Chapter One:

"Are you sure about this, Joey?" Yugi asked doubtfully as he looked down again at the cover of the new videogame Joey and Tristan had brought over. It was a survival horror, certainly not something Yugi generally enjoyed.

"Yeah, come on, pal, why not?"

"It looks like fun," Tristan added.

Yugi doubted that, at least for himself. The cover of the game, titled simply Survive [Beta], had a picture of three computer-generated people on the front, running towards the viewer, but looking over their shoulders at something unseen. They appeared to be in some wooded area, but just visible in the far background was what looked like a house or a church in an America style. As expected, the name of the game was done in spiky red letters that appeared to be dripping blood. Yugi turned it over, but saw no summary text, platform information, or credits.

"You said this came in the mail as a tester?"

"Yeah, Yug', don't you remember? You got one, too. They're looking for gamers to test it, that's why it's in beta, and give them some feedback. We got advertisements in the mail asking us to reply back if we were interested and I did."

Yugi frowned slightly, trying to remember. "But they hire people for that, not solicit them."

Joey laughed, taking the game from Yugi. "This way they get their feedback for free. But we get to say we played it first, if it's popular. They said something about free merchandise, too, once we submit the feedback. Come on, Yug', give it a try with Tristan and me."

"And what about me?" Tea asked.

"Oh," Joey said, sounding genuinely surprised. "Erm, you want to try it? I didn't think it'd be your thing."

"Like it's Yugi's?" Tea made a 'gimme' gesture with one hand. "Come on, let me try."

"Well, sure, happy to have ya."

"That makes four of us," Yugi pointed out. "What are we going to do, take turns?"

"Nope." Tristan held out a big box. "They gave us these special controllers and headsets. They're wireless or something to your console. Says as long as they're on, you can have as many players as controllers. They gave us six."

"They just sent six controllers and headsets in the mail?" Tea asked. "That sounds risky. People could steal them."

"Well, they're supposed to only work with the game, according to the instructions, and Joey put his address on the opt-in form, so they know where to go to get them back."

That sounded weirdly ominous to Yugi, even though it was perfectly normal. He frowned. This was a strange campaign, sending so much equipment out to random people, just to get beta testers. Though, Joey was right, it was a way to get free feedback. Now he sort of did remember. Something about he'd been selected as part of Round 3 of solicited beta testing, the makers having chosen Japan after going through America and then Germany. Because it was a survival horror, he'd tossed out the invitation.

Joey and Tristan were looking at him expectantly.

"Come on, King of Games, branch out a little," Tristan said with a grin.

"All right, I'm in."

Joey whooped. "Great, I knew you would. Tea, break out those snacks and let's get started."

Tea obligingly started unpacking the snacks she'd brought over. Yugi got bowls and cups from the kitchen, helped by Tristan, while Joey turned on the videogame console, popped in the disc, and then turned on four each of the controllers and headsets. Soon, the group was surrounded by bowls of chips, popcorn, pretzels, and cookies, sipping soda and ginger ale while the game loaded.

"Sure is taking a while," Joey said, passing out the headsets.

"I guess it's because it's in beta," Yugi said, while they watched a tiny series of red dots start filling the bottom edge of the screen. "We should take notes for the developers."

Tea dug into her purse and brought out a spiral notepad and a pen. She jotted down the long load screen. Yugi studied the controller in his hands. It looked almost the same as the controller that belonged to the console, only without anyplace to attach a power cord. He turned it over and saw a red symbol that looked sort of runic on the back of the casing.

"It's doing something," Joey said, drawing Yugi's attention back to the screen.

The symbol on the back of the controller appeared on the screen. Below it, Survive appeared in red letters, then what looked like Latin.

"What's that say?" Joey asked.

"I don't know," Tea said. "Infernum vocat te? Et…advenit daemon? I'm not sure if I'm saying that right."

"Demon?" Tristan guessed. "The monster is a demon."

"Probably, but they should put the translation in their instructions." Tea set down her controller and reached for her notepad and pen.

"I bet they will in the finished game," Joey said. "When they get the instruction booklet together."

The symbol and words faded out. Then the screen suddenly broke into four squares and four faceless, sexless, nude models appeared in each square. On the right of the figures were small boxes containing what looked like a wig, a face, a shirt, and a pair of shoes. At the bottom of each were boxes to add their names.

"Cool, you can customize," Tristan said, immediately moving his cursor to the hair box.

"Yeah, why not," Joey said, selecting his own. "Good luck finding something that looks like yours, Yug'!" he teased as he selected blonde and then drew the cursor to length it.

Yugi laughed and noted that there weren't really many options at all. Bald, crew cut, straight, curly, and spiked. The spikes looked more like a punk rocker, but it was close enough, especially when the length slider made the spikes grow in size. He chose black, since there was definitely no tri-color option, then moved on to eyes. Those did come in purple as well as blue, green, light brown, dark brown, and an unsettling gold that he supposed was meant to be hazel. There were no other face options; once he selected eyes, the model sported a face that looked generic and reminded Yugi of the animated video game series that was on its twelfth or thirteenth title. Handsome, stoic, and bland. He put a black tank top and then black jeans and black sneakers on his character and decided that was good enough. He turned his attention to the others.

Joey's avatar had long blond hair, dark brown eyes, the same exact face as Yugi's, blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and white sneakers. Tristan's avatar had a crew cut, since there was no forehead spike option, was a brunette with light brown eyes, and also wore a white T-shirt and blue jeans, though Tristan had opted for black sneakers.

"Come on, Tea," Joey whined, stuffing another handful of popcorn in his mouth. "Just choose something."

"I want to see all they have," Tea said. She had already selected brown hair and lengthened it to the avatar's shoulders and added blue eyes and a pink V-neck shirt. She was scrolling through the bottom-clothes list, which Yugi saw had a few more options than he'd expected, since he'd just stopped immediately at black jeans. Tea scrolled to the end a couple seconds later, then moved back up and chose a white knee-length skirt. Thankfully for all of the boys, there weren't many shoe options, and she had selected brown sandals in another moment.

"Sandals in a survival horror," Joey muttered.

Tea rapped him lightly on the head with her controller and he snickered and leaned out of her reach. Yugi noted that when she selected a skirt, the avatar's eyes widened slightly into a more feminine look, though all of the models still had such generic features and body stature that it was really impossible to tell they were supposed to be boys and girls. The shoulders were uniformly the same width, the arms and legs the same length and with all the musculature definition of spaghetti. They had less secondary sex characteristics than the mannequins at the mall.

With all four of the avatars selected as complete, the screen faded to black again. The red Latin words and arcane symbol appeared again along with the Japanese admonition Too late to escape.

"Ooh," Tea said in fake fear.

"It's going to be cheesy," Tristan said, taking a drink of soda. "But might still be fun."

Abruptly words sounded in their headsets, not loud, but making them all jump in surprise. The voice was deep and masculine and generically ominous. *Arcanum activate. Yugi Moto has joined Survive. Arcanum activate. Joey Wheeler has joined Survive. Arcanum activate. Tristan Taylor has joined Survive. Arcanum activate. Tea Gardner has joined Survive. Too late to escape.*

"'Arcanum activate?'" Joey repeated. "What's that mean?"

The black screen gave way to four viewing screens. Each appeared to be from the first-person point of view of each of their avatars. Yugi's was facing in such a way that Tristan's was directly in front of him, while Joey and Tea stood on either side. All four were standing in a circle as if conferring with each other.

"TV's too small for this," Tristan said. "No one's going to be able to really see what's going on unless they have one of those huge, fancy TVs."

"I can see," Tea said.

"Yeah, I can, too, but it's still small."

Yugi leaned forward a little and studied his character's screen. The viewpoint shifted downward and the avatar appeared to be looking at a map. Words appeared on the screen and Yugi had to get off the couch and closer to the TV to read them.

"'We're lost,'" he recited. "'We should never have left the trail.'"

Joey came up on his left, reading the text that appeared on his own avatar's screen. "'We'll be fine, quit worrying. There's a town just North of here.'" His avatar's hand tapped the map in Yugi's avatar's hands. "Tea's says, 'We should hurry, it's almost dark.'"

"Too small," Tristan muttered again.

"Relax, T. We can see just fine. One of us will just read the text out loud for the others."

"I'll do it," Yugi volunteered, sitting on his heels at the foot of the TV. The living room one stood on an entertainment station unlike the one in his room, so at least he wasn't blocking the view.

Joey scooted back and resumed his place sitting back against the foot of the couch by Tea's legs. Tristan leaned forward in his armchair, poised for the action to start. Yugi's avatar had consulted a compass while they were talking and now all four avatars were just standing placidly, waiting for their players to move them.

For a few seconds there was confusion as they learned what buttons did what. The direction pad turned the characters in circles while the left joystick made them walk. Tristan found out for all of them that tilting the right joystick with the left made the characters run. Tilting it around its axis made the characters move towards the left and right, but didn't change their full direction, so they ran at angles. The d-pad had to be used for that. This meant that for them to do something like turning a corner, they could only walk. Still, with fast enough button pushes, they wouldn't slow too much doing so. It would just take some getting used to. The X button made the characters jump, the O made them duck or crouch depending on how long the button was held, and the A and B buttons seemed to do nothing. However, the L1 button made Yugi's avatar bring out a flashlight and the R1 made him put it away. The others tested their buttons to see that all of their characters were equipped with flashlights and nothing else.

"There's little battery icons, at the bottom left," Yugi reported, seeing the miniscule symbols. "We should conserve them until it's dark."

They all put away their flashlights and headed as a group to the North. At the bottom right of each of the four screens was a mini compass rose to show they were indeed heading North.

Each of the screens showed a nondescript wooded background. The characters were on no trail, as the storyline had indicated, and were instead plowing through rendered brush, dappled sunshine filtering through the canopy plenty enough to see by for now.

"Tristan's avatar says, 'We don't know how far the town is,'" Yugi said. "Joey's says, 'What else are we going to do?' Tea's says, 'I wish I wasn't wearing sandals.'"

Joey burst out laughing and Tristan joined in. Yugi looked over his shoulder to see Tea looking miffed.

"I told you sandals in a survival game was a bad idea!" Joey gasped between howls of laughter. "The game agrees!"

"Why did they give that option then?" Tea sniffed. "I'll change."

Yugi looked back at the screen, but though all four of their avatars had stopped, nothing happened on Tea's screen.

"It won't let me."

"I bet once you choose, you're stuck," Tristan said. Yugi looked back to see he was still amused, but getting a hold of himself. Joey had taken advantage of the break to eat some more chips.

Tea sighed and shrugged. "Well, she hiked all the way here in sandals, I guess she'll be okay."

"Hey, we can't pause," Joey said. He was pushed the start and stop button on his controller.

"Do you think it's a bug?" Yugi asked, testing his own and getting the same result.

"Maybe you're not supposed to be able to," Joey mused. "You know, you're supposed to survive. It's not realistic if you can just pause when a monster's coming for you."

"It's a game," Tea said. "What do they expect, that people will just play for hours without stopping?"

"Yes," Joey and Tristan said at the same time.

Tea rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean. That's not a good feature." She set her controller down and picked up her pen and pad.

Yugi was turning his avatar around in circles so he could look in every direction. There was nothing to see except empty woods and the other avatars.

Suddenly the voice in their ears made them all jump again.

*Arcanum activate. Seto Kaiba has joined Survive.*

"Kaiba?" Joey repeated in astonishment. "He's doing this?"

"It's an online game?" Tea asked. "I mean, I guess that's why you can't pause. Still, I'll leave that note."

"If it's an online game, why isn't there a microphone on these?" Tristan asked.

Yugi turned his character around in circles again, but saw nothing on the screen but his friends and empty woods. "Do you think we came far enough that his avatar is not rendered in our area?" he asked, looking back at the others.

"Who cares?" Joey grumbled. Then he grinned evilly. "Hey, I wonder if I can pick up a fallen branch and cave his head in."

"Joey, we're all supposed to be surviving the demon, not each other," Tea admonished.

"Yeah, yeah."

"Looks like we can't anyway," Tristan said. "No matter what you push, all the characters can do is walk, jump, run, and use the flashlight."

"Lame."

Tea sighed and started her avatar walking. Yugi was still turning his in a circle to see if Kaiba's avatar appeared, but he still saw nothing.

"Hurry up, Yug', you're getting left behind," Joey said.

Yugi turned his avatar to the North and saw the backs of the other three. He ran until he'd caught up, then slowed to a walk. Maybe Kaiba's avatar had spawned somewhere else entirely. Maybe the game had different spawn points assigned to each test disc or maybe it was randomly generated.

They walked for a few minutes and Yugi noted that the sunlight in the game was slowly darkening. Faster than it would in real life, which meant the internal clock of the game was faster than real time, which was typical.

Suddenly, the screens all froze and their characters stopped walking. Because the screen had faded to black the same way it had during the original cutscene did Yugi know that it wasn't a glitch. Sure enough, the screen turned to one box and started playing a cutscene. Out of the headset came faint woodsy sounds such as wind in the leaves, bugs buzzing, and a crow cawing in the distance. Then the caw was suddenly right in their ears and they along with their avatars jumped.

"This game isn't for someone with a heart condition," Tea grumbled.

The four avatars, standing together in one movie cutscene, all looked up at the crow perched in a nearby tree. The viewpoint changed to first person and the crow looked back at them, fluttering its wings and tilting its head back and forth to view the avatars with each eye. Yugi noted the eyes were red and not black. Text at the bottom of the screen let him know one of the avatars had noticed this, too, though there was no voices or any indication which avatar was talking. The words faded away to be replaced by another avatar saying the crow was creepy and a third saying it was just a crow. Typical horror movie dialogue.

The crow cawed again, then abruptly looked head-on as the screen tightened in on its face. It's red eyes started to glow. It cawed loudly right into the camera, which went black. The four split screens reappeared and the four avatars stood in complacent silence.

"Um, okay," Joey said.

Yugi turned his avatar in circles again, but saw nothing but the other players. He realized that tilting the right joystick without the left one made the character look up and down instead of drifting left and right while walking or running. He focused his avatar's point of view on the tree and noted that the crow was gone. He spun his avatar around in a circle to be sure he had the right tree and confirmed it was gone.

"Nothing to do but head for the town," Tristan said.

"This game is boring," Tea said as they started walking again.

"It's building up the suspense," Joey said. "That demon or whatever is going to be in the town, bet you."

"Maybe it was the crow," Yugi suggested.

"Yeah, maybe."

"Maybe," Tea agreed.

The voice came over the headsets again. It was not loud, but Yugi couldn't get used to the suddenness of it as the game itself was silent outside of the cutscenes.

*Arcanum activate.*

"Who joined?" Tea asked.

This time, the player's name was not announced.

"Maybe they forgot to add their names in the customization," Tristan suggested. "I didn't know you could skip it."

*Player Seto Kaiba life-force draining. Flee. Flee. Flee.*

"Wow, the demon got Kaiba," Tristan said.

"Ha!" Joey of course.

Yugi frowned, still marching his character forward. The voice on the headset was ominous, but held no emotion. It sounded more robotic than a business's after-hours answering machine. Still, a chill went down his spine for some reason. He hoped Kaiba's avatar could escape.

"Let's run," he said, moving his character into a sprint.

"What for?" Joey asked, despite doing the same. "Let the demon have him. Some international champion."

"That was Duel Monsters only," Tea pointed out. "Yugi, we don't know our avatars can help even if we do find his."

"We should get the town before it gets dark," Yugi said, though he was secretly hoping their avatars could help and that they would find him. Something felt off. "Look, we can already barely see."

"We could barely see at the start," Tristan muttered, hounding on the fact that the split screen set up on a normal living room TV did make the individual viewpoints about as big as an iPad.

*Seto Kaiba life-force critical.*

The light on the screen was now too dark to accurately see. Just the faintest outline allowed him to watch Tristan's avatar plow into a tree and fall down. He stopped his own and turned on his flashlight, watching as Tristan's avatar got to his feet. He was bent over and realistically rubbing his head and clutching his side.

*Tristan Taylor life-force injury,* the game announced. *Full recovery in one minute.*

Joey and Tea had stopped their avatars as well and turned on their flashlights. Despite the injury to their companion, none of their avatars reacted, just standing in the usual swaying stasis of videogames the world over. Tristan's avatar was still rubbing his head and ribs in continuous painful mimicry.

"We gotta wait here a whole minute for him to recover?" Joey asked in annoyance. "Ugh, lame. How can we escape the monster if our characters just stand there when they're hurt?"

"Oh, he's not," Tristan said, sounding embarrassed. "Sorry, I wasn't moving him."

Joey sighed theatrically. Yugi watched as Tristan's character went around the tree and started walking again, but saw he did so hunched over and clutching his ribs with both arms.

"I can't run," Tristan said.

"I guess that's realistic," Tea said as she, Yugi, and Joey started following. "If you really ran into a tree, you wouldn't be doing cartwheels right after."

"It'll make it harder to survive," Yugi said. "If the monster finds us when we're recovering, and we have no weapons."

*Seto Kaiba life-force stabilized,* the game said. *Full recovery in five minutes.*

"Oh, good, he got away."

"Damn," Joey griped. He grinned when Yugi gave him a reproving look.

Tristan's character suddenly straightened. Although there was no health-bar or any other icon that indicated the life force, clearly Tristan's had recovered. Yugi wondered if a full real-life minute had passed.

They started running again without consulting each other. On a whim, Yugi realized he'd never pushed his controller's menu select button and he did so then, wondering if that was the pause. Only it wasn't. His screen was filled with the map his character had been looking at before, but only for a few seconds before it abruptly went flying away realistically as his character went ass over teakettle over a rock. His avatar had continued running even as he got out the map.

*Yugi Moto life-force injury,* the game said stoically. *Full recovery in one minute.*

The camera showed the ground partly in his character's field of vision before it spun away in what appeared to be the motion of his character rolling over and sitting up. He couldn't really see anything but his own character's outstretched legs on his own screen, but glancing at Joey's as he turned his avatar back to Yugi's showed his character rubbing his arm.

As before, the other avatars didn't react to their companion's injury. Tristan and Tea had returned to where Yugi's had tripped and they just stood there as Yugi's character got to his feet and picked up his map, all automatically. The map covered Yugi's screen again while at the bottom the words, "I should stop running if I want to view my map" appeared.

"Good advice," Joey said with a snicker when Yugi read it out loud.

The game seemed to be rebuking their choices even though there had been no instructions or tutorials at all. Yugi supposed the smartass game AI was a feature. It was kind of funny, in a way, and some players would undoubtedly find it so while others would probably rail at the screen for not telling them.

The map looked just like a regular map, except so pixilated and featureless that it was clear it wasn't intended to be actually read by the player, just the character in-game. Sure enough, words appeared at the bottom of his screen that said, "We're almost there. Maybe another mile."

The map didn't have any icons indicating where they were in relation to the supposed town, which on the pixilated map was nothing but a big gray blur just above and to the right of the center. Yugi supposed the spawn points were not that far from the town, and the compass rose let them know they were going the right direction, but otherwise, they'd just have to move until they found it. He supposed if they had spawned to the North of the town, the dialogue would have indicated they needed to go South.

"Our characters are Olympic track gold medalists," Joey said as they all took off again.

Tea giggled. "At least they don't get tired or winded," she said. "Like that one car theft game. That would be irritating."

"More realistic, though," Tristan pointed out.

"Hey, I think the town's up ahead," Tea said.

Sure enough, the woods abruptly ended and their characters broke into a clearing. The four screens froze and then went black. Another cutscene started. The four characters all stopped near the edge of the woods and gazed at the town. There was now a lot of moonlight to see by now that they were out from under the canopy. Yugi noted the avatars all looked disappointed and nervous. At least, as much as their fairly-featureless faces could express. The camera panned around to their viewpoint and Yugi saw why. It was ghost town. Immediately in front of them, a short distance across an overgrown meadow, was a two-story house with busted windows, peeling paint, and missing shingles. A fence with crooked stakes surrounded the house. To the right was another house with another picket fence and in equal disrepair. Partially visible around it was a third house. To the left of the house most directly across from their avatars was a dirt road with weeds growing in it. A street sign post leaning drunkenly into the road. Catacorner to the first house was another one, also having seen better days. It appeared their characters had come up on a street block that was only two houses deep before it turned farther in the distance with the third house they could only see a portion of. Across the street was an empty lot before the catacorner house started lining that side of the street.

The camera moved, alternately showing the avatars moving through the meadow at the edge of the woods to get a vantage point they could look down the road and of the view itself. The closest house was moved out of their line of sight and the avatars looked down the road to see two rows of decrepit, empty houses that Yugi counted to be four houses long, eight in total long the street. In front of the house they'd initially been across from, on the other side from what Yugi's avatar could see, another road went to the right, apparently splitting off to make a parallel side street, although the block was still only two houses deep. That meant the width of the town was two streets and at most four houses deep, assuming both streets had houses on both sides. He couldn't be sure from what his avatar was looking at.

Down the dirt road, in the distance, rose the church or mansion from the cover of the game. He could only see the belfry, a pair of widows walks, and a black shingles from his character's vantage point. Apparently the town had a small slope as the road went on.

The avatars looked at each other and Yugi dutifully relayed the dialogue. The characters briefly argued about entering the town. It was clear there was no one living here, so there would be no phone service or food, but on the other hand, their other option was to wait the night in the woods. One of the avatars, this time on-screen to show it was Joey's talking, said he'd rather spend the night in a dusty, mildewy bed than in the dirt getting bitten by bugs. The other characters ended up agreeing and the four started towards the town. The cutscene faded and the avatar split-screens reappeared, showing their characters waiting to be moved at the end of the street. Closer to the town than before the cutscene had started, more of the big building at the end of town was visible, but Yugi still couldn't tell if it was a church or a gothic house.

"What year is this game set in?" Tristan asked as they moved their characters in a walk down the road.

"Probably modern day. Why?" Joey asked.

"They haven't mentioned cell phones or anything. Usually modern horror movies mention the characters have no service."

"Huh. I didn't notice."

"Maybe it's set a couple decades ago," Tea said. "Although, we're hiking without supplies or anything, so maybe our characters are just stupid."

"Yours is the one in sandals."

"I didn't know we'd be hiking!"

*Seto Kaiba life-force draining. Flee. Flee. Flee.*

"Again?" Joey said. "Man, Kaiba, you suck."

"He probably got dumped in the middle of it just like we did," Yugi said. "The demon just found him first."

*Seto Kaiba life-force critical.*

"Come on, Kaiba, run," Tristan told the screen as their characters went down the road.

They were halfway towards the big building and Yugi counted the houses as they passed them. Not four on a side, but six, for twelve total. Which made the building at the end thirteen on the street. How cliché. He wondered if the address would prove to be 666. At least there weren't only thirteen houses in the whole town. If the second street had only one row of houses, and there was at least one more next door to the big one, there'd be twenty-two in town.

The characters reached the big building. Still, Yugi annoyingly couldn't tell if it was meant to be a house or a church. There were no crucifixes anywhere, but there was also no mailbox or driveway. It just stood on unbroken grass some distance from the road. Yugi noted there were no sidewalks and when he turned his character around, there was no house to the side of the big one and the parallel street did only have one row of houses facing it. Twenty-one houses in town, then.

"Must be a church," Yugi mused aloud. Because next door to the big building was a cemetery. The gravestones were uniformly classic stone stabs with arched tops. There was writing on them, but it was as badly pixilated as the map. There was a short brick wall topped with a spiked wrought-iron fence surrounding the graveyard, which had collapsed in one area. An opening where the parallel dirt road led into it did have a sign big enough to read. Yugi moved his character closer and made out Arcanum Cemetery.

*Player death,* the game suddenly growled. *Life-force depleted. Seto Kaiba terminated. Soul collection imminent.*

"Ew," Tea said.

"Wow, he bit it," Joey said. "Wonder where?"

"In there," Yugi said, turning his avatar to the church. "I'm sure of it."

He just didn't know why that upset him so much.

tbc...