In The Middle (IDENTITY V FF)

1

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CHAPTER ONE:
Encounter

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"Nervous?" Beside the slightly shaking man spoke Emma, the Gardener, while they prepared themselves for the match.

He agreed without hesitation. "Even though I've done this countless of times, it still shakens me when I think about who's face I might see as the hunter." He looked at her. "Don't you get nervous too?"

Emma shrugged while maintaining her smile. "Sometimes."

Before the man could say more, they were taken to the site, which turned out to be the Red Church.

He spawned right in the middle of the church, where a cipher machine stood beside him. "Nice!" He whispered to himself and started to decode.

Around him he could see glowing shapes of his teammates, and after fifteen seconds, they went off.

Distracted, he accidentally missed a calibration point, which means the hunter now knows his location. "Dammit. Keep going, buddy, keep going..." He told himself, but he eventually paused when his heartbeat started to go faster and louder.

Shit, the hunter's near me!

He abandoned the cipher he was currently decoding and ran to one of the exits his guts told him to pass through, but his heartbeat only got louder.

There, he saw the hunter's shadow, and before he could see who the person clearly was, he turned on his heel and dashed for the other exit.

'Shit, shit, shit!'

Luckily, his heartbeat silenced as he ran farther from the church to find another cipher he could decode safely.

But he heard Emma's scream somewhere to his right, and the alarm in his head went off.

Don't move, I'm coming!

There were only two ciphers left to decode, but he took it upon himself to save Emma and leave the decoding to the rest of his teammates.

Her figure glowed red as she limped away from the hunter, but his vision reverted to his surroundings when he noticed something odd.

There were cameras, everywhere.

"Aesop!" The masked man turned to Emma who was running towards him, and it seemed like her leg was injured. "Its Joseph! Run!"

He did as she said and led her to one of the walls, quickly healing her to reduce their disadvantage when they would start running once again.

"He's close, you shouldn't heal me at this time!" Emma told him, but Aesop refused to stop binding her injured frame. "Aesop!"

"I'm finished! Run!" He grabbed her by the hand and ran around the maze constructed by the walls, vaulting over the broken windows to lose Joseph some more.

But their heartbeat ceased to silence themselves, telling them that Joseph was still on their tail.

They heard a loud alarm sound off in a distance, which indicated that the gates were now accessable, and he pulled Emma quickly as they passed by the church towards the isle where the exit gate stood in the centre.

"The other's must've passed through the other gate. Quick, start encoding the password while I'll try to lure him away!" Aesop told Emma while heading to where the hunter was.

Right when he turned to a corner, Aesop bumped into something, causing him to stumble back.

'Huh? I thought there wasn't a wall in here-'

"Well, well, well~" A sinister chuckle escaped from the 'wall' he bumped into, and he looked up to see his crystal blue eyes staring right into Aesop's soul.

"Joseph."

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My lazy butt wasn't in the mood to keep writing, so I'm stopping here, ahah.

Here's Chapter One, and don't worry, I'll make the next chapter a lot longer than this one. Sit tight for this is gonna be a long ride, loves.

-wu