Before Draven could even start laying out his problems, the man turned and left. He just made his statement and left, not even giving him one more glance of interest. Draven didn’t understand one bit what was going on and why these people were so hell bent that he was this person they were searching for. He expected that the leader would especially know his client but it looked like he too was kept in the dark. The big brute smiled down at him and brought a cold bucket of water, his intent bright in his eyes.“No… no… no…”His pleas were futile. The man poured water on him, stretching it out so it would become a painful point and not just cold water. Draven shivered violently afterwards. His clothes were soaked to his skin and the room was dark and cold. He was soon left alone, not given food or water for many hours.Draven didn’t even know if it was hours or days that had passed. He moved in and out of consciousness, waking only just so they poured him cold water just as his clothes
Draven had second thoughts by the time they started preparing him for dinner. It was crazy. He didn’t know what he did to deserve being dressed in a suit and shoes and led down the hall to the dinner place. Outside it was dark when they led him out. He didn’t know if it was midnight or mid-morning, since these people were crazy enough to let him believe anything. It felt like he’d been in there for days, and the worst part of it was that he still didn’t know.They took him inside a bigger room this time. It was a long hall full of food and goodies. It looked like he was in a castle full of thugs and criminals. There were several round tables in the room occupied by three or four persons. When Draven looked around for an exit, he saw the Schivoka waving at him to join them. He walked towards him with the realization that this might be the last time he would be alive. There was no saving himself. This place was just one room that had one fucking exit. He would die in here, not knowing
The guards leading him outside stayed far behind him. They were giving him privacy to cry about the last hours before his death, which was absurd. What was the next thing they would do now, cry on his grave after they had buried him? He didn’t understand their ethics and mode of conduct, which was why he found it weird. The handymen had tattoos and rough edges while the most respected leader was white and plain to the eye. He probably had a family outside. A wife, two children, maybe a girlfriend too, who knows? They would all be oblivious to his lifestyle because he had the humor of a gangster. He knew how to keep it under wraps, but for how long? That was the problem with shady business. It would always come out, no matter how long you held on to its secrecy.“He’s not my business,” Draven murmured to himself.They were still on the ground of the house, but he ached to go further. He was sure that this place was a big, big field that had two gates. One should be in the east and the
The further he ran, he could hear the dogs barking and howling in the distance. How many were there? He wondered. With how loud they were, they sounded like thousands of dogs. Of course he knew it wasn’t possible to have that many dogs in one vicinity with a hazard of health crises, but he was sure Schivoka did not care about things like that.He began to wonder how the man would have come about that kind of name. Did it mean ‘leader’ in some other language that wasn’t English? He looked and sounded literate, so could he have coined that name for himself?He brushed the thought off his mind and focused on getting to the game. None of those things was his business. He should instead be focusing on how to survive without being eaten to death by the dogs, which kept him in untold pressure. He was sure that no one had ever been under his kind of pressure when entering the game. Like Leo, they must have been happy and sure and probably drunk before entering. They might have even slept thei
Draven walked for a long time. He was getting used to it; having walked for hours in the outside world. At first, he thought things were smooth and easy. The system had provided him with a map to locate Leo and continue on his journey. The only difficult thing there was that he had three days to reach his destination, or the instructions on the map would disappear. It was just rough paper with directions on it. It already looked too thin, like something that would disappear in the blink of an eye. The first day was easy. He didn’t even make much effort. He walked for a short while, drank loads of water, and continued. And drank more water. In fact, he took a lot of water for no particular reason other than taste. Draven was unapologetically thirsty. At the end of the day, the water weighed him far down and made him give up easily. He woke up early the next day, hoping to accomplish more than the previous day. Draven soon realized that one element must always hit him hard just as he
They were monsters. Monsters. He wasn't sure he’d seen anything so beautiful and ugly at the same time. They had the perfect body, the perfect hair. They clothes molded to their bodies, giving off this illuminating body shape. They were literally glowing in his vision. But their faces…God, was it horrifying? They had serpentine eyes and a long tongue that hung out of their mouths. It was longer than a lizard, but the same shape. They had fish scales at the side of their faces, and two inward slits in their noses. It nearly gave him a heart attack, to look at all that beautiful body and then see something wrong on their face. His hunger immediately vanished and he was ten times weaker than he was before. They looked like reptiles and humans in one.What the hell were these things? He had to imagine it; he really had to. His hunger had caused these hallucinations to him, that’s what happened. No way would this be happening, because if so, where would they have come from? Yeah, it had
He woke up slowly. It was the kind of leisure sleep that you wake up from, the one that came from a sleep-lagged dream. He stretched as he opened his eyes, yawning and looking around him. He felt good. Maybe he was lazy a bit, but still good.Draven turned to the side and stretched. Everywhere was calm and peaceful, except for the hunger in his belly. He didn’t even notice it until it came in full force, tearing him from within. He groaned and sat up. The game was really out for him; making him remember he was hungry as soon as he got up. What was he doing here anyway?He looked around him. He was lying on lush green grass that had stinging insects, but that was fine. Everywhere around him was green; except for the person who was several feet away, bowing over a brewing pot. Draven squinted his eyes to see in the sun, even though light was shed from him as he was under a tree. The boy looked little in his vision, or was hunger beginning to get to him that he couldn’t see much?“Hey,”
Draven momentarily forgot about the food. Something was very, very wrong. “The women were not real?” he asked the boy. “If they aren’t real…?” The boy shook his head in disappointment, as if the old man in front of him could have done better than those lines. Draven did not want to think of himself in the same sentence with ‘old.’ The game was definitely playing on both his inward and outward appearance. “What are they then?” he pressed further. “They were very much real,” the boy said to him. “They exist because people have been dwelling in the outside world for far too long.” “What do you mean?” ‘It’s pretty simple, really. People die and then don’t return early to the game, so those inside the game suffer the consequences.” Draven straightened. “I don’t understand…” “What don’t you understand?" I’ve laid it out pretty well. I don’t have time to waste on someone who fainted because he was hungry. If you were that hungry, why don’t you just pluck fruit and eat it? How hard ca