Game Over (Discontinued )

2 - Traumatic Way To Start The Game

Deep breaths weren’t enough to calm Arma now. The moment he stepped into the Pendle’s Center, he was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people within the area. Pendle’s Center wasn’t as much different as Wind Crest but in Wind Crest there was about twenty or thirty contestants taking part in random customised game. In Pendle however, Arma felt dizzy that there were roughly seventy to ninety people inside the transparent dome-shaped force field. This was separated from the audience who were seated in a circle, surrounding the force field and hovering above it. Arma felt a churning sensation in his stomach to find even the audience was greater in number.

“You alright there Arma?” A voice suddenly perked up and the tall lad turned his attention to his red haired child hood friend, Phoenix. She was looking at him with those concerned baby blue eyes and for some reason; Arma felt a bit better seeing them so he simply nodded in reassurance. This didn’t convince her that much but fortunately for Arma, she didn’t have the chance press on any further as she usually does as Zatch, Stabs and Caterpillar dragged her away from the five representatives and to the stairway which lead to the audience seats.

Watching her go reluctantly, Arma felt the nerves hitting back at him at full force, especially when he stuck out like a sore thumb with his towering height. It always had given him unwanted attention and now seeing about fifty to millions of eyes settling on him as if he was under a spotlight was enough to make him feel nauseous.

“T-There’s so many p-p-people here huh?” Euphino mused out loud, breaking Arma’s chain of thoughts as the tall lad turned to Euphino, only to feel slightly taken aback to find this whimsical trolling fool was as white as sheet. Every ounce of his irritating and eccentric charm was gone and was replaced with a terrified human version of a white mouse trembling furiously. Somehow, watching him being under more pressure was reassuring to the tall lad. Strange...

“Well I won’t deny that I feel nervous too...” Sophie stated out in a light voice even though she looked more composed than any one of them with the exception of Ophelia. The only giveaway of her serene and relaxed composure though, was that she was fidgeting her fingers nonstop as some sort of technique to calm herself down.

“Since this is everyone’s first time ever going to the real thing I am not surprised why all of you are looking as if you are having second thoughts.” Ophelia spoke in an offhand tone but surprisingly, in a way that was not so insulting but in a way as if reassurance. Arma frowned lightly as he recalled Ophelia had a special case of schizophrenia, in which the voices she hears in her head were actually stolen memories of people during the Taboo, gaining some sort of conscious. Not many knew of this in real life except Arma and his allies. Even the doctor who treats Ophelia with her condition was unaware that the real cause of her schizophrenia disorder.

Initially when all of them except Zessica first met her, Ophelia was a wild and ruthless girl under the influences of the voices. However, these days both Stabs and Zessica mentioned that the voices seemed to be getting quieter, which explained a lot of Ophelia’s more docile personality these days. Even Sophie, who was somehow always ending up in crossfire between her and Ophelia noted that they seem to get along without trying to aim at each other’s necks for a longer period of time. Suddenly, Ophelia looked around, as if looking for something until gained everyone’s attention.

“By the way, where’s those two little brats?” For a very long time, the other three stared at Ophelia in silence, their mind grown numb and blank. Sure enough, as they looked around, both Zessica and Alois was nowhere to be found. Now, everyone was already aware that Zessica had a very special ability to disappear from them without any intentions and recently they became aware how Alois had no sense of direction at all which inevitably gets him lost in bizarre places, but for both of them to use these special skills of theirs at the most important meeting and at the same time was like an apocalypse just waiting to happen.