King of Diamonds

Part II

I woke up inside some kind of hotel room, the ones with the uncomfortable beds and weird images that are meant to decorate the wall. A vase with fresh flowers adorned the night stand, and its smell was so intense that I had to turn to the other side.

Bright daylight was falling through cream-colored curtains and as I got up to take a look outside, I noticed that my wounds had been taken care of. They still hurt, but every scar had been cleansed, every cut bandaged.

The advantage of being a citizen.

This at least made me hope that Chishiya would be in a stable condition too, and that whoever did that knew how to treat such severe wounds. Who was that, though? Other citizens? Someone even higher than that? God?

Not that I believed in any gods or something, but the Borderlands were such a weird and surreal place that anything could be possible. It was a place where blimps flew through the sky and crashed down in a mess of burning wreckage, where lasers shot down from nowhere to kill people and where games decided over life and death. And most of all... the Borderlands brought me to Chishiya.

That cold-hearted blonde who could outsmart anyone else had somehow managed to capture my heart entirely, even though he was known to use people for his own benefit. Chishiya didn't back off from sacrificing others, and he barely flinched when another died so he could move on.

He had used me, too, more than once, I believe. And yet I had fallen for him, instead of feeling hatred as I should. To be close to him I had allowed him to manipulate me, and for some reason, I was still breathing. It probably surprised Chishiya as well.

Up to this day, I wasn't sure of his feelings regarding me. Did he love me? Unlikely. Did he even feel sympathy for me? Or was I still just a puppet that decided to stay with him in a world that only meant death?

Such a stupid decision. I could have gone home to the place I knew and loved, to the people I cared for. People who cared for me in return. And yet I stood here, glancing out of a window that led into a patio with hundreds of other windows like mine. Every window meant another citizen, another life that would continue here in the Borderlands.

One of these windows had to be Chishiya's room. I hoped so badly that he was still alive, and that he would recover from his wounds. It would crush my already impaired heart to know he didn't even survive becoming a citizen, leaving me all alone even though the only reason for me to stay was he.

What would I do in this world if he wasn't here, would I even care to live on a single day longer?

I knew that death was the only certainty here. My chance to return to the real world had passed by, and now I would face games until I took my very last breath. It had been my own choice, and still it felt as if I had been forced to. As if Chishiya was still manipulating me without even knowing.

Behind some of the other windows, I could make out other faces. A few waved, some turned away, while most of them just stayed where they were and continued to stare out. I didn't even need to check the door to know it was locked. No sounds came from the other side of the door and no one could be seen down in the patio. We were all locked in our rooms, but for what? And how long?

It made sense that all the windows faced the inner yard, though. If this was the home for the citizens, then it probably provided electricity, food and all the conveniences that I had missed so much during the first stage. And such a building would have attracted attention to players if it was illuminated at night. But if the outside had no windows at all, no one could take a look at the inside. It probably appeared to be just another half-rotten building, covered in plants as nature had taken back what belonged to her.