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Hotaru's P.O.V
"Five players are needed", Paca starts saying while taking out a box, " you'll be drawn from a set of straws, that I stayed up rather late making for you. The people who been happened to be-", Paca was interrupted by Kudō yelling. "Screw your straws, why don't you shove them up your-", Kudō was also interrupted by Paca, who looks like he wasn't having Kudō's yelling. "What's that? Are you saying that you wish to retire? In that case you'll be disqualified", he said snapping his fingers.
"Which means that I have no choice but to imprison in the white room on the lowest floor of genome tower. You'll remain alone until the others reach a hundred million views, so you might spend eternity waiting in that hidden, silent, cramped room.", Paca said. My expression showed no sign of fear or discomfort. However, my body feels like it could burst from all this pressure. I feel terrified, not wanting to die like this.
From the looks of it, the others weren't handling the situation well too. Kudō, Onigasaki, and Oshigiri pinned him down. No you idiots, if you do that you could be sent away to that creepy white room. "Too far, that was an excessively poor taste, wouldn't you agree?", Onigasaki asked. If glares could kill, mister Paca would have been disintegrated. "One word of advice, you would all do well to comprehend and respect the reality of what the situation in which you're currently involved", how can we comprehend this?! We were literally kidnapped and forced to play this insane game to survive?! "Injury and death are actual possibilities because you're taking part in a real life let's play. You're familiar with how the offline world works". Paca's left eye started to glow red, sending shivers down my spine. "You know there aren't any resets or save points", Paca said sadistically.
Paca soon gets up, brushing off the dust. "Now then, let's get back to the process of deciding the players for stage 2", he announced. Iride then raised his hand and cheerfully asked, "Paca! Before you start, are we allowed to volunteer to play?". My face went from exotic expression to a surprised one. Who in their god damn mind would volunteer this. Anyways less likely chance I get chosen.
━━━━━━━ Time skip ━━━━━━━
I was chosen. I sweat-dropped. I was leaning on the wall away from the other players. The other players were Iride, Sarayashiki, Oshigiri, and Kudō. I sighed.
Iride was being insulted by Sarayashiki and Kudō. However, Iride didn't see bothered by it, how is he so optimistic? I shook my head to regain my focus. "In any case, we got no choice now", Oshigiri stated. "Yeah let's get to it", Iride agreed. Iride, Sarayashiki, and Oshigiri put their fingers on the coin. I sighed and said, "so we really are doing this?", Iride nodded excitedly. And with that, I pushed off the wall and put my finger on the coin.
We were all ready except one. We all looked at Kudō confusingly. "Hey what are you doing?", Oshigiri asked. Kudō only sighed while rubbing the back of his head. "You think I'm going to play along? You are all idiots. I'm not doing what that jerk tells me to do, and who the hell plays ouji boards, do I look like a grade school brat?" Kudō snapped. I looked away and sighed for like the fiftieth time today. "No, but you certainly act like one", Oshigiri countered. Kudō then slammed his hand on the table, "huh?" He said.I put my hand on Oshigiri's chest, indicating to back off before anything gets worse. All he did was turn red and took my hand off his chest. Did he get sick all of a sudden? "Is it that big of a deal?", we all look at Iride, "how about this, you don't have to play with us but put your finger tip on it. Please we owe you big". Thank god for your outgoing, sociable attitude. Kudō stills to disagreed, but Iride said he will eat all of his peppers in exchange. Yeah, like that would work. I rolled my eyes.
It actually work, Kudō really does act like a grade school kid. We all had our fingers on the coin, all of sudden it started to move. The coined spelled out "water please". "Im pretty sure I saw a water faucet in the hallway earlier", Oshigiri said about to leave but Sarayashiki grabbed his wrist". "No don't remove your finger, we have to do everything in the proper order or the spirit won't leave and possess you", she exclaimed. Then, Oshigiri face turned light read again, how sick is he? "Well the vase here has water in it", I commented. I reached for the vase with my free hand, took the flowers out, and then pour a small amount of water on the board. The coin moved and said "yes". I felt chills run down my back, while I put the the vase back down. The coin moved again, it wants a friend? Oh hell no I'm befriending a ghost. No way, nope, not me. That thought sent shivers down my spine.
"Did this suddenly turn into life counseling?", Sarayashiki questioned. "So it doesn't have any friends?", Iride asked with a sad tone. "Friends aren't something you can just get, you have to make them", Oshigiri remarked. "Spoken like someone who doesn't have any", Kudō argued. The two ten had another glare off. "Enough already, cut it out you two", Sarayashiki demanded. I sighed, at the three who started to argue.
"Well I'll be your friend, how's that sound? My name is Akatsuki Iride", Iride spike. My eyes widened at his boldness. "Woah, what the hell are you doing!", Sarayashiki exclaimed. The coin moved to the place where it said "yes". This idiot...I facepalmed. It looked like Sarayashiki couldn't control her anger anymore because she started spitting insults at Iride.
"One wish to go", Oshigiri stated. The coin then moved and spelled, "Akatsuki Iride". We were all confused, but we were snapped out of our thoughts when Iride suddenly fell on the floor. "Hey what's going on now?", Sarayashiki questioned. "I'm not sure but I'm feeling like I'm being pulled by something", Iride said while he was being tugged on again. I started to sweat, what the hell is happening. "Ok , what do we do now?", Kudō asked. But, Sarayashiki just started stuttering and sweating. "Hey! Spooky occult girl", Kudō tried to snap her back to reality. Kudō then called her "useless", which caused Sarayashiki to grab his face and stutter out nonsense. We all then turned our attention back to Iride, who was the edge of the windowsill. "Hey, what floor are we on?", Kudō asked.
I don't know why but my body started moving. I ran after Iride, and grabbed his hand. However, the force was too strong. I was still holding onto Iride when the force pulled him once again. "Behind you there is someone there", Iride started. Then the force pulled him and me out of the window. I shut my eyes tightly, waiting to fall to my death. Iride then pulled me close to his chest and hugged me tightly. My eyes soon let out a few, small tears.
Good bye cruel world.
━━━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━━━ Oya, oya, oya. Here with another update. I'm trying to update at least once a week, but online school is big hard. I'm still adjusting to this new life style, so just bare with me :) That's all for now, stay safe out there!
