Looking around, Alesha could tell that no one was having any fun. Though the party music was deafening and the lights seemed to fit the concept of a "concert," and there was even a band playing on a stage off to one side, nothing about the crowd was jovial. It was a strange juxtaposition. A few small groups of people yelled at each other in attempts to communicate over the music, but most attempted to stand alone. It was a crowd of people where no one wanted to interact, but were forced next to each other by the constraints of the available space; even though it was quite a large area, perhaps as large as a football field, the sheer number of occupants was enough to make it so that it didn't feel spacious at all.
Alesha yelped as someone stepped on her tail. She turned around and picked it up, deciding to hug it to her chest. The length of her tail's four end feathers was annoying. Now that she'd picked her tail up, at least it wouldn't get stepped on again, but now she was having to try to keep the feathers out of other people's faces as she navigated through the crowd. She wasn't entirely successful. A few people had to swat the feathers away from their heads, and gave her dirty looks. One even cursed and spat on the ground towards her.
What was that for? She thought. It's not like I can control whether I have a tail or not, and I'm pretty sure you'd rather have a feather in your face than trip over my tail. And I sure as hell don't want you to step on it.
Alesha kept meandering through the crowd in an attempt to find someplace to stand. Unlike the few concerts and dances she'd been to, however, there was no "front end" of the floor in which eager attendees concentrated themselves. Instead, the area was more or less filled evenly with participants, none of whom were having fun -- actually, there was one weirdo over there, dancing eagerly to the beat. They weren't any good at dancing, of course.
The whole thing felt somehow like a funeral. Even though the music was loud, the lights were bright and moved quickly to the beat, and the band even tried to initiate competition between attendees, only that one person danced. Everyone else either stood quietly or shouted unhappily at one another in attempts to be heard over the music.
What was going on? What was this concert, and why was no one happy to be here? Why did all the attendees have the same sigil floating around their necks? And why was that one, singular person having fun, when no one else was? The longer she was there, the more questions Alesha had.
One thing that upset her more than she expected it to was that, despite wandering around for a while, she had yet to find anyone who appeared to be anything other than human. If she was the only nonhuman participant, what did that mean for her? Would she face discrimination? She consoled herself by reminding herself of how big the concert's field was, and that since it was dark, it was entirely possible that she'd simply missed seeing the nonhuman attendees.
About 20 minutes after she had arrived, the band wrapped up their final song and all the lights went out. No one moved.
A spotlight lit up the stage and several monitors turned on, hovering and moving to convenient places to display a frontal view of the stage to those who weren't close enough to see it clearly from where they stood. Alesha moved a little so she could see the closest monitor. Though she didn't know what was going on, she had an inkling that she was about to find out.
Artificial applause played from the speakers as a tall figure with a digitigrade gait walked out onto the stage. A thin tail decorated with swooping, flaring spikes reminiscent of flames swished back and forth with each step, accompanied by the rhythmic click of a decorative cane. It wore a bright red ringleader's coat with twin tails, a navy bowtie, a white shirt with a high, open collar and skin-tight navy leggings. The tall creature lifted a navy top hat from its head, smiled and bowed.
Chills went down Alesha's spine. Involuntarily, her tail shuddered, flicking her tail feathers into the back of someone's head -- luckily for Alesha, they didn't notice.
Unluckily for Alesha, she recognized the demon on the stage.
She remembered that wide, frog-llike, shark-toothed smile and that dashing red ringleader's coat. She remembered that bare head and those malevolent, beady purple eyes.
"Good evening, participants!" The demon's voice boomed through the arena, coming from the speakers. His words were smooth and articulate, even dignified, but that only made Alesha more afraid. "It is an honor to stand before you tonight as the host and creator of these esteemed games. I am Zorhellian Fa Qinfeerus, though the spectators of my games may better know me as The Trickster Devil or Jekyll's Entertainer!"
Her suspicions confirmed, Alesha gulped. This was the same demon she'd seen in a painting during her last summoning -- and the Chaos Demon that Udon had warned her was famous for his cruel, sadistic games. She'd hoped never to meet him. Now, she was a participant in one of his games?!
She mentally cursed at the man who'd summoned her here, and at the System for good measure.