It was a beautiful evening, eerily beautiful
for something had happened advertising the unknown. The streets were empty and
so were the buildings surrounded by them as if no soul dared to wander around
places such as this. Houses deserted, parks abandoned, stores left closed after
a mourning silence of nothingness. And if a single leaf or piece of paper would
ever tried to approach the highway or the fields near the lake to the south, a
chemical and mysterious red barrier would bounce them away. And these objects
weren't even animated; the animals seemed to have disappeared as well as every
single human inhabiting the city of emptiness. However, lights were lid; the
street headlights were on, some of the buildings still had several of these
from above. Nevertheless, electricity was cut. Ironically, lights were still
going on but no other devices could ever start working again, less be said
about any abandoned car around the whole city. It literally made no sense, and
still, the very first witness of this distinguished event, the moon, applauded
the whole scenario with its rays of ghostly light and fog between the clouds.
It was the very essence of the night, the master of all illusions torn apart.
The shattered sky.
Eight strangers appeared out of nowhere, in
different locations of the enigmatic city. They all seemed to be normal people,
unknown to each other.
First, there was Minato Saguchi, a young
perverted man with no job, reselling stuff like books, games, computers and
other things.
Then there was Jaqueline Sorrett, a middle age
lady obsessed with her cell phone, a secretary of a telemarketing enterprise.
Gardon Orish, a muscle-head, expert in Tae-kwon
do, teacher of it as well.
Nova Dürkel, a rookie police officer;
beautiful woman, still in her mid-20s.
The fifth stranger was a little kid, a bully
in elementary school. A fat jackass named Allen Reen.
Next there was an old man, very old indeed, retired
newspaper seller, sick with diabetes, homeless. His name was Nuul Sabak.
Argento Ponsognio belonged to the mafia, sort
of like a yakuza. Perhaps in his 30’s or maybe more, who knows?
Finally…the eighth stranger: Grace, no last
name, just Grace.
The other seven, they didn’t know about each
other but if they knew at least Grace, they would have to be very thankful she
appeared very far from their positions. Very thankful…
Saguchi, a short black haired guy, dressed
with just some black shoes, blue trousers and a white shirt, appeared at the
center of the main street, sort of like a giant plaza surrounded by small
buildings and stores. He looked around, confused, impressed, stupefied. Trying
to reach his cellphone on his pocket, he realized it wasn’t there anymore. He
probably had forgotten it at home, as usual, at this time of hour.
Gardon and Jaqueline appeared afterwards, not
far from Saguchi’s position, but still separated enough to miss each other for
a while. Jaqueline was a brown and curly haired woman wearing high black heels,
transparent tights, short, gray office skirt, short, gray office jacket, white
shirt. Always carrying her cellphone, trying to type messages to every single
person she knew, just to gossip. Gardon was a very muscular guy, dressed in
white clothes like an old movie karateka. He had very short and spikey black
hair and a very serious stare, along with a very notorious frown.
Saguchi walked around for a bit, yelling
greetings to anyone who could be around. Gardon was the first one to catch a
glimpse of him, crossing his arms in tranquility. Jaqueline, however, was very
excited and stressed, trying to hide her fascination for what seemed to be a
very lucid dream.
Finally the three of them walked towards the
center of the main circular street and found each other. A stupid dialogue
followed, wondering how in heaven’s wrath they could have gotten there, and
“who are you?”, and “where are we?”, etc… So many questions left unanswered, as
usual in a preposterous mystery movie. Nevertheless, they still asked their names
and introduced each other.
“So you’re a reseller? Like, the ones from eBay
and such?” Jaqueline asked, trying to hide a little mockery behind her tone.
“Uh, yeah. What’s it to you?” Saguchi answered
lazily.
“Oh, no! Nothing at all. I was just curious about
why we were selected for this…crap.”
“I believe this could be a charade made by a
very rich and powerful enterprise.” The Tae-kwon do teacher commented. “How
else would they have gotten rid of every single citizen?”
He was right. Both Saguchi and Jaqueline
looked around and foolishly realized they were the only people standing around.
“I was just transported here; I don’t know how
or why, don’t ask me!” The perverted young man said, trying not to focus on
Jaqueline’s notorious big breasts. He couldn’t help it, though, and she
realized it quickly.
“We should look around and try to find other
people. There might be others lurking nearby.” Gardon said, looking at the
closed stores and buildings.
When they were transported here, it wasn’t
even 8 o’clock, so why would there be absolutely no one else in the entire
square?
Then they looked at the sky. At the infamous,
horrible and bizarre sky; it was a masterpiece out of a madman’s mind, a
horrendous drawing of distorted clouds, all looking broken, and the dark blue
of satirical stars that were crumbling apart. The sky seemed cut, it was
shattered.
“What the hell?!” Saguchi shouted, impressed
once more.
“I have no idea…” Gardon replied, staring at
the sky.
“This is stupid. But I have to tell everyone.”
Jaqueline tried to take a picture of the sky, thinking about sending it to her
acquaintances later, or perhaps she could post it on Facebook. However, her
fascination ended when she checked the screen of the cellphone, showing only
darkness.
No doubt about it; they were in some kind of
nightmare out of a cynical lunatic’s mind. This could not be real, or so they
thought. Then the device appeared; right in front of them, a perfectly
rectangular green screen, as if coming from a science fiction movie, showed up.
How could it stand on its own, floating 6 feet from the ground? There was
little point in answering this; nothing made sense anyway. Caught by surprised,
the three strangers looked directly at the screen. It only showed the following
text in dark yellow letters:
If you
want to go back, you must kill somebody.
If you
want to survive, you must kill somebody.
If you
don’t want to die, you must kill somebody.
Those who
kill will be free.
The screen vanished afterwards, leaving the
strangers in an unfathomable suspense.
“Bullshit.” Jaqueline said and laughed
arrogantly.
“You don’t think this is serious?” Gardon
asked.
“Of course not! I mean, hello! How could you
believe this garbage? Someone is obviously trying to pull our legs. It’s a
fucking joke!”
“Then how do you explain why we’re the only
ones here?”
“I must kill you to get out?” Saguchi
interrupted, staring at the palms of his hands. He looked irritated, nervous
and terrified.
“You don’t believe this shit, do you, kid?”
The woman challenged.
“I-I, I don’t know what to believe! Where is
everybody else? Why are we here? This can’t be just a dream, right?!”
“We must keep calm.” Gardon reminded.
“Hey, man, you’re a black belt, aren’t you? Do
something about this!” Saguchi was losing his mind.
“Again, I say we keep our cool and think about
a plan to escape.”
“Whatever, I’m just going to walk out of
here.” Jaqueline said, just about to leave them behind.
“Do you even know where to go?”
“No, not really. But there ought to be a
station nearby or something.” She walked ahead and Saguchi, who normally would
be staring at her ass like an idiot, took one step forward.
“You’re not going to kill us? Or try to kill
us?”
“Are you stupid or something, kid?” Jaqueline
stopped and turned around. “I should just kill you because that stupid screen
said so?”
Jaqueline left. Both men followed her with
their eyes until she got out of sight ahead in the darkness, between two small
buildings.
“I’m gonna’ kill her.” Saguchi, to Gardon’s
surprise, said. He was trembling.
“Wait a second, Minato. You must not be
thinking straight. We need to think of a plan before taking any action.”
“But first I’m gonna’ rape her.” He wasn’t
listening to the teacher at all. “I’m gonna’ grab that round ass and squeeze
those tits… Then I’ll slit her throat with my knife.” A vicious smile showed up
on his face.
“Have you lost your mind, boy?!”
Saguchi didn’t think it twice; he left the old
man on his own and walked towards the direction where Jaqueline had gone.
Gardon, impressed, broadened his eyes and uncrossed his arms. He couldn’t
believe what he had just witnessed. The boy had lost his mind? No, maybe he had
already lost it a long time ago.
“I have to stop him.” He said and followed
afterwards, running towards them.
As they left, someone was staring from the
shadows at a dead end street. It seemed things had gone quite smoothly for the
beginning, and the spy was enjoying the show with a sinister smile on his
twisted face.
