Chapter Text
He woke up with a start.
Who was he? Where was he? How did he get here?
He thought about the first question for a moment. Scar, his name was Scar Goodtimes, a university student studying architecture. He lived in an apartment a few bus stops away from his college campus with a stray cat he adopted from the streets named Jellie, he had vex and elven blood running through his veins, but too watered down by human genes to physically manifest, and one of his biggest dreams was to become an Imagineer for Disney.
Now onto question number two: where was he? Scar tried to sit up,
BAM!
“OW!” But instead, hit his head on… something? He held his hands before him until they met with an invisible surface, a… glass cover? Scar tried moving his head to look around. He could feel a plush pillow under his head, and everywhere he looked, he could see flowers and trees, essentially forming a wall around him, but besides the small stone statues all around him, there wasn’t much else to Scar’s enclosure.
He tried pushing on the glass lid keeping him on the bedding, but it wouldn’t budge! He tried shoving it, kicking it, but the glass was undeterred. Scar was stuck there under the glass in this suffocatingly small casket, and breathing felt as if it was becoming harder and harder. He has to get out, but how? HOW? He had nothing on him he could use, no tools, no communication devices, nothing!
He…
He had to calm down.
Scar remembers reading from somewhere that breathing harder will just waste oxygen. He needs to calm down. What was that exercise again? Five things… Five things…
Five things Scar can see… is the glass case and his hands grasping at it (thankfully still intact), the light shining down on him, the leaves of the trees around him, thriving despite the concrete ceiling above, and if he twisted around, Scar could see 7 stone statues surrounding him, each no taller than his hip if he were standing.
Four things he can hear at the moment are his heartbeat, his breathing, the rustling of his clothes, and his hands pounding on the glass.
Scar closes his eyes and tries to even his breathing.
Three things he can feel… He can feel the clothes on his person and the way his brown hair fell over his face, the plush base beneath his body, and the glass surface underneath his fingertips.
Two things he can smell are his morning breath and his deodorant,
And one thing he can taste was his saliva.
Scar released a breath with newfound serenity, and opened his eyes.
Black.
Scar shot up.
“Wha-?” BAM! “OW!”
Scar rubbed the sore spot on his forehead from where it had hit the glass cover, and opened his eyes once more.
He still saw black; black, empty eyes that were like all-encompassing voids, staring down at him in surprise. While Scar had been distracted with his calming exercise, he’d been found by someone else.
A small sliver of hope sparks within his chest.
“Please help me! I’m stuck!” Scar yells, hoping that somehow, his voice could reach the other’s ears. The dirty-blonde-haired stranger looked to be in thought for a moment, before crouching down to the same level as the glass casket’s base, examining something Scar hadn’t noticed before: a large padlock, large enough that the smaller male needed both of his hands to carry it.
And that’s when Scar noticed the red. Not from the stranger’s open-back sweater, but from the pair of wings attached to his back. Mainly red with orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple feathers as they reached their tips. The wings the brunette saw must have been at least four times his arm span, maybe even five. He knew it was rude to stare, but he couldn’t help himself! He’s never met someone with strong enough avian genes in their blood to be born with wings! Most avians he’s met either only had feathered ears or tails, almost hollow bones, talons, or a severe allergic reaction to most food. maybe two of those traits at once, but never all four, especially not with large wings protruding from their back.
Scar’s suddenly brought out of his thoughts when the padlock keeping him trapped suddenly hits the floor with a heavy thud and the glass lid swings away. He shoots up with a relieved gasp.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, thank you!” Scar told them with a smile as he hugged the man, the other unsure how to respond to the sudden contact, only giving Scar a pat on the back. “I was so scared I’d be stuck there forever!” the brunette says after finally breaking away.
The blonde seemed to smile at his relief.
“Well, I’m glad I could help with that, though, we should probably regroup with the others now.” Scar’s expression morphs into one of surprise.
“Others? There were other people stuck in glass caskets like me?!”
“Well, not in glass caskets,” the blond says itching the back of his neck. “I’ll tell you on the way.”
Scar nods as he swings his legs over the side of the casket, the long grass tickling his ankles right above where his shoes ended. After laying still for so long only to suddenly move with all their might, his legs ached at the thought of walking.
“Are your legs okay?” the blonde asks as if reading Scar’s mind. Scar looks up to meet his onyx eyes.
“Just asleep! Just give ‘em a moment to wake up…” he says with a forced smile. He didn’t want to burden his new acquaintance with the fact that he needed crutches to walk painlessly. He could tell the avian didn’t buy the act, however, when he stood up and turned his back to Scar.
“Wait here.”
And before Scar can utter a word, the blonde crawls through a square hole that had been hidden in leaves, and he was gone. The elf-vex hybrid decides to stay put, but after five minutes have passed without a single peep, Scar begins to worry.
What if the other got lost?
What if they were hurt?
What if they decided to leave him behind?
“I can practically hear you overthinking in there!”
“AH!” Scar falls off the casket’s platform, landing in the grass with a dull thud and groan. “Ow…”
“Did you fall over…?” He hears the avian ask from the other side of the wall.
“Um… no…?” He’s only slightly startled when something long and thin is thrown through the hole, landing only a few feet away from Scar. It takes the brunette a few moments to figure out what was so familiar about it.
“My crutch!”
“I passed by it earlier while I was looking for other people and just connected the dots,” the blonde man explains as he crawls through the hole. He stands up to brush the dust off his pants. “Ryan Goodtimes, eh?” he says, looking at the nametag looped around the handle. “What a strange name.”
Scar sputters.
“It’s a great family name!” he defends. “It just means that when you’re with me, the good times never end!”
“Right,” he says as if unimpressed. The two are silent as Scar adjusts his forearm crutch.
“What’s your name then?” he asks with a playful tone.
“Grian,” the avian replies simply.
“Grian…?” The other lets out a defeated sigh.
“Dreamslayer.”
“Pfft-! Haha!” Scar can’t help but giggle some more at the blonde- Grian’s defeated expression.
“C’mon,” he says, beckoning for Scar to follow him.
“Dreamslayer? Dreamslayer! Your last name’s Dreamslayer?!” Scar laughs as he follows behind Grian, the avian already crawling through the other side of the hole. “And you call my family name weird! Aren’t you a little hypocrite?”
“I’m not little! In fact, I’m quite average for an avian!”
“I’ve met enough avian hybrids to know that you’re far below average!” Scar quips back as Grian helps drag him through the hole despite their squabble.
“W-Well, I bet most avian hybrids you’ve met are too human to manifest wings!” the blonde continued on with his arms crossed and a pout on his face.
Scar stared at him for a bit before soon succumbing to his chuckles.
“What’s so funny?” Grian asks.
“You’re quite adorable!” Grian says nothing and it takes Scar a few seconds to realize what it is he just said.
“E-Er- Platonically! Observationally!” He sputters as Grian laughs. “Factually!”
“Nice save, Ryan.” Now it was Scar’s turn to scowl.
“Please don’t call me that. It makes me think I’m in trouble.” This seems to pique Grian’s interest.
“Oh? Then what should I call you?”
“Scar!” the brunette answers. “That’s what all my friends call me.” And despite the avian teasing his name not long ago, he seems to take this information in stride.
“Alright then, Scar. Let’s go meet up with the others,” he says, looking away from Scar as he walks away.
“Right!”
The two walk through the decrepit stone halls side by side for a while, taking turns left and right seemingly at random, going up and down flights of stairs, and at certain points, even going through secret passageways hidden behind stone panels and triggered by levers disguised as torches (how had Grian even found them…?). Eventually, Scar asks,
“So… about the others…?”
“Myself, alongside two others, were the first people to awaken- or at the very least, the first to be able to escape our little fairy tale-themed escape room,”
“Fairy tale-themed-?” Scar stops as the realization becomes evident on his face.
“Yep,”
“Snow White and the Seven Dwarves!” He cheers.
“That’s right.”
“It all makes so much sense now!”
“Moving on, the three of us ended up finding each other in this place on the surface we call Spawn, and after that, we spent the next hour trying to find everyone,” Grian explains. “By the way, do you remember how you got there?”
Scar shakes his head sheepishly.
“I’ve been trying to remember, but all I can recall is going to bed last night and suddenly, *poof!* there I was in Snow White’s casket!” the brunette answers with exaggerated hand movements. “How about everyone else? Does anyone else remember how they ended up here?”
“That’s been the case for everyone else as well, unfortunately.” Grian replies with a tired sigh, but visibly became more alert as the two approach a stairway leading up. “Ah, we’re almost there!”
After ascending for a minute or two, Scar and Grian finally exit the labyrinth of stone and were finally greeted by the world above: a lush dark oak forest with large, looming trees that could almost block out the sky with the sheer amount of leaves each had. Scar couldn’t help but marvel at the sight of them, couldn’t help but pause and breathe in the smell of nature, couldn’t help but wonder how long it took for each tree to grow,
“Don’t get distracted on me yet, Goodtimes,” Grian teases, beckoning him to follow him down a path pathed by circular stones. Scar continues to follow Grian through the forest until they come across a clearing filled with people . There were many standing in the open space, certainly more than 15 or 20, but probably no more than 50. Some were comforting the people beside them while others were examining the area around them, two people even fiddling around with something at the base of a statue.
And that’s when Scar properly noticed it. Once more, he stood frozen in awe as he drank up every detail of it. Made of the same material used in ancient Greek sculptures, this statue was of a towering humanoid dressed in a cloak and regal wear decorated with patterns of eyes, wings, and purple rhinestones. The figure had multiple hands, all holding various objects, such as a staff, a book, a block of… something, and other objects Scar couldn’t identify, as well as making hand gestures with whatever hands were free. A crown of horns decorated their head and hiding away their eyes was a mask covering half their face with, made of some sort of purple gemstone, an insignia of a square with two disconnected corners, only formed whole by two dots in place of the missing angles of the shape.
What he was most mesmerized about, however, were their wings. Scar could see a total of seven pairs from where he stood, four pairs sprouting from the figure’s back and three pairs in place of where ears should be. Made of thin stone frames filled with glass of various shades of purple, the statue's wings cast lights of the same rich hues onto the people below, bathing them in a complex mosaic.
“Grian!” And Scar’s pulled out of his trance by the call of the blonde’s name. Waving to the two was a woman with two-toned brown hair dressed in a black hoodie. What instantly caught his eyes, however, was her wings. Unlike Grian’s avian pair, hers were pearlescent blue moth wings with gold accents and moon patterns, and instead of winged ears, she had a matching pair of fluffy antennae. As she approached them, Scar felt a little overwhelmed as the entire crowd turned to look at them. “You found someone else!” the woman cheers with much relief. Scar is a little stunned in place at the sight of her white pupils in black scleras.
“Took a while, but we’re here now,” Grian replies as he pulls Scar closer to the group, but as the two step over a line of flat round pedestals circling the area, the stones began glowing.
"Uh-!"
"What's going on?!" Someone, a yellow-eyed girl with brown hair shouts.
Without much fanfare, the glowing light dims, and suddenly-
CLANK!
"What was that?!" a woman with pink hair yells.
"The lock keeping the book locked just snapped open," informed one of the people that had been messing with the object at the statue's feet, a white-haired male wearing a cold mask.
"Well, with the new guy, I suppose that makes 30 of us…" says a brunette in a black and yellow shirt. "A bit much for what was basically a kidnapping, but it rounds off."
"What the heck…?" Mutters the other person that had been messing with the book, a ginger-haired woman. "Most of these pages are fake!" she bemoans, flipping through the leather-bound book.
"More like basically all of it," the white-haired man says, disappointed. "What writing it does have is not even in English."
"Let me take a look at it," Grian insists as he and Scar push through the crowd of people.
"Be my guest," the woman says.
Scar looks over Grian's shoulder as the blonde examines it with furrowed brows. The brunette could immediately understand the frustration of the others. Whatever script was used for this book was not script he's ever seen before, but much to all their surprise,
"It's Galactic," Grian informs.
"Galactic?"
"I've never heard of such a language before," comments a brunette with a green streak in his hair.
"It's widely unknown since most people are physically unable of speaking it," answers a brunette in a purple coat and goggles. "It is said to be the language of the universe," he continues, writing in a journal as he talks.
"Does anyone here know how to read it?" asks a woman with dark hair dressed in overalls.
"Um, I know how to read it… vaguely," Grian replies after a bit, hiding his face as he leans closer to the book. He clears his throat and all ears were on him. "Welcome to Ever Life," he reads aloud. "The fourth iteration of the Life Games."
"The Life Games?"
"Is that some kind of reality TV show?" Scar asks.
"If it is, I've never heard of it." A lanky moustached male replies.
"What's a reality TV show?" He hears a male cosplaying as a red version of Doomguy ask. Several people in the crowd stare at him bewildered.
"For the rest of the game, all of you will inhabit this 1000x1000 block area-"
"Block… area?"
"Meters basically. I think."
"-where you will have to survive against the elements, mobs, and…" Grian falls silent.
"And… what…?" a blonde man with yellow feathered ears asks.
Grian clears his throat.
"And each other as well."
Scar feels his heart drop to his stomach.
"WHAT?!
"UHHHH,"
"What's a mob…?"
"What does it mean 'each other'?!"
"Fuck this shit I'm out!" an angry man wearing a tattered suit with ram horns announces.
"You can't just leave, man!" A masked man yells with a heavy Mexican accent.
"I can and I will." The horned man retorts. "I refuse to stand in the same place as 29 other potential killers-"
"Weren't you listening?" A new voice interjects. It came from a cyan-haired man who looked as cold as he sounded. Scar would be lying if he said he didn't feel a little intimidated, almost as if he were standing against something unnatural. "Whoever put us here called this a game, and if it's a game, that means it has rules."
"And if you break those rules," the two-toned brunette continues for him, "who knows what might happen to you? You could end up dead where you stand."
Everyone in the crowd looked just as unsettled as they did when Grian read that line, but now for a different reason entirely.
"Better be at risk than be dead from the get-go" the Doomguy Cosplayer finished.
For a moment, the horned man looks at all of them with an expression that makes him look as though he'd bitten a lemon, but after a while, he relents with an annoyed "Fine" and steps away from the circle of stones but doesn't rejoin the group completely. Scar assumes that it's good enough for Grian as the avian continues reading.
"In the compartment above, you will find a set of communicators, one for each player of the game." Everyone looks up.
…
"What compartment?" Scar hears the man with the green streak ask, and as if on cue, the stone block underneath the statue's feet slides open with a groan, scaring everyone back.
"Hey look! Communicators!" The two-toned brunette says with a gasp, grabbing one of the small metal boxes inside, and after a brief look, throwing it to someone in the crowd.
"Sausage, catch!" With a yelp, a clean-shaven man catches the box hurling his way.
Sausage? And here Scar thought he was stuck with the odd nickname.
"Help me hand these out, Scott!" The girl says. The scary man from earlier, who Scar assumed is Scott, obliges with her request. "Keep reading, Gri!"
With a nod, the blonde continues.
"As the name implies, these handheld devices will help you communicate over long distances with other players and will even provide additional information. It is vital each of you carry one."
"Here's your communicator!" Scar looks up from the book to see the brunette woman holding out one of the metal boxes to him.
"Thank you, um…"
"Pearl," she introduces with a smile.
"Thank you, Pearl!" Taking the communicator from her, Scar examines the object. It looked like a Gameboy if a Gameboy had a keyboard instead of the usual buttons. It was fairly pain-looking, with only a white case and what looked like a thumb pad on the corner of the front.
"The twist about this iteration of the game is that each of you will be randomly assigned a set of abilities, strengths, and weaknesses based on fairy tales that will affect you both positively and negatively in combat and daily life."
This was all making Scar's head hurt. It's being explained to him to his face, but he's still struggling to understand what it all means. How is this all possible?! How does whoever of whatever is in charge of the game change something as ingrained as a person’s personality and mental makeup?
"Your assigned fairy tale role will remain with you for the rest of your time in the game and cannot be changed, so it is best you come to understand your assigned abilities and functions to avoid an early death."
Death…
Scar turns to look at all the others. Everyone’s faces showed various degrees of fear and concern. He shudders at the thought that at any moment, any one of them could die.
"In addition to your fairy tale roles, we are also bringing back the life system from the second game iteration, Last Life, where each of you will have a randomized amount of lives that can be distinguished by the colour of your eyes and clothes: 6 to 4 lives is dark green, 3 lives is lime green, 2 lives is yellow, and one life is red."
"Thank the void we can get more than one life!" A brunette male dressed in orange with goggles (If Scar had a dollar for every peculiar goggled brunette wearing a coat, he’d have two dollars, which isn’t much, but the fact that it’s happened twice is a little strange.)
"We still have limited respawns, though," the yellow-eyed girl reminds dejectedly.
Scar finds himself confused.
"Respawn?"
"What's that?" A bandanna-wearing blonde asks. A few people look at him strangely.
"Y'know, respawn? Coming back after dying?" a black-haired man with red-framed sunglasses says, almost as if it's obvious.
"Wait wait wait, like, revival?!" A wolf hybrid (judging from the ears and tail) asks. "How is that even possible?!"
"I hope this doesn't come off as rude, but did you grow up in a hardcore server or something?" A purple-haired woman asked.
"Server?"
At this point the crowd was looking at each other in three groups: the yellow-eyed girl, the two goggle-wearing men, the woman in overalls, the horned man, the masked man, the red-framed sunglasses-wearing male, the purple-haired woman, and a few others who didn't seem confused by the concept of Respawn, the pink-haired woman, the white-haired man, the brunette in the black and yellow shirt, the brunette with the green streak, the moustached man, the blonde with feathered ears, the man named Sausage, the blonde bandana-wearing male, the wolf hybrid, Scar himself, and a few others who looked unfamiliar with the word, while Scott, Pearl, and the Doomguy cosplayer looked neutral in all of this.
"Not to get in the way of the conversation, but can I keep reading?" Grian asks, breaking everyone's bubble.
"Right, right,"
"Carry on," the man in the black and yellow shirt says.
"As I was reading, 'When you become red, your behaviour will take a more hostile and irrational turn'"
"Oh no…"
"However, if you die as a red, you will not return. The game ends when only one person is left standing. Alongside randomized lives- " Grian keeps reading, preventing anyone else from voicing their fear. "-you will also have the ability to give one of your lives to another player, so although you'll lose a life, you could pacify a red player by bringing them back into yellow I instead."
"That's good news…" the overalls-wearing girl comments, sounding unsure of herself.
"The last function brought over from Last Life is the infamous Boogeyman system. At the beginning of every week, one or more non-red players will be secretly chosen as the Boogeyman where your goal is to kill one non-red player by the end of the week to be cured."
"No!" Scar can feel his stomach twist and turn.
"If you fail to kill anyone by the time the time limit runs out, you will lose all your lives and will be immediately sent to your last life!"
Although no one was voicing a word, the pure dread hovering in the air was dense enough to cut with a knife.
"After you leave spawn, either on your own or with a team, you will be assigned your amount of lives in 5 minutes. 2 minutes later, your roles will be chosen, but the changes that will come with it won't settle in until 1 minute later, and in the next three minutes, the Boogeyman (or men) will be chosen."
"W-Well, that's just what we need to do!" a dark-skinned male wearing a blue shirt proclaims. “As long as no one leaves the circle-”
“Unless we all plan to resort to cannibalism or starvation, that’s not gonna happen.” The horned man retorts.
“That and I’d rather pee in private,” a man dressed in a red bandanna and green jacket yells out. It was at this point Scar noticed something strange about Grian’s appearance.
His eyes…
Hadn’t they been black?
“We wish you all the most of luck,” Grian continues to read. “May the strongest survive the game and the echoes’ wrath…”
“Echoes…?” the white-haired male asks.
Before Scar could ask Grian about his eyes or anyone ask if he translated the scripture correctly, the air was filled with the noise of horn, loud and clear, almost like… a call to attack!
“Run!” Grian yells as arrows begin flying at the group.
“RUN!”
And just like that, it was every man for themselves.