New Days

[Ohm]

Alright.

Dude had no idea what to do, instead, he talked about a bunch of anime that he had watched so maybe when people are gunning for him he can talk them down by talking about Blue Eyes White Dragon or something like that.

It would make Julia run away, that's for sure. She was, actually, seconds away from doing that before she started hearing knocking on the door, and a voice outside.

She stiffened up and glanced from Marnie to Anime and back again. No one was moving at first.

So, with an shrug and a sigh, Julia moved to the table and started picking up her stuff.

[AnimeNerd]

She couldn’t think of a thing to say to interrupt. Her mind went totally blank. It was like the first time she stayed the night at her grandparents’ house, only the shower head kept flowing and she couldn’t figure out how to stop it.

Then, for a moment, her eyes flickered to the other girl, her expression shifting just enough that a question could be interpreted.

’Are you seeing this?’

Then someone else entered the chat.

The other girl looked at her. She looked at the other girl. She didn’t even bother looking towards the boy, instead glancing towards the door.

When the other girl started collecting her things, she moved again, propelling herself backwards, in the direction of the door that didn’t have a person behind it.

The hand not holding the gun put a finger up to her lips, and she didn’t try watching where she was going.

She was going to hit the wall.

And then she didn’t.

[[Continued…on the bridge?!]]

[WorldFat]

And Hiro heard someone. And he looked over in the general direction of the voice, before slowing rising.

He remained silent, just...rising slowly. Started collecting his things.

And put a hand over his gun.

[CardboardAirplane]

"Wo-hoah, feels kinda quiet in here. A little tense, if I say so myself."

Ilya let himself inside, sauntering around like it was just a normal day. He kept his eyes directly off of the other two, only keeping them in his peripherals.

"Hey, ya know, I'd relax and all of that stuff. You believe what Zeph said? I'm sure there's no problems here, it's just a simulation. No one die in the real world if you die in the simulation. That's silly."

Stopping to unzip the bag of ammo, he pulled out a random bullet and stared at it before shrugging. He held it out in the general direction of Julia and Hiro.

"Bullet for your thoughts?"

[Ohm]

Julia gripped her launcher with her right hand, and held her shield with the left. She was tempted to put it in front of her when the boy started to approach, and it took her a bit to recognise who it was and when she realized who it was, she almost slapped her forehead, only stopped by her hands being full.

It was Ilya, the vaporeon guy. Julia was surprised they allowed that, considering...

She was not going to think about that.

Julia's eyes moved to look at Marine who was... further away? Finger to her lips. Sliding back?

What the fuck was going on?

She turned her eyes back to Ilya holding a bullet out. A bullet for our thoughts?

Whaaaat?

Eyes back to where Marine was, and Julia almost did a double take. Marine was gone, skedaddled out when she wasn't watching. Outwardly, she shrugged and looked back at Ilya.

Inwardly? A lot of thoughts about how she ran out despite anime boy here and her building such a good rapport with her, and it would be a shame if, say, she remembered this when she got out of here.

She stared back at him, at the bullet he was holding out.

"Uh, sure! What do you want to know or talk about or, y'know, whatever?"

[WorldFat]

"Heh, bullet for your thoughts. Like...the penny?"

Hiro kinda...visibly became less tense. Maybe this guy was cool. Let's find out?

"Yeah, we're all cool in here."

[CardboardAirplane]

Ilya plastered a relaxed smile onto his face. He tossed the bullet over towards the two; it clattered against the floor, going a bit too far to the side and rolling away.

"Pfft, whoops. Dropped it."

He put his free hand in his hoodie pocket. Metal met his fingers as he felt the coin he got from Kirsten. Over and over his hand clenched and unclenched.

"Mmmmmm ya know, I ain't got a penny or anything, bullet is the closest thing I've got. Anyway, tell me your story, what's on your mind? Gotta be something interesting, it's been boring as hell; I thought there'd be more to this, kinda desperate to talk to someone. You wouldn't believe it, woke up in a limo and I've just been wandering an infinite parking lot since. Seriously, that thing goes on forever and ever."

His eyes wandered around the room as if curiously inspecting the area.

[Ohm]

The bullet flew by and clattered on the ground somewhere, sliding under chairs and tables, out of sight and almost out of mind for those present. Julia, however, was transfixed seeing this thing flying by, till the vaporeon boy that had entered spoke up.

He said a bunch of stuff. He woke up in a limo somewhere here, apparently an infinite parking lot? Julia was happy she hadn't woken up there- anyway, he hadn't seen anything else? Weird that he'd be carrying a single bullet in that case. She couldn't see anything on him other than his bag, did they really give him a single bullet? That'd be real mean after the stuff they'd given her, although she wasn't going to share it with him.

Still, the guy had been friendly so far so Julia did not see anything wrong with answering.

"Same as you, really. Nothing so far past this guy wanting to play Yu-Gi-Oh with some folks here." She said, gesturing with her left shield in the general direction of AnimeBoy.

"Maybe if you want to watch Bleach or something, you can ask him and he'd hook you up." She said with a snort and a small shake of her head, big eyes staring back at the others.

"Other than that, I haven't seen anything special, and neither did Marine when she was here."

Julia stepped a bit closer to where Marine had been and looked around in an exaggerated fashion, lifting her right hand, with the launcher obscuring a bit of her vision, above her eyes and leaning slightly forward.

"No idea where she went."

[CardboardAirplane]

He shot a sideways glance towards Hiro, expression unreadable for a moment before morphing into a playful smugness.

He whipped his head around as Julia walked away. Time froze as he realised there was no more putting things off. If anything were to transpire, it'd have to be now.

Then he walked up to Julia before flexing his wrist and jamming the blade into her throat.

He closed his eyes, attempting to distance himself from what he was doing, except that left only the sounds to hyperfocus on. It wasn't better in any way.

The same thought he had as he wandered the parking lot alone started to get louder in his head. A startling thought, he felt, if he were to have heard it said out loud. When you strip it down to the most basic way of explaining it, seeing death and then afterwards deciding he needed to cause more of it came across as unnatural.

But that could be shoved aside; none of this was natural in the first place. What mattered was this: Ilya knew what he wanted, so he'd try and get it.

[Ohm]

There was little reaction at first from Julia as Vaporeon boy stepped up, she figured, maybe, he was about to ask if she'd like to look for that bullet or anime reqs or some shit. She was still miming looking for Marine and only turned towards him to ask what was up when something just hit her.

A gasp escaped her in the moment, it was all she could vocalize in the moment, and when she struggled to make any other sounds, she couldn't as it all hurt. Momentarily her hands tried to intercept as the blade dug in, but no dice there. Her hands shook in place near the blade, right holding onto it. her legs shook as well, but she couldn't move.

Her eyes widened as big as they could. His was closed. Didn't have the decency to see what he was doing.

She tried to think of anything she could do, but her mind was racing so fast through so many things at once.

She slackened in his grasp, slowly, but surely sputtering out some splatters of blood. That stopped once his blade was removed and the blood poured out of the hole created instead. Her mind blank as her head dropped in place and any semblance of life gone.

She never had a chance, did she?

A24: JULIA EDWARDS

[WorldFat]

Hiro saw it happen, and it was all...too...fast. Hiro froze for a moment, before taking his gun up, and stepping back multiple steps.

"Holy...!"

Hiro blindly let a shot ring out, without aiming, surely missing the murderer. He keeps his eyes on the murderer, scrambling for an exit.

[CardboardAirplane]

As he pulled the knife out, he stopped. For a moment, he could mistaken it as the world itself chugging as a huge lag spike struck, Cyber Reality collapsing around him in an instant. It wasn't all that different from reality if he was honest. While he's being honest, he expected a lot more of an immediate "Oh God, what have I done?" feeling, but that didn't show up in the second afterwards. Or the next second. Or the one after that. Maybe if he actually looked down at the dead body of a classmate, it'd start rushing in.

The popping sound of gunfire brought him back from unresponsiveness and he looked towards Hiro. He found no words despite how much he searched for something to say, the weird bout of haziness making him run at like, 70% capacity. The only sound he dragged out from within was a quiet, mirthless chuckle.

Just, he never thought of himself as a negative person. It would've been nice if there was anything to be happy about. Sure, he could think about the numbers, but math never made anyone happy.

Ilya saw him running, but when he tried to move, all he could afford was a few heavy steps in the other direction.

[WorldFat]

Hiros ears rung - that thing was loud! Louder than he expected.

He could not put his eyes anywhere but the killer - and began feeling for a way out..

((And when he found it, he very swiftly left the room.))

[CardboardAirplane]

His movement only stopped once Hiro was out of sight. He only then forced himself to look at what he's done.

Ilya would've thought he could've felt something good out of this. Like, emotionally, maybe there'd be relief in knowing things worked without much problem, or the desire to pat himself on the back for beating someone who seriously outclassed him in terms of equipment. Perhaps a feeling of safety knowing he could better defend himself or for the jitters to die down. More logically, the fact that another part of the competition was out of the running. Her belongings—his now—which could help further advance his game.

Nausea was the only thing that followed, glad that finally showed up. He'd take bloodlust over this honestly; at least then he'd avoid that feeling of "Oh no, I'm looking at a corpse". Whatever brought smoother sailing from here. It'd be a huge dick move to enjoy it, but he was pretty sure he already crossed a line by stabbing someone in the throat, so take your pick.

He let out a deep breath, a hand on his head as he slid the ammo bag off his shoulders and fell into a seat, elbows down onto the table and head propped onto his hand. He waited until the desire to throw up left him before he turned towards Julia. But it wasn't her anymore; it was just a... Nah. It still felt like Julia.

"Dawww, what's this?" He whispered as he looked over the grenade launcher and the instruction manual. "Not coal this year, it seems..."

Continue the checklist. Sort out his possessions, check. Pack what he could, check. Trade the speargun for the grenade launcher, that too. Decide against the shield despite how awesome it sounded, unfortunately. While Ilya was rooting around like a raccoon—or like a Zigzagoon if he was really going to be a huge douche about it—he might as well down the chocolate milk too.

"Gave her the cooler stuff, didn'tcha? Guess you're more of a catgirl person then." He continued muttering as he stood up and walked off.

What a hostage situation this was.

(Ilya Arkadi continued at Don’t break anyone’s heart, they only have one. Break their bones, they have 206)