The cracked phone screen flickered in front of Alize, numerous lines of small text disappearing and reappearing quickly. Suddenly being ejected from the author’s imagined world caused her eyes to widen in alarm. The screen flickered again. 

 

No, she thought desperately, not right now.

So caught up in the story, she hadn’t noticed the battery symbol at the upper right corner of the screen. It blinked a sorrowful neglected red, causing a cold sweat to form at the nape of her neck. The soft, happy pink edges formed in her conscious mind were quickly fading. 

 

As if feeling her sudden despair, the tinny music flowing through her shitty earbud came to an unceremonious halt mid-verse. Crap.

 

[1% Remaining]

 

The notification flashed in front of her before closing just as quickly. Ah, so she had seconds to find a power source then

 

 How helpful. 

 

A part of her wondered in annoyance what the point of programming having such a late reminder was. Kindly, that part ignored the twenty and ten percent notification that she must’ve half-mindedly swiped away while reading.

 

 Alize only hoped that with how wildly inaccurate her device was with its own internal workings, maybe this time would be one of those instances where it could hang at “one-percent” for fifteen minutes. Everything had an equal and opposite reaction, right? Maybe with how last time her phone died at “twenty percent” she could catch a break this once…?

 

Alize took another step, a little hope rising in her chest.

 

Or maybe not. The flickering caved into a final dead black screen and suddenly her reflection stared back at her:

 

Messy, dark greasy hair half covered by a hood; almost ‘assault victim who got punched within an inch of their life’-esq dark circles under her tired, sunken eyes; a haggard face riddled with small angry zits between her brows; and a dry mouth that gave a sound like week-old paper mache when she tried to wet her chapped lips and failed. Alize winced. Near her neck the fabric of her hoodie was stained with a few speckles of almost-brown red from the earlier nosebleed. As always, every glance at herself just did wonders for her self-esteem which was why she ripped her eyes away from herself and settled for the lesser of two evils.

 

Surrounding reality knocked unpleasantly at her awareness. 

 

Knock, knock. Welcome back.

 

Exhaling a sigh, she reluctantly pulled out her useless earbud and it caused the world to fade into dull sensation along with the surrounding audible fog of the crowd. The conversations and personal mutterings, the squeaking of shoes against the epoxy floor, the rolling of luggage wheels, overhead announcements both distant and near - they all converged into one homogenous soup of ambient noise. 

 

The airport hall was large, lined with almost as many overpriced stores and counters as there were people. Widening her strides, her head swiveled right and left, going further down, past the numerous gates trying to find at least one empty power socket on a wall she could use. 

 

The quicker she could plug it in, the less time it would take to charge up, the less time she’d have to spend staring blankly into space with nothing to distract her, and the less time she’d waste not knowing what came next in her shitty, one-in-a-billion, plucked-from-the-crowd, made-from-the-mold, spat-out-of-the-formula, cookiecutter webnovel. 

 

God, and the male lead with black hair and red eyes with a chilly disposition had just called the disguised pink-haired lead with gold eyes ‘interesting’ in his internal monologue. And what could have possibly elicited that reaction? Well, the lead had the crazy, wild, never-before-seen gumption it took to slap an insolent maid and speak up to keep some visibly starving orphan beggar kid from being beaten to death right in front of them for stealing an apple or whatever. Who could possibly guess where the story was going? 

 

Alize. Alize could guess. Still, she knew herself enough to realize that ‘the same story but slightly to the left’ would hook her in just as she needed every time. 

 

Thinking of the story allowed her mind to be mostly somewhere else while she continued to look for an available power outlet, her mismatched, frayed charger wire, and a charging box she’d swiped from some other device at home already in hand.

 

No, not that one. 

 

No, that was taken too.

 

Oh, there was one–! Annnnd nevermind, it’d just been taken. Could she fight off an elementary school student for it? Physically, yeah, but emotionally? No, she’d feel too guilty.

 

There was one right there, but oh, that guy looked super sketchy– ew, did he just lick his lips when they snagged gazes?

 

Ugh. Briefly, she indulged in the fantasy of assault before she continued.

 

She sped up her strides and grimaced when the hard plastic shell of her small - but solidly packed - suitcase knocked against her shin with the power of a troubled toddler’s punch. Silently she thanked god for her higher pain tolerance that allowed her to keep walking.

 

No, that lady clearly claimed the area with too much stuff scattered on the surrounding seats. Probably waiting for a group. Speaking of groups, she wanted to find a power outlet soon preferably in this part of the airport.

 

Hmm… that one peeked over the top of an errant piece of a family of three’s luggage. Now that was a viable option - she could ask for them to move it for her to use the outlet, they didn’t seem like they were using it. Maybe they didn’t even realize they were covering one that someone could use. Alize looked up to meet the gaze of the father from a distance, her lips parting with a ‘sorry, but…’ on the tip of her tongue. His eyes narrowed. Quickly her teeth clicked together when she shut her mouth and looked away. She could almost hear the unspoken ‘don’t even think about it’. Yeah, no. Understood.

 

This part of the airport looked like half of it was still being renovated. Half of it was covered by an opaque white plastic tarp and tall fencing to avoid the errant patron from wandering into construction zones, their solid plastic splashed with bright graphics and texts like ‘making your experience better!’; ‘working hard to please you!’; and ‘come back to see us soon!’. The cheesy airport mascot - a tan and white dog grinning back with a thumbs up - mocked her silently as she walked past. A wide expanse of potential outlet space unavailable.

 

On the other side, the shining numbers were quickly counting down giving her less and less options. The end of the hall was within sight. Here the crowd was significantly thinner, less people making the place quieter which would’ve been welcome if not for the last approaching gate. With each step she felt her dream of quiet solitude slowly dying. Under the gate labeled ‘E-1’ - the only gate left in the hall - she saw three figures, all conveniently sitting down by the sole outlet station she’d seen in this entire godforsaken place.

“Hey, Leez!” An overly peppy voice called, waving her over. The movement was harsh and exaggerated like the wagging of a dog’s tail causing the owner of the arm to rock side to side. Alize sighed and started to walk over. “Over here!”

 

Yeah, she could see. She did indeed have eyes. All the years of brain rot scrolling and media consumption hadn’t taken her 20/20 vision like her father warned nearly every second.

 

In the gate’s waiting area of white walls and dusty black chairs the three stuck out like different markers in a box of highlighters: red, yellow, green… and now Alize in her baggy, faded blue hoodie to join them. Self-consciously she smoothed down her lumpy outfit, pulled her phone into her pocket and walked over, the wheels of her suitcase noisily rattling behind her.

 

She rolled to a stop in front of the waver and they stared each other down. 

 

“So glad you could join us, Leezy.” The ‘s’ of ‘us’ bled into her name, giving it a much disliked remix. He greeted saccharine sweetly. Soda with too much syrup. The upturned smile on his face didn’t quite reach his eyes. 

 

That was fine: hers didn’t either.

 

 “You’re only,” He checked his watch. Who the shit wore watches these days? “Two minutes to boarding? Thanks for not running late. Again.”

“Hi, Rude–”

“Jude.”

“–Nice to see you as usual.” She bit out. Her eyes remained flat when she pulled her lips over her teeth. Part grimace, part grin, half reminder of when they were thirteen and she threatened to rip a chunk out of him during a scuffle to the amusement and support of their coach. Of course, that was when they were on different teams though.

 

They hung in silence for a moment. A stalemate. To her immense pleasure, he looked as bad as she did: tired eyes, sunken cheeks, chapped lips. A label-less repurposed plastic water bottle in one hand filled up to a quarter and a small bag of hard sour candies she knew he wasn’t actually getting to eat. Nevermind. Despite how she tried to keep it, the satisfaction was gone like smoke. Alize’s expression flattened into an awkward displeasure.

 

He began to raise his phone to his face, no doubt to continue reading whatever lameass action novel he was chugging through that lacked an actual story with soul, but he stopped short right as she took a step toward the other two busy chattering, and she stopped too to her momentary confusion at his eyes narrowed right at the neck of her hoodie, fixated on the spotting. Ah. Alize tried to swallow what little spit she had, the action a little futile.

 

“Feeling’s mutual.” He answered finally, double meaning. The sliver of sympathy made her uncomfortable to acknowledge so she quickly glossed over it. Alize shrugged not knowing what else to say, seeing the raising of his phone as an official ending of the interaction. Him stepping down first. 

 

Yeah, she thought, you better. 

 

His unexpected migration from his team to theirs made her previously welcome detesting of him a little more complicated, the thoughts she’d usually air out now kept to herself in the name of projecting team cohesion. However false it may be didn’t matter as long as she didn’t get an earful from her– their, dammit, their coach. 

 

“Hey, you.” “What’s up, pipsqueak?”

 

A hand came to flop onto her head and ruffle side-to-side quickly. If her hood were down she knew he would’ve messed up her already sad-looking hair. Most of it stayed in place, but he got to her bangs which stuck up with oil like a hurricane had run through the strand. Another hand grabbed her by the collar in one fist and shook her in a familiar expression of cute aggression. Even though it left her hoodie askew on her wiry frame Alize couldn’t find the energy in herself to care and she closed her eyes at the pressure, opening them to meet the expectant looks of her two upperclassmen. 

 

“Hi~” She greeted in a sing-song voice. At the sight of them, the grin she wore this time was genuine. Quickly she shuffled over to the last available outlet to plug her phone in. They both stepped out of the way, waiting to let her do her thing. 

 

The blonde hung back a bit and pulled out her own phone when it chimed with a notification. With the nail of her pinky finger she picked between her sharp teeth, the fabric of her deep green compression shirt pulled tight around her arms, the muscles under her skin flexing with every little movement. 

 

Her other senior stayed closer, his head cocked and hands on his hips as he took in her appearance with the same countenance of a concerned parent. “You should stop cutting weight the quick and dirty way,” he said bluntly as way of greeting. “It’s not good for you.”

 

Alize sighed and her shoulders slumped forward with the force of it, making her already bad posture even worse. “Yeah, yeah.” She raised her hand, waving the statement away. “You should tell that to the new guy too.” Before he could chastise her again though her mouth curled upwards.

 

“Surprised to see you here at all though, Eth. ‘S not like you’re competing this time so you can’t worm your way past the airport guards by making them starry-eyed with dropping tourney names and flashing medals. Thought security would lock you and your acid,” Her voice raised a little at the last word like she wanted to be overheard. “Down at the checkpo–.”

 

The tailing end of her statement was smothered by the same hand as it clamped over her mouth roughly. 

 

“That was one time,” Ethan said lowly. She smirked despite the hand at seeing the vein on his temple pop despite his placid, closed-mouth smile, his words hissed out quietly between his teeth as he counted out with his fingers. “Hydrogen peroxide is a weak acid at best, barely an acid, I didn’t know quart sizes weren’t allowed, and I’ve not made the same mistake twice–,” he answered evenly, quietly, almost menacingly. And she would’ve been properly menaced if she didn’t, you know, find irritating him funny. “I do not want to be tackled again or put on the no-fly list because of you.”

Though she nodded along understandingly as she always did in this age-old defense of his, she snickered when she saw the older girl beside him trying to keep up a very bad attempt at a stern, disapproving look. Unfortunately, it was ruined by her red, puffed-out cheeks that contained an air pocket of laughter; an overinflated balloon about to burst. 

 

“Don’t encourage her, Cait.” He sounded exasperated, but all three of them knew she couldn’t help it. Cait always thought anything at Ethan’s expense was funny no matter how small; an Achilles Heel.

 

Cait wheezed in response, her hand up in surrender while the other clutched at her stomach. “Sorry, I’m just imagining you getting dog-piled. ‘Y know. Like in Spain.” Surprisingly, she kept most of it in, but Ethan knew when he’d lost any hope of driving in a scolding so he let go of Alize. The bright hazel of Cait’s eyes was made a little hazy by the tears that gathered while she tried to keep calm under Ethan’s disapproving side-eye.

 

“The LOMA-print bag should be enough to have him imprisoned,” Alize groused, wiping off the bit of her own spit he smeared on over her mouth. Just saying the title was enough to make her face scrunch into an expression of acrid disgust as if she’d bitten into a mouthful of lemon. “Your trash taste is a criminal offense.” 

The dark eyes of the show’s dark-haired, overpowered protagonist glared determinedly up at her from the glossy side of his duffle bag, surrounded by his little posse of lady co-warriors and supports who definitely weren’t all in love with him. She glared back, her lip curling subconsciously. You’re nothing but a little wish-fulfillment avatar, she thought at him spitefully.

 

As though hearing her, Ethan stepped in front of his bag, obscuring her view of it. His arms were held out defensively like he could shield his precious boy from mental attacks through sheer will alone. 

 

“You leave him be,” he huffed. “It’s not his or my fault that you can’t appreciate peak fiction.” Ethan’s arms crossed over his chest and she wondered why he looked smug even though having such a wack backward opinion was nothing for him to be proud of. “Locked On Max Ammo has amazing writing and character design,” He fawned, the visible hearts in his eyes almost made her gag. “The author is such a genius; the themes it explores of what makes reality subjective are on par with the teachings of Plato, Aritstotle–”

“Kanato’s cousin is in love with him.”

Ethan’s enthusiasm faded as he coughed into his fist and looked away. 

“We don’t talk about that.”

Cait, having regained her composure, stepped forward and slung her arms around them both. They allowed her, but even if they didn’t there wasn’t much fighting her muscles when she wanted to move anyone this way or that. She sighed fondly and shook them a bit like ragdolls. 

“Girls, girls you’re both pretty.” She teased. The upward slant of her smirk made the pale pink scar that ran up the corner of her mouth and across her left cheek dip where one dimple indented. “Enough fucking nerd talk or I’ll knock both of you back into the real world,” She scolded without heat. “You wouldn’t have to argue about this all the time if you both would just buck up and watch reality TV with me.”

“No."

The end of the sentence had barely met the air when both of them replied in almost eerie unison, matching looks of aghast horror at the thought. 

They might’ve continued had the announcement calling for boarding not blared overhead in a detached, automated voice. The sound echoed through their end of the hall, amplified by the lack of the usual crowd in this deserted part of the airport. Used to the airplane boarding routine, the three of them gathered their things quickly. Usually, it would’ve been the job of the other two to keep tabs on their youngers, but Alize knew that with Ethan not technically being on the team anymore he had given the accountability duties to Cait and heaven knew that Cait, never actually having given a shit about her responsibilities as upperclassmen ever, would and could not be bothered to make sure their new teammate didn’t stay behind. 

 

So that meant it was up to her to get him.

 

Alize sighed to herself before shambling over to his slumped-over form. It was impossible to tell if he was actually sleeping or not with his eyes closed, his expensive headphones on, and his scarlet windbreaker draped over the front of his chest, tucked up to his neck like a blanket. 

 

Aww, he looked so peaceful. She wanted to shake him like a jarful of bees.

 

Too bad that to do so would not garner a gold star from coach when he inevitably found out. The fact that she could suppress her distaste for him enough not to kick him awake made her give herself a mental pat on the back, instead settling to nudge his boot with her sneaker. “Hey, we’re leaving,” her voice began at speaking volume, but when he failed to respond she reached out to shake him awake, getting ready to be a little louder.

 

Before she could do so his eyes snapped open and he scrambled up with a ragged gasp, a revenant rising from the dead. 

 

“Shit!” 

 

She stumbled back, clutching at her chest where her heart decided to start doing its best impression of a rabbit having a panic attack at his jolting movement. “What the–!” Alize scowled, her surprise morphing into annoyance. “Do you always wake up like Frankenstein’s monster? Christ! I mean you, uh…” Her voice trailed off when she actually took in how he was panting, sweat gathered on his brow. His gaze was a thousand miles away, seeing a ghost that wasn’t there, distress and confusion warring on his face.

“Uhh… dude are you ok–”

“Jude.”

Oh, right, there was the annoyance again.

“Dude.” Alize dug her heels in with a huff.  "Are you gonna stay here in this nice airport and keep staring at the ceiling or do you wanna come with?" Her voice took a babying, mocking concern that made him glare at her. See, now that was a look she was familiar with not… whatever the hell that other thing was. Without waiting for his response she turned on her heel and gathered her bags before she marched to the counter where she scanned her ticket in a slight fog.

 

It helped that nobody else seemed to be part of the flight aside from their little group. Convenient albeit a little unnerving without having a crowd they had to weave and dodge through to stay together. Perks of being a red-eye flight she surmised. 

 

At first, she sat together with Ethan on the left side of the aisle, Cait and the other guy in the aisle opposite to them.

 

Alize took out her phone, seeing that the five novels she was downloading for offline access were nearly done, and nodded with satisfaction before she slid it back into her pocket. 

 

It was only a couple seconds after though that a strange paranoia took her over, making her stomach churn. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. A cold sensation not unlike being watched crawled up her spine. When she turned around only to see rows upon rows of empty plane seats she felt silly, but all that void space that should’ve been filled with other people made her skin prickle.

 

“We should sit at the back,” Alize felt dumb saying it out loud, like a creeped out kid asking their parent to check under the bed for monsters. 

 

“What?” Ethan’s brows shot up, his expression incredulous. “But we’re already sitting here. I don’t think anyone else is gonna board.”

 

Cait sighed, already getting to her feet. “I mean… I don’t really care either way. Having all that space makes my lizard brain itchy, but it’s not like the plane is haunted.” Her gaze went to her seatmate, the new guy. “What do you th–”

 

“We should move to the back.” His voice was sure. Final. 

 

Well, his tone made a part of her not want to do it anymore, but she didn’t change her mind, oddly grateful even when they glanced at one another while she went first down the aisle to get down all the rows.

 

Weird.

 

Being in the back meant they could all sit together in a row. Even more importantly for her lizard hindbrain, as Cait put it, that meant all the emptiness in the plane was in front of them. Where they could see everything. Anything that was here. Anything that could come out at them.

 

Alize looked over the other two again, just in time to see the new guy with an odd, indecipherable expression. Nerves for the competition most likely, psyching himself out or something. But she didn’t recognize that look from anything she’d seen before from across the ring, so it had to be something else…

 

Constipation, probably. 

 

The thought made her look away, cracking a grin. If the new guy was bugging, the last thing she was going to do was lower herself to his paranoia. Now she relaxed and leaned into Cait’s side. Deadbeat at being attentive as she was, Alize knew nothing could get at any of them while Cait was around to clobber whatever Ethan’s attentive eye caught. Their team’s tank and watchman.  It was funny that she’d been concerned in the first place, funnier that that was what put her at ease, a security blanket. 

 

Her phone blinked on. Just enough battery to last the flight. Alize sighed in relief at seeing it - soon she’d be back immersed in the story and all this weird… awareness would be gone. 

 

A few unpleasant text banners popped up while she brought the screen to her face, and opened the first downloaded story, but she swiped them away as fast as they appeared. Airplane mode turned on sooner than she needed to. An early takeoff might not be a sufficient excuse for a lack of response but it was certainly a reason to give at the very least. Now that the barrage was gone she could focus on the cover.

 

[1% Remaining: The Deadliest Game]

 

Something bugged her memory. This wasn’t her usual genre of choice but it’d been hanging in her recommended list for a while now. When better to give it a try? If she didn’t like it, it wouldn’t be too hard to find something else anyway.

 

The rumble of the engine and the airplane lurching into movement as they taxied onto the runway made her sink back into her chair even more. 

 

Once they got into the air nothing could touch them.

 

Alize scanned the first few lines, seeing something about handcuffs, woods, and gang wars before her eyelids got heavy and she fell into a dreamless sleep.

 

—

 

When she blinked awake it was to screaming. Freefall. Gravity acting on half a tin can dropping like a meteor from the sky.

 

Oh, fuck.The front of the plane was gone.

 

And then back to unconsciousness, she went.

 

—

 

Alize woke up, again, in handcuffs, face-first on the ground.

 

What the hell? 

 

Her entire body felt sore and battered like she'd been run over by a delivery truck twice. When she picked her head up, feeling like it weighed a million, billion pounds now, she couldn't suppress the involuntary groan of pain that was squeezed out of her by the movement. Every inch of her skin felt like it'd be black, purple, and blue if she looked. Hell, maybe her skin itself was just one big bruise now. Scratch being run over twice. This had to be four times at least.

 

Alize had been on a couple of bumpy plane rides but this was something else entirely. At the very least? She wanted answers. At the very most? A tidy sum of emotional distress sue money.

 

There was dirt in her eyes that she tried to wipe away, but couldn’t when her hands stayed locked behind her back. Okay, good reminder of the handcuffs. So settling for looking stupid while she attempted to shake off the debris like a damn dog it was. Centrifuge made the particles fly outward from her face and body with haste.

 

“Hey watch it–!”

 

Oh, that voice was familiar! Help from a known person in an unfriendly, unknown environment was always good. But then the tone changed into something even more familiar, someone unpleasantly identifiable now from timbre alone.

 

“Oh, damn. It’s you.”

 

Alize sighed. Figured that if she was bounded to be caught in prison or wherever the shit they were, it would’ve been with the one person out of the group she trusted least. 

 

“Yeah,” she answered, rolling the kinks out of her stiff neck and wincing at the audible popping. Seeing more clearly now she could look around. “It’s me.” Alize echoed, equally disappointed.

 

They were at some some deserted camp in the fucking woods some-goddamn-where. The pines were tall, almost blocking out the sun that filtered in through the leaves. Somewhere else she heard rushing water, wind rustling the foliage. Voices in the distance, but in her immediate sight was just her and the other guy. It would've been a pretty view were she not calibrating to her surroundings in rudely poignant fight-or-flight. And then came the other blaring issue of her lack of certain company.

 

Where was Ethan and Cait? She perked up, wiggling into an upright position despite her body screaming at her to lay the hell down and stay down.

 

Now that she could see him clearly she noted Jude, the new kid, now in an entirely different outfit and looking like a student in some stupidly expensive boarding school where rich people sent their kids to rot. His auburn hair looked floppy and limp on his forehead, clinging with a nervous sweat that betrayed him despite his neutral expression that looked a little too forced. The signs of his dehydration and malnutrition were still there like her own - so not a dream. But, when had he had time for a costume change? 

 

Even cuffed he looked disappointingly put together while he leaned back in his steel chair, so relaxed he could’ve been posing. She wouldn’t put it past his prissy ass. Maybe he was getting ready for someone to pop out between some trees with a giant camera telling them they were getting pranked in the worst way. 

 

Keep posing that way, idiot. Hope you cramp up and cry, she thought.

 

As much as she also wished they were being pranked, something else inside her said that wasn’t the case though. That same something that wanted them at the back of the plane for some unknown reason.

 

A glowing, almost transparent box projected from nowhere to the front of both Jude and Alize, scrolling neat, tidy text.

 

[Welcome to 1% Remaining: The Deadliest Game]

[Difficulty: Tutorial]

[Objective: Be the last remaining party]

[Upon Completion: +10 EXP per party member, unlocking of special skill, unlocking of inventory and stat viewing]

[Upon Exemplary Completion: Bonus CG and Hidden Prize!]

[Upon Failure: Death]

 

Then there was a cartoon icon of that damn airport mascot dog. Its chubby, silly grin paired with two thumbs up did not provide an iota of comfort or motivation.

 

[The Eye of Chaos would like to wish you all good luck!]

 

Then the box was gone.

 

Silence hung between them as they both soaked in the blip of life-dependant information.

 

“Unfortunate.” Jude sighed, his voice flat. For once they could actually agree on something.

 

“Yeah.” Alize spat on the ground. “Un-fucking-fortunte.”