MY RIDER SYSTEM

03. The Riders’ Game

Kael’s eyes shot open. And for a few long seconds, he didn't move at all. He just lay there on cold concrete, staring up at the gray sky framed by the walls of an alleyway.

The movement sent pains like never before through him, forcing a strained breath from his lips.

"Where..." his voice came out weak. "Where am I...?"

His head ached, and his throat was dry. He looked down at himself, expecting to see blood, shattered bones, maybe even the flashing lights of ambulances surrounding him.

Instead, he saw nothing of the sort.

“Am I… alive?”

The silence answered him. No voices came, no footsteps, not even the hum of a car engine. Just wind carrying scraps of paper down the street.

Kael slowly stood to his feet, and though his legs nearly gave out from under him, he caught himself against the alley wall in one breath.

Then the memories struck him all at once: The moment his body failed him.

He remembered the system’s words as it told him he had one more chance. He remembered the pain of dying... and his sister screaming, fighting, as strange men forced her into a car and sped away.

His stomach twisted. He pressed his hand to his head, trying to hold the thoughts down.

‘I should’ve stopped them. I should’ve done something.’

But the world didn’t care. The streets stayed silent.

Kael stepped out of the alley. The moment he reached the street, his steps halted. They were quiet. Not just quiet—EMPTY. Stores stood open with no customers and cars sat abandoned with their doors left wide.

One still had its headlights on, but there wasn't a single person anywhere. He couldn't help but question the mundane.

“Where is everyone...?” He looked left, then right, searching for any sign of life, but the street remained completely deserted.

'It’s like the whole world just… disappeared.'

The silence started to feel uneasy the longer he stayed, so he started moving. His footsteps echoed through the empty streets while he wandered with no direction in mind. He kept glancing around nervously, expecting someone to suddenly appear.

Nobody did.

And as he walked, his survival instincts slowly kicked in.

He picked up what little he could as he moved: a crushed bottle of water lying near a curb, a snack bar half buried in dust, an old jacket someone must’ve dropped. Anything that looked like it could keep him alive.

He adjusted the jacket over his shoulders, only for something to catch his attention.

It was a belt and yet, it was strange, unlike anything he'd seen before. Kael ran his fingers across the strange metallic edges that looked almost futuristic.

"What the hell...?"

He lifted it slightly, turning it over in confusion.

He definitely hadn't been wearing this before, that much he knew. If he had, he would have noticed sooner and the puzzled expression he carried would have been non-existent. Then he saw the faint glow on his wrist.

It was his armband.

The same one his sister had given him for his ninth birthday. He’d worn it every day since, but it had never glowed before. Kael could only stare numbly at it.

"What's happening to me...?" he wondered. And again, no answer came.

Time passed strangely after that—maybe hours, maybe just minutes—as he wandered through the silent streets. It became hard to tell.

The empty streets all looked the same and every turn revealed more abandoned buildings, empty cans, and evidently more signs that people had either fled in a hurry.... or died trying.

Kael's thoughts kept drifting back to his sister no matter how hard he tried to focus.

'Was she alive? Was she hurt? Did she think he abandoned her...?'

All were thoughts that ate at him endlessly. And that's when it happened—

*BEEEEEEP!*

His shoulder brushed against the side mirror of a parked car, and the horn suddenly blared.

The sound echoed through the empty streets and like a dinner bell calling hungry beasts to a feast, something answered it.

Kael froze. His heart pounded.

He saw shadows moving in the distance. These figures ran on twisted legs, coming out from broken buildings, alleyways, shattered windows... all rushing toward him.

Pure instincts took him over completely and without thinking, he ran. His shoes pounded against the pavement as panic flooded every part of him. Behind him came the sounds of claws scraping concrete and dozens of uneven footsteps closing in rather quickly.

'Not again...' he thought desperately. 'I can’t do this again... I can’t die again... please…'

His breathing turned ragged as the monsters got closer. He was sure he heard one shriek somewhere directly behind him but the fear he felt overtook any thought of looking.

Then, out of nowhere, someone dropped from above, causing him to stumble back in shock. The figure landed directly between him and the creatures, not scared at all, and proceeded with one raised arm toward a strange gauntlet attached to their wrist and clicked something into place.

What happened next didn’t seem real. A second later, armor covered their whole body.

Kael could only stare, wide-eyed. The sight reminded him of stories he used to hear about heroes in shining armor and soldiers from the old world. Except this wasn’t a story. This was happening right in front of him.

The armored warrior stepped forward, ready to fight. The monsters rushed at them.

Kael could only watch, frozen, as the arm band on his wrist glowed, with no idea why it did that.

---

His chest rose and fell fast. The creatures were all around them now, anatomies that defied logic and all forms of human reasoning, running at him with twisted limbs and awful screams.

And up close, they looked even worse.

Just when he thought himself dead, the armored warrior rushed forward and punched the first monster. It flew back and smashed into a car.

Kael just stared, unable to move.

‘Just what the hell am I looking at here?’ He thought in disbelief. ‘They’re… actually fighting those things?’

A single kick shattered another monster's jaw.

An elbow strike crushed a third into the pavement.

Every movement was too fast for Kael's eyes to properly follow, yet the creatures kept coming anyway.

Before he could make sense of it, someone grabbed his arm.

“Move!” a voice shouted in his ear. Another hand pulled at him.

He blinked and spun to see two people in gas masks. The man held a baseball bat, and the woman’s jacket was torn and covered in blood. Both looked exhausted beyond words, like they hadn’t slept in days.

“What—?” Kael began, but the woman cut him off.

“Move if you want to live!” she yelled, pulling his sleeve.

Kael stumbled after them without needing to, glancing back the little he could. The warrior stood their ground in the middle of the street, throwing kicks and punches faster than even Kael could follow. Monsters fell one after another, but more kept coming.

“Why are they fighting for me? Why not run like the rest of us?”

The woman shoved him toward a doorway. “In here!”

They ran inside a shop with its windows nailed shut. A few people sat in the dark, their faces pale with fear. They looked at Kael like he was something strange, but no one said a word.

“Close it! Quickly!” someone whispered sharply.

The man next to him pushed a broken shelf against the door to block it.

Only then did Kael finally collapse on his knees, gasping violently for breath while sweat ran down his face and stung his eyes. His heart pounded so hard it hurt. He didn’t understand what he had just seen—those things chasing him, the chaos outside. All of it felt... unreal. His hand went to his chest, then to the glowing band on his wrist. And no matter how he tried to hide it, the light refused to fade.

One of the people who had helped him crouched down beside him, taking off her gas mask. Her dark hair was tied back, and her clothes were old. She looked young, maybe mid-twenties, though exhaustion added years to her expression.

She looked at him carefully, like she was trying to decide if he was a threat or just another survivor barely holding on.

“You okay?” she asked.

Kael laughed weakly under his breath, but the sound held no humor.

“I… I don’t know,” At last, he admitted.

Another person approached them. His jacket was torn, and his face rough with stubble. He pulled off his gas mask and crouched in front of Kael, eyeing him with the same careful intensity.

“Man walks into a bar with a giraffe,” he began, grinning. “They both get drunk. The giraffe passes out, and the man goes to leave. The bartender goes, ‘Hey! You can’t leave that lying there!’ The man says, ‘Why? It’s not a lion—it’s a fucking giraffe.’”

He paused, clearly waiting for a laugh.

Kael just stared at him, too lost to even try to get it.

The man sighed dramatically before standing back up. “No sense of humor, this one,” he muttered to the woman. “You two should get along just fine.”

But Kael barely registered his words. All the while, his head felt heavy. He thought about his sister, about the car, then about waking up in that dark alley.

‘Just a moment ago, I thought I died… and now… now this?’

Even his own thoughts couldn’t keep up with what was happening.

The woman, Selena he'd learn later, pulled a chair closer and sat across from him, moving with the kind of ease that said she’d done this far too many times before.

“Please,” Kael's voice came out quieter this time. “What is this place?”

Selena looked around at the boarded-up walls and the weary survivors huddled in silence. Then she looked back at him. “Hell,” she said. “Or something close to it. Definitely not a heaven.”

She leaned forward slightly, studying him. “So, who are you? You’re not from around here, are you? You’ve got that lost look in your eyes. You’re not one of the Riders, right?”

“Riders?” he asked, confused.

A dry chuckle came from across the room.

“Nah,” the man said while leaning against the counter with a bottle in his hand. “Kid's just a regular-ass human.”

“I’m… I’m no one,” Kael murmured.

The man scoffed lightly and took a drink.

“I was trying to save my sister,” Kael went on. “She was taken. Then a car came out of nowhere. Next thing I know, I’m… here. Waking up in some alley. Everything’s wrong. Everything’s so different.”

The man set his bottle down with a sigh and walked over again. This time, his expression looked more serious.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“...Kael.”

“Well, Kael," the man crouched in front of him again. "I’m Tucker. This is Selena. And we’ve got some very bad news.”

Selena nodded in confirmation.

“It started as riots,” she explained quietly. “At first, people thought it was just fights breaking out in small towns. Then the attacks grew worse. And one day, it stopped being something you watched on the news anymore. It was outside your house, coming through your windows.”

She paused, becoming that more serious. “It’s not just a sickness. It’s a virus, an infection brought on by… something not from here. Alien spores, maybe. No one knows. But it changes people. Twists them. You’ve seen them—those things out there.”

Kael immediately thought about the monsters outside and swallowed hard. “So… what happened to the cities? What about the army? The government? Someone must be helping.”

Tucker let out a low laugh. It wasn’t a happy one.

“There’s no government, kid.”

“What?” Kael blinked, trying to take it in. “No, there’s always a government. There has to be—someone in charge, someone—”

Tucker cut him off with a small shake of his head. “Not anymore, there isn't. Not for a long time.” His tone wasn’t bitter, just worn out, like he'd said the same thing too many times. “There’s no government. No army. No power. No TV. Nothing. Just us, trying our possible best to stay alive and keep people breathing.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small green metal disc. A bear symbol was carved neatly into it.

“But that’s where we come in,” Tucker said, standing a little taller with a hint of pride in his voice.

Kael looked up, confused. “We?”

The man nodded. “Ever heard of the term… Kamen Riders?”