It was a normal day. From the beginning, he woke up sweating and annoyed. Moving to class where a test was distributed back to the class. This wasn’t the first time seeing it and so it could only be one thing. Once again there was a failing grade. Below average was what being mediocre was about. He already knew he wouldn’t make it past this semester without a miracle. It wasn’t for a lack of trying but a lack of understanding. As a child he enjoyed it and yet as he grew older it stopped making sense as its complexity grew.
As the lecture continued he was absent minded. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, as said before it wasn’t like he did it on purpose. He had read this section and went over it time and time again. He could understand it to a point, but to put it into practical use was impossible. He studied over and over again and still couldn’t get anything above a barely passable grade. No matter how much he tried, looking at the book gave him a sense of dyslexia. As the letters bent and wobbled to make the shape of an open maw to swallow him whole, startling him out of his daydream.
Looking around the class was quiet and the only voice that could be heard was the professor at the front of class. He used to sit in the middle but as his grades started to drop he started to move towards the back. Finally he was sitting in the back with a few sports scholarship students that only put in the effort to get passing grades so they could focus on their future career. Even when society would look down on them for being idiots or the normal term thrown at them was jocks, it wasn’t like they didn’t get done with what they needed.
They didn’t poke their nose into others' business and when they were offered to go to a party they would politely turn it down as it was time they could spend in the gym or even possibly theorycraft. Something that blew his mind, they would sit in a small group going over different things that fell under their sport. Even these academic supposedly rejects were able to accomplish what he couldn’t. Still he had gone to the school gym a few times to try and relieve his stress and almost injured himself once. It was because one of these few fanatics in the class was paying attention, they were able to help him avoid serious injury.
There was a vibration. Turning over his phone he took out of his pocket and glanced at the screen with a bit of reluctance. He had gone home before the semester started and even though he tried to hide it, his parents were able to see it. Their worry for him had been increasing and their care for him that was meant to comfort had started to cut deeper and deeper. Yet when he looked at his phone it wasn’t an alert of a text but an email. With a bit of excitement he turned to his laptop that was used for notes and tabbed out of the densely packed document of jumbled words.
After opening his email he saw there was no email. Confused, he looked at his phone and saw that the alert he had received was also gone. After looking it seemed like what he saw wasn’t real so with confusion he could only turn back to try and focus on the lecture when out of the corner of his eye he saw a black screen. For some reason his heart dropped. Looking over, the screen was completely black with nothing written on it.
The classroom wasn’t dark but the lights of the laptop showed that it was still on. Proofing this was so he could see a slight glow on the monitor showing that it was currently on and the black wasn’t because it was turning off but that the screen was showing a black screen. Soon a moving splash art was shown on the screen. Most of his worry turned to excitement but there was still a little worry. His focus at school had shifted from academia and shifted towards games.
From just playing games to a series of impossibly hard text-based RPGs. It was a dying format of game that was really popular in the past. It wasn’t his type of game to begin with yet the game was a prototype that was adapting to the times. It was a niche field but it was slowly starting to build up a fan base and he was there from the start. Starting out like a simple hit piece he went to the forums and talked about why he thought the game was lackluster.
The reason he even put in so much effort was because something inside of him really wanted to enjoy the game but he couldn’t because he felt the game was bad. He expected to be bombarded with hate. Niche games have tiny communities that generally are low budget and couldn’t even be called an indie title. Thus the community is extremely protective of the developers. As majority of the time these developers were putting in their own money for their passion project. This meant there was no money to be made and only lost.
Sure enough the comments started a heated debate where very few saw his criticism as constructive which he truly did mean it to be, yet he was extremely harsh as something in him really echoed with something in the bare-bones of the game. The more he wanted to like it, the more he hated it causing a bubbling annoyance that pulled out all the annoyance from school to the surface and burned away a lot of it.
In turn his grades saw a slight increase. Since he liked the game and his criticism was taken constructively the game continued to get better. He continued to play, the developers took his advice and started to change it from a pure text based game into another level with a client and added sound. This isn't just music and sound effects. They even took it a step further and started to add voice acting. It wasn’t half-assed but completely mind blowing.
Because the game didn’t have graphics and was a text based game when the lines were read by an appropriate voice, sound effects, and background music. It was possible to play with your eyes closed. It was extremely similar to an audio book, yet this was one you could interact with. It gave him a chilling sensation that actually gave him goosebumps the first time he played on the client.
The game itself had an option to turn on automatic updates that later allowed the game to open on its own to do things like a trailer for a new expansion. Thus when his screen went black he felt bubbling excitement and a magical pull forcing his gaze onto the screen. The game had done such events before, they would implicate the auto run function with auto updates to play small trailers. It was a questionable feature as it could update and open randomly but to the few that decided to use it, it was something that no game had ever given them this type of feeling.
Today was no different. Soon a few red droplets of what was believed to be blood splashed onto the screen. As it dripped down some became dripping lines while others became letters. It was done just perfectly and truly sent a chill down his spine and he glanced down to see goosebumps on his arms. The letters spelled out, “Do you want to play a game?”
There was no accept, thus he figured it was just a trailer for a new event or game mode. In his mind he was excited and answered. It wasn’t voiced as he was still in class and wasn’t stupid enough to speak or shout in such a quiet environment to draw everyone's attention. Yet as soon as he finished speaking his vision went black.
When he opened his eyes, he couldn't see. It wasn’t that he didn’t see anything but he felt dizzy and nauseous. There was a ringing in his ears and he could hear the sound of conversation, yelling, and even screaming. Finally getting control of his own body he lifted himself off the ground and saw others spread out on the floor. Everyone on the floor was moving to some extent. Yet between them was an open path in the middle.
The sound was coming down the path that looked the same, just there was nobody on the ground and everyone was standing and had gathered in small groups. He could feel his heart pounding and looked around to see what was going on. Trying to put things together he felt like there was something he was missing but couldn’t put his finger on it. As his grades dropped he became more antisocial and in this situation with a bunch of random people he walked around randomly listening to others as he tried to figure out what was going on.
The room itself wasn’t very large but wasn’t small. Like a large auditorium there were hundreds if not thousands of people. Yet everyone seemed to have come in the same way. As for how they got there nobody knew. There was a set of double doors at one end of the large hall but they wouldn’t budge. There was an echoing sentiment that kept getting repeated in every section of the hall he moved through.
“Where is this?”
“What happened?”
“Why are we here?”
“How long have we been here?”
Question after question would be asked but there was nobody here to answer it. There were a large number of why’s but again nobody could answer it. While there were a few that tried to answer a few, they would be bombarded by ridicule and shot down as if what they said was the dumbest thing ever spoken in the human language. But there was one thing he did notice moving around.
He couldn’t be completely sure, while he came from America, it was home to a large diversity of people. This didn’t mean everyone was accepting, it just meant that it was hard to tell who lived or didn’t live there. Yet with the way a few people dressed and looked and acted seemed off. There was no concrete way to define it; he just didn’t feel like they were from America. Which caused a larger issue.
He had overheard a group of people talking about what happened right before they showed up. He only heard a single person mention a black screen with blood splash art lettering. But one thing was clear, a question was asked and the people that appeared had said yes. Not everyone elaborated but a few did confirm they never said anything out loud.
As heated debate echoed in the hall it started to raise the panic of a few. They started pounding and beating on the door. Those of the stronger persuasion started to move away from the doors as these people were in full panic mode and they didn’t want to get involved in it. Strangely enough there was a sense of caution shown by a remarkable number of people. He wasn’t just a part of a few, there was a very large number of people that were walking around the hall looking around while listening to the conversation of the small huddles of people. Just the majority of them would join a group here or there while only a few continued to walk around without joining any of the conversations.
Finally a creaking could be heard by the doors. Moving over he was able to just see a person that tried to rush at the doors as he slipped as he bumped into the door. It wasn’t a large impact as he tried to ignore the slight pain yet the arm that hit the opening edge of the door had a massive reaction. It looked painful so one could only imagine how badly it hurt as there wasn’t just one such person. Yet as the arm fell loosely to the side the man let out a delayed scream.
It wasn’t just him, everyone turned quiet and looked towards the doors as they opened. Each and every person that touched the opening doors would fall and scream. Worse, the person at the front fell and was trampled on by others trying to flee. Those that didn’t hit the doors were able to make it out, but in a way that sent a chill down everyone’s spine. Where the opening should have been was a screen of fog. Soon a group of lettering could be seen, “Task: Survive.”
It took a moment for people to decide to move through the white fog. It took about ten minutes before the first person started. Yet once the first went through the rest slowly started to increase their speed. Still not everyone decided to go through the fog. The message covering the doorway felt ominous, still it only gave a very brief objective. There were no other details, just; survive.
He was one of the few that decided to leave fairly early. He wasn’t the first or the last, after the first started to go a large clump left at once and he was able to sneak in with them. The double doors didn't have a large amount of surface area so the clump wasn’t a dense clump but still with that many people it was hard to stick out so he left with them. The human heart was fickle that way, some imaginary strength filled his limbs when he moved with a large group of people.
After leaving the hall they entered a spacious forest. The trees were spread out and there was grass and shrubbery everywhere. There was no road or path in sight. Still at least there was water running in the distance. It wasn’t very loud but it was clear that the water was in the surrounding area filling people with a little bit of ease. Slowly at first everyone started to once again follow the first that started to move towards the water.
Looking around he felt uneasy. He had heard a professor talk about how humans were still animals no matter how different we were. In our genetic code were certain things that would stay as it had been written in so long ago to overwrite it would be difficult. One such example of that was showing itself to him right now. There weren't just people young like him. There were old people and children in the large clump. While uneasy there were still some that would move to the children and try to comfort them. The same could be said of the older people.
He wasn’t a good or a bad person. While at first he had intentions of staying around the older people as they were the slowest, as the group started to create a tail he started to feel uneasy and couldn’t hold himself back from picking up his pace. The only comfort was that he moved with a clump with some children in it. If he could he would try and help. Still he didn’t approach any of the children as by this point most of them were grouped together with a few women. One at the lead seemed to be here with someone she knew as they talked to each other with a lot of chemistry.
Surprisingly it was the woman trying to convince the man to move faster. Yet he kept looking back at the kids and wouldn’t agree. With a bit of unease the woman could only pout a little but she also looked at the children behind them causing some of the unease in her eyes to disappear for a moment.
After about an hour the comfort of knowing there was water started to become unease as the water sound was closer but it wasn’t in sight yet. The sound was there and it was clearly louder but still they hadn’t seen any water. It was strange as the sound itself was clearly coming from the front but still they hadn’t seen any. The tail had spread out a few times and still returned empty handed. By this point the group as a whole seemed to be moving like a messy migration that had started in a line had become less organized and it was unclear how many people were still moving in the same direction.
Only after another hour did they finally see the front of the group as they came across a large river. The water was crystal clear and the bottom could be seen as the water flowed from one side to the other. At this point the sun started to set, without any discussion the people split into groups and started to set up small camps and tried to start a fire. Turning to his side subconsciously he saw a small child look at him with big eyes, yet as their eyes met she quickly turned away.
While traveling with the group of children nothing untoward happened so he didn’t have a need to help. The only time he could offer any assistance was after the first hour the children had started to complain yet after a few reactions from people around them they became quieter. Yet children were resilient and if they couldn’t voice themselves they would find other ways to express their boredom. As such they had started to spread out to the dismay of the group trying to protect them. The forest floor was covered and it was hard to see where you were stepping. It wasn’t completely flat so at some point the children would fall once or twice if they weren’t careful.
This wasn’t just a problem for them, even the adults had trouble and he couldn’t help looking back slightly before turning back around. As he did he caught sight of a child that had moved in front of him and had been skipping along as she hummed. He was trying to ignore her even though he was trying to think, he wasn’t going to harass a child for entertaining herself. Yet from the corner of his eye he saw her tilt to one side as she was about to fall and ended up moving before he could think. Grabbing an outstretched arm that was trying to catch herself he was able to stop her from falling.
Caughting the girl by surprise, she pulled back reactively before stopping and looking down as if she had done something wrong. He didn’t mind and even wished to compliment her on her actions. He had no dubious thoughts but it was good to be cautious of strangers yet he didn’t have the heart to voice such a thing to a young child. He got approving looks from the adults that had been trying to take care of the children but he tried to ignore them as they made him uncomfortable so he just continued on his way. While the girl seemed embarrassed around him she still kept some distance but she didn’t move too far from him for the rest of the journey.
Finally the man that had been encouraged to increase his pace gathered the adults and the children as he talked to them in a small huddled group. Seeing this he couldn’t help but look around, everyone was traveling in small groups. Some were gathering firewood and others were trying to gather water. The forest didn’t offer much but there were some large leaves that could be used to hold some water. The trees themselves were astonishingly tall, so it wasn’t surprising seeing leaves that were the size of cars after a while. But it still left them with astonishment for the beginning of their journey through the forest.
This combined with the fact that after leaving the hall there was no hall in the forest but a door. It was possible to walk around the door but there was still no hall. When they tried to go back through the door they weren’t able to enter. This is why everyone decided to move into the forest to find water. There was a tiny group that looked to have stayed in the hall, and a small group that stayed by the doors. While a majority of them came this way there were still far less people than there were in the hall. For some reason this gave him even more unease about this unknown place.
As the negative feelings kept bubbling up in him he felt even more antisocial. Standing there not knowing what to do he couldn’t come to a decision. Finally the man that had been with the children walked over to him and offered his hand, “Hey, we're going to cross the river and set up a small camp. It isn’t possible to let the kids move into the forest to gather firewood as many of them might get lost. If you’re willing to help out and gather wood, if you don’t mind it, you can stay in our camp.”
Pausing slightly he looked at the group and was unsure, the group had one or two adult males but they seemed to be with other women or children that seemed to know them before entering as they didn’t wander too far from them the entire journey. Looking at them he expected it to be awkward but they didn’t give him dubious looks and some even a few older women were smiling at him encouragingly. Thus he took the hand, “Alright, thanks.”
The river was of large size that was probably around ten to fifteen feet wide. The side they were on had a large number of trees but the other side was fairly empty of trees. That side was also much lower and was close to the water. There was a bank that had easy access to the water. Where the side they were on was higher up and one had to look from a small cliff to see the water. There had been a few trees that had fallen at some unknown time. It appeared the first in the group had gone and used one of the fallen trees to connect the two sides. While it might not seem like a stable way, the size of the tree looked to be able to allow a small car to drive across if the weight didn’t cause it to break. Part of him wasn’t sure if it was even possible to move so maybe the tree had fallen in that way before they came.
When he and a few other adults gathered a decent amount of dry wood they moved across and gathered with the slightly large group. Many of the children didn’t have anyone they knew and those that did were fairly obvious. A child or two that was supposed to cross the river first, stayed behind because they were unwilling to part with the person they knew to travel with a stranger. While other children moved in groups together, they had made many little groups of friends on their long walk here. The young girl didn’t seem to know anyone and had stuck close to him, yet had made a few friends on the journey here and moved with them.
Yet when he returned she stayed close to him as if he was a support for her. He himself didn’t understand it but he wasn’t going to say anything if it made her feel more comfortable. He looked around a bit and found the man from earlier gathering up the bundles of wood that had been gathered.
Taking the wood, “This should be enough to get us through the night. As for tomorrow we will have to play it by ear.”
Meeting his eye he could only try to smile and nod. Seeing this the woman that had been traveling with him came back with a branch that was lit at another campsite. She couldn’t help but laugh at him, “Look at his face, hahahahaa.”
The two men looked at each other and smiled a bit awkwardly while he scratched his cheek, in a low voice he couldn’t help but ask, “You have any idea where we might even be? It doesn’t make sense and I feel like I am going crazy but… honestly feels like the kids are right, this doesn’t feel like Earth.”
The few adults that were watching the branch on fire light the wood they had gathered. They kept quiet as the voice was low so the children in the surrounding wouldn’t hear. The man seemed to have become a sort of leader in place of others that didn’t know what to do, he could only sigh helplessly, “I don’t know either. It sounds crazy but it might be true, or maybe this is a dream. Either way we have at least been given an objective. While not much it gives us a direction to strive in. It is much better than wandering aimlessly.”
It wasn’t just the adults that were tired as after a small bit of chatter and discussion the group spread out a little having the children stay a bit closer to the fire while also having drawn out a circle and having people watch to make sure the children didn’t get too close to the fire at night. They wanted to set up someone to stay up and keep watch but everyone was exhausted and it was unlikely they would stay up. The discussion fell apart when the man who was seemingly more like a leader asked who had the confidence to stay up without falling asleep.
Consequences of lying here seemed to keep people from saying anything. Thus they could only do their best to pay attention to their surroundings and try their best to stop anything from happening. But nobody was willing to take on the responsibility of staying up as nobody had any confidence. Even he who was good at all-nighters couldn’t say anything. The air was fresh and it filled him with energy but he was exhausted and had trouble keeping his eyes open like a strange contradiction. The children that had an endless amount of energy on the way were sleeping without a single expectation. Even the people at the other sites that were originally rowdy at the lack of food.
There were a few that knew a bit about berries and were able to find a food source that could feed them all. Still it wasn’t very much but nobody wanted to create a problem after there was a single small group that tried to lead by example but were quickly shut down. After refusing to give children food. Not even for adults just food for the children was shut down and they quickly turned everyone into an enemy thus the food was spread out somewhat evenly. Shortly after.
They had a decent share but the majority of it went to the children. Most if not everyone was still hungry and still nobody tried to make too much trouble as everyone was strangely exhausted. Soon he looked around and there was only the sound of some snoring without the usual whispers he had heard earlier. With a large amount of trouble he glanced at the young girl that had rolled closer to him in her sleep. He saw her sleeping with a frown and took a single glance at his surroundings before his eyes became too heavy. His last thoughts were how long the peace would last before people left behind their civilized behavior.
His sleep was disturbed by a sound. It was quiet at first but slowly it became louder. Opening his eyes he saw swirling shadows. He tried to focus but he was so drowsy that he took a large amount of effort to look at the source of the sound. As his mind started to clear up he was able to see a small shadow that seemed to be hunched over. The fire at some point had started to die and he couldn’t really see what the shadow was.
Still it was around the area with the children. He figured it was just a child that needed to get up to use the washroom so he tried to close his eyes and go back to sleep. Still that sound kept echoing in his ear and he couldn’t help but open his eyes in annoyance. He couldn’t sleep in the dorms because he required silence when he slept. It wasn’t that he couldn’t sleep without it but his quality of sleep would get worse and over time it would drastically affect his mood as he would always be tired.
Opening his eyes he looked at the same hunched shadow. It didn’t seem to have moved and at first he was just annoyed. Yet he went to sit up and see what the problem was but his arms felt heavy, too heavy. Something didn’t feel right and as his mind started to whirl he realized that in between the noise he woke up to he had fallen asleep for a short moment but that shadow was still in the same place. As tension built up in him he started to wake up from the adrenaline that started to be secreted.
Finally building up the courage he went to get up when there was a fizzle. Turning he saw the fire was starting to flicker like some combustion source had been thrown on it giving it life again. Turning to squint at the light he saw an oddly shaped branch in the fire. When his eyes finally saw what it was, his eyes widened. His time in the group wasn’t very long and only interacted with them slightly but he knew the object in the fire. It was a person, from the few remaining portions of the face that hadn’t charred he could see a face resembling the woman that had laughed at him. She was the girlfriend of the man that had invited him to the group. She was too burnt up to see her expression but he hadn’t heard any screaming and the fire only lit up when her corpse had fallen into the fire. Lighting up as her clothes started to burn.
He wanted to scream but he couldn’t. He wanted to get up and run but he couldn’t. The noise he heard was now echoing in his ear like it was trying to rip open his eardrums. He nearly fainted as his body went limp and he couldn’t open or close his eyes. It wasn’t energy, it wasn’t anything he could immediately explain. Yet his body started to claw at the ground as he tried to drag himself away from the campsite. Finally he realized this feeling was fear. A type of fear that he had never felt before, he felt hysterical, he wanted to scream but couldn’t let out even a breath. He felt like he was suffocating both physically and mentally.
As he dragged himself he was able to see that a number of the campsites had hunched shadows around them moving up and down as if something small was grabbing at things laying by the fire. He continued to crawl. He wasn’t fast as his entire body had no normal amount of energy. The fear that was driving him was something he couldn’t explain as his speed was slow but luckily quiet, or maybe it wasn’t luck at all.
As he reached out his hand landed on something cold and stiff. He didn’t have the energy to think as he tried to pull himself to a tree that had grown out of the ground a bit as the roots left a small opening. He remembered seeing it and thinking of a show he had seen where a person had used a tiny hole and hid inside a tree as the people trying to hunt them down continued to search for them. Even when his thoughts tried to distract him he never stopped crawling for his life.
He pulled on that arm as he felt something in his hand. He couldn’t bother to think of what the thing was as he tried to crawl over it. Instead of climbing over it he ended up dragging it along with him but it didn’t make any noise. So he ignored it and continued to drag himself through the ground hoping whatever was there wasn’t noticing him. Finally he pulled himself to that opening and crawled in as he tried to grab the thing that he had dragged as he used it to cover the opening.
As time passed he started to calm down and his thinking became more reasonable. He had urges to jump out and try to escape or shout and yell to wake up anyone that was still alive awake but he couldn’t muster the courage or energy to do so. As he heard grotesque sounds he could feel his eyes string as he could feel himself cry silently. He wanted to do so many things, but he couldn’t do anything as he gripped the only thing covering him from being found by the things outside.
As time passed he ran out of tears and the sun started to come up as light started to come in through the cracks in the opening. Still he didn’t move as he couldn’t do anything but stare at the light as the sound outside had moved closer or farther as he was certain there wasn’t just a single one. Since they were still there he refused to move. Yet as time passed more light started to find its way into the opening. He had tried not to think about it but deep inside he knew the thing he was using to block the opening was a person. Probably a woman by the size but they were already dead and he couldn’t control himself to let the cold body go.
It was only at this moment there was enough light to see the person but by that time he started to make out the person he had already shut his eyes completely trying not to see who it was. They might be dead but he still couldn’t bring himself to think about the atrocity he was committing even if they were already dead and it was saving his life. He heard a noise as something moved closer and he opened his eyes subconsciously. The ground was quaking slightly because of the weight of the thing outside but he could no longer feel it. He couldn’t do anything but stare at the face of the person he was holding trying to keep himself alive.
After a long silence, his eyes were stringing from dryness as he couldn’t blink. He was finally able to let go of the person as he tried to sit up as he was about to throw up yet all he could do was thrash about as he ended up throwing up on himself. He couldn’t breathe as he had somehow turned from his side to his back in panic. At this point he was stuck and couldn’t control his body and started to suffocate on the vomit. No matter how hard he tried to hold himself back he finally turned to cough out the vomit and breathe as his vision went dark, He had tried to refused to turn because it would mean staring at the face of the child that had watched him from the corner of her eye, the child that was alone, being the only adult that had helped her while making her feel safe.
