SCREAM!!!

2. The day the sky turned red

The sun sliced through Cedric Rivers’ curtains like it had something to prove.

The world outside looked normal — warm light spilling across the walls, birds chirping somewhere near the roof. For a heartbeat, he almost believed today would be fine.

Almost.

Then the memory came back. Elaine Parker. His girlfriend. The girl who had laughed at his jokes, praised his drawings, and made him feel like maybe he belonged somewhere. And yesterday — the kiss with Harry, the laughter, the way her eyes had avoided his, the cruel look when she called him obsessed with “that stupid notebook.”

A part of Cedric wanted to curl up and sulk. Another part — the bigger, colder part — just wanted to forget.

But the ache in his chest wouldn’t let him.

He dragged himself out of bed, every movement heavy. His pencils lay scattered across his desk like soldiers left behind after a war. His sketchbook — the one filled with maps, characters, and entire worlds he had created to escape reality — was gone.

And he had thrown it away.

A stupid, impulsive decision born from heartbreak and humiliation.

The guilt had gnawed at him all evening. He had returned to the schoolyard after classes, heart pounding, hoping to reclaim it from the old metal cylinder behind the gym — the “Halo Disposal.” But it wasn’t there.

He had stared into the mouth of the cylinder, expecting burnt pages, scraps, something tangible.

Instead, there had been darkness.

Not smoke. Not shadow. Darkness that felt alive. Thick and endless, like the world had fallen away into it. Something beneath it had seemed to breathe, slow, deliberate, waiting. Watching.

He had told himself it was a trick of the light. A heartbreak-addled mind imagining the impossible.

Now, standing by his window, he wasn’t so sure.

“I just need to get through today,” he muttered to his reflection. “Forget Elaine. Forget everything.”

---

The walk to school was quiet. Too quiet. Every sound was amplified — shoes crunching gravel, leaves scraping against fences, distant chatter that sounded unnaturally loud. The sky was clear, endless, calm. Peaceful.

Kevin waited at the school gates, arms crossed, expression a mix of concern and exhaustion from lack of sleep. “Cedric… you okay?”

He shrugged, a hollow lie on his lips. “Yeah… just needed air.”

Kevin didn’t push. He knew. And that quiet understanding offered a small comfort.

The sunlight shimmered strangely, edges tinged with a faint red halo. Beautiful, but wrong. Cedric blinked. “Maybe it’s just the weather,” he muttered, though his stomach knotted with unease.

---

The moment they stepped through the school gates, everything changed.

The warmth vanished first. A cold wind swept across the courtyard, carrying the scent of iron and faint smoke. The sky dimmed, bleeding into a deep crimson that made skin look bruised and shadows stretch like living fingers. Clouds rolled unnaturally fast, curling and twisting like ink in water.

“What the hell…?” Kevin whispered.

Students paused mid-step, eyes widening. Laughter died. Conversations froze. The world felt heavier, denser — like gravity itself had thickened around them. Cedric’s heartbeat stumbled, a wild rhythm that seemed to echo off the warped walls.

The gates behind them creaked. And slammed shut.

The sound ripped through the air like a gunshot. Heads whipped around. Students and teachers tried to open it, push it, pull it — metal fused impossibly to stone. Phones flickered, glitched, and died.

Cedric’s chest tightened. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

The school itself was shifting. Walls bent like fabric in the wind. Bricks rippled as if molten. Hallways stretched and warped. Classrooms melted into unfamiliar geometries, desks sinking into the floor, replaced with smooth black panels that pulsed faintly with red light.

Uniforms changed. Instantaneously. Gone were skirts, blazers, and collared shirts. Fitted trousers and T-shirts replaced them, glowing faintly in colors corresponding to each student’s grade. Teachers and administrators now wore vivid orange, eyes wide, faces pale with fear.

Cedric’s throat tightened. Every symbol, every strange rune etched on the walls, every curve of the warped corridors — it looked very familiar.

Then he realized.

It was all drawn by him, in his notebook, months ago. One of the first chapters of his survival comic, “The Blood Gate.”

He could feel the sickening pull in his gut. He had created this world. And now it was real.

The floor beneath them hissed as a circle of red-gold symbols burned into the courtyard at the center. From it rose a shadow. Fluid, smoke-like, then solidifying into a towering figure.

Tall. Broad. Black hair that fell perfectly across his brow. Eyes molten gold and red, alive, ancient. Skin metallic under the crimson sky. Cedric’s breath caught.

Baran.

The antagonist from his comics. The villain he had drawn a hundred times, imagined every cruel twist and sharp smile. And now, he stood there — real.

“Cedric Rivers,” the figure said, his voice smooth, resonant, echoing unnaturally. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

The crowd gasped. Students whispered. Teachers stammered. Kevin’s grip on Cedric’s arm tightened like a lifeline.

Cedric swallowed hard. His mind raced. His comic. The transformations. The uniforms. The red sky. Everything he had imagined — alive, breathing, watching him.

Baran’s smile widened, cruel and deliberate.

“Listen carefully,” he said, his voice cutting through the panic like a knife. “You are no longer in your world. You stand in Atherra — a realm born from imagination. Your imagination. Every choice you make here will determine whether you live or die. Games will come — one per day. Fail… and the realm claims you. Only one of you leaves alive.”

Screams and shouting erupted, but Baran continued, calm, almost amused. “Wealth. Freedom. Power. Only for the last survivor.”

Cedric felt leaden in the chest. Breath caught in his throat. The horrifying truth crystallized: he hadn’t just drawn a story. He had drawn a world. And now they were trapped inside it.

Baran’s eyes glowed brighter. His smile widened, impossible, inhuman.

“Welcome,” he said, voice echoing across the crimson sky, “to the Survival Game.”

A pause. A heartbeat.

“Let the games begin.”