AruuYuda-ShoriKyuyu: While I'm still powered up and inspired... Here is your second chapter!
The teal-haired girl's eyes moved under closed eyelids. She heard the ticking of the clock's hands, which strangely sounded like the vintage grandfather clock. From what she knew, there weren't any grandfather clocks in her room.
Her eyes opened wide upon the vintage clock's bell rang.
Ding... came the deep ring, followed by a deeper and fuller dong...
She sat up and squinted as the brightly-lid surroundings hurt her turquoise eyes, making her seethe. Slowly lowering her arms, which was in front of her head to block the intense light, and opening her eyes, she gasped.
Where was she?
'Where am I...?'
It was all white. There was nothing. It was a room of bright nothingness. Even though frantically scanning the space for any sign of life or anything, there was nothing. She was all alone. Even the clock which she just heard bellowing wasn't there. The space around her seemed to be so wide, it seemed endless, boundary-less. Infinite.
She stood up from her spot. She was just lying on a blank white space all along. She looked at herself. Judging from the surroundings, she expected herself to be in white, as well, but no, she wasn't. She was wearing casual clothes to her surprise.
"W-where am I?" she asked a little louder. She looked down, seeing her shadow. Her hair was tied up neatly in twin-tails, contrary to her first thought that she looked like an ill person.
From some books she read, the characters who saw themselves in blank space were often dead. Her initial thought was that she was already so.
"Am I...already..."
She couldn't pronounce the word. She gulped.
"...d-dead?"
She turned around, checking again for anything else or anybody else besides her. Nothing. Then she turned around again, only to see a boy appear in a gradient – top to bottom. He fully appeared, laying flat on the white ground.
The girl flinched at the sight. Suddenly, someone appeared, and you were all alone. Appearing like that was a supernatural thing. She knew that it was utterly impossible. A strange thing. She felt like it was some sort of negative fantasy, a horrible fantasy of being dead. Though she felt alive, strangely.
Staring a little longer at the blond boy, she suddenly thought, 'Wait... Did I come here like...that?'
She stepped towards the boy, careful not to get farther than half a meter away from him, because she was wearing a fairly short skirt (to be safe, since he was a boy and she was a girl), and so that he wouldn't hit her if he woke up with a great reaction of surprise. She knelt down.
Since she was closer in proximity, she could examine him better. Strangely enough, he seemed familiar, though she didn't know him personally.
The boy seemed to squint in his sleep, but after that, his eyes abruptly opened widely. Like her, he was taken aback by the sudden intrusion of the brightness in his eyes.
"Ack..."
Seconds later, the boy's head turned towards her, and he gasped in surprise, sitting up as fast as the blink of an eye. The girl flinched at the gasp, which was quite high-pitched.
"Umm-"
"Who are you?" asked the boy, cutting her off rather sharply. "And what are you doing? Where am I?"
The girl gave a slight frown. "Please calm down. I don't even know what I am doing here, in this unknown place, too..."
The boy raised his eyebrow. The girl...how could she appear so calm in this situation? "How can I keep calm when everything seems suspicious?!"
The girl sighed. "Forgive me. Actually, I just woke up, too. And all I remember is that... I collapsed and saw nothing."
The boy looked up at her, cerulean eyes glistening. "What? You too? I also collapsed, then the next thing I knew was that I'm...here."
Strange. Two people who collapsed were in the same place.
"Are we dead already?"
The boy reached out his right arm, extending his slender index finger. He suddenly poked the cheek of the girl.
"Hey!"
"But, you seem pretty solid and warm... Still flesh... From what I normally read, the dead are 'translucent and cold', and that they wear white clothes... But here I am! Wearing a hat like I'm a hipster!" the boy went.
"But there's no way of proving it," returned the girl. The boy huffed and pouted. Yes, he knew. He was just...thinking randomly.
"You know what, you seem familiar..." the words escaped from the tealette's lips involuntarily. Realizing it, she cupped her mouth with her hand, mumbling a 'woops'.
She was still doubting it – the boy she was thinking of had a short, neat ponytail. But this boy had shoulder-length hair. Okay, he had a tiny ponytail, but still...
"You too, strangely," came the boy's voice. "Where do you study?"
"Crypton Hi-"
"That's why! You're a freaking schoolmate!"
Then, this time, everything became stranger. Two schoolmates who collapsed were all alone together in an unknown place that was suspicious. What happened, they didn't know.
"Your name?"
"Miku Hatsune. Class 2-A. You?"
"Len Kagamine, 1-C. Nice to meet you."
Since they already had small talk, exchanged names and that they had the same experiences, they felt much more comfortable than before. At least, if anything happened at all, there was a companion. They were all alone together.
Or were they?
A few seconds later, another figure appeared like how the boy appeared. The boy stiffened at the sight.
"I saw you like that, Len..."
The newcomer was finally solid, and the boy gasped as he recognized the person.
His annoying younger twin sister.
What on earth was she doing here?
Len quickly knelt down and shook the girl vigorously at her shoulder, forcing her to wake up.
"Hey Rin, wake up! Wake up!" he seethed. The blonde girl stirred and groaned, but when the tealette felt that the poor girl was quite aggravated by the violent quake, she yelled really loud ("Stop it, dammit!") and sat up, punching the boy at the shoulder, as well.
"OUCH!"
"You trying to annoy me, punk?" the girl asked, raising up a closed fist prepared to give another punch, but then she suddenly relaxed, looking at the white surroundings and the teal-haired girl behind her brother.
She gasped.
"Where am I?!"
The tealette waved her hands, pleading for her to calm down. "Please relax... We don't kno-"
However, she got cut off by another person appearing slowly. The blonde girl, horrified, gave a sort of a combination of a whimper and a gasp, and almost scurried away as the magically-appearing person finally materialized.
Though, curiosity dominated her, and she stayed rooted on the blank white floor until the newcomer – a pink-haired girl – woke up the way the tealette and the blond boy did.
"Ah!" the pink-haired girl gasped. A droplet of sweat seemed to trickle down her forehead. She sat up and looked up at the other three teenagers. "I think I just heard a clock's ticking and chiming..."
The three stiffened. They also heard it right before they all woke up, but there were no clocks around, and humans couldn't imitate their sounds perfectly.
"Wasn't she one of the Student Cou-"
"Um, where are we?" the newcomer asked, looking around the endless space.
"We don't know, eith-"
A tenor ding interrupted her explanation, followed by a deep, full dong. The tealette and the blonds stood still, while the pink-haired girl stood up slowly, listening at the clock's deep chime.
Miku turned to the others – Len first, but she gasped and stared longer at him, making him feel a little uncomfortable.
"What is it?"
"Something black is being reflected in your eyes..."
Indeed, his cerulean eyes had some sort of a shadow of, perhaps, a man with a great, sadistic-looking grin.
"Y-you too, Miku..." he nervously said, after taking a good examination of her as well. He also glanced at the others. "Them, as well..."
Why?
The white world slowly turned grey, and the four teenagers' heads ached. The grey world shifted to black like somebody invisible painted it with paint-brushes. A gust of harsh wind blew, and the four raised their arms defensively in front of their faces and stayed firm on the ground, trying not to be blown away.
"Wha-"
The clock's chimes got louder in volume, and it made the four cover their ears.
A few seconds later, the chimes halted with a fade and the white world returned, but there was a silhouette of an extravagantly-cloaked tall man whose long hair was flowing smoothly. A staff with what seemed to be a gem on the top was on his right hand.
He turned around, the cloak rippling around him, flowing.
"Ah, all the chosen ones, all awake, at last," he said. His voice was handsome and smooth, booming, echoing in the room of nothingness. "Welcome to the Game."
The four teenagers looked at each other with confusion written all over their faces. Game? What game? They felt the cloaked stranger smile.
"Perhaps, perhaps..." he said in a sing-song way, "you are curious about what this 'Game' is?"
"It isn't 'perhaps', Captain Weirdo, but we are sure curious about that thing. And we aren't very happy with that," the blonde girl, Rin, said rather crudely.
"Respect the Time Master," bellowed the stranger, raising his staff and hitting it on the floor with a loud clank. "Would you like me to make you suffer more?"
Rin stiffened. "What?"
The stranger, seemingly happy with how she reacted, gave a triumphant "hmph". "I chose you to be players of my Game – a matter of life or death, and you have no choice but to join, or else, you will cause the world's end. One step back, and it will happen right now."
The four teenagers' eyes widened in fear.
Do not move...
No...
This is a dream, right?
"You could tell me now if you want to back down. I could end the world with a snap of my fingers," the stranger said, raising his hand. "You'd better speak up quickly, or else, your families would fade away."
"No, you're joking!" Len screamed, sweat trickling down his forehead, his heartbeat quickening.
"I'm not," the stranger announced in an amused voice.
"Prove it," Miku challenged.
Upon saying those words, their present world swirled around them, changing to black, making them dizzy again.
Next thing they knew, they were back to their own real world – inside their city hospital's hallways.
"What are we doing here?" the pink-haired girl asked. She walked around the area, touching the dirty white walls with her right hand, but to her surprise, her hands went through them, as if she were a ghost.
She retracted her hand quickly, surprised at the effect.
"Hey, guys... It went t-through..."
Miku turned around to the other girl, as well as the two blonds. "What went through?"
"M-my hand..."
The girl demonstrated it, and it left the three of them appalled by the sight.
"We're going crazy..." Len mumbled, cerulean eyes widening.
"Hey, you haven't told us your name yet... Uh, forgive us, even though we know that you're one of the members of the Student Council of Crypton High..." Rin said.
"It's Luka. Luka Megurine..."
The four strolled down the hallway, until they reached the emergency room, which had a transparent window on the wall. The curtains were carelessly left not drawn close, and it allowed them to peek.
They saw themselves in separate beds, sleeping, pale, oxygen masks on their faces, scratches – not moving at all.
"What happened?"
Their families were weeping near their beds.
The hospitalized Len and Rin's beds were next to each other, and their parents were sniffling and wailed in agony. The mother stroked the girl's pale hand with her thumb in circles, while the father gripped the bedsheets of the boy's bed as he cried. His spectacles were misted by tears.
"Dad..."
"Mom..."
The hospitalized Miku was two beds away from the siblings. Her brother was cracking his knuckles as he wept, streams of tears on his rosy cheeks. Her mother was standing, her right elbow resting on her left arm. Her hand was against her forehead while she cried and gritted her teeth. Her father was comforting the wife by patting her back. Tears fell slowly from his glassy light-blue eyes.
"Mom! Dad! Mikuo!" Miku called out, but it seemed like they weren't heard. Even some of the nurses that passed by them didn't hear nor notice them. She bit her lower lip, not wanting to break down and cry, though she couldn't hold her tears back. "I'm here..."
The unconscious Luka was on the opposite side. Her younger brother, aged seven, was watching her slow breathing in fear – fearing her death, fearing that her heartbeat might stop in any second. Her mother was there, head buried in her arms, resting on the bed's side.
Her father wasn't there – he was overseas.
Luka's fingers, which were against the glass window, slid down. Tears slid down her cheeks.
"What happened?" they all asked in unison.