The world around Kirin slowly fades into darkness, he can see his own blood splatter on the pavement, the groceries he got for his mother at Mrs. Allison's shop spilled on the hard concrete.
How did things come to this? He thought.
Just over an hour ago, he was shouting upstairs to his mum, asking does she need anything apart from the weekly groceries.
I guess this is karma for not paying attention to my surroundings.
A wrong turn and a twitch was all it took for a knife to be through his guts. He saw a hooded teen rummage through his groceries, before spitting at his dying body in disgust. 'Don't kids carry anything of worth anymore?'
Why would you go mugging a kid in the first place? Kirin thought. If you want something of worth rob a shop or something like that.
His breathing became rough, it felt like he was breathing down knives, it hurt.
I don't wanna die
I don't wanna die
I don't wanna die
Words swarmed his head, he was unable to think properly. His short, but enjoyable life flashed in front of his eyes.
Playing with his toy cars when he was one.
Learning how to cycle when he was six.
His mother's baking, his new bike, playing soccer with his dad, buying Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and insulting one another with people twice his age, building his first PC with an intel i5 9400f, GTX 1070Ti and 16 gigs of RAM, eagerly waiting for cyberpunk 2077 to release, only to be let down by another delay, and the most recent, watching Liverpool lift the Champion's league. Happy memories, stuff that makes him want to stay alive.
Then his vision turned red, his breathing ceased, and he died.
Kirin felt like he was falling, slowly falling to hell. What did I do to deserve hell? Kirin thought, that time I threw a Pepsi can into Mrs. Fuller's back garden? I apologised didn't I? Maybe the garden hopping I did with the boys? Or possibly throwing my brother, Adam's laptop out of the window when he kicked my PC?
He couldn't think of anything bad enough to land him in hell. Maybe God never liked him, so he sent him to hell straight away.
He didn't want to open his eyes, he slowly braced himself for the thud and pain of falling straight to the bottom.
The thud came, the pain didn't.
The ground, or whatever is underneath Kirin was soft, but smelly. Kirin took in the dirty air and got ready to open his eyes. Light flushed in, and his blurred vision slowly focused.
Instead of a fiery pit of doom, he found himself in a garbage bin. Weird, but certainly welcomed, he thought. Kirin climbed out of the bin and steadied himself on his feet.
He was in a back alley of some sorts, he straightened his clothes before eeping in surprise. He wasn't wearing the JJBA T-shirt, the black jeans, the black puffer-jacket, and grey Asics he wore when he died, instead he wore a Leather jacket, which he think doesn't suit him at all, some really futuristic looking jeans that looked like it came straight out of a Cyberpunk teaser. And not to mention the shoes, oh the shoes, they were exactly like the Nike self-lacing shoes from Back To the Future, disgusting really. The only thing that didn't change was his Air Jordan waistbag, or his "manly manbag" as he liked to call it.
But what surprised him the most was himself, he wasn't the "weak 14 years old roadman wannabe" anymore, he had the build of a child athlete, an actual good body, unlike the body he was cursed with before he died, a body that, no matter how much he ate or exercised, stayed the same premature 12 years old like.
His phone buzzed.
Kirin unzipped his waistbag and took out his phone, which by some miracle, was still intact.
20:57
Tuesday, 13th of May, 2045.
In his phone case he found $3,400. Great, he thought. I can use this money to sustain myself and buy some new clothes. Then he clicked the notification icon on his ancient Alcatel Pixi 3. It lead him to an unknown app by the name of M0TH3RBO4RD. His name and a passport photo he took a little while ago appeared on-screen, along with an apparent XP bar, and a "skill tree". His first thought when he saw this was This is a lot like the Watch Dogs 2 phone layout.
A message dinged on his phone.
"Congratulations, looks like you've successfully found the home page of our app."
He ignored it and continued browsing the app, his Pixi 3 ran faster than ever before, and was it him or did it have a better screen resolution?
A skill chain, kill count and damage counter were just one of the many features of the app. It looked like a game.
Another message popped up.
"Hey! It's not nice to ignore someone you know "3" "
Kirin sighed and opened the message.
"Welcome, to my game! Kirin Monroe. Let me introduce myself."
"I'm M0TH3RBO4RD, the game master. Here's my profile!"
A profile appeared on screen, a screenshot of an anime character as the profile picture, the name M0TH3RBO4RD and a maxed out XP bar and a skill tree with everything unlocked. It was a powerful profile.
"Let me explain what this game is about!"
"It's easy really, you do missions, take part in events, do some contracts and level up, once you level up you'll gain these things called "Booster Points" that you'll be able to apply to your skill tree. The skill tree is a really great piece of art, but I'll let you figure out what the skill tree is. The skill tree adapts to your style, so every skill is unique to you! The higher your level goes, the stronger you'll get. You can also individually level up your stats, like speed, strength, and stamina. To put it simply, this app helps you grow!"
Kirin chuckled. 'Haha, sweet!'
"Currently the only players are you, and sixteen other people scattered around the world, but you're able to recruit people by just tapping your phone against theirs's. But be careful, the others are also able to recruit, and hunt you down."
"Another thing you should be cautious about is that if anyone sees the XP, which are slime green balls on the ground. They'll also be sucked into this game."
"The last man standing gets whatever wish s/he wants fulfilled. Good luck, and have fun."
Kirin shut down his phone and put it back into his waistbag, if this really is 2045 in another world. Then he'd best not spend the rest of his life staring at his phone in a back alley.
He walked out and saw the neon lit streets of a certain city. He stopped a bypasser. 'Excuse me, what city, country and county is this?'
The lady cupped her ears. 'Sorry dear? Can you say that again?'
'What city, country and county is this?'
'San Francisco, California, The Confederate states of America hon.'
Kirin's mind was boggled. Didn't the Confederates lose to the Unionists in the American Civil war? Yep, no doubt about that.
He thanked the lady and went and found a bookstore, he walked into what seemed like a pod outside the building and waited. As he couldn't find an entrance. Another message buzzed his phone.
"Oh dear, looks like you don't have a coin. Try swiping your phone on the screen :)"
He tried it. The screen went haywire for a moment and then message saying "Transaction accepted" popped up on the screen. He selected the floor with [Great Value Books Bookstore and Cityview café] and the pod zoomed up.
The pod stopped and the two twin glass doors opened, Kirin stepped into what seemed like a department store full of books, never in his short life has he seen such a big bookstore, but the again never in his short life did he even go out of Britain, the furthest he went from the island was Northern Ireland to visit cousin Brian. So maybe massive bookstores were a everyday thing in America.
He went around looking for a history book and a map, it took a good thirty minutes until he found one. He paid with the money he had in his phone case and went to the Cityview café.
He flipped through his book.
The Confederates winning the Civil war.
Alabama being the capital state and Birmingham being the capital city.
Germany winning WW1 and WW2 against all odds.
The British Empire being reduced to Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England after the world wars.
The Greeks and Romans being the two world superpowers.
Imperial Japan still ruling over most of Asia.
The whole world was messed up, stuff that didn't happen in his world happened here, and stuff that happened in his world didn't happen here.
Ever so slowly the truth began to dawn on him. He can now hear police sirens in the distance, he now realised that everyone on the streets, in the shops, driving, walking or whatever they were doing, are all white. Not a single black, Asian, Mexican, or even Scottish person was seen. The neon lit towers, the rainbow lit golden gate bridge, and the futuristic electric cars were all just a façade, he can suddenly see the smoke raising up from beyond the tall buildings and aerial skywalks. He can see the wreck of cars in the distance. He wasn't in his world anymore, this is a new, alien world to him, and he probably can't survive another day.
"That's why you need me!" M0TH3RBO4RD's message said. "I'll help you survive..."