wires tore into them easily. I found cathartic pleasure in destroying the beds.
I struck gold in the mattress above the one I'd woken up in. Curling my fingers around the battery, I jumped down from the bunk and made for the scanner, leaving the coat hanger's mangled form behind. The battery slid into the scanner with a sharp click. At the same time, a small blue dot appeared on the screen. I assumed that meant it was working. Now I could get out…
Or not. The indicator near the door still read LOCKED. What the hell? Was there something I was supposed to scan? Some kind of card or – or – or…
I looked back at the 2 sprayed on to the door. The red paint reminded me of something… I glanced at the bracelet on my wrist. I had forgotten about it in the heat of the moment.
Hesitantly, I ran my hand over the scanner, as if I were disarming a bomb. A lever protruded out of the scanner. With nothing else to do, I pulled it. The blue light flashed green, and I heard a series of bolts slide into place. The indicator next to the door changed. OPEN.
I wasted no time in grabbing the door handle and twisting it. With a heavy groan, the door slid open, and the torrent of water rushed out of the room. So did I.
I ran into a narrow hallway. The walls were lined with doors identical to mine, some open, others closed. Water was pouring out of the opened rooms as well, and I knew I couldn't stay there.
A smaller hall branched off to the right; I turned that way and found myself facing another door, although this one was different from the others. I had no time to think about where it could lead. The water was rising quicker than it had in the cabin. I hurried through and slammed the door behind me.
A grand lobby, complete with red carpets and ivory pillars, greeted me. Tasteful paintings adorned the walls, each capturing a different subject and setting. To my right, I saw a large staircase heading to a higher floor. To the left was a set of ornate double doors, but more importantly…
In front of me, an array of startled faces gaped at me. I counted five – no, six people, all soaked. Then a door not unlike the one I had just emerged from slammed open, and two other men (along with some water) joined us.
One of the two men who had been in the lobby before me recovered first. He was tall and angular, with dark skin and eyes. His black hair was cropped very close to his scalp, and he had two thin stripes shaved horizontally around his head. I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at his attire; he wore a suit over a dress shirt with the collar propped. "The double doors are locked. We need to move."
"I agree," said the other, a gentle-looking man in a casual tee. He smiled, as if to reassure everyone. "Let's hurry."
They made for the staircase without waiting for a reply. I didn't know who they were, but I knew they were right. I ran after them, and the others followed close behind.
We didn't stop climbing until we reached the highest floor. We were in a room almost identical to the first lobby, although this one lacked the double doors. Instead, there were two doors to the right numbered with a 4 and a 5. Beside each was a scanner with a blue light winking up at us.
"Does this mean we need a bracelet with a 4 or a 5?" I asked no one in particular. Mine still read 2. I waved my hand in front of the scanner, which gave a beep of recognition, and pulled the lever, but the door didn't open. "Fuck!" I grappled with the door, trying to force it open, to no avail.
"I'm number 4," said the black guy from earlier. He narrowed his eyes. "But I don't think that will work." To prove his point, he mimicked my gesture and pulled the lever. Still nothing.
"What the hell are we supposed to do then?" I demanded. He didn't flinch.
"Calm down," he said.
"How am I supposed to be calm?" I cried. "On second thought, why are you so calm?" Now that I thought about it, he didn't seem panicked at all. I looked around at the others. A lot of them seemed speculative, but no one was in hysterics.
The man frowned. "I suppose you could say I've done this before," he said reluctantly. "I'd go so far to say that I know what I'm doing."
"You what?"
"Don't you?" His dark eyes stared into mine. Suddenly, I felt dizzy again, my headache returning in full force.
"N-no, I…" I rubbed my temples. "What are you talking about?"
He looked at the others. "You seem to have already jumped to the conclusion that these numbered doors are the way out. Most people would have suggested heading to one of the lower floors that the water hasn't reached yet."
"B-but…the cabin door was numbered too…" I protested weakly. His words made sense, but somehow I knew the doors on the lower floors would be locked.
"If I could interject here," the gentle-looking man spoke up. Despite looking rather pale, he put on another smile. I didn't know what kind of person one would have to be to smile in a situation like this. He addressed the black man. "You also talk as if you know something about these doors."
Stripes grimaced. "Well, yes. These doors are the way out. I said I'd done this before, didn't I?"
"Um…" We all turned to the girl who had spoken. She was petite, with tawny hair and big green eyes. Her bangs were pinned to the side with two yellow clips. She wore oval glasses and was dressed nicely in a green cardigan and a flared pencil skirt, although her clothes were stained with water. "I've also…played this before. It's the N-nonary Game, isn't it?" Although she asked a question, her tone suggested that she already knew the answer.
"I've also played this," said another girl. I did a double take before allowing my eyes to scan over her. She played up her figure with a black crop top and short shorts. Her skin was tanned, and she had dark hair like silk. I estimated she was about my age, give or take, but her eyes were intelligent. I doubted much got past her. "Sixteen years ago, when I was twelve."
One by one, the others affirmed that they too had played this "Nonary Game" before, sixteen years ago.
"Am I the only one who hasn't heard of this game?" I asked, clenching my fists.
"I haven't," said Smile.
"Me neither." A woman with long, midnight blue hair nodded at me. She was wearing a striped purple sweater over a blank tank. Her gray sweatpants were rolled up to her knees, presumably to keep them out of the water. She frowned. "Or…if I have, I don't remember it. I can't remember much of anything, actually."
Stripes looked alarmed. "Anything? Your name?"
The woman shook her head. "Not at all."
The others pitched in with some questions, but I wasn't listening. Amnesia at a time like this was bad news, and in any other instance, I would have found it suspicious, but… Now that she'd brought it up, who was I? I remembered nothing of who I was or where I came from, much less how and why I had ended up wherever I was. Clearly I remembered how to talk, and I could recall other basic things, but…nothing about myself. It was like my memory was a blank slate.
"Sounds like generalized amnesia," said one of the men who had been the last to join us in the lobby. Until now, he had seemed relatively disinterested in the conversation. He had unkempt orange hair falling past his shoulders, and his jaw was lined with stubble. Strangely, he wore some kind of…bathrobe-looking vesture. In addition, I didn't think he was wearing pants.
His companion, a reserved man with a mop of thick black hair and even thicker glasses, coughed. "Generalized amnesiacs remember how to speak and such, but they cannot remember anything about themselves. It's a rare type of dissociative amnesia."
"Uh, I… I don't remember anything about myself either," I volunteered. Eight pairs of eyes whirled back towards me.
"That's…unusual," said Stripes, once again the first to recover. "You were rather adamant about having never played the Nonary Game before."
"I wasn't really thinking about it," I admitted, flushing faintly. "I mean, I didn't remember anything about this 'Nonary Game.' I just didn't think about why until after this whole amnesia thing was brought up."
Smile looked around. "Then I guess I'm the only one who knows for certain I've never played the Nonary Game before?" He raised an eyebrow at the one person who hadn't spoken yet: a young blonde girl, probably the youngest in the whole group. I pegged her as a teenager, maybe eighteen or so. She had short hair and green eyes and wore a black turtleneck. She bit her lip.
"I haven't…" she murmured. She straightened, looking more confident. "I was a baby sixteen years ago."
"I can verify that," said Silk. "There weren't any babies back then."
"All right, then out of the nine people here, we have two people who haven't played the Nonary Game before, five who have, and two who aren't sure," said Stripes, furrowing his eyebrows. "I guess we should explain what the Nonary Game is."
"Actually," interrupted Smiles, "um, can we start by introducing ourselves?" Everyone shifted around, sending uncomfortable glances at each other. He was right. In our panic, I had almost overlooked it, but I didn't know any of these people.
Glasses cleared his throat. "Wait, before we do…don't you think it's dangerous to reveal your real name? I mean, most of us have met each other once, and a long time ago at that."
"What are you suggesting?" demanded Midnight.
"He's saying he doesn't trust any of you," said Stubble. He yawned. "Can't say I blame him."
Smiles didn't look affronted or surprised. He smiled again. I wondered if anything fazed him. "Very well. I guess if you don't want to reveal your real name, you can make up an alias."
The blonde girl lifted her left arm to show us her bracelet. "I'm number 1, so I'll go first. You can call me Tera."
She didn't give any indication whether that was her real name or not, and no one asked. An awkward silence fell over the group.
"Oh." Right, I was number 2. I repeated her gesture, showing the group my bracelet. Then I realized that even if I wanted to tell them my name, I didn't know it myself. "I guess I'll go with…Sparta, then."
Stripes raised his eyebrows. "The Greek city-state? Any particular reason?"
"No, not really. It just felt right, I guess." I didn't know how to explain the sensation to him. In the back of my head, it felt like a small voice was whispering the name to me. The others accepted my words easily enough, however.
"Well, Sparta was known for its m-military strength," piped up Clips, curling a lock of hair that had escaped her braids. "Maybe you were a soldier?"
Maybe. I didn't feel like that was right though.
She continued. "Um, I'm number 3." She showed us her wrist. "And I'll go by Rain."
Stripes was 4, which his bracelet verified. "Then for my alias, I'll choose Honor."
Stubble raised a single eyebrow. "Hoping to make yourself sound more trustworthy?"
Honor smirked. "It's a strong name, isn't it?"
"Then I'll choose Chron," said Glasses, showing us his number 5 bracelet. "It's derived from the Greek god of time. Apt for the Nonary Game."
"I'm 6," said Silk. "I'll go by Lady."
"What kind of name is that?" I asked.
She shrugged, her hair falling away from her muscular shoulders. A topaz statement necklace, glinting in the bad lighting, covered her collarbone and the top of her cleavage. "Like you said, it just feels right."
Midnight adjusted her sweater. "My bracelet is number 7. Like Sparta, the only thing I remember is waking up in that room and nearly drowning. For that reason, I think I'll go with Suijin, the Shinto god of water."
"Rather dark, don't you think?" muttered Stubble, lifting his wrist to show us the 8 on his bracelet. "Call me Versailles."
"Are you French?" asked Rain. The man shrugged. To the rest of us, she explained, "Versailles is a palace built by Louis XIV, le Roi-Soleil. The Sun King."
Versailles ran his fingers through his hair, mussing it further. "Look, it's just a name. Doesn't have to have a meaning." The others made sounds of agreement, but I couldn't help but notice that the color of his hair really did remind me of a sunset. Why this struck me, I didn't know, considering I didn't remember having ever seen one.
"Then I'll finish us up," said Smiles cheerfully. "Please call me Fire."
I stared at him. His hair was combed nicely and, unlike Versaille's, neither vivid nor red. His eyes were a soft gray. I supposed he was handsome and there was a warmth to his eyes, but… Ah, well. I wasn't one to question his taste in names.
"Okay, so now that we're all buddy-buddy, can you explain what the hell this Nonary Game is?" said Suijin, stamping her foot. "You all keep talking about this game sixteen years ago. What are you talking about?"
Before anyone could answer, the clock from earlier began tolling again. One gong. Two. Three. Four… Eleven. Twelve. After the twelfth toll, the sounds subsided and an eerie silence, although I could still feel the reverberations throughout the ship. It was twelve o' clock. Whether that meant midnight or noon, I didn't know.
"D-don't you think it's a bit too…quiet?" said Rain.
I jolted, as if shocked out of my thoughts. The sound of rushing water from the lower decks had disappeared with the tolls of the clock. It seemed everyone else realized this at the same time, and we all ran to the staircase. Somehow, the floor beneath us was completely submerged, the water reaching halfway up the stairs. Now, however, the surface was completely still, devoid of even ripples. It looked like a painted picture or glass. Although I knew it wasn't the case, I still thought that I might even be able to walk on the surface.
We returned to the numbered doors. Now that the possibility of escape through the lower floors had been eliminated, it was apparent that the 4 and 5 doors were our only hope of progressing. This knowledge escaped no one, and even Fire looked rather solemn.
Honor coughed. "Well. It looks like –"
And then a loud, electronic voice, raspy and screeching, startled all of us.
"Welcome, all, to the AX Project."
Prologue 1: End
Welcome, all, to Zero Escape: Look Behind You. While this story isn't intended to replace ZE3 (#projectbluebird), I still tried to bridge the gap between 999 and VLR.
Although this fic is mostly set up from Sparta's POV, we'll still be following the other groups through doors that Sparta doesn't go through. With that in mind, you readers can decide who goes through which door. While the main plot elements will mostly remain the same, depending on who goes with who, you'll get to see different insights on the characters' backstories and personalities. The poll is on my profile page, so if you could please vote, that would be great! If you don't have an account, drop your vote in a review and I'll count it.
-Fang