♠ ♦ Alice in Borderland ♣ ♥

16

With my hands clasped tightly around my knees, I make sure my legs don't shake. I try to keep breathing calmly and not pretend I'm very tense, but the nerves are coursing through my body for various reasons. It's not just the fact that Soran and I are in a crammed car full of strangers that worries me, but especially the thought that we're going to an unfamiliar place where it's likely to be swarmed up with players thinking only of themselves.

I think of Whitesuit, who is fortunately as far away from me as possible. At the last minute he managed to outplay three people, giving him three extra days on top of the one day. Not only did he trap the newcomers, but also the person who stayed with him on that Beach. The person he knew. What if we have now condemned ourselves to a terrible fate? But we cannot do otherwise. Soran and I need to get back to my parents and this is the only way that we could possibly achieve that at the moment.

'Hey, you like to party?' Whitesuit asks jovially. None of us answer, to which Neonsuit starts laughing. 'Yuki and a party?' he laughs. 'No, he just spends time with his computers and coding.' With interest I look up at Yuki, who sits between Neonsuit and Soran and keeps his gaze straight ahead, even though the boy he's known for years is annoying him by poking him. 'Right, mate? Old ICT guy.' It occurs to me to ask him what encodings he makes, but I'll remember it for later. It doesn't look like he wants to talk about it now and I don't want to give Neonsuit any oil to throw on the fire. Whitesuit seems to think otherwise. 'Computers and coding?' he exclaims with a laugh. 'Watch out, soon that guy will come up with a crazy theory that we now live in a kind of Matrix world!'

From the laughter of both White- and Neonsuit and the driver, I can tell that they're trying to make fun of him as a joke, but I think it's actually quite an interesting theory. We may indeed find ourselves in an alternate world uploaded and die in the real world if we do that here. But maybe we'll wake up in the real world if we die here. 'Mark my words,' Neonsuit says with a laugh, 'soon Yuk will be the chosen one and he will attack us like some kind of Neo!'

'For your sake, it's not to hope that's the case,' I hear myself mumble. 'Then you'll be unconscious on the floor before you know it, and not even from the booze.' The driver and Dotsuit emit what sounds like a laugh, but the two boys give me an annoyed look. 'You must be fun at parties,' Whitesuit mumbles before looking outside again. In the silence that follows, I also look outside. It takes a moment, but then I look up with interest when I notice a large beam of light in the distance. Especially now that the rest is so dark, it's very noticeable. Soran and Yuki also look surprised.

'We're here,' the drives says, completely superfluously. The two Suits in the back seat immediately jump out of the car and disappear from view. 'Wait here,' Dotsuit says after we get out and are looked at with questioning looks by other people in swimsuits. Not everyone is looking very welcoming. 'Hopefully this isn't a mistake,' I say softly to Soran. 'I'm sure it is,' Yuki mumbles. I look at him and feel very guilty for bringing him here, but in the end it was his own decision.

'So, you're the newbies,' I hear someone say. I look up at the boy who had spoken and try my best not to stare at him, but the other way around he has no problem with it. With his black hair and piercings on his nose and eyebrows, he scans his eyes all over my body. Apparently he likes what he sees. I suppress the bad feeling I get and nod at him. After all he's holding a gun, so I better not do or say anything provocative. 'Niragi, you really are impudent,' another boy with a gun says, laughing. He's wearing a purple swimsuit. 'What?' Niragi replies with a grin. 'Don't we have to check what kind of meat we're having?' He looks briefly at Soran and Yuki before nodding. 'Come along.'

No one says anything as we move around the resort, but Soran positions himself between me and the guys with the guns. He obviously doesn't like the fact that Niragi was lurking at me like that. I agree. As we walk through the corridors we are stared at by several people. Some start whispering to each other. It strikes me that we have already seen dozens of people.