1 Chapter 1

A cold wind blew over a city filled with noises and movement.

Skyscrapers covered with electronic billboards displayed popular news and updates from across the world.

On one billboard, a large red headline dominated the screen.

"WORLD'S 2ND RANKED GAME, REVERSE, HAS FOUND THEIR LAST <HIDDEN PLAYER>!"

2 friends who were walking on the sidewalk looked up at the billboard.

"Wow! Reverse finished their hunt in just under 2 years! These <hidden players> don't seem very capable of hiding you know~" said one of the friends.

He was a short Caucasian male with auburn hair and dull blue eyes.

He playfully flicked open his red jacket, revealing a dark blue school uniform underneath.

"You seem pretty excited about this whole ordeal", murmured the other friend.

The Asian male was also wearing the school uniform and seemed quite uninterested in everything around him.

Running a hand through his spiky black hair, the male looked at his friend, towering over the latter. quizzically.

"Lemme guess. You don't feel bad for the <hidden players> at all huh."

"Nope! As far as I'm concerned, they don't do anything for the games after the games are released online other than stealing revenue", replied the shorter.

"Oh! We should call Heather and tell her this good news!"

The other lightly scoffed.

"Yeah yeah, good news to you, probably bad news to her. You know what she's like. Whatever, we're gonna facetime her or call her?"

"Totally facetime! I miss her cute little face already!"

The taller male raised his eyebrow again, "...You know she's taller than you right?"

While pulling out his phone and preparing to facetime, the auburn-haired male stuck out his tongue.

"Nah-nah~ you don't need to remind me of that!"

A couple of miles away in an old apartment complex, the sound of a phone ringing could be heard.

A girl, dressed in a gray tank top and salmon shorts picked up her phone, scrunching her face to read the name of the caller.

She sat on her bed, making herself comfortable before pressing the green button.

Beep

"Hello?" asked the girl, typing up her dark brown hair.

"Heeeeeeey Heather!" yelled the short male on the other side of the phone.

"Oh hi, Justin. Hey Mingkai. How are y'all doing?"

Mingkai responded, "We're doing alright."

Zooming the phone camera to his face, Justin happily said "We've got news for you! Remember that game we played a couple of days ago? Well, they finally found all of their <hidden players>!"

Heather blinked.

"Really? I hope those <hidden players> are doing alright then."

Justin frowned, disappointed. "Of course they are! They've been sapping off money from UnMade, the company that owns Reverse! They totally deserved it! Hitchhikers with nothing better to do should just go and- Hey! Hey! Give it back, Mingkai! I didn't finish!"

"Sorry, Heather. It seems Justin is high on anger again. We'll call you later."

Heather laughed. "Alright. See you boys later."

Beep.

Sighing, Heather threw her phone onto her bed.

Another game has finished off all their hidden players.

In today's gaming world, <hidden players> were key to any game getting released.

Once a game is created, the company that created the game would hire ordinary people to alpha and beta test their game. These people became labeled as a <hidden player>.

This change because the National Society of Gamers(NSG) had determined that the number of times companies would cut off alpha testing employees and bribe famous people to beta test and give good reviews was getting out of hand.

With the <hidden player> system, the company could not bribe or fire testers.

Once a game was released, the game's testers would disappear for two years, allowing normal everyday gamers to try out the game and give their two cents on it.

Once those two years were up, testers must join that game as a new player.

From there, a game of cat and mouse would initiate.

Testers were paid based on a set percentage of the games' revenue that their testing contract moderated.

However, once they were found by the company, their contract would terminate. Most games had between 100 and 1000 testers.

Big-name games such as Reverse would have hired professionals to track down <hidden players>.

Normally, finding <hidden players> would take well over 5 years after the 2-year disappearance.

Finding every single <hidden player> in a span of 2 years was impressive.

Heather picked up her phone again, skimming through her calendar app.

Today is June 24th. The two-year mark is in three days.

Heather took a deep breath before rolling over and burying her face into the pillow.

In three days, the two-year mark of her contract would come and she would have to pick up that game again.

She looked to her left at her computer that was sitting on a desk next to the wall.

A single app taunted her.

She didn't have to read the name to know what game it was.

D.O. It's almost time to join the world of D.O.

Her phone beeped, a notification flashing across the screen.

Heather turned and clicked on the notification.

She sighed, closing her eyes, before tossing the phone away again.

It'd be better to sleep now. There's school tomorrow anyway.

Her phone screen blinked.

An article appeared, bright white against the dark of the room, announcing the coming of the two-year mark.

Its headline in large black font clearly stating the purpose of said article.

"3 DAYS UNTIL THE 2Y MARK FOR D.O., THE WORLD's #1 TRENDING GAME"