I don't know what I was expecting to find when I opened that door, but it certainly wasn't what I found. Upon entering the room, it was clear that it was some kind of cafeteria, but that wasn't important right now, as there were 18 people in this place whom I didn't recognize.
Before I could really process what could possibly be going on, a blue robot spoke up and said, "Oh, look! Another friend has joined us!" The screen on his chest quickly changed from yellow with a smiley face to pink with a heart eyes and then back to a smiley face.
"It seems so, " said what looked to be a high school student with brown, mid-length hair wearing a white shirt and a red tie.
Not wanting to choose the wrong words, I stood there for a moment in silence. Before, a guy in a white high school uniform spoke up and said, "Don't just stand there! Introduce yourself already!"
The sheer abrasiveness of how he spoke gave me the words I was looking for. "Okay, first of all, calm down. There's no need to shout. Secondly, hi, my name is Sothis, nice to meet you. And lastly, who are you people?!"
That's when someone with purple eyes wearing what looked to be a black high school uniform said, "Since there's likely only one more individual left to appear, it'd be preferable to wait to do proper introductions, so we can avoid repeating ourselves. However, there's something I want to confirm." The boy proceeded to roll up his sleeve, revealing a bright red watch-looking thing, and asked, "Do you also have one of these bracelets?"
It took him saying that that made me realize there was something light attached to my right wrist. I quickly scrambled to roll up my sleeve, showing that I did indeed share the same device. "What is this thing?" I said in response.
"That's what we've been trying to figure out," said a tall woman with horns and a tail, "all we've been able to get it to do is reveal a number by pressing both nobs simultaneously."
I then turned my head to look at the device and proceeded to get a better look at it. It looked incredibly similar to a regular watch but with a digital face. However, it seemed impossible to take off. Choosing to ignore that for a second, I pressed the nobs, which caused the face to light up in a dim blue. And it indeed did show a number: 19. It took me a moment to realize what that number meant. I reached into my satchel, grabbed the key to the room I woke up in, looking at the number again, "Room 719...," I said in a slight whisper.
"Yeah, it seems that the number matches up with the rooms we woke up in." I was taken by surprise and turned around to see who said that. She was a slightly mature-looking woman with long blonde hair. "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," she said as she went from bending over to standing up straight, revealing she was fairly taller than me. Which is something I'm all too used to.
I chuckled a bit before saying, "It's alright, I'm just a bit on edge is all."
"Considering the circumstances, I can hardly blame you," she said sweetly in reply. I proceeded to look around and see just who else was here. Aside from the handful of people I had met already, there was a young-looking girl with long blue hair in some kind of uniform standing next to another blue-haired individual in some kind of armor-less knight apparel, but I couldn't tell whether they were a boy or not, though.... There was also a red and white robot-looking dude who was standing alone in a corner, a black-haired dude who looked like he had his face burned around the mouth area, he was also wearing some kind of warrior garb and was currently chewing out the white-uniformed kid for ordering people around; there was a man who looked to be a leopard as well, he was standing quietly observing everyone else; there was also what looked to be a man in a big moldy looking bunny suit.
As I was processing that image in my head, there was a sudden loud, piercing noise that screamed, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" It was only after covering my ears that I realized I wasn't hearing anything but having sound injected directly into my mind. I looked around to see who was doing this, only to find that everyone else in the room was reeling from presumably the same screaming. And after a few seconds, the screaming had stopped as abruptly as it began. Then as the screams in our heads ceased, screams of panic filled the room.
Prologue - Part One - The Call From The Darkness
Start from the beginning
