The Game

While Cyanide pretended to be unconscious since he didn't completely trust these mysterious people, the van he was in drove up to the edge of the mainland, where a large landing ship awaited. Inside the belly, many other vans of the same archetype stood, parked compactly to conserve space as much as possible.

If every car held 3 passengers excluding the driver and there seemed to be 37 vans in this ship counting his own, then in total, there were 111 people. This was by no means a small number — but out of them, Cyanide was the only one doing this for self-actualization. The others were all here for the promises of money, fame, and power.

Once all the vans were loaded, the ships' drawbridges raised, now serving as a wall to prevent the vans inside from falling out. Then, they took off, leaving the mainland of Japan and drifting out into the Tokyo Bay.

'Leaving the mainland…? Just where are we going…?' Cyanide thought in his head. But then, the driver glanced at the rearview mirror, and he hurriedly closed his eyes.

It was nearly 2 AM in the morning, and no one was up to watch this scene. The passengers were taken away from their country, fates about to be changed forever.

On that day, Cyanide's destiny took a sharp turn.

*****

Roughly an hour later, the ships arrived at their destination. Cyanide recognized it — the only uninhabited island of Tokyo Bay, Sarushima. It was a fairly small place, which made him wonder what that masked man had meant by 'a new world'.

The passengers were all offloaded the vans via stretchers by mysterious workers wearing the same anonymous black masks, hiding their identity. Cyanide kept his eyes closed and breathing even, faking unconsciousness. As an assassin, playing dead had been part of his training, so this was simple for him.

He heard the sound of the large metal doors of an enormous bunker sliding open, and he along with the other passengers were carried inside, descending down some stairs. Once there, all the passengers were placed onto beds and scanned with some sort of device by the workers assigned to them.

While the other participants got one or two beeps at most, when the worker ran the scanner over Cyanide's body… about sixteen beeps came up. Even the worker was stunned, and ran the scan again just to be sure it wasn't a device malfunction. This time, however eighteen beeps came up.

"…"

Although the worker didn't say anything, it was clear he was dumbfounded. Slowly, he set the device down on the cart beside him, then began patting Cyanide's body down, starting with the bottom up.

He found two hidden throwing knives in Cyanide's boots, a slim dagger in his jeans, back-up ammo for his gun in his pant pockets, and a smartphone. There was even a hidden gun in Cyanide's crotch area between his underwear and outside pants, thinly crafted so that it wouldn't appear to be bulging from the outside.

After removing all of these, the worker moved up to Cyanide's cloak, which contained even more hidden weapons and contraptions. From poison and daggers to smoke grenades and flashbangs, Cyanide had it all. There was even a gun disguised as a pen in his outside pockets.

Cyanide felt the workers taking away all his weapons and considered fighting back, but by the sounds of it, there were hundreds of workers around here. There was nothing he could do — even if he could take out all of the workers, he still had no idea where he was or the layout of the bunker. He would be caught and killed within minutes.

That said… he still didn't like having all his self-protection equipment taking away, so Cyanide had discretely slid his pocket knife underneath the pillow of the bed he was lying on while one of the workers was searching his lower body, then retrieved it again after they left. The other worker must be on the other side of the bed since he would be in the way of his partner if he wasn't, so he couldn't see these minuscule hand movements of Cyanide. Cyanide knew this fact and took advantage of it.

After taking away the entirety of Cyanide's hidden arsenal, they stripped his clothes as well and changed him into a jumpsuit of sorts. Cyanide couldn't say he liked having his bare skin touched by those latex gloves the workers wore, but he didn't resist and continued playing unconscious like a pro.

Once that was finished, the workers all left the room. Cyanide heard the shuffling of their footsteps fading away, but even then, he didn't move. Considering the technology they had — for example, the scanner — there was bound to be cameras in the room. The safest play here was to just wait for someone else to wake up, then do the same.

'Still… to think there was actually a facility like this on an island thought to be uninhabited…' He thought, holding the pocket knife in his hand tightly.

*****

- About Half an Hour Later -

"Engh… where is this…?"

"Agh… my brain hurts…"

"My clothes… this place… what the hell…"

Cyanide heard the other participants waking up one by one, and slowly opened his eyes. He found himself in a white jumpsuit within an enormous pitch-black room, filled with other people lying on beds and groggily sitting up.

Suddenly, the lights hanging from the ceiling flashed white and turned on, shining in everyone's eyes. The participants all hurriedly covered their faces with their hands to adjust, but Cyanide noticed something far more disturbing.

There weren't 111 people in the room. Not even close.

There were 999.

He looked around, spotting people from different countries. Americans, Chinese, French, Russian, Arabs — participants from all sorts of different cultures were gathered here, changed into the same white jumpsuit he was in.

Then, he looked down. Where his breast pocket should've been, there was a number:

[097]

The other participants all had a number of their own as well, each unique and labeled. Judging from their reactions, they were all bewildered to be in such a place, but they weren't exactly panicking either. Cyanide judged that they, like him, had accepted the invitation they received — hence they weren't too troubled but merely surprised.

Suddenly, a deep voice from the PA system cut through all the murmuring going on in the room, loud and clear. Everyone turned their heads to an overhanging platform high on the wall, surrounded by transparent glass panes. Inside was a man wearing a black hoodie so oversized that his face was hidden underneath, but the sweater he wore above it was grey and formal.

"Welcome, players, to the Game," he said, spreading his arms. "Welcome… to Endzone."