Chasing Shadows: An Alice In Borderlands Fanfic (Completed)

Chapter 19: Wolf and Sheep (Jen 2.0)

I sat at a small conference table along with five other players, all of us ready for the final game.

When Niragi slipped into the seat beside me and lay a hand on my knee, I slapped him away. In response he trailed his tongue along his ruined bottom lip showing me his tongue piercing.

"Still not impressed." I looked away with a roll of my eyes.

Niragi's body was burned severely from an attack carried out by Chishiya, but he somehow managed to survive by jumping in the pool at the Beach and even medicate himself before appearing here. No one wanted him around but we also couldn't stop him from participating in the final game.

This bastard started harassing me my first night at the Beach. He attempted to rape me in the room Chishiya had set me up in, but I kicked him so hard in the junk he told me later he pissed blood for days. But he refused to leave me alone.

He was just as bad to my friend Usagi,who I met along with her partner Arisu during an earlier game. Usagi and Arisu refused to acknowledge they were in a relationship, but their closeness told me otherwise, even if they didn't see it themselves.

Arisu sat to my right with Usagi on his other side. Chishiya and his friend Kuina sat opposite them.

Before Niragi could harass me further, the flickering computer screens that comprised the walls of the game room cleared to reveal a familiar face. Mira.

"Welcome to the final game," she said. She went over the rules then a small deck of cards appeared in the middle of the table. "Arisu, you had the lowest number heart card, so you pick the card that will determine the final game." Chishiya had stolen all the collected cards from the Beach and handed out heart cards at the request of Mira. Arisu refused to even touch the seven of hearts he'd won four days into his stay in Borderland. Instead, he had chosen the two of hearts.

Arisu spread the cards out and drew one from the deck, setting it face up on the table.

"Ah, the Queen of Hearts. Dealer's choice. Excellent." A door opened off to the side. "Please exit through the door to play the final game."

We got up and filed through, Niragi lagging behind everyone. He was in a tremendous amount of pain. Good. He fucking deserved it.

As soon as we entered the cavernous space, Arisu froze. We all stood in an indoor botanical garden. Before us was a table with six headsets. Another table was filled with weapons: knives, hammers, and a set of hedge cutters.

"Arisu?" Usagi pulled at his arm trying to get him to move. "What's wrong?"

"Th-the seven of hearts game," was all he managed to stutter, but it was enough. We all knew what he meant. The game where he'd lost his friends, including Karube, who looked the same as my husband and shared his name. But my husband was safe back in Tokyo. His friend was not.

"It's a heart game," I said. "There has to be a solution where we all survive."

Niragi scoffed. "If I get the wolf, that'll be the last you see me."

"If you get the wolf," I said, "I'm chasing you down with these hedge clippers and cutting your fucking head off."

We already knew the basics of the game from Arisu's story. Everyone wears a headset, which has an earpiece and goggles with sophisticated eye movement trackers and is connected to an explosive collar. One person is randomly chosen to be the wolf at the start. All others are designated sheep. If the wolf makes eye contact with a sheep, that sheep becomes the wolf. A newly-made sheep cannot become a wolf again until three seconds has passed. At the end of the game, only the wolf wins. The sheep die. It's a bloody horrible game.