Valkyrie's Lament

Chapter 31

Gate #6- Day 1

(Proof reader: Katt)

Bam!

The ground shook and the giant dragon hand missed the van a couple of inches away, taking a chunk of the metal in the back of the van.

Screeeeeeeccch!

With a sharp turn, Jamie sped out through the closing gate. A giant clawed hand followed right after, trying to grasp the van with its hand. The gate groaned and closed. Crunching sounds of bones breaking could be heard as the giant hand was crushed in half by the wrist, until finally the door closed with a hiss.

Fifty skeletal undead broke apart, becoming part of the scenery. Jamie counter steered to get the van under control, causing the van to lift partially off the ground. Seconds later, the van fell back on its wheel, giving Jamie back the control that he desperately needed.

Everyone were tussled around inside the van, causing small concussions and even bruises and small concussions. With a screech, the van came to a stop. Jamie rested his head against the wheel, breathing heavily from the turmoil that he had just went through.

Silver felt her head bruised from smashing into the window, causing her to temporarily go blind. Everything around her was white with spots, and all she could do was groan and rub her head. Her hands reached up towards the side, pulling her back up into a comfortable sitting position. She reached over and opened the van door, allowing her to stumble out.

Her stomach queasy, and her heart still beating quickly; she fell onto the ground exhausted. The others also fell out of the van, dizzy and in pain.

“I’m never riding in the same car as you again.” Jasper groaned, gasping for a breath. His side was killing him.

“Someone kill him now.” Brianna exclaimed with a hint of pain in her voice. “I swear he’s going to kill us first before that damn dragon!” She tried to get up, but Amy was on top of her, making it difficult to get up.

Jamie was one of the few from the whole group that was not even injured. He quickly got out and checked his mother who was still unconscious. “Mom?” Pulling her out, he set her on the ground. Her face were pale white and her breathing was slow and shallow.

“Truly what an interesting turn of events.” Ronfonso got out of the car without a single scratch on him. He was completely fine from the ride. “I’m quite satisfied that you came out alive Silver, though I don’t know about these other bags of luggage that came with you.” He stepped over Jasper.

“Watch your mouth.” Sam said it with a growl. He was wheezing, trying to push back the pain.

“I’m only telling you the truth.” Ronfonso shrugged his shoulder and turned his back on them. He walked straight towards the inn leaving them all behind.

Silver pushed herself up and noticed that they weren’t too far away from the Inn. Her vision cleared up allowing her to walk forward without too much problem. While everyone was busy, trying to get their bearing straight, Silver went inside. She stood in front of Archarzel, searching her storage accestor. It didn’t hit her until now that she didn’t have the item in hand.

“Here.” Jasper was next to her. “This one is yours.” A old parchment slid against the clean table and she handed it to Angelzel.

Silver couldn’t help but wonder why this piece of parchment was even called the ancient tablet, but she didn’t ask and instead quietly accepted.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Angelzel’s lips twitched when she saw the dirty parchment causing smears against the clean table. “Well, it seems you have succeed in this quest. Not only that you have caused quite a ruckus with the guardian dragon.”

“Reward please.” Silver pushed the parchment towards Archarzel. She was way too tired from the strenuous activity in the past two and half day. Her body screamed to go to sleep and take a nice hot shower to cool off her aching pain.

“You’re quite impatient aren’t you. Well no matter. Here is your reward.” 1450 Angel’s Coins flew towards her watch and into her card and she slide a Orange Crystal Mid grade towards her. She stashed away the large Orange Crystal.

“50 boxes of magical bullets and the rest in extra magazine’s please.”

“Right away. That would be 1400 Angel coins.” The Angel coins disappeared from her wristwatch and back towards Archarziel. A glow of white light appeared around the desk with boxes of magical bullets and extra magazines. She quickly store it away and headed straight towards the bath house to take a shower. When she was done, she mindlessly walked back to her room and fell asleep on the bed.

#####

“Silver.” Jasper was shaking Silver awake who was sleeping on the bed.

“Ughmmmfph….” A unintellectual moan of discomfort was heard from Silver’s mouth.

“Silver, wake up! You slept through a whole day and a half! We got thirty minutes before Kushiel game starts!” Jasper this time, shook her even harder to the point where Silver was flopping back and forth into ridiculous angles.

“Another hour.” Silver swatted Jasper’s hands away. She pulled up her blanket, covering all the way up to her chin.

“Wake up for crying out loud! We need to go to the recommended gate in thirty minutes! Why are you so difficult to wake up.” Jasper gritted his teeth and was getting very frustrated that she was not waking up.

“Put the key over there..mumble mumble.” Silver smacked her lips and curled up even tighter into a ball.

“What kind of idiotic nonsense are you spouting!” Jasper tore the blanket away from her body and noticed a bit of her stomach was showing. “Come on Silver!”

Silver groaned some more and grabbed the pillow. She pulled it onto her stomach, covering her belly from the cold.

“Okay, you’re making me use my last resort.You either get stunned here and now and wake up with electrocuted hair or get up yourself.” Jasper started to reach over to her hand. He grabbed onto her wrist, ready to shock her in her sleep.

In that moment, Silver rolled over, pulling Jasper into her arms. Jasper froze unable to move, his face becoming red from embarrassment.  “S-Silver?” He stuttered.

Silver gave off a satisfied smile and snuggled closely to Jasper. “Hehehehe, cute small rabbit.” She muttered under her breath, while patting him on his head.

“R-rabbit? Small?” Jasper felt offended and in that moment, he sent out a small shockwave that tased Silver for seconds.

Silver got up with a yelp, squishing Jasper as she tumbled out of the bed in surprise.

“Ow….” Jasper coughed in pain. His stomach was stepped on by Silver when she jumped up from her bed.

“W-what? D-d-id something happened?” Silver got up completely confused. Her silver hair was all over the place, making her look like a patient that got electrocuted. “What’s wrong with you?” She tilted her head confused.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Jasper got up shakily and rubbed his stomach. “We got less than thirty minutes now to get to Gate 6 for Kushiel’s game. Kushiel stated that everyone must be there sharp or they will face consequences.”

“Wait, did the week already end?” Silver was still lost and confused.

“Yes, you slept through yesterday and half of today. If I didn’t wake you up, you’d probably sleep through today as well.”

“Ah.” Silver brushed back her hair. She didn’t realized how tired she was until now. The taxing games not only harmed her body, but they mostly gave her mental stress.

“Don’t ‘ah’ me. Let’s go. I’ll wait for you outside.” Jasper got up and went out the door leaving her by herself. Silver took this chance to change into a new set of clothes and went outside where her teammates were waiting.

“Hey Silver!” Tyler waved his hands above his head happily waiting for her.

Rose, Brianna, Sam, Ronfonso, Salphie, Ren, Amy, Ronald, and Jamie were outside waiting for her.

“Hey Tyler.” Silver walked over half asleep. “Amy? You okay?” She was surprised to see Amy up and about, the injury that she had substantiated were considered life threatening, but it seems that wasn’t the case anymore.

“Yes, I can’t thank you enough for saving our lives.” Amy replied, a soft motherly smile erupted on her lips. Silver could tell that Amy had more of a vigor in her body that told her that she wasn’t going to give up or throw her life away again.

“I’m not the only one that has been the one to save you. You should thank your son.”

“I know, but you are the main reason that all of us survived.”

Silver sighed. She got the feeling that she’d keep saying more if she didn’t accept.

“Well then, where do we need to go?”

“That is simple. Gate 6.” Jasper spoke.

“Gate 6? Wait. Gate 6?”

“Yea, why?”

Silver thought hard about Gate 6. This gate was considered one of the deadliest gates out of all the other Gates. Any gate that had the number 6 was considered a bad omen and the thought of going into one didn’t bode too well for any of them. She didn’t like where this was going.

“Did you all forget that Gate 6 is considered a danger zone?”

“I assumed all the gates are considered dangerous.” Sam stated. “Or did you forget that because you slept too much?”

Silver sighed. It wasn’t that she didn’t forget, they wouldn’t understand unless they went though Game #6 and other multiple Games with the number 6 to understand the difficulty of the level. She knew not everyone would survive in this game.

“Never mind. Let’s go.”

“She doesn’t even know what she’s talking about.” Sam scoffed at Silver’s words. “I believe we should just leave this and go Brianna.”

“It seems you have quite a disgruntled group of people.” Ronfonso chuckled. “Even though she has a point.”

“The Frankenstein has spoken.” Sam goaded Ronfonso with an annoyed tone. He glared daggers at Ronfonso.

“I beg your pardon, I am not Frankenstein; though I do enjoy the story behind Frankenstein. The monster of the Frankenstein story was not called Frankenstein though, nor did it have a name but monster. Frankenstein was the doctor’s name, you know.”

Sam frowned at Ronfonso’s retort and rolled his eyes. “Let’s go Brianna.”

Brianna was dragged away by Sam, leaving them all behind.

“What’s his problem?” Tyler folded his arms in front of him. “Does he have a stick up his ass or something?”

“Who knows.” Jasper shrugged his shoulder. “Though, Silver could you explain to me why you are so caught up on this Gate?”

“Like I said, this Gate is dangerous.”

“Wouldn’t all the gates be dangerous?”

“Yes, but out of all of them this one is the wor-”

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t my least favorite humans.” Kushiel’s voice cut clearly through the crowd.

Everyone look up to see Kushiel flying above them with a sinister smile. “I’m surprised that sixty of you guys are still alive. That’s a lot more than I have anticipated. Either way at least half of you guys will be dead by this game anyways.” She waved her hand in front of her.

People gulped at her words and couldn’t help but wonder what she had in mind for everyone.

“Today’s game has a couple of rules.” Kushiel taps her finger in front of her. “We are going to play a game of tag.”

The silence around the crowd were uncomfortable. They didn’t like the sound of this game, especially because it was Kushiel herself that was directing it.

“The game of tag will last for six days. Each day the person who becomes the last ‘it’ will die.” With a snap of her fingers, everyone was wearing a vest with a patch attached to it. They even had on a gray cat ears and tail. “If the ‘it’ takes the patch off your shoulder than you yourself become the ‘it’ in their stead, and as an ‘it’ you have two options: steal a patch from another human or get it back from your previous stealer. If you do get ‘your‘ patch back you will still be an ‘it,’ but you will be given a temporarily special ability.”

Kushiel smugly continued, her hand went on her hips: “You then need to get a second patch, allowing you to lose the ‘it’ title. If you steal from another, that person becomes and ‘it’ and you are not an ‘it’ anymore, luckily though you won’t be hit with the repercussion. For those who stole from another before taking back theirs, they need to look for the scarlet flower, Neospo, that resides in this city, before the time runs out.”

Kushiel lips became a wide grin, giving her a sinister appearance for an angel. “And that’s not all. The players who are not ‘it’ must not be killed by the certain enemy that I won’t tell.” She cackled with laughter making everyone freeze up. The whole change from sweet looking girl to an heinous villain made people feel really uncomfortable.

“Now then shall we start the game?” Kushiel clasped her hands in delight.

A high pitch siren-like sound echoed loudly through the whole field, catching everyone’s attention that were present in front of the giant door. People held in their breaths at the sight of the door opening for everyone knew that it was a sign that heralds their deaths. No one moved forward when the door completely opened. Instead, they all waited for someone to make the first sacrificial step.

“Well then enjoy your blissful six days of life and death. If you don’t move into the gate you will die by my hands. Please hurry up and die, so I can get on with my life.” Kushiel winked at everyone dazzling them. She then disappeared into smokes and left.

Everyone was silent at what they heard from Kushiel’s mouth, instead they didn’t move for the fear of being tagged ‘it.’ They knew that what Kushiel’s said was the absolute truth.

Sam was the first one to step in. He strutted in as if he was a fearless king, giving courage to others to follow after. Brianna was the second to enter, and she strolled in as if they were no problem at all.

“I don’t know if I should say that he is a fool or courageous.” Tyler gazed upon Sam admiringly.

“When you’re done drooling over a man, come back to sanity.” Rose sharply spoke, making Tyler glare towards Rose.

“I am not drooling, you stupid bitch.”

“From my perspective that’s how it looked.”

Both of them continued to bicker. Silver sighed and walked right past them. She knew that staying here wouldn’t do them any good. Instead, she walked through the giant door, behind everyone.

When she entered through the door, what welcomed her was the bright active city, brimming with life. The sunlight shines downwards, telling them that it was mid-afternoon. They were cars moving, people that look like humanoid cats were walking around diligently through the city. They stopped to stare at the large crowds of humans with cat ears and tails that entered into their busy street, but eventually went on with their business.

Silver glanced around and look for any possible being that could be “it”, but so far she didn’t find a single clue. She couldn’t  quite remember anything about this game, except the supposed ‘items’ that she needed to get in the future games to come. All other memories were fuzzy with bits of pieces of the fragmented memories that didn’t quite make sense. The only clue that she got was that this game was very dangerous and only a handful of people will come out of this place alive.

It was then when terror struck. Three tall humanoid rabbits with painted faces like clowns hopped forward and stole the tag from two different people. The people screamed out at their loss. Their vest color turned black, while their ears and tails turned into a black rabbit’s ear and tails, indicating that they were “it”.

People were dumbfounded at the sudden attack and stood rooted to the spot. It wasn’t until the people who had their patch stolen quickly snapped out of their trance and they rushed towards their nearest target. They viciously ripped off the patch from their arm and ran away as their vest color reverted to a gray colored vest with a mouse ear and tail.

One out of the two successfully ran into the buildings with their prize, disappearing. The other got into a fight as two fought for their patches rolling around for dominance. Blood erupted out of each other face and mouth as they pummeled each other into the ground.

The people who saw everything that happened, quickly snapped out of their trance-like state and bolted away from the chaotic scene.

“Disperse quickly, we’ll meet up later!” Silver shouted towards her group. Warning them of the dangers ahead.

They understood from her words, and everyone started to run away in different directions. Tyler and Rose bolted off towards the right, while Salphie, Ronald, and Ren slipped in-between the buildings, Jasper swiveled away to the right mixing in with the crowds, and Amy and Jamie ran through the thick crowds.

One of the female it players came rushing towards Silver bent on stealing her tag. Silver spun around and kicked the girl in the guts, making her fall backwards.

Silver then ran away towards the thick crowds, where the Cat people were diligently watching with enthusiasm. She squeezed past them and allowed the crowd to block off the person who was trying to steal from Silver.

She ran in-between the crowds, until finally she slipped into a building with bright neon signs of a fish in rice bowl.

“Welcome customer~” A cat lady with a beautiful silky brown fur bowed towards me with a happy smile. “Would it be only you who would be coming in to eat?”

Silver stopped and frowned. She realized that she barged into a restaurant, making it a bit difficult for her to escape. If she went back outside, she will become the next target. What was strange though was that the cat lady didn’t seem to look at her strangely.

“Yes, for one please.” Silver was brought to the back where a opentable were present. Everywhere around her were cats that look more feline than human. She was considered the odd one out, but the people didn’t seem to notice the difference at all. It was as if she was part of their group.

“Here is the menu.” The cat lady gave her the menu. Sliver took it from the lady and quietly watched the entrance for anybody who would come rushing in looking for her.

“Are you ready for your order?” The cat lady came back again waiting for her to choose.

“I um…” Silver ran through the menu and choose the fried rice with salmon. She noticed that the price on the menu could be bought with Angel Coins. She couldn’t just stay here without causing too much attention, so she attempted to blend in with the others.“Fried rice with Salmon please.”

“And your drink?”

“Water.”

Silver handed her menu. She was on edge, ready to flee the spot if she saw the enemy. So far nothing happened, and time went by. Her food was brought out for her to eat. The strong smell of delicious food tickled her nose, making her mouth water.

She didn’t realized until now that she was hungry. Quickly devouring the food in front of her, she enjoyed the food with zealous. Her eyes would whip up to the entrance whenever someone came in, but so far the girl that was chasing her didn’t appear.

With her stomach full, she pulled out one Angel Coin and noticed it change into a different currency in front of her. Silver knew that she couldn’t stay in the restaurant for a very long period of time, she needed to move and get out before being caught.

Taking this chance, she carefully walked out the door and back into the busy streets. Looking around, she found no one with the same appearance as her. She walked through the busy streets, carefully monitoring everything around her.

Throughout the afternoon, she constantly moved. She wasn’t sure if she could be tracked, but what she mostly wanted to do was to find her team. So far, she wasn’t able to find a single clue of where everyone had disappeared off too, but knew that her team were strong so she didn’t worry too much.

The sun finally started to set, turning quickly into night. The once busy street was now filled everywhere with cat people walking outside, enjoying the night breeze. This made Silver more conscious of the people around her for the possibility of someone coming in to attack. She decided to move towards higher grounds to have a better look at the situation around her. So far, she was able to basically have a rough map of the city in her head.

Off in the distance, she saw a tall building with a cat hotel sign blinking in neon green. She bee-lined towards the sign and made her way inside. Upon entering, she saw another cat lady who smiled at her entrance.

“Welcome to Indigo Cat hotel. Would you like to rent a room for tonight?”

Silver searched around and found nobody that she knew. “Yes please.”

“That would be….one Angel Coins.” The cat lady’s words seem to strangely switch to a word that Silver could understood.

Silver pulled out one Angel Coins and slipped it towards the Cat Lady. The Angel coins once again changed shapes into five bronze looking coins with a cat paw print in the middle. The cat lady took the money and slide her a key.

“Your room will be on the seventh floor.”

She took the key off the counter and walked over towards the elevator. She entered and made her way towards the top of the building. She got off at the highest floor she could go and walked up the final steps.

Forcing open the locked door, she walked out and made her way to the edge. Out before her was hundreds of different shape buildings, laid perfectly out in a circle, but what made her surprise was a strange translucent dome-like barrier that seem to be situated around this part of the city itself. The barrier extended over her head and towards the right side of the river.

She knew then that this was the boundaries of where the game was set. The area that they were allowed to move around was not to large, but was large enough that one could hide, making it a bit difficult for the player who became “it” to find others. From right to left, the city was in a square like division, making it a lot more easier for Silver to remember.

Kaboom!

The sound of explosion could be heard off in the distance where the restaurant that she visited was were blown up into pieces. Smokes and fire rampantly blew around covering a large portion of the building. Silver had a clear view of the situation that was happening before her. A strange silhouette of a giant moved inside the smoke, wavering back and forth.