“Where should I start?” Marco paced the room again, then looked at my sister. “You want to do the honors?”

Alyssa grumbled about something, then folded her arms. “There is a part you know and you don’t know about this event Alex. It is a death game for elite players, but at the same time it is a choosing round for people like us.”

I frowned. “And what makes people like you different?”

“We are players who are even above high-level players,” Marco explained. “While your average high-level player is in a level between twenty to sixty we are usually between ninety to hundred.”

“That’s a score impossible to be earned so fast,” Tara snapped.

“True, but we were there when Unet first started. Me, Alyssa, Lady Maria, even the twins…” a sneaky smile spread on Marco’s face. “They call us the Elites.”

Something dawned on Tara’s face. “I’ve heard about you. They called you the first generation of players.”

“So there are generations?”

I looked at Alyssa, but she wasn’t meeting my eyes. But her voice was firm. “You are a third-generation player, someone who newly joined the game within the last year. Players like Tara are the second generation, ones who joined two or three years ago, and the older ones like me and Marco are the first generation.”

I recalled Maria’s words about the young man who met her husband.

“Elites like us have special bonuses,” Marco grinned. “Extra bonuses on kills, unlocking extra weapons, free cars every month, oh man, you little players are going to get so jealous if you hear the whole list.”

“The point is,” Alyssa snapped, drawing our attention back to her. “Elites like us had a game on this island. Each of us gets to control a monster and kill many of you newbies as we can. The one with the highest kill count wins the game.”

I lowered my pistol. I couldn’t believe the monsters I’ve seen were controlled by an actual player. And one of those players was my sister. “A game within a game?” I glared at Alyssa. “Should have been nice to know instead of going around with cullings, death games, and that bullshit.”

“You think we were allowed to talk?” Alyssa came at me. “If I could have then the first thing I would have done is to send you out of the damn town. But no, none of us were allowed to speak a single word. That’s how we maintained fear across the island.”

“Besides, if players know there’s another player controlling that monster then all they have to do is to kill that player,” Marco chuckled. “How unfortunate will that be for us.”

I tried to follow. “When Maria and I were surrounded, a creature attacked us…but that doesn’t make sense….Maria told me to fire at the creature.”

“That was my creature,” the Asian girl on the chair snapped, then went back to tapping on the laptop. A short while later she muttered. “Maria is a bitch.”

“So if that’s your creature, then where was Maria’s one?”

Alyssa and Marco looked at each other, an expression I was slowly starting to hate.

“Six elites, including me, were sent to the island,” Alyssa said. “You see three in here, the other one was Maria, and the last two were twins.”

“The Dycom Brothers,” even Marco’s face was grim when he uttered the name.

“I’ve heard about them,” Tara said. “Absolutely fucked up people. Calling them fucked up changes the whole meaning of the phrase ‘fucked up’.”

“Those two were always an abnormal bunch,” Alyssa muttered. “When we arrived at the island we had a plan. Have equal number of kills and then retreat with the monsters. With equal numbers, we’ll all be winners. But Maria and Dycom brothers had other ideas.”

“Maria wanted the victory for herself, and the Dycom brothers wanted only to share the victory among the two of them,” Marco said. “As you can see, there was a clash. We don’t know how it happened, but somehow the Dycom brothers managed to kill Maria’s Rampage with their own.”

“So there was a war among beasts?” I snapped. “You are telling me there was a shit ton of fuck going around in this island without us knowing a damn thing?”

“That was the original game,” Alyssa grimaced. “Stick with you, act like normal players, start taking you out one by one.”

“Oh,” Tara pursed her lips. “So you were among us?”

Alyssa glared at her. “Very funny.”

“Alex, the Rampage you and Maria found out on top of the rock belonged to Marco,” Alyssa said. “The one who kidnapped me and brought me to this tower was mine.”

“And my one is lost,” the Asian girl said, then glared at me. “You RPG’d it!”

“Wait, how do you all even control these things?” Tara asked. “Do you have Telekinesis or something?”

“No,” Marco pulled out his phone and showed it with a dramatic gesture. “We pinpoint our location and the monster arrives at us, kills everyone except us, and leaves. That’s why we need to actively blend among groups of people and take out as many as we can.”

I checked his screen. There it was, a big blue ‘summon’ button.

“We can also make them take us to a particular location,” Alyssa said. “That’s how I managed to get myself here.”

“And Maria lost hers,” I looked at the Asian girl. “And you’ve lost yours. So there are three more on the island.”

“I think I’ve lost mine too,” Marco said. “I tried summoning it, but somehow a bunch of players managed to kill it.”

I kept a few steps back at sitting on the floor. It was too much to take. Monsters, hidden players, games within games…

“You said you couldn’t tell it to us,” I looked at Alyssa. “Why are you telling it now?”

“Because you are already here,” Alyssa snapped. “And now that you are here, our next choice is to kill you.”