Harbingers Of Death

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This book is merely fiction birthed from the author's imagination and was neither inspired by Sword art online nor btoom! lol

Considering the fact that I haven't watched any of them yet.

_ _ _

"Max Addison!"

A head resting on folded arms placed on a desk rose up and a pair of purple eyes greeted the teacher's sight.

Max heaved a sigh. He was caught sleeping in class again.

"Max Addison!" His mum began just after they had returned from school and it was time for dinner.

"I got a call from your teacher that you were sleeping in class again."

"Yeah you did. She doesn't like me anyways," Max said. His eyes were fixated on the nintendo in his left hand while his right hand did the job of shoving food into his mouth.

"Yeah right! Nobody ever likes you," Mrs Addison retorted. She let out a sigh and her eyes rested on her daughter who sat next to her son, concentrating on the phone in her hand without bothering to eat.

"Kayla darling, eat your food up before it gets cold."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. I'll do that at my time," Kayla said not even taking her eyes off her phone.

Mrs Addison sighed once again. This was her family and she was used to this type of treatment. Being despised by her kids wasn't strange to her. She hoped it would pass someday but from the look of things, it never would.

The Addisons lived a simple and quiet life. A mother who lived with her two kids. Though their lives looked perfect on the outside, it didn't also look the same on the inside. They had a very distant relationship as if they were strangers living in the same house, not daring to intrude each other's privacy.

There was once the existence of love in the family until Max turned eight. Normally, a family was made up of a father, a mother and their children and Max was quick to realize that ' a father ' was missing in their lives. He had brought up discussions about his father on several occasions but his mother would always shove it aside by ignoring him and then changing the topic.

Little by little, hate began to grow in the boy's heart towards his mum. As Kayla also grew older, she also came to despise her mum. Unlike a mother-daughter relationship, she never shared secrets with her mum or even discussed about her feelings whenever she needed anyone to talk to. Mrs Addison had never been close to her daughter that she hardly knew anything about her. If there was anything that made the kids even more curious about their father's identity, it was their eyes. Purple eyes were a rare sight that always got Max and Kayla unwanted stares. Unlike them, their mum had grey eyes but from the similarities in looks she shared with her kids made it obvious that she was their biological mother.

As the kids grew older, the more distant they grew from their mum.

*. *. *.

"OMG! I can't believe this!" Kayla screamed at her phone as she and her brother made their way to their classes.

After a few seconds of not hearing a word from her brother, her gaze turned to him.

"Aren't you gonna ask why I screamed?"

"Stop being dramatic. You know I don't care," Max said as his beautiful pair of purple eyes looked around to see girls staring at him.

Kayla ignored him and pretended he hadn't said what he did.

"Since you want to know then I'll tell you. I can't believe Sasha has a million followers already! I mean we both do online make-up tutorials but I'm a hundred thousand followers behind, like what the F?!"

"Sounds like a ' You ' problem not mine," Max patted his little sister's head and left for his class with his hands in the pocket of his pants.

Kayla gritted her teeth and clenched her fist.

"That jerk."

The day's lessons had started and Max tried his best not to fall asleep. Not because he was afraid of having his teacher call his mum but because he was tired of hearing his mum's tantrum. Listening to his mum was like listening to a faulty tape recorder. More specifically he never actually listened to her. Honestly, even his teacher sounded to him like a broken microphone, just like she did now. How much he hated school! Unlike every other kid, Max was different. Many kids aspired to become noble professions in future but he wanted to become something different. A gamer.

He simply wanted to live his life as a gamer. There were tons of gamers he knew that earned a good sum of money every year just from doing live streams. Basically everyone wanted to have a good profession just so they could earn a living, so being a gamer wouldn't be a bad idea after all.

"Max?"

His thoughts were soon interrupted by the teacher.

"Ma'am?" He widened his eyes in question.

"Do you mind explaining to the class what I have said so far?" The lady raised an eyebrow.

Great ! She knew he wasn't paying attention.

"Well, Erm...," He began as he stood on his feet.

"Go on."

"Well, ma'am from what I understand about the topic..."

The teacher listened carefully as if waiting for the slightest opportunity to punish him but sad enough, he was not that dumb to fall for her lame tricks.

"Alright you can sit."

"Thank you ma'am," He smirked and sat down as a sudden round of applause followed.

He knew all the girls had their eyes on him. Of course, he was handsome and his rare purple eyes made him stand out even more.

Operation ' Slam my knowledge at the damn teacher's face ' ended on a successful note. A smile curved on his lips.

*. *. *.

Bright rays pierced into his eyes as he took a long yawn and stretched his arms.

"Happy birthday, sleepy head!" Kayla's hands reached out to pinch his cheeks.

"Happy birthday, Max," Mrs Addison smiled and placed a cake before her son.

Max quickly sat up. He looked at the cake then his mum before muttering a thank you.

"Alright now big boy, make a wish," Kayla smiled.

Max rolled his eyes before closing them. After some time, he opened them and blew out the few candles stacked on the cake.

"Good," Kayla smiled as she moved to feed her brother a piece of cake.

"You treat me like you're older than I am," Max said.

"Like I care," Kayla answered stuffing her mouth with another piece of cake.

"Grandpa's coming today," Mrs Addison chipped in.

"I can't wait!" Kayla screamed with excitement.

The day had soon come to an end with Grandpa and Max's best friend, Nicole visiting to celebrate his birthday. Max had received gifts from the few persons present and he appreciated everyone one of them but the gift he loved and cherished the most was from his Grandpa. The old man had a good taste in everything.

"A new V.R game!" Max exclaimed. "No way."

"Dude! I got mine yesterday," Nicole said.

"It's been three days since the game was launched. I never expected it at all. Thanks Grandpa," Max smiled.

"Anything for my grandson," Grandpa smiled back.

"Harbingers Of Death," Max read the name with joy.

"The game is to open today. Since it's launch, players have been denied access until this specific date through the reason for the delay in game play was not made known to anyone," Nicole said.

"Strange but thankfully it's open now," Max replied.

Later that night, everyone had gone to bed earlier than usual as a result of being exhausted from the day's activities. Max couldn't sleep as he couldn't stop thinking about the game he received.

Since it's release, Harbingers Of Death had now become the most talked about game online. Though people were yet to play it, the trailer which was currently trending all over the internet made gamers thrilled about the game.

"Harbingers Of Death, here I come."

He took out a deep breath and wore the V.R googles, which he had long unboxed, over his eyes.

It wasn't too long before his sight was greeted with darkness. He opened his eyes in a dark space to find himself in a long line. It was as if his consciousness had left earth and had awoken in another place entirely. He looked back to see another line slowly appearing behind him. Looking down, he saw nothing but darkness. There was no ground yet they were all moving in the line with ease as if there was an invisible surface underneath their feet, preventing them from falling.

The line moved towards a huge screen at one end. As soon as a person reached the screen, in less than a minute a portal would open and the person would be sucked into it.

A total number of 30 people had gotten to the screen before it finally reached Max's turn. On the green screen was written in bold letters,

[ Do you wish to continue?]

[ Yes ] or [ No ]

Max proceeded to select an option based on his choice.

[ Yes ]

A misty portal suddenly appeared before him. He felt a strong energy coming from the portal and he was immediately sucked in, after which the portal disappeared just as it had appeared.

After being transported from the dark space through the portal, he found himself in a crowd. Thousands if not millions of people stood with him in a seemingly endless starry space.

"What kind of place is this?" Max wondered. "How long have all the players I saw in the line before me been here waiting to get into the game? Why do we have to go through such strange spaces before we would be allowed into the game?"

"Welcome humans to Harbingers Of Death."

A voice, calm yet menacing echoed all over the place.

A middle aged man dressed in white with long white hair and white beard appeared on a podium floating in the air above the crowd.

"I am here to let you know the rule of the game."

An evil smile played on his lips.

"It's just one simple rule governing this world and that is,..."

He paused.

"...kill to survive."