A/N: Hey all! Chapter 2 is here! Just to tell new readers that OC submissions are still open! Forms on my Profile and you can put your OCs in the Review section or PM me! PM is preferred! No Black Mages or Dragon Slayers please! I decided to extend submission time! When the submissions are closed, I'll be sure to inform you in the latest chapter! It's around 11 pm right now and I need some sleep so I'll shut up now! XD

Disclaimer: I do not own FT!


Chirp

Chirp

Chirp

The sound of the night-dwelling crickets echoed in the moon-lit night. Fireflies appear, swimming through the air, writing bright messages in secret codes. Mosquitoes gather for their midnight feast, as they glide by, you can hear their wavering buzzing. Faint beams of moon light caressed Lucy's face. Her eyes scrunched before fluttering open.

Augggg… Where Am I?

Her brown orbs darted around quickly scanning the setting in front of her at ground-level. She spotted a mattress of some sort and the slim wooden legs of what appears to be either a small table or a chair. Lucy hoisted herself up to her feet to get a better look at the foreign surroundings she woke up in. It was a decent sized room, or at least spacious enough to fit a single-sized bed with a mattress with plenty of room left. It was missing a roof and in replace was a wired cage-like surface criss-crossing across the top. Lucy could spot the vast nigh sky, but the stars were no where to be seen.

The high stool-like table that she saw from the ground was in one corner, just ahead of a tattered mattress. Lucy strolled towards the worn out stand and noticed that the top was littered with jaggedly carved engravings of tally marks. They infested the whole table top in bunches of five. She ran her fingers across the splintering surface.

The two beds on either sides of the room were far from disgusting, they were in fact horrendous. The torn-down mattress, far from its original colour, was almost slashed to shreds. Springs were bursting out of the gigantic hole in the middle.

The bed on the other side was almost just as bad. Although the mattress was in better shape than its roommate on the other side, it also suffered from discolouration and neglect big times. The covering on the bed was drenched in a light reddish-brown colour. The rather prominent stains were an even darker shade of red, Lucy was afraid to find out what the 'substance' was. Like the mattress, the material was also slit on the edges, making the sides of the cover hang down from the rest of the sheet, sweeping across the dirt-strewn ground.

The sheets were sewn together using many smaller pieces of scrap fabrics. It was extremely poorly stitched that the sections of cloth were clinging to each other for dear life by just a few strings. By the looks of the condition it's in, you would almost expect it to dissolve in your hands upon touch.

Lucy nearly missed the repulsive ceramic sink right ahead of the framed bed, a few meters away from the door in the opposite corner of the table. There was a constant drip of water that came from the rusty tap. The sides of the sink were splattered with the same dried dark-red stains that were on the bed sheet.

Is this…blood?

The trails of burgundy continued onto the walls and even the sand-littered concrete grounds.

J-just what happened in here? More importantly, why am I here?

"So you are the new player." The voice emphasizing the word 'play' with much disgust.

Lucy, startled by the realization that there was another person in the room, veered around to see a raven haired young man sitting in the dark of the shadows, leaning against a wall in a corner.

"What? What do you mean by 'player'? Where am I, and tell me, what's going on?" Lucy sputtered.

The young man sucked air through his teeth, as if she'd asked a very difficult question. "Well, in a nutshell, you are pretty much dead." Lucy stared at him, her eyebrows knitted with confusion.

Wait, what? W-what does that mean by that?

She swallowed hard, and anticipated for what this person was about to say next.

"I'm…dead?"

He sighed.

"Every five years, hundreds of mages all across Fiore go missing. All of them disappear and never came back. I guess you can say that this year, we are just two of them." The man stumbled to his feet and walked towards Lucy. He locked eyes with her, emerald to haze.

"We are now apart of a tournament hosted by a dark guild. We are forced to participate until only one is left." Lucy felt a chill down her back, her body reacted violently and her whole body shuttered. Her constricted chestnut-brown orbs seem to tremble along in their sockets with her body and she was breaking out in cold sweat.

"I might as well as break the news to you now that you're here. Forget about them. Forget everyone, family, friends, loved ones and comrades." His voice was low, almost a whisper. Lucy looked back into those jade eyes. They were glowing like a cat's in the darkness.

"The moment you stepped in here there was no going back. For the next two months or so, you'll spend every waking moment here. Eat, sleep and of course…"

Thump-thump-thump.

"…you'll die here was well." He too returned the stare and looked Lucy dead in the eye. Lucy collapsed by the young man's boots. She covered her face with hands and tried to steady her rapid gasps of breaths. She wanted to scream.

This, this is a living hell! Natsu, everyone, please! Help.

"Oh yeah, my name is Yahiro, Yahiro Raiden Pendragon and welcome to hell."


The young girl sat on the end of the bed with her legs swinging bark and forth and a sketch pad on her lap. With her delicate and slender fingers around the pencil, using tentative strokes and flicks of the wrist, she created the base of her sketch by the light of the moon.

Although it was cluttered with pencil marking, you can still make out that it was of a family that was she drawing. A mother and father holding hands with a little girl in a dress, much like her own, sandwiched between the two adults. The girl put her pencil down and stared with cerulean eyes as empty and lonely as a doll's at the piece.

Papa! Papa! Look at what I drew!

A little girl in a ruffled scarlet and white dress stumbled across the stone path of a garden with a sketch pad in arms.

Oh! That's a beautiful flower, Mizuki! Let's show it to Mama!

"Mizuki!"

Hand in hand they strolled laughing and smiling toward a tall woman admiring a patch of roses. The air was filled with sweet aromas.

Mama!

"Hey Mizuki!"

The woman turned around, but where her face was supposed to be was replaced with pale, flat skin. The woman had no face.

"Do you hear me Mizuki!?"

"Oh, yes?" Mizuki said blandly in a quiet voice, swinging her chocolate brown ponytail around to meet the other person's eyes.

"Good thing they left you with that sketch pad. Looks like you can spend your whole day drawing in that thing." The young man sitting behind her smirked. He held a shiny silver staff in one hand and polished it the best he could with a rag.

"Can't make this too clean or else the blood of the people I kill will stain this wonderful weapon. Ah, the crimson blood that'll ooze out of a fresh wound signalling death and defeat!" he licked his lips with excitement.

His olive eyes darted around like one of a wild animal, a predator, yearning for bloodshed.

"Hehehe, hehehehehehe." His giggle was crazed, almost bone-chilling.

"Demian, get a hold of yourself!" Mizuki raised her impassive voice a bit.

"A-ah, sorry." Demian stuttered, putting his forehead on his palm and letting his violet hair fall by his face. After a good five minutes of silence, Mizuki spoke up to break it.

"Ne, Demian? Do you think we can win this?" her monotonous voice was quieter that usual. Demian was a bit surprise by her sudden question. Then he smiled softly but with a hint of sadness.

"Tch, of course we can stupid! With my awesome skills in wielding Splice and my exceptional speed and stealth, I'll be able to protect the two of us till the end for sure! No one will even be able to lay a finger on us before I zap them to crisp!" Demian bragged, wrapping an arm around Mizuki and pulling her backwards onto the bed, with her head resting in his lap.

"Don't worry kiddo, we'll make it through this together!" he gave her a big grin and a thumb up. She looked up at her partner's beaming face but didn't smile back, just gave a reassuring stare.

So this is what you call affection, it feels somewhat… warm and nice.

She closed her eyes and felt at ease in Demian's lap as she drifted of into slumber. Demian ran his fingers through his partner's hair before sliding out from under her head and resting her on a pillow and sheets. A hot streak of tear streamed down his face and trickled down his chin.

Hey brother, that's what you would have done right?

"I'm sorry Mizuki." He said through gritted teeth and kneeling down beside her sleeping figure.

"But my brother once told me not to believe in everything a big brother says."


Hehehe! Things are getting interesting! So, please review and tell me what you think! And also, from Now on I think I'll update every week on Friday or so. And please tell me if there is any mistakes in grammar or spelling or if there are character's personal thoughts that have not been highlighted in italics!

KYAA! Three new OCs! :D

Demian (Wasabi-kun)

Mizuki (Shakasa)

Yahiro is my own OC!

Don't panic if your OC isn't in yet! They'll appear eventually! :)