Death?

Highlighting my meager frame, the moon glistened, reflected by raging water below.

By its constant rushing of waves, the pattern entranced me. Tempting me.

Leaning forward.

I Held my breath.

And let go.

My body spasmed, struggling to get free.

I felt a burning sensation as the water clogged my throat.

But I had no regrets.

My body continued to sink, further and further.

Until

It was finally quiet.

My eyes opened to a room made of stones, a tome. A chandelier above cast a red light circling the arches of the roof.

There lay beside me, a woman basked in blood. Her blood? Or mine? I did not know.

I had died, that I did know.

I sat up resting on my elbow, and around me rested several dead bodies.

I held no wounds but there was a heavy weight in my chest, a reminder of my death.

"Mister? Are you alive, please help us-my brother he's injured!"

Looking around I find two kids pressed against a wall. A girl and a boy.

The girl held the boy in her arms, soaked with his blood.

Standing up, I walked through the tunnel, maneuvering carefully around the bodies.

"Your brother, how long has he been like that?" I crouched down in front of the girl and asked, pointing to the hole in the boy's stomach. The boy was dead.

"He-"

The girl's face suddenly turned pale and her jaw dropped, her eyes widening.

"There! Behind you! Watch out!"

My vision blacked out as I felt my body flying through the air and I opened my eyes to find myself lying on the floor. Before me, a monster made of bones, red orbs of light coming from its eyes gazed down at me.

A scorching shot of pain seared through my body as I leaped out of its way.

There on one of the bodies laid a sword. I lunged for it as I felt claws scratch at my back.

Unsheathing the sword from its case I turned around closing my eyes as the monster jumped towards me and I plunged the sword towards it.

Quiet. It was quiet.

Slowly pulling my body up I opened my eyes, the sword was pierced into its skull.

Its red orbs of light flickered twice before its body broke apart, bones scattering across the floor.

'Thunk'

A red marble fell to the floor.

"...mister? are you okay?"

Grabbing the red marble I made my way towards the girl. She flinched before setting her eyes on the marble in my hands.

"Please. Help my brother, we'll give you anything please!"

"How?"

She flinched in surprise before pointing at the marble, "that..it can help heal him."

She looked at my body filled with blood before looking at the ground, hanging her head.

I crouched in front of her and waited till she glanced up at me. Holding the marble in my palm, I waited as she hesitantly took the marble and placed it into her brother's mouth. I covered my eyes, blinded by the red light surrounding the boy's body.

Removing my hand once the light had dimmed, I found the wound on the boy's stomach patched up. His stomach rose with each unsteady breath. Tears fell from the girl's eyes as she held her brother close.

I got up and sat on the opposite wall, gazing at the tunnel ahead.

I woke up to the sound of hushed voices.

"Mister you're awake!"

The siblings stood a distance away watching me warily.

My body didn't hurt anymore. I reached around my shoulder and felt no wound.

"How?-"

"With this," The young boy replied, holding up a few of the red marbles. "In exchange for saving us."

"Oh..thank you."

The boy and girl looked like twins with matching ravenette hair and striking blue eyes. They watched me warily as I stood up and made my way towards them, their slim bodies huddled within their rags of clothing.

Careful as to not startle them, I took off my jacket and handed it to the young girl, then proceeded to take off my shirt and gave it to the boy, my bare chest shivered once exposed to the frigid air.

"Take it back, we don't need it." The boy scowled at me, shoving the clothes back in my direction.

I gazed down at them for a few seconds before walking away ahead of them.

"I don't need it either, '' I responded. "We should get going, don't know if any other monster will show up again."

I heard a few whispers then the two kids shuffled before they ran to catch up to me, still keeping a few feet of distance between us.

We started making our way through the tunnel until we came towards a large wooden door and opened it. I turned around, the boy and girl had both discarded the brown dirty rags. My clothes enveloping their small frames.

"Be ready, we don't know what's in there." I said, holding up my sword.

The first thing we heard was a chatter of voices, groups of people were spaced out talking amongst themselves.

A stark difference from the room I woke up in, the space was big and white, with a single large door opposite to us.

As we walked in, all heads turned to us, scouring us with their gazes. Women huddled with children and men talked in groups, swords strapped to their belts.

"Welcome!" A frail man with green hair called out to us.

I pulled the children behind me.

The man smiled and brought his hand up to me to shake. "My names Gabriel, yours?"

"Ren, and these are..?" I gestured to the young kids.

"Sean, and my sister, Kassandra." The boy replied, placing a protective hand around his sister's shoulder.

Gabriel eyed me up and down.

"Over there, you can sell your stones for equipment and food." The man points to several white blocks with screens on them. "However, I wouldn't recommend going there since a lot of people were robbed of their stones, do you guys have any?"

"No, we used ours to get here." I sent a glance to the Sean and Kassandra. "Does the color of stones vary?"

"Yeah, red ones are for healing and gold ones are used to purchase things from the store."

"Are there any other stones?"

"maybe, but we haven't found any others yet."

"What is this place?" I asked.

"We don't know, no one here remembers how they got here." The man rubbed his neck, glancing nervously at his surroundings. "But when we first got here there was a woman wearing a mask, she called this a resting area before the real test began."

"Test?"

"Yeah. We only have four hours before the next round begins."