All I Hear is Noise - Day One (TWEWY Fanfic)

   I gasp and open my eyes, taking huge gulps of air. My back hurts, and I realize I’ve been sitting on a park bench in the middle of Sunrise street. I look around at my surroundings and see a couple people, but otherwise the street is empty. Why am I out here? I don’t remember what happened after I blacked out. Did I leave? And why have I been sleeping on a park bench? My head doesn’t feel terrible, but as I get up I become a bit disoriented. I decide to sit down and look around again. It seems odd, since the streets should be busy around this time. As I continue to be amazed by the emptiness of the area, my phone rings and I pick it up.

                You’re awake. Come to the Moonlight Plaza in thirty minutes after you make a pact.

                All of a sudden I feel a throbbing pain from my right hand. As I open my palm, I can see a timer displaying thirty minutes and I scream. This can’t be happening. This shouldn’t be happening.

                What went on last night?

                I don’t want to leave the bench, but the timer continues to count down. Panicking, I yell to whomever might be around.

                “Hello? I need help!”

                I run around to a nearby couple playing Frisbee. I approach them and begin to speak.

                “Hey, could you help me out? I’ trying to figure out—“

                The couple continues to play.

                “Hey, could I get some help?

                No response.

                “Hey! I’m talking—“ I try grabbing the Frisbee in the air, but it phases through my hand as I let out a yell.

                “What… what’s happening?”

                I try getting the attention of the couple in the park, but they don’t seem to notice; it’s like I’m invisible. I sigh defeated and try running around to see if anyone could explain what’s going on. I’m trying to remember the events of last night as I see people walking around the streets; I try to grab their attention to no avail. Another strange event occurs as I hurriedly try to find answers; people aren’t talking, but their thoughts are audible. The plans of preoccupied businessmen and excited teenagers rush into my head, and I scream in agony at the sensory overload. I have to find a place to clear my head…

                The pier.

                Covering my ears, I run for a few minutes to see if I can rid myself of these random thoughts. As I enter, I spot a couple of people getting their boats ready for the sailing season; they look majestic. I stare at the boats, marveling at the beauty but then look at my hand and yell.

                I have ten minutes left. What happens after that?

                I shake my head and try to catch my reflection in a nearby pool of water; I don’t see anything.

                Am I dead?

                “So I guess I can see you too…”

                I leap from shock, almost falling into the pool at the person behind me. It’s a familiar face that I’m shocked and relieved to recognize.

                “A—Anthony?”

                “Uh, yeah?”

                “Thank goodness you’re alright! Hey…” I’m looking around the pier, “You’re still in your PJs.”

                “Um, yeah?”

                “I mean… what happened?”

                “I don’t know,” Anthony looks around, “Been trying to find my shirt for the longest time…”

                I glance at my hand again and let out a gasp. “Let me see your hand!”

                I impulsively grab Anthony’s hand as he becomes a bit shocked. “Sheesh Elisha, you can’t be grabbing me like that!”

                “Shut up,” I’m still nervous. He has the same timer on his hand. “Does that mean…”

                “I guess we’re in the same boat, I don’t have a clue what’s going on.”

                “Did you get—“

                “A text? Yeah, weird too, did you notice something in your pocket?”

                I start to become puzzled as I reach into my pocket. Other than my phone and my wallet, I feel three small button-shaped pins and decide to take them out. One looks like a Japanese mountain of some sort, while another looks like a cute dog paw print. However, the last one looks a bit ominous, a complex white design over a black background.

                “I got that one too,” Anthony flashes his three pins from his pocket; they’re the same black pin, a horse, and an octopus.

                “Looks like I got the cooler looking ones,” Anthony smiles.

                “Whatever, we need to head to the moonlight plaza right now, we’ve got—“ I look at my hand, “—five minutes? We need to leave now!”

                “Hold on Elisha, something about a pact…”

                “Uh, what?”

                Anthony points to his cell phone. “We need to make a pact first before going there, right?”

                “Yeah, sure, let’s make a pact.” I jokingly quip, making air quotes before clutching my heart. What just happened? And why do I feel someone else’s heartbeat?

                Good, everyone has a partner! Now come to the moonlight plaza, quick!

                Another text flashes as we both look confused.

                “I guess that does it?” Anthony replies, who I notice also has a pained expression on his face.

                “Um… I suppose so,” I sigh, trying to calculate the shortest route to the plaza.

                “We can make it through Kensington avenue,” Anthony starts to run.

                “B..but what about your shirt?” I yell, trying to catch up.

                “We only have four minutes!”

                “..To save the world,” I chuckle.

***

                At the plaza, there seems to be a lot of people congregating around the middle of the square. As the two of us enter, a sound echoes from around the square and it looks as if there are barriers to prevent people to exit. I’m panting, out of breath and sweating profusely. I never could run well; Anthony seems not to have broken a sweat.

                “Remind me to start working out again…” I pant.

                “You never did Elisha,” Anthony laughs.

                 A couple of girls are confused at their surroundings and approach the two of us.

                “Hey there,” a girl with glasses looks to me, “You like, know where we are?”

                “Trying to figure that out ourselves,” I reply.

                The girls start to affix their gaze at Anthony. “You look like a real cutie,” another girl with a blue shirt asks, “What’s your name?”

                There’s silence. It’s like Anthony’s not even looking at them.

                “Yo, Anthony,” I tap his shoulder, “They’re asking you something.”

                “Huh?” Anthony looks a bit dazed.

                The girls giggle. “He’s funny,” the girl with glasses says, “Can we get your number?”

                Again, silence.

                “I mean, you can have mine…” I start weakly.

                “Ugh, whatever, Jeannie, we’re leaving,” The girl with the blue shirt says as the two scoff and look at a television screen.

                “Hey! You weren’t even looking at them!” I say desperately. “I couldn’t even get them to call me. Maybe, if…”

                “What? I didn’t see anyone.”

                “You mean those two girls that were pretty much ogling… whatever,” I say looking at my hand. It seems to have stopped at 01:37. Guess we were on time. All of a sudden, the screens changed into static, and a faint image appears on the screen.

                You have seven days left to live.

There seems to be a  woman on the screen as it transitions; she looks like she’s in her twenties, with black hair and a menacing look on her face.

                “Congratulations on making it this far,” The woman says throughout the plaza, “But of course, that won’t help you right now. Welcome to the Reaper’s game. You’re in the underground. My name is Vanessa, and I’ll be your Game Master for the week.”

                The crowd is confused.

                “You all probably woke up confused at some random location, am I correct?” Vanessa continues, “Maybe you thought that you escaped from a harrowing situation, or maybe you think you’re recovering from a wild night of partying.”

                I suddenly start to remember what happened the night before. I don’t think…

                “Sorry to kill the mood,” Vanessa looks like she’s enjoying this, “But you, all of you with a black pin…”

                The crowd starts to look at their pins; I didn’t realize how many people had them.

                “…Are players.”

                Players? Like in a video game?

                “Oh! Whoops, that wasn’t it,” Vanessa runs off-screen as a loud punch is heard, “Fernando! Wrong cue card! Idiot!”

                Some of the people start to chuckle nervously as Vanessa goes back to the camera.

                “Oh right, sorry about that! You’re dead.”

                What.

                “Let me put it in terms you can understand. That night at the pool? Yeah, you drowned. The fun times you spent? Sorta fell on a balcony. Fun stuff I tell ya.”

                Everyone has a look of exasperation on their faces. I look to Anthony, who seems deep in thought.

                “Does that mean…” Anthony says, “We didn’t get out in time?”

                “I know what you’re thinking right now,” It’s apparent that Vanessa’s looking at cue cards now, “But hey, you know what’s fun about this game? It’s an opportunity to get back to living! You know, survive these next seven days and you’re all set! Nothing bad happens!”

                A collective sigh of relief emanates from the plaza.

                “Oh, but one catch; a lot of bad things are going to happen!” Vanessa pulls out a whistle and uses it loudly. “I’ve released the noise! Oh dear, and if you don’t defeat them, you’re going to be erased from existence! Isn’t that fun?”

                I can see a lot of people angered at the situation. A few girls are crying while some guys are cheering, as if this was a second chance at being a hero. But we’re not heroes.

                We’re just dead.

                “So, um…” Vanessa is scrambling to read the lines, “I think. No, that’s not it. Fernando, where’s the next card! Ah! By the way, there’s another thing too: remember when you made a pact? Well, that’s important, ‘cuz you can only defeat the noise with your partner! No riding solo, m’kay?”

                “But how are we going to defeat these noise?” One guy asks. “And what do they look like?”

                “Good question! You all have some pins, use ‘em!” Vanessa says as some random creatures materialize out of thin air. She touches a pin as a whip materializes out of thin air as Vanessa grips it and demolishes them in the background. “For the most part they won’t appear unless you seek them out, but for today’s goal…” She whips out a cell phone as a mass text appears on everyone’s phones.

                You’ll need five golden threads from a certain noise to survive the next day. You have three hours.

                A flash of light restarts the timer, and the clock stops to three hours.

                “Oh, a few more things,” Vanessa says, adjusting her hair, “In order to play this game, we had to take an entry fee from you. What, you thought you were getting a second chance at life for free? Pishaw. But yeah, it’s something the composer thought was the most important to you. Can’t remember a person? Maybe you don’t have the will to live anymore?  Welp, that just means your entry fee was taken from ya! Don’t worry, win and you’ll get it back. Also, normal people can’t see you, but you can see them; part of being in the UG I guess. And finally, if you happen to get erased, your partner has seven minutes to make a pact or else buh-bye  world!”

                The screen turns to black as the clock begins to tick. All of a sudden, a wave of panic flows from the plaza as hordes of people try to get acclimated to the situation.

                “We gotta head to the airport!”

                “Why’s my cell phone getting weird signals?”

                “My pin sucks! It’s only a teddy bear!”

                A bloodcurdling scream comes from the middle as I see a girl shouting after what seems to be her partner is crushed by an elephant that materialized from nowhere. That must be the noise Vanessa was talking about. She cries as the guy turns into a code of static and disappears.

                “She only has seven minutes,” Anthony frowns.

                “Well what are we going to do about it?” I’m clutching to my pins.

                “Nothing we can do, unless you want to die.”

                “B…But we have to save her! She could be—”

                “She’s already dead! Don’t you see?” Anthony looks panicked. “Her partner’s gone, she only has seven minutes left, and we’re the only ones left in the plaza. You can’t be a hero, not now Elisha.”

                I can sense the girl is looking at me, with sad eyes. She fumbles with her pins, but drops them as she trips and falls. The elephant is readying itself to stomp the girl to oblivion.

                “Let’s go, now,” Anthony leads the way.

                I mouth the words, “I’m sorry,” As I follow Anthony out the plaza. I feel guilty and angry as we try to find a place to get our bearings together. I want to be scared and get upset at the same time as we hide in an alley. I look at my hand; there are two hours left.

                “What the hell was that about?” I’ve reached my limit. I don’t swear much, but when I do I’m stressed beyond belief. “We could’ve saved her!”

                “And what, erase another person?” Anthony replies sharply. “You heard the rules. Unless another person gets erased, she can’t make a pact. You saw that thing, it’s huge! And we don’t know what our weapons  are yet!”

                “Sure we do!” I tap the two pins that aren’t the black one. A magnifying glass and a pair of binocular materialize as I grab them.

                “What… what are these?” I stare blankly at the items. “What am I going to do, creep the enemies to death?”

                “See? Haha,” Anthony chuckles nervously. He does that when he doesn’t want to be serious, but I think it’s because he doesn’t know what to do next.

                “What about you? What can you do?”

                Anthony taps the pins on his pants and holds a fishing rod and a tackle box.

                “We are so screwed…” I lament.

                As if on cue, the sound of static fills the alley, and creatures materialize around us. We need to fight, but how?

                “Hurry up!” Anthony readies his fishing rod.

                “But I don’t know what I’m going to do with this!” I say, starting to look with my binoculars.

                Whoa. This is trippy. I look around and find three enemies; it seems like there’s a heads up display on these. It analyzes the creatures and fires some sort of tracking device at them. I take the binoculars out and see that there are three penguin-esque monsters with red splotches on them. They look like they’re a bit pained, but still ready themselves to attack. One of them manages to dash up and cut me.

                “Ouch!” Anthony and I exclaim in unison.

                “Whoa, wait,” I pant, “I’m the one who got—”

                Heartbeats. We’re synced.

                “Shoot, dodge next time Elisha!”

                “Sorry. Hey, what can you do with that fishing rod? Aim for that red splotch.”

                Anthony affixes some bait and casts it to the penguin. The rod seems to have stuck onto the spot, and the penguin looks confused. Anthony grins as he pulls the rod and the penguin goes flying. It hits a wall as a spray of static becomes the only evidence of the creature’s existence.

                “Are these things… psychic?” I say, looking surprised at the items in my hand.

                “They’re special, that’s for sure, heads up! There’s another one coming at you!”

                The second penguin starts to dash at me as I understand what we have to do. I whip out my binoculars and quickly analyze the enemy; the tracking device shows that the head is the point of interest.

                “Now Anthony!”

                Another bait is attached to the rod as he casts it and give it a hearty tug. The penguin goes flying the same way as another spray of static hits the wall.

                “Yes!” Both of us exclaim.

                “Now for the last one,” Anthony smirks.

                This one looks a bit different, like an emperor penguin of sorts. It seems heavier, but I know the drill. I look through my binoculars to find a weak point…

                There aren’t any.

                The penguin starts to look at me angrily as it waddles closer. I’m frantically searching for a vulnerability, anything to destroy this thing. I realize I’ve reached a wall as my head focuses away from the penguin. I red splotch covers a nearby mailbox as I suddenly get an idea.

                “Anthony!” I yell, as the penguin nears me.

                “I know!” He readies some more bait as he casts the rod to the mailbox. It seems that he has a bit of trouble lifting the mailbox, but then again it’s  fishing rod. Nothing makes sense in this place…

                “Having a little trouble?” I’m sort of nervous since the penguin is ready to attack me.

                Anthony struggles a little bit more, but manages to lift the mailbox. He aims to throw it at the penguin, but misses a tad as it hits the wall and ricochets to hit it. The penguin lets out a loud growl and disappears.

                “Do you even lift bro?” I smile, relieved that I can live another day.

                “You should start,” Anthony smiles.

                “Eh, I’m okay just giving you weak points.”

                “Hey, did you notice the timer stopped?”

                I look at my hand and it seems like the clock has stopped at 01:24:38. Looks like the mission’s complete.

                “But wait, I only count one,” I say, a bit confused.

                “You know, maybe she was thinking of getting five threads cumulatively,” Anthony muses.

                “Ah! So by getting this thread…”

                “…We probably got the fifth one.”

                “Yes! We’ve survived!” I’m giddy.

                “Don’t be so sure of that,” A mysterious voice calls out.

                “Huh?” Anthony asks, trying to identify the source of the voice.

                “Look, this was just a fluke. You got lucky and knew how to use your psych pins properly,” the voice continues, “But from here on out things are just going to keep getting harder. You’d better be prepared, I don’t want you… actually I do want you erased.”

                The voice lets out a dull chuckle that intimidates me. “W-who are you?” I call out.

                “I’m a reaper, but you’ll see me soon enough,” The voice says at it fades away.

                So we’ve made it through the first objective, I’m glad. But I’m still scared at what’s going on; we’re dead, and I think I know why. But what I don’t know is what my entry fee is, what Anthony’s entry fee is. I’m struggling to understand as a blinding flash of light obscures my vision.