1 Welcome to the Game

Ryan sighed, liked a tiddy post, smiled, and scrolled upwards to ogle a pair of asscheeks. He snorted and ignored the crisp of his fingernails drifting through his phone's screen. He moved on. Minutes passed. Then with a sharp breath, he shifted his body and held the phone with both hands. He tapped away. His brain flared and burned all of its juices to conjure words, to comment in an argument about how one was a furry for liking Zootopia so much that they asked for a sequel. But he stopped.

It's ideal to demolish an unknown stranger through a sound argument with no grammatical errors and typos. The fan beside him stirred. He had to do it. The thought of seeing an array of strangers witness how he maul this stranger compelled him. Imagine all the likes he would get. He grinned and scrolled back to check his last post. Nothing. He grinned in defeat. This was dumb. There would be no applause. He shook his head, moved on, and laughed at a crying child instead.

He now had seen more pairs of breasts tonight than his monkey cavemen ancestors combined. He hungered for his next laugh, and he backpedaled to incognito. He licked his lips.

His uninterested glare remained as he typed in the magic words. He felt his life and energy making a hill from the blankets, but when his right hand slid under the covers and was about to touch it, something happened.

"What…"

He expected a reminder of hot moms in his area. It was supposed to be an ad that he would just close like a robot, but there were no such buttons.

He pulled the phone back and checked the night sky peeping through the window. Yep, he's still in the realm of reality, and it was dark. Though their dogs weren't barking. The chickens didn't cluck either. He turned back to his phone.

[What's on your mind?]

He adjusted his back on the pillow. There was nothing else on his screen but room for him to type some words. Suspicious. It had to be an ad, and considering where he was cucked from, he chose to enter "phat tiddies." But that didn't sound right. He entered the word "cabbages" instead to be polite.

[Please, enter two command codes…]

This was pushing it. He ran out of words. He wanted to put "bob" and "vegana," but he resigned to "yeet" and "poggers" instead. An okay button appeared, so he tapped it over and over again until a small red circle appeared. The phone vibrated with a high-pitched sting and turned everything black.

He blinked out of the dark, gasping with the phone still in his hand. He felt like he slept through a week. It was a spook, but he calmed himself down until his eyes narrowed at his smartphone giving him a list of names instead of boobs and asses.

"...Jane Montefalco, Jeffrey Kama… Ben Dober, Sasuke Muntinlupa… Drink Water Rivera, Mineral Waters… Leigh Salameda, Manuel Carillo, Tina Moran… Juan Montefalco… Mike Enriquez, Mel Revillame…"

He knew some of these people, but what edged him was the fact that it came off with a respective number on a list written in red. It was dangerous, probably, because no porn sites would ever consider getting your name and people in your area, so he jumped out of his bed, checked if his body had calmed down, and decided to go out of his room so he could tell his mom that his phone was broken.

He went down the stairs to get to the living room. Utter silence. His mother was supposed to be here, cooking dinner or some food that she would sell tomorrow morning, but she's gone. There was no reason for her to be gone. He looked at his phone again, his heart quickening its pace as the list continued to pile with names. He looked around again with a nervous grin.

She's gone and she even left the door open.

His hands trembled, but he steeled himself with a deep breath. He had to be brave, he needed to be because there might be a party outside, or his mother suddenly learned about the internet and decided to prank him. Carrying that bravery to his heart, he ran upstairs in panic, almost screaming to wear his dark-blue pants and a deep-orange hoodie as his go-to swag uniform. He picked up the key from the dining table and headed out in his slippers before shivering and going back to get his blue bonnet; it's chilly outside.

The list continued to pile. He realized there that he had been given a number, which was 69. He chuckled at the thought, but his peace had been crushed at the sheer emptiness of his surroundings. There should be at least a few drunkards walking around or some kids playing pogs or bullying each other, such as the nightlife he had experienced, but no one was there except for some crickets. He ran, gritting his chattering teeth, finding himself in disbelief that his mother would never conspire with the rest of the barangay to prank him. Something must've happened.

He soon heaved into a nearby 7/11. The cold air pricked his skin. It was dead silent, and the hotdogs were unguarded. He shrugged, knowing that it's not his responsibility to guard these tasty treats, but he could suppose take one of them to punish the cashier for heading somewhere else. He got himself a bun and slid in a sausage, peeking outside now and then with utmost vigilance, but no one came to stop him, even up until the last moment where he overused the ketchup and placed too much mustard. He was planning to pay up if he got caught, but it seems that he didn't have to.

Leaning into the counter to assert his dominance, he placed the phone beside him, thinking if someone else would've experienced the same thing. He then took a large bite from his hotdog, his mouth watering at the sour taste of tomato ketchup, but he held his mouth when the list had finished piling.

"Welcome to the Game," he read with a full mouth as he tapped the phone instinctively, causing the box to load for a moment and update. "Kill all the other players to attain your wish. You can check your ability on your profile tab…"

He chuckled, taking another bite and closing the announcement. Someone would never believe and do what their phones asked them to do, so he checked the remaining number of players on the screen, which were 99.

Now, he wanted a drink. He faced the smoothie machine and his phone vibrated.

98 players remain, and Tina Moran apparently choked a man named Aldrin Bagares using a frying pan.