Am I dead? There was a strong vituperative echo in Nick's heart, one that seemed to blend in with the surrounding darkness. Then there was a taste, a dry cadaverous taste that seemed to entail a thrilling fall. What seemed to feel like an eternal fall. Nick hacked up a spit of mucous into the cold cavernous air and grunted. I don't feel dead, yet I don't feel alive... There was a strange levity that Nick couldn't put his fingers on and when he looked at his fingers they seemed to eject some type of faint glow.

A tap tap tap trickled in the VR room as the lights danced on and off. This was met by a sour, mephitic scent that seemed to permeate through the room. It was a dark eternal scent that evaded the buoyancy of life. Nick turned the flashlight on his watch on and saw to his amazement that every object in the room was floating. From the recliners to the tv to the headsets. They all seemed to have lifted off the air as if struck by some type of supernatural penchant. Diana and Greshen weren't there. Greshen was left in the other world while as for Diana...well that was the question.

Nick took a trembling sweep around the abandoned VR room and then entered the hallway. Ceiling lights flickered everywhere as if Nick had just discovered an abandoned warehouse. There was a blood graffiti branded in the anarchist A and a twin circle that boasted the pentagram star. Nick's gaze lingered far more than he had intended too. Just as it was within the A's vogue, the star gave off a bright slimy glow, and issued a strange hum giving it a more pronounced luster than the A.

Nick tore his eyes off the wall and caught his feet just in time. The ground revived into a leg buckling quake. Fuming smoke entered the apocryphal green air. A few lights fell to the ground there, suddenly introduced, was an incessant streamline of whispering that matured through the building. Some coughs fell into place during the quiet intermissions.

"Where is he?" said a mellow, colorful voice.

"I hate this."

"You hate everything Mekkis. There's no winning with you."

"I don't hate everything. I just can't stand being in this stupid elevator or room or whatever it's supposed to be." Mekkis yawned. "I mean we've been going down for...oh shit, how long have we even dropped?"

"H-have we s-started the game yet?" entered a new voice among the bickering. This one had more shakiness in his voice than the rest.

"You can't be serious."

"Can it you two. I think someone's coming..." the other two guys stopped their frivolous muttering and listened to the girl's chill voice.

Nick's pallid, sweaty profile inched closer to the slimy, grungy macabre of the rectangular orifice. The doorless elevator was wide and huge and it carried three faceless hungry silhouettes that stood dubiously on top of the metal tongue. The hum hadn't undulated less and the excretable scent seemed only to lament in presence. They still stood curiously, breaths hung in the air. Nick struck out his flashlight on them, his frustrated breaths drawing into closed installments.

Their faces were clear but odd. Odd because Nick wasn't used to not seeing people.

"Are you gonna put that away and get in? Or do we have to throw you in ourselves." The girl's hands were shielding her face, smiling. She had a white asian look and was donned in a swifty black long coat with a scarf. In many ways, to Nick, she was exotic, and interesting to look at but frustratingly mysterious. He hated mysteries. He didn't return the smile.

"I'm Mila," said the girl. She jabbed her slim fingers to the guys behind her. "That's my brother Mekkis, and that's Hershey."

Another caucasian asian face chased the creamy light. The boy had a carved face with disheveled hair and unsurprisingly, the same cool mysterious form as her sister, but his eyes settled in boredom as he waved his hand like a skateboarder. The other guy was a scrawny black kid with a large green shirt and glasses. He simply nodded.

"Y-You guys can't be real," Nick panted, almost inaudible, trying not to throw up. The VR room was getting increasingly steamier. Nick poked the girl on her chest, but his fingers didn't seem to go through. They weren't holograms or AI. They were real people. Just how many more of them could there be?

"And you are?" Mila asked.

"Nick," Nick said absently, stepping into the deep, minatory hole. The elevator was pretty roomy, capacious enough for free thought, but it wreaked of slimy ectoplasm, rust, and garbage. Some parts of it were dented and battered as if it had gone through a zombie apocalypse. The elevator room stole a quake and the hallway that Nick had witnessed blurred out of existence as they soared upward. Nick absorbed the bleak colorless surrounding of the rumbling room and coughed. They had just passed through a cloud of green acidity. Where was Diana? How come she hadn't arrived in the elevator? The room continued to rise in the shaft, eating through the rickety chains that propelled it upwards. The chains relented to the elevation, releasing a biting insectlike noise into the dangerous air.

"Are you an American player?" Mila asked.

Nick stood in masked silence, hopelessly staring upward. It was weird, he'd never been spoken to before.

"Hey sleepy eyes, she asked you a question," said Mekkis, squinting. A new wave of nebulous dust permeated through the room.

"It's ok Mekkis," Mila said, smiling goofily. "People can get touchy these days..."

Nick stared. He didn't feel as if it was in his place to say anything, he hated small talk. And they all seemed to look at him as if he was going to say something important. As if they were going to be best friends or something, well overlooking the fact that in a couple of seconds they were probably gonna have to kill each other. Nick clenched his knuckles, resisting the urge to curse them off and to leave him alone. Then Jonathan's face swam into view. You're going to need allies...there are bad people in this game.

"I am. You guys as well?" Nick asked.

"We're from Vancouver. Hershey's from Pennsylvania," said Mila.

"B-Born and raised," Hershey nodded.

"You guys all met before you entered the game?"

"No we saw each other in a hallway, almost like the one you were in. It just happened to be the three of us. Kinda of a coincidink that were from neighboring countries, huh?"

"Hmm," said Nick. "It looks like the VR Room is where they spawn all the players."

"Yeah, it's randomized too." Mila froze, averting her eyes and biting her lips. Her eyes quickly raked Nick's forehead. "So what's your story?"

Nick grunted, miming down a cough. "I'm just a simple guy trying to win a game."

"Right," said Mekkis. "You've ever played a game like this before?"

"No, I don't think any of us had," Nick grasped the nervousness in the player's faces, hoping in some way he could seize their trust. "Look, I think we should team up. We don't know what's out there but if there are stronger players, it would be best of we team up so it can be harder for them to track us down individually."

"I'm-I'm in," said Hershey. "I've n-never really been in an alliance b-before."

Mekkis and Mila glanced at each other. "We'll think about it," said Mekkis.

Nick nodded. This wasn't exactly the result he'd been hoping for. "Fair enough. Let's just play the game."

The elevator rumbled and coughed. The humming sound had disappeared but from what Nick could see, there didn't seem to be a pearly opening in sight.

"Hershey, what's your story?" Mila asked.

"I c-come from a family-family of computer engineers. My dad ended u-up finding the ticket while he was working in his office, s-so I guess you-you can say I was lucky." Hershey said, laughing. "He almost th-threw it away b-because he thught it was another piece-piece of junk that interfered with his work,"

"Did you like it in Pennsylvania?"

Hershey winced. "Eh, not-not really. I didn't really h-have any friends a-and I worked alot."

Mila frowned. "Why didn't you have any friends? You're so nice."

"B-Because I stu-stutter alot and talk-talk about computers and v-video games too much. A-a lot of-of people at h-home thought I was w-weird and-and bullied me."

"I don't think you're weird," said Mila, smiling. Nick stared.

"Hey Nick," Mekkis moved to the side and beckoned him in his direction. Nick followed him, leaving Mila and Hershey in mid conversation. What could he want? He's made it purposely clear he doesn't like me. The bastard...

"What?"

"D'you like my sister?" Mekkis asked. There was a taunting glint in his eyes. It was an open feet question, there were no embellishments.

Nick stole a glance at Mila's ass. It was flat. But her asiatic face was still earnestly appealing to look at. It was a stirring desire for Nick, but ultimately no. The girl was too badgering for her liking by asking people's life story. And she was just a bit too kind in Nick's eyes.

"She's nice," said Nick.

"But she's not hot?" Mekkis said, grinning toothily.

"Why do you care?"

"I don't, but our finances do. And ultimately our chances of winning this game."

"Huh?"

Mekkis laughed toyingly. "Let's just say we've been living from stamp to stamp and my little sis is not so good at leaving her legs open."

"You guys are homeless?" Nick said.

"Were. That ticket saved our lives. Before that I was relying on Mila to–"

"So you were using her for sex."

"I was protecting us. What would you do if your mother kicked you out of the house because you were gay and her daughter had three kids she couldn't afford?"

Nick shook his head. A stuttering nerd, a gay manipulator, and a nosy promiscuous mother wasn't what he had in mind for a first encounter. Especially ones he planned on being allies with. "Have you ever considered that she might not like it?"

Mekkis held up his hands. "Look at that, we have a psychiatrist in the house. It's never been about what we like, but survival, Nicky boy."

"You think you're the–"

The elevator screeched and pumped, releasing a blaring siren into the frigid air. It shook convusively.

Nick looked up. The shining pearly white opening had gotten wider and wider and before they knew it, the elevator had touched surface and took puchase on the ground. Nick stepped out into the cool mint air to find hundreds of foreign faces either staring at him or at what lay beyond. There was a giant hex dome covering the kids in the arena and outside of it was a sheen painting of a magnificent modern city. An expansive city devoid of authority and devoid of God. Nick slithered through the sea of bumbling faces until he got closer to the dome. Through the glimmering the city erected multiple highrises and silvery skyscrapers that poked the clear blue sky. Neon halos hovered over every single building and digital billboards were attached high onto the buildings displaying various products and naked men and women. These figures were typically models and they held a product in one hand while they made a 666 figure in the other. There were many crosswalks and roads that led to many restaurants and businesses but there didn't seem to be any people. The denizens of the night were nowhere to be found but the players.

The billboards changed pictures every minute like a slideshow. Nick saw a new blaring picture on a building that read "Welcome to Chaos." To Nick, the city was massive and akin to the madness of New York and Tokyo.

The blaring whine stopped and a woman's voice cut through the air.

"Welcome, players, to the game of Chaos," rang the digital voice. It was loud enough for every living thing in the city to hear. "Your objective is to be the last player standing through a series of games, trials, and eliminations. The player who succeeds this objective will be sent back to the physical world and be rewarded with ten million dollars. Failure to do so means you will be stuck here to live in eternal torture."

Huh? Nick thought. Eternal torture?

"The game will commence in three...two..."