Alice in Borderland

Chapter 1 - The Borderland

I'm still in the gym and i'm just tying up my white sports shoes. Most of them have already walked out to the sports field to warm up.

"Sayuuri, are you finally coming? You're very late today," my friend says with a laugh, standing waiting at the door. She checks her fingernails and I try to hurry up before our coach lets us run penalty rounds. I look at myself briefly in the mirror and swipe my cheerleader uniform smoothly.

"Sorry Norikita, I'm coming"

I turn around again so I can take my sports bag and follow it through the dark aisle. I turn to the cheering noises and can see the football players at the end of the aisle coming back from their training and heading to the changing rooms and showers. I already hear the trumpets that start the game and the school orchestra. Laughing, I turn forward again and open the door that has fallen behind my friend.

But suddenly everything is dead. I look around confused and slowly get nervous: the stands are no longer overloaded, there is not a single player on the field or the band in their makeshift stands. There is no music, the cheers are gone and somehow I feel like it's gotten a little colder. 

"Hello?" I shout half-loudly. Is this some elaborate prank? I look around a little bit and I get more and more uncomfortable. On the other sports field no one can be seen and I turn back again and again to discover someone. I walk into the swimming pool and the 80-year-old caretaker, who always sleeps on one of the back benches, is gone. I walk back into the main building, and although twenty minutes ago the corridors were still full of students, the silence is overwhelming. I get slightly panicked and crawl around in my sports bag until I feel my phone and pull it out. The display doesn't work, no matter how many times I press the switch.

"I've just recharged the battery," I mutter and hear a soft sound. I follow this noise through the building and run outside towards the canteen. The noise has become very loud and turns me again and again in all directions. I listen carefully again so that I don't panic and my gaze glides upwards.

"That's a joke now"

The flag of the university does not hang properly on the flagpole and the metal rattles through the wind again and again. I close my eyes and try to take a deep breath. I'm the only person on campus from one moment to the other. It's gotten a little darker and I'm making the decision to go home. Maybe my parents have noticed what's going on here. I walk to the changing rooms one last time and look for a jacket. With the boys I find a football jacket from one of the players I know.

I grab my sports bag and keep trying to turn on my phone as I leave campus. But no chance, the stupid thing remains black. When I get to the train station, I look around more and more confused, no one is far and wide here. No train runs on the otherwise so full of glisten, no tram, no cars. I'm starting to go faster, but it's getting darker and without a train it's quite far to my family's house.

The lights of the advertisements light up and illuminate my way, but being the only one here is a strange feeling. A flicker in my corner of my eye attracts my attention and I look in the direction. A text appears flashing again and again on a large, white board.

To the game along here   

My gaze follows the flashing arrows to a library. The entrance is illuminated and there I discover seven figures. My heart races faster and I run over to them. They all just stare at me silently and I'm all looking at me closely. It is an older woman, two slim thin boys, a man in a suit, a nearly two-metre tall girl and two other men. I just want to say something, but they all look down on their phone again. The man closest to me seems the least threatening. He wears a hat and is the only one who grins at me kindly.

"Sorry, but could I use your phone? I would like to call my parents at home"

"Let me guess you're new here"

"No I live here..." I try to explain, but he interrupts me and gesticulates wildly with his hands.

'No no no, I didn't mean that. All the people have suddenly disappeared and both mobile phones and cars are no longer working?"

"Yes, what's going on here?"

"I guess it's a kind of mirror world. I am Satoru"

"Sayuuri," I imagine, and he turns to me. The others keep looking up at us from their phones, but they don't say anything.

"You need a so-called visa. Through games like the one we're coming up from right now, you get credited with the days of difficulty," he continues, taking mobile phones from the stack in the middle and pushing it into my hand.

"And if you don't play, you come home?"

Ten seconds left until the start of the game.

This voice comes from my phone. I'm trying to open any app, but the only thing that happens is that the words "Face recognition completed" appear on the display. The man takes me by the shoulders and gently turns me in the direction from which I came. Another suit man comes running and the horror is written in his face.

"Then this happens"

Time has run out.

A red laser drills through the man's head at lightning speed and he immediately collapses. I scare and slap my hand in front of my mouth. The man's lifeless body slithers half a metre further and then remains limp on the ground.

"You die," I say. It sounds more like a croak and my eyes fill up slightly with tears. I'm starting to understand how it all works here.

"And if you want to run away now, you've crossed a laser wall before, and if you're off, the same thing happens to you as the poor pig behind you."

The game begins.