Wind.
That's the first thing she feels.
A cold, damp breeze curling around her fingertips.Then the grit of rough earth beneath her palms.
Arelia's eyes blink open to darkness soft, blue gray twilight, like the world is caught between night and dawn. She's lying on cold ground, surrounded by tall, bare trees. Their branches claw at the sky, incomplete and unmoving.
She pushes herself up slowly. Her head throbs.
"What...?"
No memory of falling asleep. No dream to trace back to. Just static.
Her mouth tastes like metal.
She looks down.
She's still in her sweatshirt and jeans, the same ones from earlier but the snow is gone. The world around her is completely unfamiliar. Damp soil, distant hills, fog in the air thick enough to bite into.
She's alone.
No people. No city. No apartment. Just trees... and silence.
Then she sees it.
A small silver tag on her wrist, like a hospital ID band. But it doesn't have her name. Just one word:
PLAYER: 47-A
"This is a dream," she says, standing shakily. "I must've fallen asleep. Hit my head."
The voice in her head tries to be calm. Rational.But the weight of the air feels real. Too real. She begins to walk. Her boots make faint crunches in the frost-laced dirt.
After a while, a flicker of light appears through the fog-distant, flickering, golden.
She follows it.
And soon, she sees it: a small bonfire in the center of a clearing, surrounded by five people. Some are standing, others sitting on logs. She stops just before the edge of the trees.
A boy with dark hair is sharpening a stick.
A girl with pale blond braids is tending to the fire.One is pacing. One is sitting silently, head low.
They all look... wrong. Not glitchy or robotic, just off. Too smooth. Too symmetrical.
And yet-too human.
She steps forward.
The boy sharpening the stick looks up first, sharp green eyes locking onto hers.
"Another one."He sounds annoyed. Or tired. Or both.
The blond girl turns to her and smiles. "You made it," she says, like they were expecting her. "We weren't sure you would."
Arelia doesn't respond.
The boy with the green eyes stands. He's tall, broad-shouldered, with a stare that cuts straight through her. There's something ice-cold in his presence.
"Name?" he asks.
"Arelia," she replies cautiously.
He frowns. "Not your real one. What number?"
She hesitates. Looks down at her wrist. "Forty-seven A."
"Tch. Another A-tier. Great." He mutters something under his breath.
"Be nice, Kai," the blond girl says with a roll of her eyes.
Kai.
He's real enough. But there's something about him that makes her cautious.
The others barely glance at her. A dark-haired girl gives a half-smile but doesn't say a word. A guy with sand-colored hair nods once, distracted.
"Welcome to nowhere," the blond girl says. "I'm Mira. That's Juno, Dax, and you've met Kai."
Arelia swallows hard.
"Where am I?"
Mira's smile fades. "That's the question, isn't it?"
"Is this... a dream?"
Kai steps closer. His voice is low. "You think dreams leave bruises?"
Arelia looks down there's a scrape on her palm from when she fell.
"This isn't real," she whispers.
Kai leans in, his expression unreadable.
"Keep telling yourself that. We all did. At first."
---
A loud chime echoes in the sky-deep, metallic, unnatural.
Everyone stiffens.
Mira's voice turns serious. "We should get moving. New players attract rounds."
Arelia frowns. "Rounds?"
Juno finally speaks, quiet and cold. "You'll see."
Kai turns, tossing her a small backpack from the ground.
"Gear up. You'll need it."
"For what?"
His gaze flicks over her like a challenge.
"To survive."
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