Ryder jerks into consciousness. Cold sweat slips down his brow. He's shaking and shivering and the low roar of conversation makes it ridiculously hard to think—

His befuddled state of mind only then catches up with him then: how did he not notice he was surrounded by people? There are hundreds of uniform-clad teenagers walking around him, their conversations blending rhythmically into a dull roar that flows straight into his head and makes it really hard to hear himself think. His hands immediately fly to his ears, feeling for the little sound dampeners that aren't there. He doesn't have a spatiotemporal tracker or an eye-lens implant on him either; nothing to orient himself to his surroundings.

He has no clue where he is… or how he got here in the first place. Last he remembers, he was in the middle of an interview—one that he really hadn't wanted to be in.

And now he's here, wearing the same school uniform that everybody else is. Khaki suit jacket over a white shirt and blue tie. Despite its stiff look, it feels just as fluid and flexible as his work outfit.

A foreign hand clamps itself aggressively onto his shoulder. Ryder doesn't think; he flies straight into action, yanking the guy's hand forward to throw him off balance, and, using his own shoulder as a pivot point, converting his opponent's sudden forward motion into a downwards thrust aided by gravity to send him sprawling. He leaps onto the guy's back, pinning his arms helplessly to the ground, and places a strong hand against the back of the blonde head. He briefly notices that the guy's school uniform is a completely different color—a black jacket, contrasted to the khaki color of everybody else around them. "What do you want?" he growls.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, man," the blonde shouts into the floor. "Easy there. A… a friend told me you'd be here. And here you were, looking pretty lost. So I thought you could do with some help."

"Why should I trust you?" he reconsiders the blonde's words. "Your friend? Did she set this up?"

"Do you come from a place where a friendly arm-around-the-shoulder actually means I'm going to kill you now?"

Ryder wrinkles his brow. His spatiotemporal tracker had the added function of identifying friendly and hostile parties; he guesses that he knows now what his default reaction to unidentified parties is. "Better safe than dead."

"Well," the blonde drawls. "You won't have to worry much about dying anymore."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's a fact," growls a girl's voice behind him. Even though he's never heard the sound before, Ryder still freezes at the click of a weapon directly behind his head.

"Kitty, please don't shoot him," moans the blonde guy. "He just—"

Ryder's body is in motion at the word shoot. He cuts the blonde's words off as he shifts positions again—this time ensuring that the blonde is now an effective meat shield between him and the gun wielder. "Kitty" is thin and petite and also blonde and wearing the black school uniform, though Ryder's eyes are drawn straight to the very short black skirt and the tiny slice of skin shown beneath before being covered by thigh-high black stockings.

Only for a second, though, because the black gun pointed at his face is a lot more attention-grabbing than the girl's legs.

"Okay, you guys are making this a lot more complicated than it needs to be," the blonde boy complains, as if fully trusting that the trigger-happy girl pointing the gun won't actually shoot either of them.

Ryder isn't as confident. Kitty looks as if she's just itching to pull the trigger. He holds his meat shield firmly in place, at the same time vaguely wondering why, in a high school hallway bustling with students, why nobody is even stopping to pay attention to the gun.

Said meat shield wiggles a little, trying to turn his face towards Ryder. "Hi, I'm Sam," he grins. "Welcome to the Not Dead Battlefront."

Kitty rolls her eyes. The gun doesn't move. "We are not calling ourselves not-dead."

This world just keeps making less and less sense. Maybe it's one of those newer immersive holographic games where you actually hook up your mind and physiological reflexes into an audiovisual generator, creating a literal full-body experience. He certainly feels like he's been dropped into the middle of a video game, surrounded by bickering non-playable characters currently holding a conversation about their state of living under what normally would be a life-or-death situation.

His ears catch a snippet of conversation that he can finally make sense of. He tightens his grip around Sam's neck to draw his attention. "What is this about not being able to die?"

"We can't die," Kitty states flatly. "Would you like me to prove it?"

"This is the worst team recruiting moment ever," moans Sam. "Seriously, Kitty, don't shoot him. He just got here and it definitely won't recruit him to our cause if you shoot him right off the bat."

Ryder tightens his grip, his muscles bulging around Sam's neck. The blonde chokes slightly. "What cause? Where is here?"

"Here is the afterlife," explains Kitty. "You're dead."

"Not-dead," Sam corrects, still struggling for air. "You're not-dead."

"Fine, you're not-dead," she sighs. "Happy now?"

Figuring that this meat shield situation isn't going to work in the slightest if nobody can really die, Ryder releases Sam from the choke hold. The blonde slumps to the ground, gagging for breath, while Ryder motions towards Kitty's weapon. "Why are you even bothering to threaten me with a weapon that can't kill me?"

A smile ghosts Kitty's lips. "Oh, it'll kill you." She aims the gun straight at Ryder's face as he realizes his mistake. "You'll die and it'll hurt like hell. But you won't stay dead."

"Correction: not-dead."

Kitty sighs in frustration. "Hence Sam's terminology: not-dead."

She emphasizes the word dead with a first gunshot that Ryder barely avoids by dropping to his hands and knees. Almost instantly, he launches himself at her, tackling her right on. She gasps as they both fly back several feet; her second shot goes completely awry when he lands straight on top of her.

No screams. No mass panic. Just students rapidly clearing the hallway, as if suddenly remembering that class started five minutes ago and that they really shouldn't be standing around holding conversation amidst a life-or-death struggle.

Kitty tries to kick him off of her, but his hands catch fistfuls of her tight black sweater vest so that he remains on top of her. For just a second, he sees an overwhelming terror welling up in her eyes as he fights to remain on top and in control of the fight—and then all he can see is stars, because she just pulled a frying pan out of freakin' nowhere and clonked him over the head with it.

"Just not-die," growls Kitty. Before Sam can protest, she's expertly lodged her third bullet right between Ryder's eyes.