It was the chirping of a bird that woke him up. It felt weird, the happy sound of a bird singing. Draven sat up and rubbed his eyes awake, realizing that it was indeed not a bird.There was an open translucent screen before him, like a hologram but way clearer. He rubbed his eyes again, then peered closer. It was his dashboard, the one that showed his balance. His heart jumped out of his chest and jumped right back. He remembered the previous day's warning; Money must be spent before 14 days.Is this how it was going to be now, waking up every day to your balance, knowing that you just spent it because it is real money? How had they accumulated that kind of money anyway? It wasn’t much. Just about…Draven preened closer as he calculated his money. It was twenty thousand dollars. His mouth opened and then closed right back. It was too much, way too much money than he had seen in his entire life. Well he wasn’t seeing it, but it was real and they were literally begging him to spend it!
They were killed and massacred for two days. Two. Literally anything in sight-monsters and fish. Actually the fish were for Lara. Draven was trying so hard to teach her. He wanted her to know everything there is to know about killing and whatnot. He killed fish, grilled them and ate them, all the while giving her the key knowledge to killing something.She seemed okay with this; perfectly fine, in fact. On the fourth day, Lara took her own fish by herself and killed it, then roasted it. She was very pleased with this. She danced around all day and Leo encouraged her, laughing at how well she’s turning out. Draven stopped checking his dashboard; he hadn’t even checked out his tasks yet and saw if they were processed. All he thought about was money.“Look how happy she is to have made a kill.”Draven looked up at Leo’s voice, confused for a moment. “What?”“She’s happy she killed a fish.”His eyes roamed about, not understanding where Leo was driving. “So?”“So, she shouldn’t be happy t
Leo and Draven stared at the forest before them. It had been a solid three minutes and both of them said nothing, only stood side-by-side. Lara was somewhere jubilating or doing god knows what, but Draven was sure that she was stupid enough to think this would be a trip. When he called Leo to come look at what he discovered, the poor guy didn’t say anything but stare at the forest before him. Draven cleared his throat to begin with.“You’re seeing what I’m seeing, right?”Leo chuckled dryly. “Yeah, I’m seeing what you’re seeing.”“So you know this is bad news.”“It is bad. It is really bad.” Then he turned to look at Draven. “You know why it is bad? Because this is all your fault!”“What? How is it my fault we got to pass through an evil forest?”“It is your fault because my life and game are synced with yours now. Why can’t I have a different path from yours? Why do I have to follow your own path every single time?"Draven scoffed. “That’s what happens when you’re in a group. And gue
Draven wasn’t sure he should be surprised that Lara was being called a Beanie or that the teenage boys thought he and Leo were involved in whatever it is they were talking about or that he even had a gun in the first place! What were they doing with a gun? How did they get it? Was this game only partial to people with no influence because what in the hell was this?Leo gave him a ‘I told you this girl is sus!’ look while Draven struggled to grasp what the situation was. Lara’s head was held high, looking him straight in the eye. Her eyes were dark and blank.“And she cut her hair too, boys,” the leader said as he smacked her empty head. “Hear that? It landed without any obstructions!"Draven cringed at the sound of the slap on Lara’s head, but she didn’t move an inch. It was almost as if she was trying so hard to be brave when the both of them knew that she was as weak as a snail.Or was she?Have they been wrong all along? Okay maybe not, but he alone. Leo had told him several times
The forest swallowed the boy whole. One minute he was there and the next he was gone. There was nothing left of him but black dust rising in the air. They all knew what it meant: death.“You’re asking me to walk into this with both my eyes wide open,” Leo said.“It’s not so bad if you think about it,” Draven replied.“Not so bad? Someone just turned it into a puff of smoke!”“Maybe it was meant just for us?”Leo shook his head. “Nope. Maybe it was meant just for you and you wanted to drag me into this.”They heard a rustle behind them. Leo and Draven turned, only to see that the other guy was running. They let him go. It wasn’t like he was going to survive long anyway. He was alone, injured and without weapons. He’d be dead either by a monster or a human. Either way, he wasn’t going to survive long.Draven and Loe looked back at the forest. It was brimming with thunder, and not inviting. Draven wished there was another way to go through this, but the system had already declared that h
Nothing happened.Leo waited for a few more minutes, his eyes closed. Nothing happened! He opened his eyes with a smile on his face, and that smile automatically froze. They were in the forest, the forest that he specifically did not want to come to. He was pushed into this, and now he was going to die in a place he did not recognize; a place that other players couldn’t see. Draven released their hands and walked forward. There was a sizzling sound and when they turned back, they saw that the curtain of the world was pulling down over them. Lara was stunned. She hadn’t seen this before, until Draven pushed them all into it. Now it felt as if that curtain stretched to accommodate her and make her one of them. Now she could see what they were talking about and she immediately regretted taking that step.She could have easily said she didn’t see any portals or whatever this place was. One thing she was sure of was that it reeked of evil, and she never did well with evil. She couldn’t ev
“I know you guys are talking about me,” Lara said. “It’s alright, I didn’t hear a single word.”“It doesn’t matter what you hear," Leo said. “But you know what? Why don’t we talk about this now that the topic is up?”“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Draven said, his hands raised palms up in mid air. “Let’s not get into a heated 6 here, alright?”Leo scowled at him. He wanted to say so many things at once, but he also knew he needed to keep his chill. Truthfully, Draven was the patient one. He would never be as patient as she was concerning any matter. Or was he just patient when it came to Lara? Leo squared his shoulder at the thought that had just entered his mind. This was serious. Was he really hesitant because it was Lara? Did he… like her? Leo internally vomited from his organs. He belched and gagged just thinking about it. It’s not that Lara is unattractive—well, she was unattractive since she’s practically bald now— but this was also a game. Everything in here would be a game; what was the
Lara was not one to regret things, but she began to feel a deep sense of regret after the last revelation. She was not ready to die of thirst or hunger or who knows what else just because they had limited time. All she wanted to do was increase her level and get the wealth she was supposed to get. Any other thing was way out of what she bargained for and now it was happening right in front of her. Not even smart ass Leo saw this part coming. Now they were all stuck in the forest to finish up their business or get swallowed up.But not Lara though. She could leave right now and nothing would happen to her; nothing at all, except that she would not be armed and she could easily get killed. Lara cannot risk it; whatever they had to go through, she would finish it to a certain point until she got what she wanted.They started to walk further and further into the forest. Sometimes it got light, sometimes it was as dark as a gloomy devil. None of them said anything until Leo decided that he
Draven couldn’t believe it was over. Three months later he was still thinking if he was making the right decision. Assistant David sat in his living room with a bunch of documents in front of him. He paced up and down, not sure what he would do.“You can just sign here,” the man said for the umpteeth time. “It’s not really that hard. You sign that you’ve taken ownership of the game and you decide what you want to do with it.”“But I don’t want ownership of the game,” Draven said again. He had repeated this exact words countless times but the guy didn’t seem to be hearing him.“You should have known what you were getting yourself into when you challenged late game owner Timothy—” David paused and looked to the heavens. “May his soul not rest in peace. You should have known that killing him would automatically make you the owner of the game. Those were his rules.”Draven rolled his eyes. He was sure that Timothy had made that rule because he didn’t believe anyone would be able to defeat
Timothy laughed. His laughter was vivacious and full of life. This was what he wanted, after all. The very end of judgement day where he would punish all those who failed him; those who went against him and those who was party to his torture.Here was Draven, the strongest man to ever grace his game. Timothy knew he was going to be a lot of trouble in the future and so he had specifically looked into him. Now that Draven has waged war with his full chest over a woman, he was ecstatic. This was historic, and he was living a historic time in the present. How many men brought knives to fight for their loves, anyways?Smiling, he snapped his fingers. A single door opened and his assistant ran to him carrying a box.“You’re about to experience an historic moment with me,” He said to Draven. “Diane will be our goddess Diana, and we will be the lowly men who are fighting for her love.”Diane scoffed. “You don’t have to do it, Draven. The guy is nuts. Let’s just get out of here.”“But darling
Draven panicked for a minute. He thought for sure that the darkness and pressure meant he was losing his consciousness, but that wasn’t the case. One minutes there was stark darkness and the next minute they fell into an extremely white room with hard cardboard. They fell through the sky, hitting directly on the wood and groaning in pain. The stark white color of the room blinded them. It was brighter than a sky or white paint. It was so bright that Draven closed his eyes and tried to regain his or he r senses. He knew there was a betrayal in the group—which wasn’t surprising as their group was made of weird, diverse people, but he needed to see who exactly did it.He won’t even be surprised if to was Lara. She was the one who had led them to the cage, after all. She was the one who offered to test the waters and make sure the portal was okay. Who in their right senses tests water and portal to make a point of the portal not working? Unless he or she was working with Timothy and knew
No one said anything after Diane’s statement. They were so tired and hungry and unsure of what to do next. Draven’s goods felt heavy to him. His sword even felt heavier than normal. He didn’t believe he came back to this game to be ridiculed and placed in a very unstable condition because of a silly fight that was going on between two lovers. When he looked at Diane, he wondered if she was toying with them again. Was she afraid to meet Timothy or what? He knew that the portal might likely take them to Timothy as the owner can easily manipulate events, but at least he was ready for that stage. He could exactly tell what Diane was thinking when she was looking her nose down on the portal.“We cannot just stay here,” Lara said. “Do you want us to keep waiting for him to keep finding opportunities to kill us? We’re certainly going to die of hunger if we keep waiting!”“She’s right,” Draven concurred. “We can’t keep lying about in wait like lambs to a slaughter. We must make the first move
Everyone was super awkward after the kiss. Leo avoided for the rest of the morning. He didn’t want to talk about it but it was too late; Draven had seen them and announced to the whole pack in the morning that the kiss was probably the most hottest he’d seen.“Whoa,” Diane said excitedly. “You two kissed? That’s great. Are you like a couple now or something?”“It’s nothing like that, okay? It was just a kiss, and a mistake at that,” Leo piped up.Even though he didn’t want to talk about the kiss or look at Lara’s face, he was glad that Draven brought it up. At least he’d air his opioid publicly about it so he won’t have to be in an awkward space with Lara.“Ouch, Leo, you’re a player!” Diane said, laughing. “You can’t say those kind of things to someone when you’ve kissed them!”“I didn’t kiss her, okay? She’s the one who kissed me,” Leo defended hotly.“It’s still hurtful that you say it that way. Have some feelings, pal,” Diane said, her laugh increasing.It sounded mocking and cont
Leo could not sleep. Draven had been out for close to an hour, yet he wasn’t back yet. Lots of thoughts assaulted his brain, but the one that stayed the most was Diane.Diane. Diane. Diane.He bet she was here to true their life again, and that bet was true. If Leo was the one to handle this, he’d definitely not want to help her out the way Draven was. It was as if the guy didn’t want to learn any lessons about why it’s dangerous to just not help anyone for too long. Draven was lenient when it came to Diane and he didn’t like it one but.He turned his head to the side and saw her sleeping peacefully.“Yeah, like you didn’t just send someone to their death,” he murmured to himself.He wondered if Draven was still talking to the game creator or if he’s been killed. If he was truly killed, Leo won’t honestly know how to handle that. He tried not to think about it because it was depressing enough. He sat up now, still watching Diane. If she had been careful, they won’t be in this shit hol
Draven waited until everyone was comfortable with him being their security for the night before he left into the woods. Diane was surprisingly quiet and compliant. It was like she was into her head too much to care about what Draven wanted to do. Seeing that all odds were in his favor, Draven waited a bit before withdrawing to the forest. He walked deeper and deeper, wondering if he should just sit on a log and wait for Timothy to appear.“Hi Draven.”He yelped and fell to the ground, startled. His shouts of surprise startled the forest a bit, and so Draven waited it out to make sure no one was coming to check what the noise was before turning his head slowly to the side. There was Timothy, standing under the moonlight. He looked attractive and mysterious and just too handsome to be standing there. Draven sat up as he brushed away the small dirts on his body.“You scared me,” he hissed at Timothy. “You know you should learn not to sneak up on people like that.”“I didn’t sneak up on y
They camped inside a cave, just as Draven wanted. He’d taken his time and made sure they covered a 12 hour distance just so he could find the perfect place for them to camp. Finding a cave was not just the problem—and caves were pretty scarce. The problem was finding one that was deep and big enough to accommodate more than three persons. When he finally found it, it was nearing dark. The blanket of darkness that fell over them was just the right thing Draven needed to carry out his plans. He’d been thinking for hours how he would get away with talking to Timothy without anyone noticing and this was the best part.“A cave?” Lara asked in disbelief when they stood before the place. “Isn’t this kind of weird, Draven? Some crazy monsters might be in there!”Draven nodded in understanding. “Leo and I are going to check it out and see if it’s free of monsters; how about that?”“I thought you said we were getting to the end of the game,” Lara moaned.Draven gave her a confused look. “Lara,
They walked a long mile, Draven and Leo leading the way while Lara and Diane walked behind. Diane stayed at the far end so she won’t walk on the same lane with Lara. There was something suspicious about the young girl that she didn’t like. Diane wasn’t usually suspicious of people but when she does, her instinct was definitely right—just as it was right with Draven and Lara. Leo cleared his throat and glanced at Draven. “So… were you lying?”“Was I lying about what?” Draven mumbled.“You know… about what Diane said?”“Why would I be lying about that?”Leo cocked his brows at him. “Don’t forget that I know you all too well, Draven. I know when you lie out of necessity and when you lie out of leisure. I usually don’t catch the leisure one but the necessity one is very obvious.”Draven glanced at him with an amused expression. “Really?”“Yup. You get all tense and defensive and violet most times if you’re pressured about it. It’ll make you want to protect that little lie of yours quite