The next day after the game were relatively normal for most of the remaining players. Tedros, Ramon, and Ines attended Mateo's funeral. Closed casket, seeing as what was left of his body was only described as 'extremely distressing'. The trio knew Mateo's parents saw it, and his mother was still in a state of shock over it. Once the burial was over, the three sat outside the hall hosting refreshments, each holding a glass of orange juice.
"So, what I'm hearing is that Mateo killed a God?" Tedros asked as he took a sip and looked across the street. Nothing in particular, just people going about their days. Did they know about whatever the gods were planning? Did they know the Gods at all? Did they have a plan for them anyway? Probably not.
"Yep." Ramon confirmed. "He didn't leave a burning building, and I guess he managed to keep him in it."
"Well…he followed my plan." Tedros sighed. "Now we need to ask how we stay alive. Because I imagine the games getting harder from here on out."
"Wait, it's getting harder?" Ramon asked.
"Could be. Mateo makes ten deaths, and every death game I read amps up around that point."
"You think they'd base it on death game comics?" Ines asked, slightly wary of that idea.
"Well, maybe they come from other universes with a lot of death game comics, I don't know." Tedros shrugged.
"I think they're just sadistic." Ines sighed.
Blair sat in her room, actually trying to draw. Her portfolio from school was probably enough to get into at least one art school of her choice, but she didn't have much motivation to draw since Alison died. The plan was always to go to the same art school, start an art career and marry cute and/or dangerous boys to assist in art. Bonus points if they were bisexual for what Alison called 'obvious reasons', even if Blair found it slightly creepy how she'd always go on about them. But since the plan was stopped, she didn't draw anything that wasn't a weapon. She remembered her thoughts when Alison first died. She heard tales of the suffering artist since she got into art, so a small part of her was hoping she'd use the grief to make something great as a small tradeoff. But nothing happened. She stared at the empty page again. She tried drawing something, and it was another knife. Dammit, she could already summon a knife! Draw something casual, hands! Something to take her mind off things!
But a knock on the door was heard. Both of her parents were at work, so it was up to her. And if it was another political campaigner, maybe she'd practice her knife skills on them. No, no, that's too far. Eh, depended on the party.
But when she opened the door, it was Kwaku.
"Uhh…hey, how's it going?" She asked.
"I think it's going fine." Kwaku responded. He was calm, his hands were behind his back. Whenever she saw him, he always gave a vibe he would casually stop any attempts to attack him. "But I've been asked to discuss your performance in the latest game."
"Sure?" Blair asked. "You want to discuss this inside?"
"Not needed, this will be quick." Kwaku assured. "Now, you competed in the last game, correct?"
"Correct." Blair nodded slowly. She had a creeping feeling on where he was going with this, but stayed calm for now.
"And yet, you and your teammate, Sybil, only disarmed one bomb."
"Correct." Blair repeated.
"Who disarmed it?" He asked.
Oh no. She figured they already knew, otherwise he'd probably be at Sybil's house. No point in lying.
"It was…Sybil." She struggled to get the words out, but hopefully she got bonus points for honesty.
"I thought as much." Kwaku said solemnly. "Well, since you were inactive during the last game, you are now expected to compete in the next one. I'll see you there."
He walked off. No teleportation or light portals or whatever else. What's up with that, looking less suspicious in the suburbs? Regardless, she tried calling Sybil. She didn't have her number, as Sybil thought a student having it gave weird vibes. But Blair was a graduate from high school now, so surely that wasn't an issue? So she tracked down a social media account and sent a friend request. Sybil accepted a little later, and Blair called straight after.
"Yo." Sybil said, sounding like she just woke up.
"Um, did I wake you up?" Blair asked.
"Nah, I've just been playing video games for the last fourteen hours. Anyway, this a strategy meeting?"
"Yeah, I've just been told I have to compete in the next game." She said. "Because I didn't compete last time."
There was a groan heard at the other end of the line, then a sipping sound.
"Sure, I'll be there." Sybil finally said. "That's what…partners do, or whatever."
Eric was at work, watching nothing happen. And that was the worst of working days. See, annoying kids spilling ice cream was a bad moment that he had to clean up, but hey, it was something. He could look back and have an opinion on it. What opinion could he have on the way the sky currently looks? Six out of ten, too many clouds. And they were too white, the junkyard was humid as hell and needed rain yesterday. Okay, now what? Rate the individual clouds while waiting for something to do?
But all of a sudden, his phone buzzed. Screw it, he was checking it. His boss complained recently about how hard getting staff to show up here was, so even if he got caught there wouldn't be any issues.
'Top 10 Group Chat' was the notification.
Okay, what? Who made this? He opened it to see what was going on, and the group chat was made by a new account, called 'Xaawoopwoop68' a few messages were already in the chat, the first by Tedros verified account asking what was going on.
'Hey, we need to make a group chat because we lost the teleportation' Xaawo typed. 'So now this chat is for updates on where the games are being held. Leaving is punishable by limb loss. Also, I need you to download an app for the next game'
The next message was a link to a .EXE file just called 'coolapp.EXE'
Elijah downloaded it, and when it opened it was just a black screen with the words 'join game' underneath, and when he tried tapping the screen he just got the message 'game currently unavailable'
So the chat was a mild distraction. Well, back to work.