A/N: Hey, it's me, starting on a new fandom. XD This is another high impulse, low edit fic. Working on this is based entirely on how much I get done in my other stories. In other words, the more I get done with my main stories, the more I can goof around with this.
This takes place after the season's end. The plot is a combination of what I thought the show was doing and an old game I used to play. I won't tell you which game, but if you recognize the first couple lines in this chapter, you should be able to figure out what I'm doing with this.
"What do you remember about that day?"
"...a yellow raincoat."
The first thing Adam was aware of was the feeling of cold stone through his shirt. A surge of something akin to panic shot through him a second later, making him gasp and jerk into a sitting position. His eyes shot open.
He was in a small stone room with a tall ceiling and no decorations. Two teens -a boy and a girl- were sprawled in opposite corners of the room.
Deja-vu filled Adam as he slowed his panicked breathing. He blinked a couple times and stood, going over to the girl. Crouching, he shook her shoulder.
"Hey, Mira, wake up," Adam said.
Mira's eyes snapped open. She jerked back, but didn't scramble away like… like she normally did.
Why did he know that?
"Adam?" Mira sat up and looked around. "Where are we?"
"Um… The Hollow, I think," Adam said slowly.
"You think? Why…" Mira blinked, realizing what they were saying. "H-how do we know where we are?"
They couldn't be anywhere but The Hollow. The squarish fingers and obvious lines in the stones kind of gave that away, but nobody was supposed to remember The Hollow while they were in The Hollow!
"Maybe it's a glitch?" Adam suggested. He wondered if the game would end once the host realized what was going on. He hoped they wouldn't be disqualified.
"Weird glitch. Kai, is that possible?" Mira said. She looked past Adam. "Kai?"
Adam turned as the third member of their team remained silent. Kai hadn't moved from his spot on the floor. Adam stood and walked toward Kai, taking only a few steps before realizing something was wrong.
Kai was laying almost completely still, the rapid rise and fall of his chest the only movement he gave. He'd always been kind of pale, but Adam thought his face was whiter than before. He was also dripping wet.
"Kai!" Mira rushed past Adam and knelt at their friend's side. "Come on, Kai, wake up!"
Kai twitched and mumbled something, but his eyes remained shut. Oddly, while the teens wore their usual attire for the game -Adam still found it strange that he knew this- Kai was now wearing a yellow raincoat as well. Why did he need a coat?
"He's not waking up," Mira said. She put a hand on his forehead, then flinched back. "He's freezing!"
"We should get him outside," Adam decided, shaking off his questions. "Where's the typewriter?"
The two teens scanned the room, but it was completely empty! Both the typewriter and vent in the floor were missing, though the grate twenty feet off the floor was still in place.
"It's a new puzzle," Adam said.
Mira perked up at the mention of a puzzle. She stood up and studied the grate, briefly distracted from Kai.
While Mira was busy, Adam knelt beside Kai. Realizing that he was laying in a puddle of water as well, Adam picked the other boy up. He was relieved to find he had his super strength as usual, making it easy to move Kai to a dry spot.
"Come on, Kai," Adam said as he propped Kai against the wall. "Wake up and help us figure a way out of here."
Kai twitched, his mouth forming words. Adam leaned closer, confusion growing as Kai murmured the same word over and over.
"Push… push…"
"He keeps saying to push," Adam told Mira. "Is it a clue?"
Mira frowned at Adam, then turned to the wall. She studied it for a minute, then raised a hand and pressed it against a stone jutting ever so slightly out. She backed away as rumbling filled the room.
While the teens watched, a series of stones pushed out from the wall. There were a dozen of them, staggered to create a sort of staircase that didn't require two people or insane agility to climb.
Adam and Mira nodded to each other. Adam picked Kai up, and carefully made his way up the staircase until he reached the grate. Adam set Kai on the next to last stone, where Mira steadied him, then returned to the grate. He slammed his palm against the grate, crumpling the metal and tearing it from stone. Throwing the grate to the floor, Adam returned to Kai and Mira.
"Anything?" Adam asked.
Frowning at Kai's unconscious form, Mira shook her head. Adam sighed and scooped Kai back up. Navigating the small tunnel was a challenge, but Adam managed by scooting backwards with one arm looped under Kai's arms. Mira went first, in case the tunnel had something else new.
The teens reached the second grate without any issues, though. Adam flattened himself and Kai against the floor, allowing Mira to climb between them. Adam shuffled backward, then kicked out the new grate. He climbed onto the ladder, then he and Mira managed the tricky maneuver of getting Kai over Adam's shoulder so he could climb.
The whole escape was done without speaking. Adam remembered all of the team's past adventures in The Hollow, and a lot involved dragging an unconscious teammate through obstacles.
"What does this mean?" Mira finally asked halfway up the ladder.
"What?" Adam grunted, half-focused as he climbed with one hand.
"Kai. Nobody's ever started the game unconscious, not that I've heard. And there's the fact that we still remember everything."
"Either it's a new challenge, or it's a glitch," Adam said.
"You don't think something's wrong with Kai in the real world, do you?"
"Doubt it." Adam reached the ladder's end and speculated on how to open the hatch. "The real world doesn't affect The Hollow."
"Which we really shouldn't know," Mira added. "Does knowing this is just a game make you feel any better?"
Adam glanced at his pale, unconscious teammate slung over his shoulder. "No."
Throwing caution to the wind, Adam hooked one foot under a rung and let go with his climbing hand. He grabbed the hatch's wheel and gave it a fierce tug. The hatch opened easily. With Mira steadying him from below, Adam shoved the hatch open and performed an awkward scramble up a couple rungs, but lost his balance at the last second. As he fell backward, Adam threw Kai onto solid ground, then grabbed the edge of the hole.
"Adam?" Mira asked, worried.
"We're fine."
Adam climbed the rest of the way out of the hole and went to Kai as Mira exited. Kai had gone quiet at some point in the climb, which Adam wasn't sure how to take.
"Adam?" Mira said, sounding shaken.
Adam quickly looked at the girl. Mira was standing beside the hatch, nervously toying with her hair.
"What?"
"It's pretty quiet," Mira said in a small voice.
Adam stood, just noticing the silence. They stood in a familiar forest, but the usual sounds were gone. It was night, but not even an owl's hoot broke the silence.
"That's good," Adam decided. "If those devil dogs were around, we'd hear them."
Mira rubbed her arms. "I don't like it. What do we do now?"
Adam shrugged. "Find that old laboratory? If this game is the same as the last one, there will be that medicine, right?"
Mira shook herself. "You're right. We should… get going."
Adam nodded and picked up Kai. Mira grabbed one of Kai's arms and threw it over her shoulder. Her help wasn't necessary, but Adam said nothing. It was comforting to feel his teammates.
"What do you remember last?" Mira asked after ten minutes of walking.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean…" Mira sighed. "I remember winning the championship, and a couple days passing."
"Yeah, we all hung out at the mall," Adam agreed.
"I remember it was raining... then it's all blank. Did we start a new Hollow game?"
"There's never a new game so soon after a championship," Adam said. "And we've never dived this deep with Kai's gear."
"Maybe only part of our memories were kept," Mira suggested.
"It's just so strange…" Adam shook his head.
He'd always preferred a challenge he could punch, not puzzles. That's why they made such a good team. He was the muscle, Mira was the brains, and Kai always found the way through the more obscure challenges.
"We probably won't know until we finish the game," Adam said. "Let's get Kai fixed up, then find the talking tree. At least this way, we can skip the side quests."
Mira laughed at that. "Hey, I wonder who's on the opposite team."
"Kai."
Mira gave Adam an odd look. "Huh?"
Adam was giving Mira the same look. "I didn't say anything."
"Kai."
The teens froze. Slowly, they turned their heads to look behind them.
In the middle of the path, was a cloaked form astride a large white horse with red eyes. Skeletal hands clutched a massive sickle.
"Death?" Mira said. She and Adam shifted to face the Horseman. "Where's the others?"
The Four Horsemen were tricky to deal with until their request was granted, but it was rare to see a Horseman alone. Usually, this meant they meant no harm and were simply wandering.
"They aren't here," Death hissed, his voice darker than Adam liked.
"No?" Mira said, apparently feeling the same as Adam as she matched him in backing up. "So wh-what are you up to?"
"I have a job to do." Death raised his scythe.
"Woah, woah, time out!" Adam yelped. "We just started the game, why would we be ready to die?"
"Not you…" Death hissed. His horse lunged as he yelled, "I'm here for Kai!"
A/N: Even unconscious and having not done anything, Kai's going to die! Give that kid a break.