Game of Shadows by Adrian King1

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor The Gamer. I own nothing, really.

Chapter 1

I died.

As simple as that. It wasn't an accident. Nor was I murdered. I was just unlucky. I had cancer. Lung cancer to be exact. The funny thing was, if you have that type of humor at least, that I had never smoked, ever. I had never tried and never intended to. But fate's a bitch, it seems.

So, I lived for three years on a constant pity party. My family suffered, my friends suffered, everyone that was relatively close to me entered a depressive mood with just seeing me. It was maddening, seriously. I was going to die anyway, wasn't that enough? Apparently not, I had to see the sadness and hurt in their expressions every single time. Don't get me wrong, at the start it was somewhat comforting that they cared so much. But as time passed it just made me sick. No pun intended.

So, I distracted myself. I dove face first into books after an aunt of mine bought one for me. And so, it started, my addiction to any type of entertainment. Months passed with my head buried in books, mostly fantasy but sometimes I chose something else just for a change.

After that came tv programs, from cartoons to normal series, films (or movies, whatever floats your boat) and even documentaries. After that I delved into anime after seeing Naruto. Naturally the next step was manga and their Korean and Chinese counterparts. As I kept going deeper and deeper, I ended up reading Light Novels. And I stayed between all those options until what was my last year of life started. That's when I took my last step into the abyss.

Fan Fiction.

Even I don't know how I ended up in that God forsaken place. But I did and I loved every second of that hell hole. Well... not every second. Some people have a couple of problems in the head. I mean, I get it, some people are into Harry x Draco. It's ok. I don't like it at all, but it's ok. However, when you realize that there're people that write Harry x Snape you understand that there's not something like too much for people. There's no limit for humanity's imagination, for good or bad. Bad in this case, if you asked me.

And like that in a couple of paragraphs I described what were my escape mechanisms. My only breath of air on the sea of pity that surrounded me. But I had a time limit and I reached it eventually. I was kind of sad that I wouldn't get to know how a lot of stories ended. As for everything else, well. Three years had made it so that I had tied all the knots. I had had long chats with every family member and friend that I could, more than once with most of them. Everything that had to be said was told.

People must have thought I was crazy with how calmly I took to my death. But really, what was I supposed to do? Cry to sleep every day and make things worse for everyone? Nu huh. There were better things to do with my time. Like watch videos of rats fighting for food with Linkin Park music. That was worth every second. I did cry myself to sleep the first month or so, I'll admit.

They could also have thought that because sometimes I chuckled to myself thinking that some ROB would take me to another world, preferably one from an anime or something. But alas, truck-kun didn't think I was worthy of being a chosen one apparently.

So, I died. There was nothing spectacular about it. There was no me seeing the light or feeling my soul leave my body. There was no doors of heaven or stairs to hell. Nothing. Everything just was and then everything just wasn't. Like when you fall asleep. You don't even notice that you do but you obviously do.

Except... I noticed. Because I was very much aware of the nothingness that surrounded me. It wasn't quite the darkness that was described sometimes. Or maybe it was. It was a bit confusing. It was dark, yes, but I saw... can you see without eyes? I didn't even know if I had eyes or not. I couldn't tell, really. Back to the point. It was like there were different colored lights everywhere, but when I tried to focus on one it was only darkness. All lights where dark in color, barely noticeable from the pitch-black background.