Chapter 1 - Running start (Side A)
Rain. That was all what Daichi was focusing on during the late night bus ride. He was playing with his hair, with his elbow on the windowsil and his hand up against his cheek. He was trying to find any subtle way to release his anxiety from the horrible experience he was going through. What experience was it? His school uniform. From the itchy navy dress pants to white shirt hanging off of his body, it was torture.
He moved his foot left to right, if only to make sure both of his bags where still there. One bag, the larger and plain black one, was full of his school books and pencil case. The other one, with a green camo design, was full of extra clothes and his other pair of shoes. He had carried both of them with him throughout the entire day, as he wouldn't be able to go home and pick one up in the afternoon. These thoughts and recolections of the day made him remember when he was told about this day, only a week ago.
His father, Kakeru, had announced that he would be gone for 2 weeks. He would be going to America to support Haruka, Daichi's mother, in the finale of the Mech World Championship. Both Daichi and his little sister wouldn't be able to say home, as Daichi was only 12, and would have to spend the 2 weeks with their long time family friends - the Professor and his assistant Charu. Before Daichi even had a chance to intervene and beg to stay home, his little sister Yuki squealed in excitement and ran to hug her father. All she wanted was to get a gift from America. With that, the plans were set and Daichi would have his routine ruined.
Daichi's hand ran through Yuki's hair. She was sleeping on his lap, with her plush cat backpack on her back. He knew that she would've fallen asleep, 10pm was far too late for a 6 year old to be up at. As the bus left the wooded area and met with streetlamps lighting up the surroundings, Daichi grew calmer knowing that the ride would be over soon.
He began to think of everything he was excited for. His childhood friend Akira would be staying in the same room as him, and school was even closer than usual. Him and his cousin were planning to watch the Mech World Championship live and support his mum. But he was annoyed that he couldn't sleep in his bed with his own duvet set for 2 weeks. Little things like that annoyed him all the time.
There wasn't anymore time to think about trivial things, though. He saw the sign directing families to the local playground and realized it was almost time to go.
"Hey, we're almost there!" Yuki's eyelids flickered a bit before settling in a half closed position. She got up with a yawn and rubbed her eyes.
When it was clear she was fine but just sleepy, Daichi pressed the button to tell the driver to stop at the next stop. He soon felt the slowing of the bus and grabbed Yuki's hand and threw his two bags over one shoulder. He started moving to the bus doors, which were only about 3 steps away, walking the tired child in front of him. He gave a smile with a nod to the bus driver when the doors opened and safely went down the steps.
The rain was lighter now, but still there. The siblings hadn't brought any jackets but only Daichi cared. As the bus drove off, Yuki dashed out of his grip and ran up the steps to the Professor's house. Quickly recovering from his flustered, speechless state, Daichi threw his bags over his shoulder one again and tried his best to run after her.
As he moved up the steps, he fumbled around with his keys to get the right one. At the top of the steps, Yuki was pacing in circles in excitement. Daichi slipped the key in on his first try, and easily unlocked the door. The door automatically slid to the side with a hum, and Yuki ran in immediately - heading straight to the guest room where she would always sleep. Daichi followed slower and locked the door behind him. Anything that was inside the house would stay there.
Daichi dropped his bags to his hands and dropped his composure. He steadily walked to the kitchen, pass the stairs and the door that had been locked for as long as he's been alive. The much heavier school bag was dropped on the ground and Daichi looked around...only to see that he was alone.
This confused him, Akira would always be in the kitchen - it was basically his second home. Charu not being around was expected, she would probably be helping Yuki get into bed. His confusion was broken by the wail of his stomach, which made him realize he hadn't eaten since lunch. Daichi snuck his way over to the refrigerator as quietly as possible, ready to sneak some treats out. He grabbed the handle and opened the door with one strong pull.
"HIYA!" A screech from the fridge scared the frail preteen so much that he fell straight unto his behind. Who else was it, but Akira, hiding in the fridge as if it was a closet. The sudden drop made Daichi initially tear up, but he then started giggling.
"Oh wow." He said in the most sarcastic ton he could mutter.
"You dropped like a vase!" Akira spat out, in between laughing fits.
"That's...not a phrase." Daichi responded with a reluctant smile.
"Well it is now! And who are you to tell me what's not a real phrase, you fell to the floor at a loud noise!" Akira could be insensitive sometimes, and Daichi knew this. It was only an attempt to look cool and like a "hero" from an anime.
"Okay, ordinary level." Daichi smirked as he stood up. All Akira could say was "Oi" in response. Daichi threw his clothes bag back over his shoulder before making his way to the hallway once again.
"Since you were going to the fridge, I think you'd probably want this." Akira said, walking up behind his slightly taller friend.
As Daichi turned around, he realized that there was a small chocolate bar coming his way and tried his best to catch. He did catch it, but it was less than graceful - bouncing between hands a few times. Akira jogged in front of Daichi and continued down the hall until reaching the turn to the stairs.
When Daichi looked up and saw that his friend was waiting for him, he walked quickly to the same spot. They both went up the staircase that curved at each end to allow people to exit onto each floor. They went up to the third floor, and quietly moved to the door at the end of the hall beside the stairwell - towards the back of the building. They had no choice but to go to that door, as it was the only one that would ever open.
The room they entered was the perfect guest room for two people. It was a fairly large room, with 3 large windows on the back wall to look out on the hill the building was built on - but more importantly, the city. There were two simple beds on each side of the room, each with a bedside table near the top and a closet at the end. There was one mirror on the wall beside the left bed, right before the door indent. The walls were a light cream colour and the the flooring was dark wood. It was a warm, welcoming room.
So welcoming that Akira decided to run to the left bed and jumped straight onto it - claiming it as his own. Daichi walked over to the right bed and dropped his clothes bag at the end of the bed, only to open it and remove some articles of clothing. He almost immediately started to get changed, as Akira went through his phone looking for posts to like.
Finally out of those horrific school clothes, Daichi finally felt comfortable. He was in his almost signature green shirt with white stripes followed by smaller blue stripes. Combined with comfortable dark grey sweatpants and his favourite black and green striped socks. He shook his head to give his brown hair a bit of bounce, but the blonde streak made it fun enough.
He looked over to his friend, and was understandably confused. Akira had put his black and red puffer jacket over his white turtle neck - as if he was going out somewhere. As far as he knew, the two of them were going to be staying inside the whole night. Before he had time to say anything, Akira spoke up.
"You're gonna have to put your shoes on." Akira whispered, not as a question, but almost like a command.
"What?" Daichi asked, louder than he meant to. He had been told always to take off his shoes when entering a house, and he was very strict about following that rule.
"Shh...but you're gonna need them. Because I have this!" Akira said proudly but quietly, as he rose his hand up to reveal a card. He must've caught on to Daichi's confused expression, and he started to explain himself. "It's a key card, and not only that, but I think it's the same card that my parents use to go in and out of the rooms here. And that means, we can finally see what they are hiding from us in that room!"
Daichi knew what room he was talking about. The one near to the beginning of the house, it was the only one their parents were very strict about not entering. "But...we can't!" Daichi shouted in a whisper.
"Well, we can now!" Akira said as he walked towards the door, his other hand ready to grab the handle.
"But-" Daichi tried to intervene but was interrupted.
"Come on! You can't follow the rules all the time!" Akira threw the door open and started to make his way downstairs, shortly followed by his fearful friend.
Akira lunged to his shoes and began to untie them so that he could put they on. Daichi continued to mumble "but"s and "what if"s as he put on his slip-on shoes, but nothing could get through to his dear friend. After he had successfully tied up one of his brand-name shoes, Akira turned to Daichi.
"What do you think is gonna be in there? What if great-gramps is a detective?!"
Daichi could only sigh an "I don't know" while waiting for his friend. He crossed his arms by placing them on top of each other and began to feel the skin on his elbows.
Akira jumped up like spring before taking the lead to the large, iron door. Daichi walked after him, continuing to feel his own skin and ignore the rambles coming from Akira. The orange haired boy took the key card out of his pocket, looking at it like it was a prized posession, and looked at the key pad next to the door. It was a bit bigger to a modern mobile phone with white buttons, half of the buttons didn't have numbers anymore from being used.
Akira knew from watching his parents go in and out of the room that the code was only four digits, but there were more than four buttons that were faded from use. He soon saw the thin black line next to the buttons and small screen, the perfect place to use a key card - even if you found it on the ground whilst walking to that very house. Akira slipped the key card through the slit from top to bottom.
It felt like they were waiting for years for any form of acceptance or rejection. After a few minutes, they started to hear clunking noises from around them. Daichi bit his lip and Akira began to sweat. They looked at each other, worried that they may have just caused something so much worse than expected. When the noises suddenly stopped, they both clenched their teeth. Vrimmm - The door slid open. Both the boys gasped. The room was completely black.
Akira began to lead the charge into the room, noticeably shaken though. He slapped his hand on the wall and began to search for anything. His hand came across a bar with a ball-like shape on the top, pointed towards the ceiling.
"Got it!" He proudly said through his teeth, as he used all his strength to pull the lever down.
There was a flicker of light, before 3 rows of circular ceiling lights stayed lit from the door to the end of the room. The room wasn't anything the two boys could've expected. There were piles and piles of boxes lining the walls, pages and books falling out of them. The dust engulfed the entire room, aside from an extremely large screen with its strange keyboard on the left side of the room. It wasn't sparkling, but it wasn't as dusty as the large cylindrical machine in the back of the room. It was like a steel gazebo, but without any chairs and a giant wind up key on top of a metal roof. The right wall was full of screens that hadn't been touched in years.
"What...is all this?" Daichi said with genuine interest echoing through his voice.
He walked into the room and began to look at some of the papers scattered across the floor. They were all newspapers, or at least excerpts from newspapers. Headlines such as "Attack On London Zoo Goes UNEXPLAINED" and "Suspect Of Nationwide Blackout Still Unknown" were some of the ones that Daichi actually recognized - that blackout happened all over Japan a few years ago and the zoo incident happened when he was very young. But why were these newspaper articles being collected? Especially since there was no correlation between them all. He didn't have enough time or information to put all the pieces together, as Akira pressed the power button the main keyboard in the room.
Suddenly, the largest screen turned on. The light from the screen caught Daichi's attention immediately, turning his head to see the screen and his friend in front of the device. It was a world map. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of red dots all over the map - in every continent, on land and on sea. One area was different though. On the north-east side of the USA, there was a red circle - as if that was the next area to check. Daichi's mind went wild, he couldn't figure out how all these dots could possibly be related. Were they to do with the articles he found?
"All this...for vacation plans?!" Akira huffed, before turning around with an angry frown on his face.
"Uh, what?" Daichi responded. He hadn't realised that Akira had not even glanced at the papers.
"Look, it's circled at New York and your parents are in New York! It's a bleedin' holiday guide." Akira was not happy at all, it was clear he wanted something more.
"Akira, I think it's a map...of these newspaper incidents." Daichi suggested, handing an article to his friend. Grabbing it with another huff, Akira looked at the article of the blackout. His face went from a scorn to disbelief to confusion.
"But why?" Akira asked, realizing that his initial thoughts were wrong.
"Why would I know? I know as much as you." Daichi said, knowing that they had gotten into something they weren't prepared for.
"We need to look for more clues!" Akira commanded, pretending to not be weirded out by the situation. "I'll look at the back of the room, you look over there." The front side of the room had more boxes than the back, and it became clear that the room had also taken the role of a storage room.
Several boxes where filled with manga of all genres, including ones Daichi knew he shouldn't of seen, and other were filled with old clothes from when Akira's parents were young. One of the boxes were full of scrapbooks that someone had written in themselves. He picked up the top one and flicked through the pages.
It was like a children's book, weird drawings of monkeys wearing hats and various outfits and rambles about their personalities. Then, he saw the pictures. They were blurry, but they clearly showed the idea of the drawings. Had they been based on real monkeys that exist? Daichi decided that since this house belonged to Akita's great grandparents that he might know more about these weird monkeys. He began to walk to the other side of the room.
"Uh, Daichi?" The orange haired boy said, with confusion mixed into his words. He looked over his shoulder to see that his friend was almost right next to him. "Do you remember when I used to say my gramps was an inventor? Well..."
He turned around, and it was clear that was holding something. It appeared to be a blue rod with a strange pyramid on one side and a darker blue button on the other.
"Wh-what is that thing?" Daichi's voice exposed his internal anxiety.
Akira hit the button with the palm of his hand, and like magic the rod grew longer and a circular ring popped out of the pyramid. Neon blue strings appeared from the ring and connected as they met about 12 inches from the ring. It was a net. The two young boys stood speechless, they couldn't believe their eyes. They exchanged looks, and Daichi couldn't help but let out a "woah".
"Well...you can have it!" Akira said with a smirk, as he threw the net towards his friend. The net bounced between Daichi's hands before he actually caught it. He gave the biggest expression of worry and confusion.
"What am I meant to do with this?" Daichi cried, feeling anxiety build up in him once again.
"Uh, something. Why did you bring over this book?" Akira replied, picking up the book Daichi dropped in shock of being thrown something. Akira flipped through the pages, a wave of different expressions went through his face before it stopped at a building smile.
"Look, it's the net! And I think the other thing in the box is that club type thing." He handed Daichi the book and went to grab the other rob from the box.
He was right, it was the net in the book. A header in bold black text read "Monkey Net", presumably the name of this invention. Blueprints of the device's mechanisms were on one of the pages, and the next showed example of how to use it. It showed a figure pressing the button on the bottom just like they did. Another diagram showed a figure catching a poorly drawn monkey in the net like it was a bug.
Daichi looked up to see Akira hit the button on a second rod, this time resulting in a blue lightsaber type device. It wasn't an actual lightsaber though, as Akira was able to bounce the light beam on his other hand.
"This is a monkey net? Why would anyone need to catch monkeys?" Daichi asked, as he hadn't put everything together.
"Apparently our parents...I guess." Akira and Daichi shared a look of confusion, but they were in too deep in this point to just leave it.
"Maybe we can find out what that machine is and what the last thing they were doing?" Daichi suggested, to be met with a smug look.
"Welp, that looks like a computer job for the Daich-ster. I'll be looking through the boxes for more clues!" Akira strutted to the other side of the room.
"...Yeah." With a cringe-filled smile, Daichi turned his attention to the computer.
When Daichi clicked on the map, it turned out that it had been set to the lock screen. The password was simple to figure out, it was written on a piece of paper that had been taped to the keyboard-esc module. Once he was in, it was clear that someone who was better with protecting their information should've been in control of this operation. There were several tabs open, the most interesting one was of some sort of geolocation map. There was a dot on a seemingly random area and said dot would give out red ripples periodically. There were x, y and z coordinates listed next to the dot.
Daichi opened the next tab. The words " .exe" were placed above the simple input screen. The same numbers from the previous screen were already written in, but no one had pressed enter. It was if whoever was working on the project had left in an unexpected hurry.
"Akira! It's a transporter. Come here if you don't believe me but..." Akira walked over, but it was all real.
"Okay, I was just playing around about this whole thing for awhile but...this is serious. I can't believe I'm even thinking this but...what do you think we should do?" Akira's face had turn completely serious. This wasn't any elaborate prank. The choice was in Daichi's hands, and he could only blurt out the first thing he thought of.
"Let's...try to help out!" He said with confidence. "If this conspiracy is true, that monkeys have to do with these random incidents, why don't we show those guys how...How mature we are!"
Akira's frown rose to a smile, somewhat impressed by this demonstration of confidence.
"Yeah! And my mum can see that I should be able to watch whatever anime I want!" He shouted in response. "Yeah yeah yeah! Let's get to it!"
Akira slammed his hand onto the enter key and ran over to the teleportation machine. Daichi couldn't process what was happening. The entire situation had gone from zero to one hundred in less than a second.
Two oversized antenna moved down from the top of the machine, sending electrical signals to the giant windup key on its top. A humming sound began to emit from the machine, and sparks of electricity shot between the frame in the middle of the machine. Suddenly a purple vortex appeared, white and blue lines spiraled into the middle. This had to be a portal that would allow them to warp to whatever location had been inputted. Akira had an excited, smug grin on his face and was ready to jump through. Daichi, on the other hand, was becoming more apprehensive with each second that passed.
"I think we should stop here...I-I was wrong-" Daichi muttered, but Akira knew that he would try to chicken out like he always did.
"Uh, no! It's gonna be awesome!" Akira snapped back. He grab Daichi by his forearm, and ran up the steps of the machine. Being weaker, Daichi had to run along to avoid falling competely to the floor - despite his dismay. Akira launched himself off of the portal's frame edge, taking Daichi along with him.
"Yeah!" Akira screamed, while Daichi was left sucking his thumb on the hand he hand open. The two young boys were falling, though it looked as if they were floating, Akira's launch had left him going face first into whatever terrian they were going to, while Daichi had moved himself to the most upright position he could. It wasn't long at all until the two saw themselves approaching a bright, white circle. Akira let out a soft "woah" as they entered it.
*Crash* The sound of Akira's face hitting onto the cold, metal floor rang out in all directions. That, and his loud accidental "Ahh Dammit!". Daichi fell on his behind, immediately causing his thumb to push his front teeth up. He didn't scream, rather he let out a groan and took his thumb out of his mouth.
He looked to his side, the white circular portal they had gone through was on the wall next to them and they were now at the end of an unknown hallway. His friend was lying his his bottom in the air and head to the ground, one hand in the position to push himself up and the other on his chin. The open stun club was lying next to his first hand. Realising he was the least hurt of the two, Daichi stood up to get a better picture of what this place was - whilst making sure he was still holding the monkey net.
The flooring was completely silver steel, old tracks of mud could be seen faded on the ground from where someone had attempted to clean them up. Small lights had been placed next to the wall on every other large plate of the floor. The walls were just as barren. They were a darker grey colour, with longer steel plates connected to each other. The hallway continued straight for a little bit, maybe a few seconds of running as fast as possible, before curving to the left.
On the right side of said curve, there was a single door. Noticable due to the black frame around it and the small black box next to it. Several circular lights shone from the ceiling, a few inches spaced between them. It seemed like a space base, it was souless. That wouldn't be the end of the increasingly unorthadox situation.
Footsteps, fast footsteps getting louder at that. Daichi looked to Akira, who had finally stood up, to see if he was hearing the same steps. He only expressed his concern in a facial expression, though.
"What?" Akira whispered, not at all realising the sounds until it was too late.
The footsteps had stopped. Daichi turned his head back to the bend in the hallway. There was someone there. It looked so similar to both Akira and himself, but not. As Daichi looked closer, he saw tuffs of fur covering the person's wrists and continuing up their arms. Only their hands and seemingly face were exposed skin.
Their nose wasn't human-like, it resembled a monkey's! Daichi soon realised that this person had to be a monkey! Not only a monkey, no, a highly advanced ape! He was filled with confusion and dread. His seemingly bad speculation was right, but he had never seen a monkey that looked like this. It had almost white fur with light indigo at every tip, and seemed to be wearing a burgendy scarf. It was clear that the feelings of dread were mutual, as the monkey's greyish blue eyes opened wide and its mouth fell a small bit open. It stared at Daichi, before moving it's gaze down to his hand - to the monkey net.
Akita finally looked foward, to see the same sight Daichi did. Not quite as stunned silent as Daichi though.
"Woah, what is that thing?" Akira said elegently.
However, those words started the chase. The monkey-esc figure immediately lunged to his left, hitting the small box with his hand and opening the door - running through.
"Wait! Come on, dude, we gotta get it!" Akita shouted, though it was clear he was somewhat shaken.
"Ah no, this isn't what I thought would happen today!" Daichi whined, before running only a few seconds behind his best friend.
Upon getting close to the door, it opened automatically. Whatever that thing had inputted had unlocked the door, and possibly all of them in the building. As they ran into the room, which seemed to be a small supply closet, they caught a glimpse of a door across the tiny room close - and they ran through that one too. They had entered into another hallway, with no clear sign about what direction they were meant to go to. Daichi looked to his right, to see a shadow quickly move out of the light on the other side of another curved hallway. His brain was working overtime, and he could only blurt out a few words.
"Gonna go this way!" He said, without even knowing what he had implied - his brain only wanted to say something before quickly running after the shadow. Akira was left standing at the previous door, kind of surprised.
"Uh, I'll just go this way!" He interpreted Daichi's words not as a direction for them both to go the same way, but to split up. Daichi wasn't really focusing, though.
His mind was set on getting close to the person. As he turned the bend, he saw the monkey go through the middle door in the hallway, as oppose to either of the doors on both sides. It was barely a second of adrenaline-fueled running until Daichi got to the door and it opened.
He witnessed the monkey try to slide over the long table in a sort of conference room, falling off at the other side. It looked up, only to be terrified by Daichi's confused expression. Before Daichi even had a chance to say anything on the poor attempt of escaping, the monkey ran through another door located on the opposite side of the room. Daichi followed, of course, but decided to use the quicker route of simply running around the table and chairs.
Akira ran down the other side of the hallway, coming across a strange sight. There were 2 doors, one in front of him and one to the left. On his right, was a vending machine. This really confused him, what type of evil base has a vending machine. He ran over to it, if only to see what type of food they had. It was all varieties of banana food - from banana flavored biscuits to banana juice. What did I expect, he thought to himself. He never liked bananas and was still hungry from earlier that night. But it seemed that he wouldn't be able to do anything there.
He walked through the door that had been in front of him. It was another dimly lit hallway. At this point, the sounds of overlapping footsteps had faded, and he was truly on his own. He became bored, with a bit of fear rising inside him. The only way to ignore it was to keep walking and hope to come across his friend again.
He had been walking for a few minutes, using his time to closely inspect the stun club he had. The book had said that it could stun whoever it hit for a few seconds, and he thought that was pretty cool. He also realized how uncomfortable it was to carry in his hands.
"I need to get some gloves after this." He said in an annoyed whisper.
He broke his focus on the club to look up, originally wanting to see if there was another bend in the hall but was met with something completely different. Light, pouring out of a door way only a few meters from him. He was shocked, it seemed like it was night time in this place but for whatever reason this random room had its lights on and had its doors open, if it had them at all. He was hit with the smell of freshly toasted bread, maybe a bit burnt.
Akira's stomach growled at the smell. I guess that's what happens when you stand in a fridge for awhile, he thought to himself. However, he had seen enough films and anime to know that this may be a trap to get him - he had to be careful. He carefully walked as to make as little noise as possible and propped himself up, back facing the wall, next to the doorway. Taking a deep breath, he turned his head and peaked into the room.
There was another monkey, and it seemed to be huge. Maybe 6 feet tall, even taller than Akira's own father. Akira thought that he would only be able to reach its shoulders, but he wasn't about to check. It seemed to be wearing a two-tone hoodie of different shade of purple and grey skinny jeans, along with leather boots with steel soles and a steel ring towards the top. On it's head seemed to be a purple baseball cap put on backwards, but with an alarm light connected to it. An alarm light that Akita had seen had in the book he flipped through earlier. It had said something about the colour of the light, but he didn't bother to read the sections. All he knew was that it was blue at that moment.
The room was a kitchen, but all Akira could see from that position was the corner of the room with shelves, drawers, a refrigerator and of course, a toaster. There may have been more to the room itself, but Akita was preoccupied with the monkey. He was finding it hard to stop his mouth from watering from the smell of the toast, and he couldn't help but imagine how good it would smell if it had butter or jam on it. But his foodie thoughts were to be destroyed by the monkey's next action. It placed slices of bananas on the toast.
"Ew!" Akira screeched as his stomach felt sick.
He didn't realize what he did until after it happened, and he instinctively put his open hand over his mouth and lifted the stun club up. The alarm light on top of the monkey's hat turned from blue to red as it spun around. It's face was just as shocked as the other one, but this one had normal colours - except for the fact that it seemed to have blonde hair on its head while the rest of its fur was brown. These details didn't really matter to Akira, he was full of adrenaline to allow for fight or flight movements.
He was stunned, however, when the monkey quickly opened a small box that was on the wall, below the cabinets, revealing a red button and smashed it with his fists. A loud alarm began to scream from hidden intercoms, there was no way anyone couldn't hear it. This noise decided that Akira would use his energy to run, and that's exactly what he did. He ran down the hall, relying on the idea that he could intercept Daichi's route so they could both get out of this situation.
He didn't look behind him, even when he heard the floor screech when the monkey's boots scraped against it. His only plan was to take any turn he could and hope that he wouldn't meet anything else.
Daichi had chased the strange monkey through several rooms, but had started to feel all the running on his body that would usually play video games all day. He wouldn't be able to keep this up for much longer. The only reason he was able to keep up and make the right turns and go through the right doors was because his sensitive hearing allowed him to hear where the footsteps were coming from.
The sudden turns through doors were the worst, as he would have to stop quickly to allow himself to turn. Which is why he internally groaned when he saw the monkey make yet another turn, on the long hallway he had just entered. He began to jog to preserve as much energy as he could. It was at that moment he knew that something had gone wrong, he just didn't know how it happened.
The emergency siren was blaring, there wasn't a single room you could go to escape it. He felt ringing in his ears and lifted his free hand to cover one of them, before beginning to run to the next room. A loud crashing sound came from the room he was aiming for, but Daichi didn't care. He just wanted to try and get everything over and done with.
The door opened, and Daichi realized where the noise had come from. The room was covered in computers lining most of the walls, with one wall dedicated to moniters. The wires that connected each computer to their respectively screen were sprawled on the ground. It was clear that in his rush to escape - the monkey's feet became trapped amongst the wires and dragged both himself and some of the computers to the ground. The monkey was groaning in pain, and clearly trying to push himself up while not realizing one of his legs were under the computers.
Daichi knew that if he didn't catch it now, he may not have another chance. Thoughts of the net somehow not working went through his mind, they never tested it to see if it could work. Would he ever go home again, did they even know the way back to the portal? He walked over to the monkey, hyperventilating. He lifted his arms above his head and held onto the net's handle with both of them. He positioned the net behind his head and gripped the handle tightly. The monkey got a grip on the ground and turned his head, only to see that it was too late. He gasped.
Daichi swung the net in front of him, closing his eyes as he did it. After he finished the swing, he opened one of his deep blue eyes. He had done it, the monkey's head was in the net. Then, the monkey's body shone blue like the net's strings before transported right before Daichi's eyes. It was gone, just like the book said would happen. The only question was, where to?
Daichi breathed a sigh of relief. Although, he knew that the situation wasn't over yet. The alarm was still screeching and it was clear that people, or things were moving around in the higher levels of the facility. Suddenly, his focus centered on the quickly loudening footsteps that were coming from some direction. Daichi poked his head out of the door he had gone through only minutes earlier. The sounds were coming from the other end of the hallway, the one he hadn't gone through. The sounds revealed themselves as Akira, and a new monkey that was chasing close behind him.
"Akira?" Daichi shouted, not caring about staying hidden anymore.
"Help please!" Akira shouted, waving his hands in the air.
"Get back here, you little-" The other, much larger monkey shouted to the orange haired boy.
Akira turned and tried to run into the room, but Daichi grabbed his arm – pulling his friend next to him in beside the doorframe.
"Shh." The quieter boy whispered to his friend, and pointed to the garbled mess of wires on the ground.
Akira lifted a finger, gesturing that he would like to try something. He squatted down and held the stun club like a baseball bat, preparing to strike whatever over-stretched legs may come their way.
As suspected, the skyscraper-like monkey ran into the room at an alarming speed. When the *vrmm* sound began, Akira began to swing the club. It made direct contact with the monkey's right shin, sending light eletrical shocks around its body. This was enough to send the monkey falling. To pour salt into the wound, the monkey's foot became entangled in the jungle of wires beneath him. Even if he had dodged the stun club, he still would've fallen. The monkey fell straight onto his chin, unable to move himself up.
"Hurry! I'll go to that door over there!" Akira screamed, running to a rather hidden door in the corner of the room – avoiding the wire deathtrap below.
Daichi threw the net over his head again, trapping the tall monkey's head inside and transporting it away like the stranger one before. Daichi didn't take a minute to breathe. The footsteps and noises above them were getter closer by the second, it wasn't safe enough to stop for anything. Daichi carefully, but quickly, stepped around the giant clumps of wire to get to Akira, who was waiting on the other side of the door.
As soon as the tip of Daichi's shoes touched the other side of the door, they both started running. They weren't sure where this new hallway would lead them, considering the entire place so far was like a maze. Alarms blaring, noises beginning to come from behind them, like they were criminals escaping from a high security prison.
They were running for only a minute or two when they came across a right bend with an open door on the right hand side. Daichi realized that it was the origina door they ran through when first started to chase the first monkey-esc thing.
"We're almost there, keep going!" He shouted, beginning to sprint ahead of his friend. They never stopped to take a breath, they just kept running.
They turned the bend. The portal was still there, as white as ever.
"Yes! Let's go!" Akira shouted, but was unable to sprint ahead of his friend.
Daichi didn't need to be forced to jump through the portal this time. He ran up to it first, bent his legs and jumped like he saw Olympians do on tv – body first – through the portal. Akira dove in like a swimmer, head first, not thinking about how that went the first time. Tensions remained high during the few seconds of teleportation. They barely stopped their fast breathing just in case they would have to run again. They never looked behind them.
A crash rang out throughout the lab. The two boys had been flung from the transporter, and fell down the two steps leading to it. Akira had once again smashed his face into the ground, while Daichi was able to land on his feet on impact and tumble down – avoiding any big injuries. But the mission wasn't done yet. Daichi almost immediately jumped to his feet and ran to the computer. He shook the mouse to discover that the computer was still on and logged in.
He opened the tab that had previously allowed them to activate the transporter by inputting coordinates and pressing the "enter" key to activate. The box saying activate was now said "deactivate". He didn't even need to blink after seeing that, he just immediately pressed the "enter" key. The humming from the machine immediately ceased, along with the lines of electricity that travelled between antenna. The windup key slowly came to a stop. The portal's sides began to close in and make itself smaller, until there was nothing to see by the human eye.
Seconds, then minutes passed. Silence, apart from Daichi's heaving gasps and Akira's annoyed grunts. Akira pushed his upper body up with his two hands and ran one of his hands through his hair, shaking it. He stood up after that and stretched his back with his arms up over his head. He looked around, everything was the same as how they left it – now with the addition of the open stun club he dropped on arrival and the open monkey net that Daichi left on the ground. He looked over to his friend, clinging to the device which held the keyboard and several various buttons for balance.
"Well, that was something! Heh…" Akira said, a poorly drawn smile on his face. Daichi turned his head and nodded.
"Yeah, something we're not doing again…Can we just get out of here?" He said, in between breaths.
"Yeah sure, I'm worn out anyway. Let's just keep this between us." Akira replied.
"For sure." Daichi sighed loudly.
The brown haired boy with a single blonde streak began to walk to the door that had shut behind them all that time ago. Akira was about to walk after him immediately, but opted to go and pick up the stun club, closed it and did the same for the net. He took a few long steps to catch up to his friend quicker.
"Hold these for a second." Akira said, handing the gadgets in Daichi's direction.
"Why are you taking them?" Daichi had an expression of genuinely worry plastered on his face.
"I want to show Dawn tomorrow at school! And who knows when we'll need them again!" Akira smugly presented.
"You mean never? Whatever, fine." Daichi sighed, taking the two now indistinguishable rods from his shorter haired friend as they walked back into the main hallway of the ground floor.
Akira dug through his puffed coat pocket and revealed the key card that started this whole situation. He swiped it through the reader next to the key pad once again, closing the door instantly. A red light was shown on the box now, indicating it was now locked – a light neither of the two boys had ever thought too much about in the past, if they even noticed it was there. Akita threw the card on the ground and kicked it under the staircase.
"Why did you do that?" Daichi inquired, as it was a seemingly random action.
"I know I'd want to go back in there again, and you won't catch me going anywhere near those stairs." Akira said, throwing his two arms over his head and resting his hands on top of each other on the back of his head. Akira kicked off his shoes and pushed them towards the front door.
"Okay, sure. Can you at least take these back now?" Daichi replied with a judging look on his face, also slipping off his shoes. The two began to walk up the stairs, Akira in the front and Daichi in the back.
"Can you drop them on my bag when we get there, then I can sort them out later? If it's really bugging you that much…" Akira puffed out.
"N-no it's fine. I'll do that." Daichi submitted, as he wasn't feeling up to arguing after the night they'd just had. The rain was still pouring heavy on the city they were in.
When they got to the room, Akira jumped onto his bed and turned to the side, clearly checking his phone. Daichi dropped the rods on top of his friend's expensive brand name school bag and walked over to his side of the room. He took off his socks and put them on his bed, and searched through his clothes bag.
"Aw no- Do you have any extra socks? I accidentally brought only one pair." Daichi whispered, only to get no response. "Uh…Akira?"
He walked over to the other side of the room and placed his hand on his friend's shoulder, giving it a gentle shake. That's when he heard a loud snore escape Akira's mouth, he had fallen asleep soon after lying on his bed. Daichi gave a quick pout before walking back over to his bed and taking off his t-shirt.
He crawled under the ice-cold duvet and turned to face the wall. He brought his legs closer to his chest and closed eyes, attempting to sleep. However, his thoughts were yelling in his head. Thoughts of guilt, as he had no idea who the monkey was or if he was even dangerous. His mind told him he was stupid, anything could've happened and they ran in without thinking.
The only way he was able to stop feeling bad was by forcing himself to think "It's okay. Everything is fine and nothing bad is going to happen." This small battle inside his mind only made him more tired. He didn't even realize that he was dreaming when he entered a classroom full of plush bears.
The two young boys were fast asleep, but they had no idea what they had awoken.