AN: *Throws glitter in your faces and walks away*
Chapter 7: Gods don't bleed (after the youtube animation)
"What could possibly be cause for you to wake me up in the middle of my nap?!"
"It's 4979. He has a match."
"Oh haha, that's very funny."
"No; you need to see this. It's crazy."
"What?-Oh."
"Exactly."
"But there isn't a subject assigned to that number."
"That's the issue."
"So… who is he getting?"
"Well… I have a theory,but you aren't going to like it."
There was a letter under Player's door when he woke up the next morning. He picked it up before he was even fully awake and set it on the bed while he got dressed.
He was too nervous to open it right away. He couldn't stand the thought of what might or might not be in that letter. What were they going to do with him if he had no partner? Maybe they would just wake him up and he'd start a real life. Maybe he would be put in a group of three instead of two. He could just see himself following around a couple of buff gladiators. What fun that would be.
He stood there for nearly five minutes, just looking at the little white envelope with the number 4979 stamped on it.
Then someone knocked at his door, and Clarence's voice said, "Player, open up!"
Player jumped, dropped the letter, caught it before it fell all the way to the floor.
He opened the door and looked down at Clarence. The boy was clasping his own letter in one hand, the seal torn open.
"It's not so bad," Clarence said, "maybe Bit is right, and they are in our heads."
"Who is it?" Player asked.
"A woodswoman. Her name is Spark. She's, uh, she's basically my best friend already."
Player smiled, his own heart sinking, "Well that's good."
"Who do you have?" Clarence asked, peering at the envelope in Player's hand.
"I don't know. I haven't opened it yet."
"Well you'd better hurry up. We're all supposed to go eat breakfast with our partners, to get to know them and get the assignments for today."
Player tore open the envelope slowly. He was prolonging the ordeal in the hopes of relieving some of the stress. When it was finally open he took out the sheet of paper within.
The first thing he saw was the four-digit number, and he breathed a sigh of relief, but when he looked more closely he realized something that makes him shudder.
"What is it?" Clarence asked, picking up on his mood.
"It's…" Player struggled to voice the thought, "it says their number is 0000."
Clarence frowns, "There is no 0000,"
"I know."
Clarence suddenly seemed very eager to get away, "Well, I'm going to go eat with Spark. I'll see you later."
"Alright," Player said, still looking at his paper. According to the paper he wasn't even supposed to go to breakfast. He was supposed to go to Survival Games Lobby 5 and wait there.
Clarence hurried off.
Player gathered up his pickaxe, took a loaf of bread from one of his chests to eat while he waited, and set off down the hall. The survival games lobbies were almost a kilometer away, and the only game lobbies that were permanently attached to the dorms. Because the gladiators spent so much time there, he supposed, like how the mining caves and farmlands were within reach.
A kilometer wasn't much when you spent most of your time trekking through underground caverns, and Player soon reached his destination. Sure enough, there was one player in lobby 5.
Player took a deep breath and connected to the lobby. He took a bite of the bread, hoping to steady his nerves. The room loaded around him. Obstacle course at the far end, kit selection against the left hand wall.
Player stepped off the loading block. A message appeared before him.
"Sparring is now enabled"
He frowned: what?
And that was when something slammed into him from behind. Player was thrown forward bodily, off the stairs leading down into the lobby. He rolled into a ball as he bounced off the unforgiving quartz, his bread went flying and his pick banged him painfully in the head several times.
He landed sprawled on the grass, disoriented. Bruises were already rising on his arms. Despite the situation, Player spared a moment to wonder what the possible purpose of adding pain into the game was.
Then he forced himself up, drawing the only weapon available to him: his pick. It was a devastating weapon in itself, and he had used it to brain more than a few zombies, so he knew it could split skulls.
Before he could properly get his feet under himself they were on him again, slamming him down into the ground. Words appeared in front of Player again, "You lose."
"Son of a-," Player started.
"Reset," Growled a voice above him.
Player blinked, and he and his opponent were standing at opposite ends of the lobby. He saw them for the first time. It was the colors that came through first: Blue on blue.
Player knew that their bodies inside the games were just avatars, that the way he looked inside the game wasn't how his body actually looked, but he couldn't help but feel strangely violated when it registered that this player had exactly the same appearance as he did.
The other was a little wider in the shoulders, a little more muscled across the chest, and his hair was a little longer, but everything else-skin tone, bone structure, facial features-were identical, with one very important exception. The other player's eyes were pure white. That in itself wasn't uncommon: lots of players had blank white eyes, but this seemed different. His eyes looked luminous.
And he was grinning in a way that made Player think he wasn't going to get out of this without many more bruises.
Player began edging over to the kits wall, moving his feet slowly along the ground, ready to bolt. The other player matched him step for step, diamond sword gleaming wickedly in the light.
When Player was within reach of the wall, he slammed his right palm against the kit he wanted. When he pulled it away he had a bow in his fist.
Player raised the bow and pulled back the string in a single motion. The arrow flew across the room in an arc and missed the other player by a fraction of an inch because he was already moving.
Player grabbed his pickaxe and swung in a desperate bid for self-defense, but the other player ducked under it and brought up his own sword in a vicious arc and slammed it into Player's chest. It didn't penetrate because it was just a sparring mode, but it knocked all the breath out of Player's lungs and made him collapse to the ground.
Again those words appeared before him, "you lose," but unlike before there was no, "reset," from the other player. The silence made Player's whole body tense up. It was unnerving.
When he got his breath back enough to look up, the white eyes of the other player were looking back at him. He was standing over Player.
A drop of blood fell and landed in the grass in front of Player's right hand, the one the bow was still clutched in. Player realized that the man-or boy or however old he is-had a cut on his cheek. It was barely more than a scratch, but he still had one.
It was a glitch he knew well; when you dodged an arrow, but didn't quite make it out of the way, you would occasionally receive a laceration, even in sparring mode. Painful, but they healed quickly.
He took one huge breath, "Reset." And he was back across the room from the man. But he didn't start the battle over again. He walked calmly to the kit wall and pressed his palm against the archer kit, resupplying himself with arrows.
When he turned back around the other man had climbed up into a tree and buried his sword in the wood of the block he was sitting on. They watched each other for a moment, then Player looked around for his loaf of bread. He found it on the ground beside the wall. He picked it up, slung his bow over one shoulder, and scrambled up into his favorite spot in this lobby, a very difficult to reach corner of the wall. There he put his back to cold stone and ripped a chunk off the loaf of bread with his teeth.
They sat there, watching each other. Player thought that he must be hungry, but the man gave no indication of discomfort in any way, and if he wanted anything from Player he shouldn't have attacked him.
"You're 4979?" The man said finally. His voice was unnecessarily deep, in Player's opinion. Most of the people in the game spoke in a medium register because that was what was programmed in.
Player chewed for a long moment before speaking. "You're 0000?"
The man scowled, "Yes."
"I'm 4979."
"Miner," He said the word with such scorn that Player felt his cheeks flush.
"Gladiator," He fired back, with just as much distaste. He wished he had gotten Ivy as his partner.
The man snorted derisively and turned his back to Player. Player would have turned around as well, but because he had a wall at his back turning around risked falling.
What did I do to get paired with this guy, Player thought, tearing another chunk from his bread. Roughly half of it was gone now. He paused, looking at the food in his hand.
He wound up and threw the loaf of bread at the back of the man's head. He reacted so fast that Player swore he could see the projectile coming. He spun around and plucked the bread out of the air. It was hard to tell because his eyes were blank, but Player thought that he glanced down, then back up.
Player shrugged and stayed silent.
The first few people began coming through the portal. Player immediately spotted all three of the farmers with their partners. Clarence was walking beside a wiry girl with long brown hair and bright green eyes, while Bit had been partnered with a blonde, blue-eyed creature. Ivy had a muscled, scowling gladiator next to her, but she didn't seem at all troubled.
"Here we go," Player muttered, rolling his eyes.
The man in the tree seemed oddly amused by this.
"Player!" Clarence exclaimed when he spotted him, and immediately the other two crowded over to gaze up at him.
For the first time Player ripped his gaze away from the man in the tree. He leaned forward slightly to look down at the six people looking up at him. Was it purposeful that they were all in the same lobby? Probably.
"What are you doing?" Bit shouted up.
"Sitting here."
"He's kind of cute," The blonde girl whispered to Clarence's brown-haired companion.
Bit scowled, and Player frowned.
"How do you get up there?" Ivy asked. Her eyes were flicking around the lobby, looking for an obvious path.
"Dude!" Another voice called out, from a ways away.
Player looks up, but the speaker wasn't looking at him. Instead he was staring up into the tree, and the white-eyed man was looking down at him.
"How do you get up there?" The player asked.
The man didn't reply. He yanked his sword out of the branch slammed it into the trunk beside him. Player couldn't help agreeing with the sentiment.
Ivy called his attention back down to the group below him.
"Did you get a partner?" She asked.
Player allowed his eyes to flick back up to the man in the tree. He was eating the half a loaf of bread, taking huge bites like he was afraid someone was going to take it from him. His blank eyes seemed to be fixed on the food in his hands.
Player nodded slightly, "I did."
She brightened, "Who is she?"
"Um…" Player paused, unsure if he actually wanted to tell them that he was paired with a "he," and not a "she." But he was saved the task of answering by the countdown to signal the start of the game.
The players beneath him started scrambling for the kit board. Player looked up, making eye contact with the man in the tree. The other blinked, yanked his sword out of the wood and slung it over his shoulder. He nodded once to Player, and that same mad grin spread over his face.
Player had seen that look before, and he swallowed nervously. It was like the man was saying, "I'm going to kill all of them," and the subscript said, "you're going to help me." Player didn't know if he could help, because in combat situations he was about as helpful as gladiators would be down in the mines.
It was too late for second thoughts though, because the lobby blinked out of existence, and Player found himself rising into the survival arena.