Aren awoke to an unfamiliar silence. Above him was an orange sky, empty except for the presence of a red sun, which floated eerily within the vast orange expanse. The boy found himself on the roof of a skyscraper of some sort, which was seemingly in perfect condition, despite the unsettling silence.
He stood up and dusted himself off with his hands, looking at a few items, which were next to him on the ground, as he did. He found a knapsack, a phone, and a pair of knives, though it seemed more appropriate to call them daggers, based on their appearance. Aren checked the phone first.
Reading through the message which was left for him, Aren began to understand his situation. His memories flooded into him, just about all of them except for how he got here, and why he came. At least he knew he wasn't dead.
Aren shoved the phone into the left pocket of his jacket, slung the knapsack over his shoulder, and picked up the daggers with caution, turning the blades over in his hands, and examining them as he did.
The utter silence was only broken by the occasional howl, or more disconcerting, gunshots. Aren decided to look over the side of the building's, to see if he could find any of the sources of these sounds. As he crept up to the edge, blades hanging in his hands, he started to hear voices, not clearly, but they were definitely voices. Upon looking down over the empty city, he saw what seemed to be 4 figures, fighting what looked like dogs and thugs. They all seemed to be holding weapons, and one of them definitely had some sort of power, blinding a thug with it, or something.
Aren immediately decided to go down there and meet these others. He even thought about possibly completing that mission. He walked to the only exit from the roof, a ramp which led down onto the next floor, which, made him realized just what this building was. Aren had woken up on top of a parking garage, completely devoid of both cars and life, except for Aren, and someone who seemed to be some distance from Aren.
After the figure in the distance, the second thing that Aren noticed was how much dust filled the air and choked him, filling his lungs more than even the air could. Aren attempted to try and make out what exactly the figure in the distance was, through the dusty haze. It looked like it was walking towards Aren, dragging something against the concrete. The loud scraping noise that this produced filled Aren's ears. It was annoying.
And then the phone began to buzz. Aren pulled it out of his pocket to see what seemed to be some sort of mission..
---
WARNING! Enemy Program Detected.
Strife Perimeter Program Engaged.
...
New Mission Received!
Defeat the Enemy Program (THUG)
Success: Your Continued Survival
Failure: Deletion
---
Aren shoved the phone back in his pocket, and looked back up at the thug, who was now running towards him with the pipe raised over his head, letting loose a blood curdling scream which unsettled Aren, causing him to stumbled backwards, before he began to run away, looking for any way to get away from this madman.
His throat burned from the dust-filled air, and his mouth tasted like dirt. This was horrible. He was probably going to die here. He kept running, feeling almost relieved when he noticed the ramp to the next floor down. Though, when he got to it, he found himself completely stopped, as if by some invisible wall. Actually, that was exactly what it was. There was some sort of force field preventing him from escaping that thug. Luckily, Aren could run fast, so he probably had at least half a second to figure out what to do. He had a pair of daggers, but he couldn't risk getting close to that monster, he would die quickly. So, Aren stood there, watching as the thug ran up to him and raised the pipe above his head, ready to strike down Aren in one blow. Aren's eyes flickered around, looking for some solution to his issues, and then, as he stared at the looming psychopath, something clicked.
"30..."
"29..."
A timer seemed to start within Aren's head, and the thug looked around, confused, as if he had misplaced his prey. Aren was standing only a few feet from this monster, and the thug could not see him. He was invisible to the thug. Aren was filled with joy, but knew that this was limited, and he may not be able to do this again. So, Aren started to run at the thug, swerving to the left as he realized that he could still hear the sound of Aren's feet crashing against the concrete.
"22..."
"21..."
Aren stopped dead in his tracks, and the thug lost his only clue to where the boy was. It was either Aren or the thug. One of them would have to die in the next 20 seconds, and Aren didn't really feel like getting his skull bashed in by some random asshole.
"20..."
"19..."
"18..."
Unbeknownst to the brute, he had turned his back to Aren, who took the opportunity to leap upon the back of the thug, and struck at the monster's throat with his daggers, making a slicing motion with each blade before kicking back away before the brute could respond to his invisible adversary. Aren attempted to catch his breath as his opponent tried to turn around, clutching his bleeding throat and stumbling to the ground instead.
"5..."
"4..."
"3..."
"2..."
"1..."
The countdown faded off into the back of Aren's mind as he watched the thug die. He gave himself a second to catch his breath before checking the phone, which had given him a notification that he had completed the mission.
Aren put his daggers on the ground for a moment, and stretched, running his hands through his hair, which had, at some point, formed itself into knots and clumps that Aren now attempted to fix. This was probably the last "normal" moment that Aren would have for a while. He considered putting his hood up, but decided to simply zip the jacket up, and leave his entire head visible. It wasn't too big of an issue. The baggy jacket draped over him formlessly, revealing nothing about the actual shape and size of his arms and torso.
He picked the blades back up, glaring at the blood which now stained each edge. Aren preferred a clean blade. The boy walked over to the corpse, and wiped the blood off of his daggers, and onto the brute's shirt. He stared at a pool of the thug's blood, which now reflected an image of an androgynous 19 year old who was the living embodiment of someone else's mistakes. Aren looked at his own face with disdain, spitting at the pool of blood before walking away. All he had to do was finish all of this, and his wish would be granted.
Aren made his way out of the dust-filled parking garage, and into the orange light of this fucked up day. He found the rag-tag group of people just as the last of the enemy programs around them were defeated.
A slight wind seemed to be blowing through as Aren walked towards them. He stopped at a decent distance. He was able to make their faces out, at least. A big guy with a sword, a big guy with a stick, a teenage girl with a massive battleaxe, a young girl, no older than 8, with a gun, and some other woman who Aren was sure appeared while he was fighting the thug. And so, the girlish boy, with wind blowing through his hair, and daggers in hand, spoke to the group.
"Hello. Seems you all had a fun little fight." The sarcasm was pretty obvious, though Aren wasn't sure why he had a smile on his face when he spoke. Other people suck, generally. When Aren heard his own voice, his mood immediately turned sour. He forgot how feminine it sounded. This day just keeps getting worse.
