Dark.
It was so dark.
It wasn't enough to call it black. It was penta black darkness. Not a shade lighter.
It was happening again. The darkness overwhelming. Darkness all consuming. Darkness beyond comprehension.
Black space.
The void.
Then, light. A single beam piercing the dark. Inside a boy. A man? A teen. Pompadour hair. Black jacket. Sitting atop a motorbike. Gaudy thing painted in yellow, pink, green, black. Over sized seat, impractical.
The teen was tied to the seat of the bike, arms bound behind him. Before him was a bear. Half black, half white. It sported a blond pompadour wig.
The teen turned to the shade. A figure stood at the premise of light and dark. Their glasses lit up in the light, their body hidden in shade. Male, but that was all that could be identified.
"˙ǝlqɐʇᴉʌǝuᴉ ǝɥʇ ʎɐlǝp ʎlǝɹǝɯ noʎ 'oN ¿ʇsɐd ǝɥʇ ɟo suᴉs ǝɥʇ ǝsɐɹǝ uɐɔ noʎ ʇɐɥʇ ʞuᴉɥʇ no⅄"
His hand rose, a remote in his grasp. A button was pressed.
A cage rose in the distance, round and covered with wires. A trail of lights lead to it, like disks of moon leading to the gallows.
The bear revved the engine of the hog, smoke roaring from the tailpipe. The back wheel smoked as it peeled out and the bike lurched forward. It shot down the line of lights and into the cage, the bear leaping off mere seconds before. The door slammed shut as the biker began to spin in the cage.
Over and over, up and down and around he went, the centrifugal force keeping him from falling and the bike from collapsing. Around and around he went, the force pulling down on him. His blood pressure dropping as his eyes began to spin. His heart going wild as it struggled to maintain blood flow to the body.
Then, the prongs on the outside of the cage shuttered, then sparked, then lit up with an overwhelming amount of electricity. The metal cage too lit up with a roar as it struggled to contain the power coursing through it. The steel frame heating up to unreasonable levels and began to cook the biker alive.
Ordinarily, this would be enough. The teen would be cooked to death as he spun out of control. However, this was not ordinary.
Far in the distance, at the edge of the teen's fading vision he caught sight of multiple lights turning on. Over the hum of electricity he could hear the roar of an engine, one far larger then the hog under him.
In the distance, an absolutely massive semi-truck roared as in pulled into view. Rows upon row of lights ran along the frame of the vehicle and the semi-trail it dragged behind it. Smoke and fire bellowed from it's pipes as it strained to move. From the drivers window, the bear leaned out adorned with a cap reading, "Look at my trucker hat". The bear yanked the horn, it blared like a siren.
With a mighty lurch, the truck shot forward at an unprecedented pace for its size. It roared like a beast, rushing forward at the cage with reckless abandon. The biker and his bike could do nothing to evade it.
In the last moment, the teen was taken back to an earlier point in life. A time where he had been staring at those similar high beams before being pushed to one side by an older boy, saving his life at the cost of the other's.
But there would be no one saving him this time. His borrowed time on this world was now over. The teen closed his eyes once more.
And all went black. The only sounds were the sound of crunching metal, and the fading cry of of a blaring horn.
Once more it was black. The world had become dark once more. There was no escape from the inky abyss. No way to pierce its cloying vale.
Then another light. Another teen. This one small, boyish, in a skirt. Hazel eyes looked out from underneath brown hair.
Another light. A massive computer system sat under the spotlight. A super computer. With all sorts of buttons, nobs, wires, and little lights all over the place. It was a technical marvel.
Connected to it by several long cables was a helmet. A virtual reality headset. Connected to that a keyboard. Both held by the shade shaped like a man with his glowing glasses. Both placed onto the small brunet's hands.
"˙ɹǝʞɐǝʍ ɯǝɥʇ sǝʞɐɯ ʎluo ƃuᴉlppǝɯ ɹnoʎ 'oN ¿ɹǝƃuoɹʇs ɯǝɥʇ ǝʞɐɯ uɐɔ noʎ ʇɐɥʇ ǝʌǝᴉlǝq noʎ op"
The message was clear. The little teen did not understand the words, but he understood the action. Reluctantly, the helmet was put on, and the keyboard placed on their lap.
The bear of black and white popped up and plugged in a drive into the super computer, a corrupted sound played. Then, the headset turned on. A screen on the supercomputer turned on. The game beginning.
On the screen, a pixelated version of the boy appeared. He stood in a field of green, alone for a moment. But it didn't last long. Off on the horizon the place was filling with black and white shapes, no consistency between them aside from their one red eye, and a pair of bear ears atop them. All of them singing.
"Chomp and munch, chew and crunch. There's a lot here to destroy. Inch by inch, it's a cinch. Bringing down this big ol' boy."
The child's body began typing, fingers rapidly dancing over the key pad as they strung together code. Hundreds of miles of code made up in the span of a minute.
The glitchy shapes were getting closer to the teen's avatar. Everywhere they went code and systems burned, shuttered, or crashed. The virtual world collapsing into broken code bit by bit, all the while the glitches continued their singing.
The teen was unfazed by the sight, focused on the task. He couldn't take his eyes off of what he was doing, lest he falter. Lest he fail.
The virus was even closer now. The massive super computer began smoking as they damaged it's internal processors. Soon, it would crash and all data would be lost. The teeth of the glitches gleamed as they approached, seeking to take a bite out of the boy's avatar and shred the code that made it.
The teen pressed a final button, finishing his code. The avatar exploded, changing shape as the force blasted away the viruses. Muscles expanded. The clothes changed to resemble a fighter's gi, and a black trench-coat with a gold dragon on the sleeve. The face even changed to become chiseled and strong.
He swung his arm, and a mile of viruses were wiped out in a second. A punch clears a full line of glitches. A kick tears out a cone of malware. A stomp fills back in some of the damaged programming that had been chewed up. The progress of fixing things had officially begun.
For a while, this was how he went. Using his jacked up avatar to clear out waves of duel-toned viruses and fixing the damaged code in his path. He was virtually untouchable. For a while, it looked like he would even succeed and best this virus.
Until, a set of teeth bit his avatar's leg from behind. He screamed, the pain transferring to his real body through the helmet. He looked back, and froze. His work almost completely undone behind him and viruses chewing up his way out. They had gone around while he was focusing on the group in front of him.
Another bit him on the arm and he screamed, he flung it off with wave of antivirus code tearing through a wave. But for every hundred he cleansed, two hundred popped up. The viruses spreading to quick, not giving him a chance to stop to improve his code. In minutes they completely surrounded his avatar, beginning to swarm and overwhelm him. He fought, he struggled, he endured. But with every bite, with every bit, he could not continue.
The screen faded to a glitched black and white, before falling apart as smoke bellowed from the computer. Off to the side lay the teen slumped in his chair, his helmet similarly smoking, as the lights finally faded.
A moment of weakness, and his last.
Once more it was dark. Blacker then the blackest night. Darker then the deepest sea. An endless void from which there is no recourse.
Then another light pierced the veil, this one showing a different teen. Short, spiky black hair, red eyes, and a crisp white uniform. He stood grim faced, tied to a post atop a massive limousine. Behind him hung a banger, on it a simple message in bold red.
"Congratulations Mister Prime Minister."
All around the overly decorated float was hundreds of black and white bears, all cheering and raising a riot. Some even waved signs of their own praising the newly promoted teen. They all looked so excited, so happy.
In the driver's seat sat a shade, a man with glasses, his eyes blocked from view by an unnatural glow. He turned to look over his shoulder at the teen, his expression hidden by the shadows that covered his face.
"˙ɹǝɟɟo oʇ sɐɥ plɹoʍ ǝɥʇ ʇsɹoʍ ǝɥʇ ɟo ǝldɯɐxǝ ƃuᴉʇsɐlɹǝʌǝ uɐ 'ǝldoǝd ǝsǝɥʇ ɟo llɐ ɟo ɥʇɐǝp ǝɥʇ ǝq llᴉʍ no⅄"
He couldn't understand the driver's words, but he could somehow tell that they weren't meant for him. There was just a feeling he got.
The shade turned back to his driving, and the teen felt the totem holding him shift. His right arm was forced into a waving position, as if he was just a mere puppet. Back and forth his arm was forced, unwillingly waving for the crowd. They roared back their approval, a rain of confetti fluttering to the ground like colored snow.
However, he did not respond to the cheers. He refused to allow them the satisfaction.
A twinkle in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He strained his eyes to see through the overhanging light, and saw someone. No, something.
A lens. A magnifying glass? No, it was attached to something. A tube? A barrel. The nose of a gun. A rifle, aimed right at him. Maned by another bear, though this one wore a fedora.
It was laughing, joyous as it took aim. Its stubby hands on the trigger as it put him into the cross-hairs. The trigger pulled back. The hammer slammed forward. Gunpowder ignited.
BANG
The teen flinched, eyes slamming shut and waiting for the sensation of the bullet piercing his flesh. Waiting. Waiting.
It didn't come. Why?
He hesitatingly opened his eyes, glancing around in confusion. Left. Right. up. Nothing. Then he looked down.
A box. A wooden crate that he hadn't noticed before. Painted on it was bright red words, "Danger, explosive." and a hole punched into one side. And there was a little red glow of embers emanating from the hole.
It was the last thing he would see.
The driver sighed as he walked away from the scene. A massive array of fireworks coming from the quickly burning car and silhouetting him in an unreal amount of light and color. He adjusted his glasses, and turned to look to the side.
"˙ʇᴉ uo ʇunoɔ uɐɔ no⅄ ˙ʎɐʍ ɐ puᴉɟ llᴉʍ I ʇnq 'ʇǝʎ noʎ doʇs oʇ ǝlqɐ ǝq ʇou ʎɐɯ I ˙sɥʇɐǝp ɹᴉǝɥʇ ɹoɟ ǝlqᴉsuodsǝɹ ǝq noʎ ʇǝl ʇ'uoʍ I"
I awoke screaming.