Rita slid across the ground, head bouncing numbly off of the ground, sending stars dancing through her vision. Shocked, she tried to scramble to her feet. Her hand wiped across her head, revealing slick and shiny blood. No pain. No sticky feeling. Completely numb. Think about it later. Get up now! She turned around, wavering on her feet. Before her was a creature she couldn't have even imagined. It looked like a frog. It was a frog. At least, in the front it was a frog. The creature was green and shining with red designs around its face, but further towards the back it was even stranger; all hard lines and sharp angles, black legs surrounded by bright red lines. Even it's size was odd, staring up at her from knee height. One name blinked into her mind and she knew the creature she was staring down was called noise.

She backed up, feet shuffling backwards, hand scrambling for her purse with her eyes locked onto the creature, but abruptly realized that she couldn't feel her purse or any of the objects inside. She would need to look inside, need to look away from the creature, but she couldn't force herself to break eye contact. She stumbled back, tripped, and as the world blurred before her she realized exactly how lost she would be without something as simple as touch. She was going to die... no, be erased here.

There was a strange sound like the air ripping in half, but almost musical. Rita opened her eyes, not sure when she had clenched them shut, only to find that there were three new noise hopping alongside the one she had been facing alone. She had never pictured herself being afraid of frogs before, but she was frozen.

"Stay down, genius!" The voice rang out from behind her, and she whipped her head around. A boy in blacks, reds, and grays was sprinting towards her through the rainy muck with his hand outstretched. She reacted without thinking about his words. Her hand flew out toward him, and she looked back at her pursuers. The noise had closed the distance. In an instant they pounced, near simultaneously, as if they had one mind. The world lurched again as she was pulled away from where the noise landed. Her eyes pulled back to the panting boy.

"Don't run!" he screamed, which seemed odd, since he was the one pulling her along. She numbly followed, led by some ingrained sense of balance and direction. She couldn't feel the ground beneath her feet, couldn't feel a burning in her legs, and she wasn't looking at the ground, but somehow she stayed upright, somehow she knew that she was hauling herself across the intersection. She glanced back at the noise and they were thankfully slipping into the distance.

They had stopped before she knew it, and the teen was gasping for air. She was shocked to find herself doing the same, despite a lack of burning in her lungs. He leaned back onto a statue of a wolf, rubbed his legs, and then shot her a contemplative look. The boy was soaked all over, from his dyed black hair to his striped arm warmers, and when she looked at her clothes, she could see that she was soaked too. The rain was pounding, loud and furious, leaving the plaza near empty. The strange ripping sound started up again, and the boy's head whipped around.

"There won't be any more noise." he said, then he grimaced, looking almost exasperated, and pointed behind her. She spun to find a red and black symbol floating in the air next to the wolf statue. She looked in horror as the symbol pulled itself into a familiar form, the frog shaped form that she had seen before. So this is where noise come from. Rita turned back to her new partner. Partner? Had she found a partner, and what was she supposed to do? Make a pact!

"Hey, we need to make a pact!" She held her hand out and looked at him. His expression was relieved. Rain continued to come down as his hand touched hers and then everything was gone. For an instant the world was brilliant and bright. They were lifted up off the ground as the world floated around them. For a moment they were alone, and in that instant, the world flashed. Rita found herself standing next to the teen. Was that a pact?! That was incredible! Rita was wobbling, somehow unsteady on her feet, and yet she had this inner sense of being more powerful, more... solid?

"Do you have any pins?" The boy looked over at Rita, and she returned his glance.

"I... I don't know." She was visibly upset, but she forced herself to keep her head up. The teen didn't lose a beat.

"Don't take this one." He held out a pin and looked frustrated. His body language screamed for her to take the pin, but his words explicitly said not to. Rita was confused, but decided to reach out and try to take the pin. To her relief, he offered no resistance.

Picking it up was an odd experience. She couldn't feel it, but she could see her hand close around the pin. She picked it up and examined her movements closely as she pulled it over to her. The pin was enclosed in her fingers. She couldn't feel it, but she knew it was there. She uncurled her fingers and examined it. It had a lightning bolt running across the front of it. She unfastened the pin and then clipped it to her shirt. She was impressed with her own dexterity. Muscle memory was stronger than she ever would have imagined.

She returned her focus to the noise, only to see that they were already occupied. A strange red aura seemed almost to buzz around them, and as if on cue, the noise turned to face her with the aura still buzzing around them. A quick glance to the left confirmed what she somehow knew; the red blur was her new partner. Turning back into the yellow eyes of her foes, she somehow knew that she could stand and fight them. The noise pounced, and Rita raised her hand as if to tell them to stop. With that, punctuating the thought, a streak of light pierced the the sky and crashed into the first of the three noise. It fell to the ground pulsing from the hit. Unfortunately the single bolt did nothing to dissuade the other two noise. They slammed into Rita and pushed her backwards. She was moved by the force, but did not actually feel the hit. It was more like being pulled on a string than taking a hit and, because there was no pain, she was quick to recover.

Rita placed her hand out and pointed at one of the two frogs that had attacked. Energy crackled, and in a brilliant white and blue display, it struck the creature. Like the first, it flew back and shook from the strike, but this time, she was quick to check on her remaining opponents. She had attacked two noise, and when she turned her attention to the third, the red aura was buzzing around it. She was just about to raise her hand when the noise changed into something resembling television fuzz. The static gathered together, and then scattered before dissipating entirely. It was an incredible display, but wasting no time, she turned back to the other noise, pointing at them again and again, getting an adrenaline rush from the power at her finger tips. The lightning flashed again and again, and before she knew it, they had made quick work of the noise.

Rita hadn't remembered him appearing, but her partner was back beside her. She noticed a lack of smell. With the continued lightning strikes, she had expected the disturbing smell of singed flesh, or burning ozone, but the air was oddly scent free. The U.G. was proving to be a strange place. Rita let out a small laugh at the thought. I'm in a place where dead people play a game to win a second chance at life, in a world parallel to the living world, fighting killer frogs without my sense of touch, and I find the lack of smell weird.

After recovering herself, she looked to her partner and found him staring at her. It was the first time she had really gotten to look at him without being chased, and as petty as it was, she wished she hadn't. If Rita had seen him from across the street and been asked to describe him with one word, she would have used 'punk'. Had she been allowed another word, it would have been 'scary punk', and up close, she wouldn't change that analysis. He had dyed blue-black hair, eight- no, nine piercings that she could see. Don't dwell on that thought too long... He was wearing a ratty t-shirt and arm warmers, and the fact that he could run in the over-sized pieces of Swiss cheese that he was trying to pass off for pants, was beyond her. He was young too, maybe eighteen, which somehow made him scarier to her.

This guy saved your life. No matter what you might have thought of him before, you're in the U.G. now. You both want the same thing, and that means that you need to give him a chance. He's the only partner you have.

SNAP! Rita's attention snapped just like her new partners fingers had. That whole time she had been staring at him, and he seemed confused, and a little annoyed.

"I'm sorry, I was thinking, not staring at you. I do that a lot. Thinking! I meant I think a lot, not stare at you a lot... and ramble... I do that a lot too. Why don't you talk for a bit?" Great, now I look like an idiot.

The look her partner had didn't do much to soothe Rita. He was clearly frustrated again, consistently frustrated; why was that? An overwhelming silence prevailed, and Rita understood; suddenly, he was connected to a stranger, tasked with protecting her. What can you say in that situation? She calmed herself and decided to help.

"How about we start with names? Mine's Rita."

"Adam." He grimaced and shook his head, more anger. How was she going to connect with him? She couldn't speak without upsetting him.

"Okay, Adam it is." Rita stuck her hand out to shake, and Adam took it quickly, but his look of disdain stayed. She had her partner but he didn't certainly appear happy with it.

So much of this confused her, and she was sure it wasn't over, but one thing kept nagging her. She watched herself shaking Adam's hand, but she felt nothing. Like she was trapped in a cage, separated from the world that she was viewing. It came to her that she wasn't happy with this either, and when she looked back at Adam's disheartened face, she felt like she understood why he wasn't happy. He was dead too.