"M—maybe we should just see if there is another way, you know?" Ran was freaked out by the fact that the screen said that who played before had just finished slightly before they got there. In other words, this person, DEV, was still here!
"Jeez, what are you talking about Ran? What other way do we have—you got us here, we need you to get us all out." Ann patted his shoulder to comfort him, but she was startled by all of this as well. No matter what, now Ran felt that a presence had locked onto him… which was exactly what Queenie said.
"But… you play games better than me. If this is the only way for us to leave, then you playing gives us a higher chance of getting there."
"Sure but, everything started with you… no offense." She then stood next to him as a sign of reassurance and encouragement.
"Since you're our connection to this place, you playing is probably safer and more in line with the kind of path they, whoever they are, had set for us. We have no choices here, and the only way to have a chance to escape is by, unfortunately, doing what they say. And again… no offense, but that means you Ran." She poked his chest lightly, but it felt like he was being stabbed—it was a wake up call.
Then, she hooked her arm around his shoulder as she said, "plus whether you like it or not, your name's origin seems connected to this place somehow. You might even be able to find something out here. Is that not what you want?" She was voicing out a question, but her eyes had already commanded an answer.
"Of course! Of course I want that, but not if it means putting everyone here in danger, including myself. Not to mention, don't you guys feel like something has been watching us this whole time?" He eyed them quizzaciously, and his face had an expression that showed an expectation for reaffirmation.
Ann looked around, feeling nothing before looking towards the rest as well. They all shook their heads, even Queenie who was the only one who actually felt the same thing. But, she didn't say so, and according to her, it was in consideration for a personal matter that she did not want to involve everyone in.
"Nah, we don't feel anything, but what does that have to do with playing," Ann asked.
"Nothing. I just… feel this place is more dangerous than it looks, is all."
The tower, this whole time, had not attacked once, even when Ann had attacked a part of it in the form of a gate. And the black flames—they felt no heat coming from it. It could be said that they were either just decorative, and or they served some other purpose. So while it was accurate to say it wasn't dangerous on the surface, saying it couldn't be dangerous on any deeper layer wasn't.
And so, with no other choice, Ran clicked on the plus icon and created a new save file.
Now, three options appeared in front of him. Above the options, the heading said, "please pick the difficulty level".
The first being the "fake" difficulty, which was blue in color. It was captioned with, "for those who still believe they control their own fate", which was… weird. Well weird isn't exactly the right word, more like it was unfitting.
The second was the "real" difficulty, which was red in color. Strangely, it also had a skull on the top-left corner of the options border. It was captioned with, "trust me, you don't want to pick this difficulty."
This… the fuck was this shit!? The first one was weird enough, but this was just ridiculous. Ran gulped another heap of saliva as he immediately picked the "fake" difficulty. This was not a joke, even the game was telling him not to pick the red option, so why would he?
However, just like a couple times before, an error popped up.
"Error. Please install the IRL DLC to continue."
Ran was dubious of this and felt as if he had been played. Why even let it show up if it isn't even an option? He weeped for a second before hesitantly clicking "ok" and then pressing the "real" difficulty.
"Are you sure you want to play with this difficulty?"
It then showed a "yes" and "no" option under it, and Ran could only click "yes" with a tear still in his eye.
"Are you really sure?"
Ran: "..."
He took a deep breath before clicking yes again. Damn games asking him again, why even bother?
"Are you really really—"
"FUCK OFF!" By now, Ran was at a tipping point; this game just kept teasing him. He rapidly pressed the screen with his finger consecutively and in the end, the game asked him a total of SIXTEEN times! See, I even put sixteen in all caps; clearly this must be merely for dramatic effect and has no deeper significance. Clearly…
By the end, almost everyone was on the ground laughing their asses off as Ran got angry at the repeated questions. Obviously, Bob was the only one standing besides Ran and the reason was just that he didn't understand. What is so funny, he thought to himself as he looked at everyone. Even Fluffy was mimicking the rest as a continuous meor of repeatedly ascending and descending pitch spewed out of her mouth.
Even the game seemed in on the joke as nothing happened until after everyone calmed down. Afterwards, as everyone placed their attention back on the screen all the colors on the screen abruptly converged into the middle before disappearing completely, leaving it completely black. On it, though it was a holographic screen, you could still see Rans reflection. This was quite unsettling to him and he looked away until the tower suddenly started shaking.
"What's going on!? Why is the tower shaking!?"
"I don't know! Maybe 'cause it was mad at the people who were laughing!?"
"Why are the both of you screaming? And stop projecting."
"We're not screaming!"
Everyone was panicking again and Ran and Queenie began screaming for no reason other than to be dramatic; they even flailed their arms in the air a little bit.
Then, the shaking stilled and the whole place was silent, even the rushing of the river was nowhere to be found.
After a second of silence, a loud roar made the tower shake again and the screen lit up again. Everyone looked at it as they covered their ears.
On the screen was seemingly a planet. It was fairly normal; it had all kinds of landscapes like plains, hills, mountains, deserts, forests, as well as two large holes. It also had a lot of water and the planet was teeming with life. Then, a box appeared on the bottom left-hand corner of the screen and text began typing itself out.
"On this planet, there were two kinds of life. Those without souls, and those with souls. The ones without them lived ordinary lives; they eat, sleep, procreate, and die. All of which were natural processes."
"Those with souls however, actually lived similar lives in a broad sense. They ate, slept, procreated, and died all the same. Only, the process was what really set the two apart."
"Except, for some reason, those without souls would often feud with those of the other kind! They would fall from the strange sky in droves; they're not of this world! If there were a million soulful creatures, then two million of these soulless creatures would appear and rampage across the planet, trying to eradicate their counterparts. It's an absolute tragedy and a waste of resources!"
Though there wasn't any voice acting, the text sort of felt kind of vibrant and full of life. Of course, that was just you reading the text out loud in your head, but it was as if certain characteristics were transmitted through the game somehow and the way it was intended to be read was the way you actually read it.
And on the screen, as he read the text, the planet was zoomed in. He could see all manner of creatures with souls, including all the ones he had met so far.
Though most of them were of different species, they all banded together when these strange creatures, the one on the title screen, dropped down and attacked them tirelessly. The way he saw it, the foreigners seem to have some kind of vendetta against the home team. They did anything in their power to kill the soulful, even if it meant self-destruction. That was something they engaged a lot in to maximize the damage.
It was strange though. These creatures—the video on the screen was very realistic, almost as if he was watching a recording, but the creatures weren't the same. Rather, they appeared to be almost two dimensional, like paper cutouts. Honestly, it was kind of unnerving. All it would take would be some popsicle sticks stuck to the back of them and it would complete the aesthetic.
"This came upon the soulful people every year, killing tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands every time. And it would be like this until one day…" and the planet seemed to fast forward as Ran watched these people die for more to be born only for them to die in the same way as their predecessors did. It was a vicious cycle, but then it all suddenly came to a stop.
"Until one day… They came and woke me up."
The screen then turned black once again.