Act I. Part III.

Ryu awoke, still in shock laying on the floor of the unfamiliar place he was in. He slowly got up and started to look around to know where he was. As he did he noticed that his surroundings were "different" from where he passed out. The place was still the lifeless, dark but light-present world but it was different. Mainly because there was an old-looking house made entirely of grey rocks and bricks in front of him. It looked like a house straight out of a children's fantasy story. It had a couple of stone steps leading upwards to a single wooden door, a window on both sides of the door, and a short chimney at the top.

He quickly walked towards the house and noticed that he was moving in a single direction now, he could see where he was going, and not moving in circles anymore. As he reached the base of the steps he moved slower and with caution. He climbed up the small stone steps and reached the door. He started to stretch out his hand to grab the brass-like handle. But before he could hold it in his hand, he heard a voice.

"Who are you? Where are you from? Why have you come here?" The voice asked in an angry tone.

The voice sounded like that of a small boy. Ryu quickly turned around, looking for the source of the voice. "My name is Ryu, I'm from central, please I need your help!" He answered in a panicked and hurried tone.

"And helping some random boy covered in blood in a place where people don't exist is a good idea." The voice said sarcastically.

Ryu didn't take notice of blood on his shirt until the voice had mentioned it. He simply tuned it out but now that he noticed it he fell to his knees as he remembered what he had run from.

"Please I'll do anything you want. I just want to get back home." He cried.

"You... You're from the other side? Get in quick."

Ryu proceeded to open the door handle and was immediately met by an incredibly bright and familiar light. He raised his arm to cover his eyes as he went into the house. The light from the house seemed to strip away all the darkness around him as he entered.

Finally, inside, he closed the door behind him and dropped his arm. He looked around the room and realized that the house had normal light inside it. The inside was almost completely wooden inside. He ran to the nearest window looking for the light's source. What he saw amazed him, on the other side of the window was a blue, no azure sky, purer and fuller than any sky he had ever seen.

He quickly ran to the door and left the house. Lo and behold the outside was still a dark, mundane, upside down, and lifeless place with strange glowing water for a floor. He went back into the house and immediately thought of getting something to eat

"There's no food or water in this house, now go to the end of the hall." Said the voice, catching him off guard.

Ryu assumed that's where the voice was coming from; he looked around the room and grabbed a metal candle holder from a dining table that sat in the corner of the room and tucked it into his sleeve.

He went down the hall and came across a door, which was the only one in the corridor. He proceeded to open it and to his surprise, there was someone there. A small girl with flowing white hair that had black strands mixed in the beautiful pure white fast asleep on a wooden bed. She looked about ten years old or younger but he couldn't tell. He felt an urge to reach out to her. But before he could touch her skin, he heard the voice again.

"I want you to take me and this child to your world."

He looked around but still couldn't see anyone apart from the girl, "Wait, are you just a voice? Where are you?" He asked with a confused expression

"You won't find me if you look for me. All I need is a response to my request. I can tell we've both been wronged by the rulers of this world, if you take me back, I'll help you. Because right now you won't last long if one of 'them' decides to look for you."

Ryu was left even more confused by his words; he opened his mouth to form a sentence.

"Someone else is coming, who else did you come here with?!"

"Uhh"

"Argh, it's probably them." The voice shouted.

Ryu went into a panic and fell silent, completely dumbfounded because he had an idea of who was coming.

" know you're here! Come out or I'll kill the boy and girl." A voice from outside shouted.

"I think he has my friends, I need to go see if they're okay," Ryu told the voice as he looked around trying to find someone to focus on as he spoke.

"Of course, they're not okay!" He retorted. "He has no intention of letting you or whoever live, regardless of whether you come out of the house or not. You're safer here, he doesn't even know you're here for sure."

"That is a possibility. But right now, I have to ignore it. I don't want the extra guilt of watching my friends die because of me."

Deep down he assumed, no he knew, that all they were was is bait. The poor fisherman wouldn't catch a fish, feed it and let it go, after all his livelihood solely relies on him catching the very fish. He realized that in this situation someone else's will and intentions overshadowed his need to live.

Ryu started to open the door and walk out of the house to meet the man. As he left the warm and bright inside of the cabin, he began to remember what type of place was outside. It was cold.

The darkness outside started to consume the bright light coming from the cabin as he walked out. He continued to walk towards the figure from which the voice came. The face and figure of this man became visible, as well as a woman he didn't see earlier by his side. And not just that but his two friends kneeling on all fours in front of this man, he noticed that his friends were softly crying and whimpering seemingly unable to move because of fear.

The unknown man looked at the shaken Ryu standing across from him and smiled.

"Is he smiling because I've chosen to die without resistance, or is it because of how I look, who is that woman beside him, if these to are here does that mean they killed everyone else?" Ryu thought to himself as the questions ran mad in his head.

At this moment Ryu let out a light laugh because he may have come to the last realization of his life, and it was fairly simple for the last realization of his life. It simply was:

"oh so this is how i die"

The unknown man seemed disappointed by his willingness and began to scratch his head.

"What about a bet?" Hishe said to Ryu, shocking him. "If you beat me, I'll let them go and take you back home. In a simple and normal fistfight."

"This is a waste of time. They're just kids, don't prolong the unnecessary." The woman by his side complained.

"Urghhh all you do is nag…"

The two began to argue all while Ryu was left confused and wide-eyed at what he had just heard.

"Do you think you can win?" Asked the voice.

"How--I'm fairly confident in my ability to hold my own in a fistfight." Said Ryu in a hushed voice.

"Okay! Now that I'm done with my discussion with this one." He said as he pointed his eyes to the woman by his side. "Let's set a few common rules.." Hishe began to add rules to the wager, and while he was speaking, Ryu walked closer to him and struck a blow to his head using the candle holder that he still had in his sleeve and dropped Hishe onto his face.

Ryu immediately let out a sigh of relief.

"I didn't think you could land a blow on him," Said the voice. and Ryu retorted by saying,

"Didn't I tell you I'm fair----"

"That's great and all but he's still awak--" Th voice interrupted, but was unable to finish his sentence.

Ryu was met with a vicious dropkick to the back. He flew into the stone steps of the house coughed up blood. He raised his head to look around, and behind him was the woman who was by the man's side, sitting at the top of the step. She made a hand gesture at Ryu that said: "Don't look at me, it's all him."

His friends were brought to clarity by this scene and quickly ran to jump onto the man, trying to hold him back from going to finish off Ryu.

"Please! Please don't! " Cried Mila as she held onto Hishe's left hand.

He shrugged her off and said, "I don't hit girls. But you.." He said as he turned to look at Toshiko with a crude smile.

Toshiko held onto him from behind and had no time at all to react to the vicious blow his stomach received. Hishe continued to walk towards Ryu, once he stood over him, he picked him up by his neck and held him in the air.

All eyes were on Hishe who now was holding up Ryu prepping his fist, and at that moment they were all shocked to see Hishe sent flying. Because their eyes were focused on him, they did not see the man who threw the punch come into their surroundings.

Another unfamiliar figure came into the picture, and almost immediately the expression of the woman who was with Hishe changed from that of complacency to that of fear. She rushed to Hishe's side who was now on the ground unable to move.

The man who had just appeared had short, jet black hair as well as a hair-bun at the back of his head, sharp facial features that accented his black studded earrings. He was wearing a black and gold military-esque uniform, with several decorations on it, in short, he's another pretty boy/man.

"We're doing lady Inari's will, why do you involve yourself in matters unrelated to you, láng bīng?!" The woman shouted as she held Hishe in her arms.

The military uniform-wearing man began to laugh, he shortly came out of his fit of laughter and glared at the woman.

"Well this time you chose wrong my moronic cousins, you see that boy," He said pointing at Toshiko. "My king ordered that I bring him as well as anyone with him, back with me. And I'm sure you know how difficult things will get for you if you have the wrath of my king on you. "He said confidently.

The woman looked like she had more to say but resisted, "We shall inform our lady on what has happened here. You will regret interfering." She said with anger-filled words.

The man continued to laugh and went on to pick up Ryu. He then walked towards Mila and Toshiko and dropped Ryu to the ground, piling the three up, and in a flash of light consuming darkness, they were all at the train station, but it was evening time now.

said,

"Hi! My name is Lars, and I'd appreciate it if you kept what happened to you today to yourselves. So g'night, and sleep well." He said before he proceeded to walk away.

The three were left on the edge of the platform by the train tracks, traumatized from the events that had just happened. They just sat there in silence. They then heard a voice, they all slowly turned to look behind them and it was a small girl,

"Where am I?" She asked.

end