Chapter 5 - Akio Furusawa???I was dreaming of her again.

  In the quiet recesses of my sleep, where it felt like reality melded with my imagination, her presence wasn’t something ethereal, or understated, like a whisper of the night.

  No, it demanded attention, exploding like a dazzle of fme and power.

  There she was, dancing through the corridors of my mind, her ughter a dulcet melody, her eyes dispying the heat and warmth of an inferno.

  But dreams, like the morning mist, vanish with the dawn.

  They leave behind that pain – that ache that lingers, comprised of our fantasies and desires left regretfully unfulfilled, prompting you to wonder where exactly reverie ends and reality begins.

  Though perhaps the two were more interlinked than I anticipated, I mused, as on this occasion in particur, Eiji felt like more than just the distant dream she’d always been to me – no, now she felt material.

  She y there, held like a heaven, seemingly unconscious but now coming to, alongside the silhouettes of other figures around her. Around us.

  Dazed, I began to feel an unwelcoming, gravelly sensation pulse through my body. I wasn’t on my bed anymore. I wasn’t at home anymore.

  If the storefront of Hong Kong Star, dubbed Yakky’s “second home”, to my left was any indication, this was Center Street.

  Devoid of the colour and animation that usually inhabited the space, I was left to wonder where all the people – where all the life had been taken to.

  Aside from myself and the nine others dotted around, each in a seemingly simir state of bewilderment, the air was deathly still with inactivity.

  “I-is everyone okay?” I found myself saying, somehow convinced that this was no longer a mere fantasy. “Did someone bring us out here?”

  “Fuck if I know.” confessed one. I felt my eyes widen upon taking in his otherworldly appearance; his tattered white shirt, bck suit pants and shoes almost had me chuckling in revetion.

  “Ahh, this is some kind of Halloween prank right? That’s why we’re all dressed up like this!” I ughed, gesturing to the man before me as an example. “I gotta say, I actually thought your eyes were yellow! Nice contacts. What gel do you even use to get your – “

  “This is no joke,” chimed another, a taller woman with semi-long dark blue hair, her eyes as cold and unfeeling as the breeze flowing through the dipidated avenue. “In what world would there be absolutely no traffic in one of the most frequented parts of Tokyo? Let alone every single store shuttered up and abandoned…”

  “BE-BEHIND YOU!” a different girl with flowing red hair shouted, her throat choking on panic. I looked around to see who she was talking to, before finding everyone’s eyes looking in… my direction.

  I took a sharp breath and span around. My palms flew up to cover the involuntary scream that left my quivering mouth.

  I mouthed a silent prayer to God, thanking him that I at least wouldn’t see their facial expressions as it happened – but cursing that today would be the day I saw death with my very own eyes.

  The creature – if it can even be called that – was a bubbling, shapeless blob of pitch bck darkness, absent of any colour or detail save for the singur white mask, the ones used in theatre, present on what may as well have been its face.

  It was growing, building, stretching and expanding upwards until it began towering over me, as if preparing to engulf me whole.

  My legs wouldn’t move. My eyes would not shift. My arms would not shield my quivering body. All I did – all I could do – was stand there, motionless, my short existence fshing before my eyes in brief, tender images.

  The monster soon became still, as if satisfied by my despair, and in an instant, all I could see, could feel, was darkness. I was dying.

  As I surrendered to oblivion, I felt a familiar warmth. It started as a small, fuzzy sensation expanding on the crown of my head, soon enveloping my torso, my legs, my entire being.

  Suddenly, the darkness exploded into light, blinding my listless eyes until, when I came to, I was once again sprawled out on the ground, though the warmth had yet to fade. I opened my eyes. Was I dead?

  “Am I dead?” I asked Eiji, confused. She was looking down at me with a worried expression on her visage, just having thrown a rge, two handed hammer with a long handle to the side, creating a sizeable thud as it hit the ground.

  “N-No. At least I don’t think so? I-I mean, if you are dead, then the rest of us probably are too, which means… ahhh shit, but then how did-“ she mused outwardly, her gesticution wild and armed.

  “In any case,” she concluded hurriedly. “It’s not safe here. Come on, get up.”

  Satisfied with the assessment, I took her hand and rose to my feet, beginning to find my bance, though my breath was still bated from the encounter, both with death and with Eiji.

  “I don’t know how, but when I saw you about to get eaten, I…” she recounted. “I felt this weird power within me. Like I could just… zoom over there and destroy whatever that thing was. I gave into it, and the next thing I knew…”

  She trailed off, looking in the direction of the rge bludgeon she had discarded earlier, now picking it up with surprising ease, given the weight and heft such a weapon would possess.

  Letting my hormones get the better of me, I decided now would be a good time took the time to take in her appearance in this strange realm.

  Eiji, quite literally, looked like a star, with a white crop top over a bck bodysuit, covered in stars of gold outlines on her lower body.

  The crop top even dispyed a star symbol on her chest, finished off by knee-length boots and a choker.

  Though our in-person interactions are unfortunately stained by the context of her bitter rivalry with Nakamura, I strangely felt as though whoever designed this for her must’ve known her on an extremely personal level, and it made me angry that I didn’t.

  “You sure you’re okay?” she inquired quizzically, catching my stare. Before I could answer, she inched closer.

  “Wait…are you orange-hair? Nakamura’s friend?”

  I nodded, unsurprised our shared connection through him was the only reason I was ever the slightest bit relevant to her.

  “It seems even in kidnapping, we’re destined to be together ~” a familiar voice chimed. No way.

  “Rusuban?!” Eiji excimed, deeply puzzled. “What are you- wait-“

  She pushed past him, somewhat violently I might add, to scan the faces of the others who, by this point, were either pacing and looking around in arm, or outwardly indifferent, likely assuming this to actually be a dream. I had long dashed hopes that the tter were correct.

  “What the fuck?” she whispered. “Everyone here; we’re students at Tensei!”

  Upon her analysis, I instantly remembered where I’d seen the red-haired girl before – Miharu Kozuki, star of st year’s production of Princess Kaguya! Despite being the main character, she seemed to keep little company, as I barely recount seeing her anywhere else in and around school.

  The guy with the tattered shirt from earlier – that was Liu Katoru! We had the same homeroom teacher, though he’d been absent for the st week, rumours crediting it to suspension.

  All the other faces I had recognized to varying extents, most from simply encountering them during commutes to and from cssrooms, clubrooms, the cafeteria… which begged the question, why us?

  “I bet this is your doing,” accused Eiji, gring back at Kinoko.

  "You wound me," he sighed dramatically, his tone oddly theatrical given the seriousness of the situation. "We both know Tensei's budget barely stretches to a pack of pencils, let alone hammers or, dare I say, costumes and props for everyone else. We'd sooner see pigs fly in top hats."

  Eiji simply grunted in response, seemingly not in the mood for Rusuban’s eerily exuberant demeanour.

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree.” spoke Daisuke, Rusuban’s vice-rep, his eyes gring menacingly in Miharu’s direction. “How did you know he was about to get attacked? Whatever that thing was slipped under everyone else’s radar.”

  At his accusation, all eyes became fixed on Miharu. There was a tense silence in the air.

  “W-Wait!” she stammered, seemingly confused at how warning me of my impending doom had turned against her. “Didn’t you guys see it too? The stage directions! I-it said hostile creature appears behind orange-haired boy in dark brown robes. You were the only one that matched the description, and I saw something moving underneath you, s-so I –“

  She was interrupted by a haughty, demeaning ugh, and instantly I knew who it belonged to. It was nothing like the “seriously hot stuff” Nakamura had once described.

  “Stage directions?” Junko jeered. “If you’re going to lie, at least fabricate something believable.”

  She wasn’t alone in her skepticism – it appeared that nobody else was buying her expnation. I was afraid of what would happen next.

  “Wait,” I interrupted, eager to repay the favour Miharu had previously done me. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. It’s clear there’s more to this pce than meets the eye. Why don’t we – “

  “Wooow,” said Katoru sarcastically. “She saves your ass once and now you’re in love? Get a grip, dude.”

  I felt my teeth grinding.

  “Listen to me.” I rebutted, a tad more maliciously than intended. “There’s still too much we don’t know -“

  “Which is all the more reason why we need to act swiftly.” judged Mizuko, stood adjacent to her younger sister with arms folded, The junior sibling in question was, curiously, eyeing Eiji.

  This was bad. If I didn’t convince them to back off, they just might end up…

  “There!” Miharu excimed, looking just above her. Either she was as nervous as I was, or my vision was blurring, because I could swear she was glowing red. “Can’t you guys see it?”

  I gnced in the direction of her indication, though all I found was the pale moon gring back down at us, as if watching our futile efforts, as if it knew what fate awaited us in this space.

  “No,” informed Arthur, the tall third year with chestnut brown hair that had been left to flow freely, an occurrence that, alongside his complete ck of shoes and gloves, seemed dissonant with the otherwise neat butler suit he was wearing. “Please, tell us – what is it you see?”

  “I-It says…” she began before pausing. “Billboards, monitors, and various electronic items capable of broadcasting messages begin to fuzz. Enter The Game Master.”

  As I turned to share a puzzled look with Eiji, in the corner of my eye I spotted a distinct blot of bck, grey, and white, and it took me a few seconds to register the two limbs at its sides, informing me that it was humanoid.

  Perhaps what had truly sent the shiver down my spine, however, was the scythe they were carrying; a rge, heavy variant with a curved wooden handle and steel bde, the edge’s gleam threatening to rend flesh as easily as shredding paper.

  The person beneath the hooded cloak must have spotted me, however, as the head within said hood soon turned in my direction, their face still obscured by shadow.

  It was strange – knowing that you were being appraised, assessed, analysed by one whose eyes you yourself cannot even perceive. Strange, and terrifying.

  I was saved by the sound of static pulsing through the otherwise sinister silence, just as Miharu had predicted.

  We stood there, the ten of us, some fearful, some indifferent, others in between, awaiting the arrival of the foretold Game Master. At some point I had shut my eyes closed and began shaking.

  Without warning, the static had cut into silence, before a smooth whirr took its pce. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know that they were here.

  Their voice was haggard, unsettling, and harmonious all at once. All it took were five words.

  “Welcome to the Hollow Night.”

  Five words to swallow any sembnce of hope we had into a bottomless abyss.