2023-11-07 16:51:37He was running fast but his legs were trembling. He was falling again and again. The creature was running quickly towards him as he looked behind him.
"OMG! What should I do now?" He asked himself with a trembling voice.
When he looked away, he noticed a distant building. He thought he could get away from that creature if he could hide in that building and started to run towards it with his heart pounding in his chest.
He sprinted towards the building, hoping to find safety and managed to get there. The building was dark from the inside but it was the only option for him to get away from that creature.
He quickly found a room and closed the door behind him. While he waited, his heart pounded as he listened for any sign of the creature. He prayed that he would not be discovered.
"Where should I hide?" He asked himself as the building was dark from the inside and he was unable to see anything. From the entrance, he hit himself with different objects inside the building.
"Oh Shit! I should not make any voice!" He told himself because he knew that making any voice could attract the creature towards the building in which he was hiding.
He froze in place, holding his breath, as he waited for the sound of the creature's footsteps to fade away. His heart pounded as he waited until he was sure the creature had left. Finally, he sighed in relief.
He was in the building when he heard the voice of the creature coming from outside again. While running towards the building's end, he suddenly fell from the ground and ended up in the basement.
He was scared and confused. He couldn't remember what had happened. He felt like he was being watched.
The basement was very dark and dusty. He started to find a light so he could see in the basement. He discovered a lantern and lit it. He was relieved to see that it was not a hallucination.
As the lantern lit up he saw a box kept at a distance. The box caught his attention and cautiously he moved towards it.
As soon as he was there in front of it, he pushed out his hand and touched the top of the box to open it but as he did a notification sound by his system was heard.
*Ding
[ Congratulations, Player 099, for discovering the hidden armory. You can select and equip any two weapons of your choice. ]
“That’s great.”
He started looking at the options he was given but out of all those, two things caught his attention.
One was a sword with an ornate hilt and the other one was a whip. He clicked on both options in front of him and the notification popped up.
[ Weapons equipped. You now have access to your selected arsenal. Remember, these weapons require maintenance and can wear out over time. ]
The weapons fell in front of him and a huge grin made its way on his face.
“Damn. I have hit the jackpot.” He was a bit relieved to see the weapons in front of him.
He wanted to take his time in examining the weapons but once he heard a voice coming out from the opposite direction he hurriedly put those in his inventory.
Draven heard some footsteps approaching him and he was on alert again. His breath was caught in his throat thinking that danger was coming near again.
But soon out of the shadows a figure moved out. He wasn’t a beast or any creature instead he was just a tall well built man with a serious aura around him. He was armed with weapons too.
Looking at Draven from top to bottom he examined him before coming in front of him.
“You are new here?” The man asked, his expression still didn’t change.
Finally meeting someone else there Draven was shocked for a moment. His mouth parted looking at the man in front of him. He wanted to pinch the man and see if he was real or not.
“Hey? I am asking you?” He asked again while his eyebrows scrunched together.
“Ohh yes. I am new here. I just came here today. My name is Draven.” Draven blurted out as soon as he got out of his trance.
“Hey hey slow down. You can’t just tell anyone here your name or anything about you. You can’t trust anyone here.” The man explained.
“That means I shouldn’t trust you too then.” Draven’s tone suddenly changed too. From scared to serious, he was looking at the man with curiosity trying to get what he was going to do.
The man scoffed as he replied to him, “Well if you don’t want to then sure. I can just go.”
The man turned around and was just about to go when Draven hurriedly said, “No wait.”
He turned back around and raised his eyebrows waiting for Draven to finish his sentence.
“The system said that we have to find our group and something like that. Do you already have a group?”
“Well no. I just came here a few days ago. I am only at Level 3 yet and I haven’t found my group yet.” The man replied while standing in front of Draven again.
“Then there are chances that we are in the same group?” Draven felt a wave of excitement inside him thinking that maybe he had found a clue to move forward in the game.
“Maybe yes or maybe not. But I believe no because if we were in the same group this system would have told us something but it’s still quiet.” Once that man finished his sentence he looked at Draven and continued, “I am Leo. Until the time we find our group we can be together if you want.”
Draven gave him a suspicious look and thought for a while before nodding his head, “Sure.”
They stood there for sometime not knowing what to say to each other before Draven decided to break the silence and took the initiative to start the conversation again, “So… Leo? Right?”
“Yeah.”
Draven said cautiously, “What do you think we should do next?”
Leo moved his eyes around before replying to him, “Well I have been here for some time now but the only thing I have found are weird creatures, some weapons to fight and yeah this map which I can’t seem to get.”
He pushed out a tattered and torn map from behind his belt and gave it to Draven.
Draven grabbed it and sat down on the ground as he spread it on the ground.
He saw weird places and their names written on the map which he couldn’t really get but one thing he was sure of was that the map was the key to their next step.
“Where is the rest of it?” Draven asked as he realzied that part of the map was missing.
“I don’t know. I only found this. The rest of it I don’t know where it is.” Leo explained, “But one thing I am sure of is that this map can lead us to our location.”
Leo sat down and put his finger on one of the places, “Look at this. This place is marked with red markers. Maybe there is something there which we need.”
Draven leaned on it as he studied the map, “Or maybe this area is dangerous that’s why they marked it as red?”
“Well what can we say? We have to take the chance and go there beside this place that is the nearest around here.”
Seeing the motivation and confidence on Leo’s face, Draven sighed before he replied, “Okay! Let’s go there first.”
With that he got up from the ground not before rolling the map. Just as he did that Leo took the map from him, “I will keep this since I am the one who found it.”
“Yeah sure. Let’s get out of this building first.”
Leo nodded his head and both of them started to find a way to get out of there.
They walked through the dimly lit corridors. Leo walked like he already knew about the way to get there. He was walking confidently like he was sure of it.
Draven couldn’t help but ask him, “You already know the way to get out.”
Leo turned a little to look at him before he continued to walk and replied, “Yes. This place was kind of like my hideout. It’s the only building which is still in a good condition as compared to others in which only some small walls are left.”
“Hideout from? That creature?”
“Yups. Looks like you already met him.” Leo chuckled a little.
They were finally out of the corridors and were now standing in front of the door. Leo bent down a little and slowly opened the door just a little so he could peak outside.
Then after he had made sure no one was outside he turned around and told Draven, “Come behind me but don’t make any noise.”
Draven nodded his head. They slowly opened the door and with light steps got out of the building.
Draven now realized that it was the back door of the building through which they came out.
“We will go this way.” Leo whispered as lightly as he could as he pointed at his right side and hurriedly started running towards it, still bending a little.
Draven not only copied his posture but also the speed with which he was running Draven followed and both of them reached behind a wall. They dared not to look back even for once and ran as fast as they could.
Hiding behind that wall they waited there for sometime until Leo had made sure that there was no one around he started running again and soon they were out of the area.
“Why are we running like this though? Is there danger?” Draven tried to catch his breath as he asked that.
“There are still some robots who destroy the buildings and other areas around here. We can’t fight with them yet so we don’t have a choice but to hide from them.” Leo replied to him as he heaved a huge sigh.
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The End
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
Darkness
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
Sword
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
Statement
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
Awkward
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
Thoughts
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
