I inject myself into the chair, given the slight chance of success some familiar and friends reunite as they operate and watch through their monitors my performance. I wake up in the gray lands, this time my partner is this girl, kinda oblivious, nervous, and oddly motivated to complete the test.
We always start in the ruins of a withered supermarket, the floor is a combination of deep rock and some loose tiles blackened by time. The layout resembles a shape of a starting rectangle, with a gaping hole frontwards revealing the gray decay stare of the rest of the playground, a combination of collapsed buildings and abandoned structures with the signs suggesting work ahead, but those get never finished.
The air flows with moisture and slight wind while the sky is covered in white heavy gray clouds with complete illumination, there is no spot that shines more in the resemblance of a sun. Back to my partner as soon as we wake up we both know exactly what to do, gather resources and leave.
The starting point is always the first to be looted. The items are not the best and there aren’t many, but we need them to progress. And it’s a run against time. The darkness will come every so often everyone knows you barely get time to finish the first two spots until you have to run for a safe spot, being the next level.
But how come that I know this? We all know this. We all know the most optimal strategy. But how come she knows this? She barely knows what each thing does, she asks what this thing do? Or where do we go next. And so I aid and point out the next place.
We must hurry towards the plaza, the open terrain with dark gray bricks surrounded by small locals of what seems to be seeking to sell food. Completely abandoned obviously. And just as we leave the first ditch. I instantly know to tell her to watch out, the path in the open street has the walkable roads but traffic is unknown and to not get run over it’s better to be on the walking lane, sure obvious, but the odd part is that I knew to tell her to watch out.
As right next as we cross a work in progress is done, it’s not destroying our path but it’s in the right spot with the metal beams and the dirt so that we have to move carefully in this abandoned remodeling project. How come I knew? She didn’t, but I did… how? Why?
But the pressure of making it in time is so tight and so exact we can’t really leave pace, we need to reach the plaza.
And just as we get there. We find nothing, it was already empty, just a couple of items here and there but nothing of defense or importance. And as doom reaches us, the time is out. The darkness begins to creep.
Either not having or do having the knowledge of the intricate mechanics of the darkness hours will know that the monsters in any shape or form created around this time are not any type of laughing matter. We know for a fact that there is a slight to zero chance to fight back against the darkness itself because you will end up becoming one of the bricks this gray city is founded upon.
And the special part about the darkness is that you don’t see glowing monsters on the spot, rather you don’t see the misery firsthand. It can for example lie to you believing that you have finished the test, after hour and hours and maybe months of surviving this hellscape, only for the delusion to fall apart and realize you were standing in the darkness for the first time, not even making it out of the ditch.
And I wish I could tell you how we survive the darkness I really do, but something in my connection happened, a second skipped and later a minute skipped as in time itself froze to me in an instant and shifted me forward.
And soon as I realized I was already on the stair steps outside of the next safe spot while the girl was pulling me, I was even looking at the back direction making it for her to pull me to next place. And I saw in first person the darkness consuming the earth in black pitch roots following us menacingly.
But I reacted just fast enough to sprint towards the open door with a shadow inside, professing our safety. And just as we close it behind us, we realized another group, three men already inside with smirks and happiness with our survival, they act in polite manner but not out sincerity but out of system. It was the thing to be, we all knew it. How come?
With the other group I could see the middle man with a strange feeling, as some neural firing activated the same reaction as I did when I knew the walkway construction.
The interior was dark and had used wallpaper of white and green stripes, not looking fancy but rather as the staple of fashion and style of an older time than us. The lights flicker and what seems to safe to rest, but there is no rest, both groups can lose more time as the darkness will invade the next places claimed at safe spots, see it as an evolving threat, with us barely making it just faster (if lucky).
As both of us walk towards the building, one of them (the tall man) looked at him, “hey weren’t your eyes blue?” A different color.
The middle man immediately pulled out a knife hidden in his back and stabbed his teammate in the chest and stomach, the rest of us started sprinting hoping the middle man enjoyed himself enough time with him to make our escape.
Such can be the consequences of being engulfed in the darkness of the gray city.