Chasing Shadows: An Alice In Borderlands Fanfic (Completed)

Chapter One: A Game of Death

I followed my husband down the rabbithole.

And I killed him.

It was just a game. Just a little card game. But, in the end, I killed my husband.

Destitute, I lay in the dirt of an old, abandoned warehouse. Well, everything was abandoned. All of Tokyo was devoid of people...

...or so I thought.

Laying there, I was ready to die. To join him in death, but that wasn't going to happen.

Someone kicked me with a quiet, "Hey. You alive?" His voice was calm, bored even.

I grunted and curled into a ball. "Just let me die."

The dirt beside me scuffled as the person squatted beside me. "Did you lose a friend?"

I scrunched up my face as grief tore through my heart. "My husband." Tears welled in my eyes.

"I'm sorry."

"Why?" I asked myself more than him. "Why did he die? It was only a game."

"We don't know. Nobody knows, but if you come with me, maybe we'll find out."

I peeked at him through my tears. Japanese, longish blonde locks, and a smile large enough to hide anything.

"I'm Shuntaro Chishiya." He held out his hand. I took it, and he pulled me to my feet.

"Daikichi Jen. My husband is..." I stopped. Dead. My husband is dead. "His name was Daikichi Karube."

"Did you get your card?" he asked suddenly.

"Card?" I had no idea what he was talking about.

"When you win, you get a card. Like a playing card. And your visa also updates."

"Visa? What do you mean?"

"That's why we play the games. To extend our visas and to get cards. We don't know why we are here or why we are forced to play the games, but we speculate if we collect all fifty-two cards, we can leave and go home. Until then, we can only stay a limited time until our visas expire. You have to win another game to extend your stay."

"And if I don't play, and it expires?"

He shrugged. "You die."

***

Chishiya led me to a bright spot. It was like a beacon. I guess if I'd bothered to look, I'd have found it myself. The Beach, it was called, a sprawling resort with a cavernous hotel. I knew it from my Tokyo, but it hadn't been named The Beach.

In back of the hotel was a large common area packed with people. I went from seeing no one to almost feeling like I was back home...minus my husband, of course. There were two pools filled with swimmers and surrounded by sunbathers.

"This is where everyone hangs out," Chishiya said.

I scanned the crowd, noting the undertones of fear among the revelry. I saw people laughing but also sobbing when they thought no one was watching. Sex abounded, and couples did it freely on every possible surface.

And then I saw the men with the guns.

Circling the party goers and threading through the crowds were men with fierce visages. They carried assault rifles pointed at the sky. One in particular caught my eye. He was dressed all in black with long, black hair pulled back from his face. Steel pierced his eyebrows and nose and lower lip. He talked animatedly to a strange tattooed man and raised his rifle to the sky with a whoop.

"That's Niragi," Chishiya said. "Stay far away from him. He's a psychopath." He sounded disinterested as he spoke.

At that moment, the man in question rolled his eyes my way. His gaze locked with mine. His lips turned up into a sneer, and he waggled his tongue at me. It was pierced as well. As his eyes caught mine, the world stopped moving. My heart pounded in my ears. Anxiety gripped me, telling me to flee.

This man would be my death.