MY RIDER SYSTEM

03. The Riders’ Game

Kael’s eyes shot open. For a moment he didn't move. He just lay there, staring up at the gray sky framed by the walls of an alleyway. His head ached, and his throat was dry. Slowly, he pushed himself off the ground.

“Where… am I? 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.

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 streets were empty. Not just quiet—EMPTY. Stores stood open with no customers and cars sat abandoned with their doors left wide. “Where is everyone?” He looked left, then right, but there wasn’t a soul in sight.

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

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

That was when he noticed the weight at his waist. It was a belt and yet, it was strange, unlike anything he'd seen before. Kael ran his fingers along its edges, puzzled. 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.

Time passed—maybe hours, maybe just minutes—as he wandered through the silent streets. Then it happened. His shoulder brushed against a car’s side mirror, and the horn suddenly blared, breaking the silence.

Kael froze. His heart pounded.

He saw shadows moving in the distance. These figures ran on twisted legs, coming out from broken buildings. Strange, awful screams filled the air. They were coming for him.

Without thinking, he ran. His feet hit the pavement hard as the creatures got closer, their steps echoing behind him.

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

Then, out of nowhere, someone dropped in front of him. The person was calm, not scared at all. Kael stumbled back as the stranger reached for the gauntlet they wore, clicking something into place.

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

Kael could only stare, wide-eyed. It reminded him of stories he used to hear about heroes in shining armor and soldiers from the old world. But 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, running at him with twisted limbs and awful screams. Just when he thought it was over, 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… fighting them?’

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. They looked tired, 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, still glancing back. 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 Kael pushed a broken shelf against the door to block it.

Kael dropped to his knees, gasping for air 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. 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 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.

“I… I don’t know,” Kael admitted, his voice shaking.

Another person stepped forward. 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 and pushed himself to his feet. “No sense of humor, this one,” he muttered to the woman. “You two should get along just fine.”

All the while, Kael’s 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 stated quietly, “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 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, leaning on the counter with a bottle in his hand. “He’s just a regular-ass human.”

“I’m… I’m no one,” Kael murmured.

The man scoffed 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. He crouched in front of Kael again.

“What’s your name, kid?” he asked.

“Kael.”

“Well, Kael, I’m Tucker. This is Selena. And we’ve got some very bad news.”

Selena nodded slowly. “It started as riots,” she said quietly. “People thought it was just fights breaking out in small towns. But it spread fast. Then one day, it wasn’t on the news anymore. It was outside your house, coming through your windows.”

She paused, her eyes hardening. “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 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?”