The lights had gone out and it was quite dark. Someone's feet slowly slipped from the bed to the cold floor. The girl lifted herself off her bed and gently walked towards the door of her room.
Biting her lips with squinted eyes, she placed her hand on the doorknob and held it downwards. The door opened on the movement of her hand slowly and gently pulling it backwards.
Her scheme ended on a successful note. She was able to open the door without making even the slightest bit of noise and also closed it behind her quietly.
With tiptoed movement, she scurried off to a room that was a little further ahead of hers. She looked sideways in case someone she was expecting though prayed not to see was coming. Her hand pushed the door open.
Despite how careful she thought she had been, the door slightly creaked as if trying to inform the house that someone was sneaking in the middle of the night.
She bit her lips harder and hurriedly disappeared behind the door, trying to be more careful this time, and quietly closed the door.
The torch in her hand flickered with bright rays of light. She pointed it in the direction of the bed in the room.
There he lay as silent as ever. Not moving even a limb to assure her that he would still wake up.
She walked towards the bed and crouched beside it. She unstrapped the bag she had on her back the entire time and placed it on the ground in front of her. She unzipped it and her hands reached for something familiar. She pulled it out to reveal an edged tool having two pivoting blades. It was simply called scissors.
She inhaled deeply.
"I'm doing this for all of us, Max," She whispered in a shaky voice. If her mother was not ready to take any action in trying to bring her son out of the game, she would gladly do so in her stead. Kayla stared at the scissors for a while and at Max's face which had been invaded by black vines.
"Stay in there. I'll be bringing you out."
She clipped the scissors against a bunch of vines sticking to the corner of his head. Applying a little bit of pressure, she tried cutting through the vines but to no avail.
Adding a little more force, she pressed the blades hard against the vines but they refused to budge.
She took the scissors away from his face and stared at him for a minute. She took in a deep breath and attempted once again to cut through but this time starting with just a single vine.
Finally and much to her satisfaction, the vine did cut off. A smile spread on her lips. Perhaps when she would be done cutting through each vine, Max would wake up...
The vine that had been detached from his head and was left dangling from the VR Google had strangely and speedily elongated in Kayla's direction. She was slow to notice its movement until when the single vine had wrapped itself around her neck.
She choked under its burning and piercing grip. Sweat had gathered on her face in less than a second and she was struggling to free herself but all her efforts seemed to be in vain.
The vine persistently kept on choking her with the eagerness to squeeze every bit of life out of her. Though Kayla was able to let out a muffled scream for help through her struggles against it.
Not until she had endured a few seconds of endless suffocation did she hear her name.
"Kayla!"
Mrs. Addison was shocked at the bones at the scene displayed before her eyes.
*. *. *.
"Welcome to the sands of time."
It took Max a while to be able to process what that meant. Although his thoughts were cut short when more Sages started popping out from every corner and attacking him, just exactly as it had happened 30 seconds earlier.
' Computer, what is the sands of time?' Max thought in question amidst his current situation.
[ Game Location: Sands of time ]
[ The Sands of Time is a place where time controls itself and goes out of hand most of the time. A game location majorly known for confusing players and making them exhaust their chances of two lives without even knowing and also making players end game rounds without having any additional kills. Time is manhandled and rewinds after every 30 seconds of every action that takes place. Location fools players to think time is rewound so there are still many more seconds ahead but all are nothing but fantasy. Game duration moves forward without any interruptions while the sands of time make you think it moves back and forth ]
[ Player must note that actions done 30 seconds before rewind should not be repeated once rewind takes place or else one might end up doing things in the will of the sands of time ]
[To successfully stop loss of time control, the core of the location must be found and destroyed ]
' Understood.' Max thought.
Perhaps being the special one wasn't so bad after all. Though the system gave him some advantages over other players, it expected him to solve problems himself with the information provided. Hard tasks were also given to him to complete before every game round would elapse.
The Sages continued attacking him. Soon, the rewind was over and the fight progressed 30 seconds further. Though this game round was the most stressful and the most difficult one he so far had to deal with, he managed to cope until the next rewind happened.
Just as when the first rewind had taken place, both he and the group of Sages had retraced their steps 30 seconds into the past. Taking the information the system had provided to him into mind, Max portrayed an entirely different set of skills against the Sage army. The real Sage who was lost in the group of clones he had created and was yet to be discovered by Max was unaware of how the game location worked. He used the same skills as exactly as before without leaving any part out.
"You seem to be lost," Max smiled. He unleashed a large pool of lava that poured out from the ground in front of him and flowed toward his opponent. The Sages had thought they would be able to escape but due to how fast the attack was half of the clones were consumed in the bubbling flames.
Not that Max was near anything stronger than Sage. His use of intelligence he had was what gave him, a killer of fifty-six players an edge over the man who had a hundred and forty-nine kills. Sage was very much ignorant of the way the location worked and was yet to understand it.
At that moment, the third rewind occurred. Max decided to use the lava pool attack earlier this time as Sage was more vulnerable at that time. The pool of flames aggressively washed through the ground and headed toward the unsuspecting Sages.
Successfully, the clones and even the real Sage were wiped out. The rewind once more drifted 30 seconds into the past and Sage didn't respawn. This simply meant he had just a life remaining when he had fought against Max. So things continued for Max, unaffected by the sands of time's timeline. His fights continued even as he made his way in search of the core of the sands of time.