Chereads / The Immortals Arcane Lands / Chapter 2 - The Game

Chapter 2 - The Game

"Boo!" She turned and shot out her fist at the voice, determined to put an end to the sorry person who had attempted to scare her.

A hand stopped her incoming fist before she could cause any damage.

Esmeralda growled when she sighted Vincent

"Geez, would you calm the hell down. I finished shelving the rest of the books and came to see why you were taking your precious time to drop one book" Vincent said as he held her fist a few centimetres from his face

She yanked her hand back and glared at him "serves you right for trying to scare me"

"Whatever, drop the book and let's go. Unlike you I actually have a life outside school"

"Shut up and look, have you ever noticed that hallway?" Esmeralda hissed

"What hallw-" Vincent froze when he saw what she was talking about "uhh, no, I've never seen it...C'mon " he began heading towards it.

Esmeralda grabbed his sleeve, effectively halting his steps "what do you think you're doing?!" Vincent pried her hand off his sleeve

"I'm going to check it out,  aren't you curious?" Esmeralda stared at him like he'd grown a second head

"Of course I'm curious you idiot! But anything could be down there, we could even find a body for all we know. Haven't you heard the phrase curiosity killed the cat?!"

"Of course I have cookie, but the saying goes satisfaction brought it back. Why are you even... wait, could it be....no way, the great Esmeralda Reinhart is afraid of a mere dark hallway?"

"W-what?! Of course not, let's go!" Vincent stepped aside to let her lead

"ladies first"

Esmeralda took the lead and stepped further into the dark hallway. She whipped out her phone and turned on her flashlight illuminating the dark place. There were a few shelves in sight that held little if no books at all. It all looked like a scene from a haunted house.

They went deeper into the hallway, still finding nothing strange.  Esmeralda sighed, fed up "look there's nothing here can we go back now" Vincent sighed as well

"Okay, okay don't get your panties in a twist we can..." Esmeralda turned to face him when he suddenly stopped talking, she cocked a brow

"What?"

"T-there's something c-crawling up m-my leg!" Vincent jumped, hitting a bookshelf just as Esmeralda faced her flashlight on him, seeing a rat scuttle away. She burst out laughing

"Calm down cry baby, it's just a rat"

"Its not funny!!!" Esmeralda laughed harder, tears clouding her vision

"Sure it isn't"

Thump!

Esmeralda paused and looked up at Vincent "what was that?" She turned her flashlight to the source and saw a book laying on the floor. The strange thing was that it wasn't exactly a book

"Its hollow?" Vincent said as he gaped at it shocked

"No look there's something in it" Esmeralda stepped towards it and pulled out an old cassette. Vincent whistled

"Wow, that thing must be ancient! No one uses VCR anymore, wanna bet the library has one?"

Esmeralda gave him a sceptical look "you actually wanna see what's on it?"

"Yeah, come on. We've come this far, don't chicken out on me now, can't you just live a little?"

"Fine, but hurry. I have to get back home "

Vincent led her to a part of the library filled with old machines, they walked for a while before they stopped at a small rusty one

"This is it?"

Vincent nodded and picked up the odd device, he connected to a computer before pressing a button on it. A faint whirring sound could be heard. He pulled out the cassette

"Well, here goes nothing"

He put the cassette into a small opening on the VCR  and the screen of the computer lit up, showing an hourglass indicating it was reading the cassette. After a few minutes if waiting a soft tune began playing from.

Vincent and Esmeralda looked up to see  some words floating on the screen, they  came together at the centre to form 'The Immortal's Arcane Lands' with 'start' highlighted at the bottom

"Its a game?! Just perfect! We wasted all this time for a game, and it doesn't even look good!" Vincent placed a hand on her shoulder to calm her down.

Beep beep

The sound alerted them back to the computer screen, the whole look of the game started morphing and soon it looked like any 21st century game. Esmeralda stared at it baffled

"Ok, no, no way! What the heck was that?!"

"Not sure, but now I'm even more curious " Vincent moved his hand to click start but Esmeralda stopped him

"Don't you dare!"

"What? I was just gonna click start, the game looks okay!"

Game start activated, preparing lands

A voice rang out, Vincent and Esmeralda turned to the source sharply.

"Are you just fucking with me now?! Voice activation, really?!" She yelled in anger as the screen began flashing different colours continuously

"Ugh, turn it off!" Vincent pressed the off button but nothing happened. He pressed it again....still nothing

"Its not going off!"

The building suddenly shook as a blinding white light filled the room

.....

.....

...

"Hey!! You kids done yet!!" The voice of the guard who had yet to finally lock up the school beacuse of the 'delinquents serving time' as his head had said echoed through the empty library. He called out again and shrugged

"Anyone in here?! Oh well, they must've gone already"

He turned on his heel and left whistling a tune and locking up the school, ignorant to the strange sparks coming off the computers and the bodies lying unmoving.