Chapter 4: "I Transmigrated Only... to Die as a Sacrifice?!"

"Bird." 

"Doorknob."

"B again, ugh... burgundy."

"Yellow."

"Window."

"Wow."

"Why?"

"Another Y?" 

"No. Why are we playing this game again?" Eliza sighed. I rolled over again, I was halfway across the cave floor now. I looked at him upside down.

"Cuz I'm both bored and scared." I rolled over again. My stomach growled and I whimpered. Collen and Victor both laughed at me. I blushed, "It was thunder." I mumbled.

"This deep in a cave?"

"Then it was an earthquake."

"Pft!" The silver haired kid hid his face when I looked over, but his shaking shoulders told me that he found my stomach pretty amusing. I pouted, and rolled back into my corner. Leo was laughing the loudest and hardest.

"Come now, don't tease him." Collen took a deep breath and wiped away the tears in his eyes, "Look now, you've embarrassed him!" 

"Big Brother Collen... you're the one who was laughing the most." I grumbled. My stomach grumbled in response sending another wave of laughter through my captive companions. "Hmph! Your stomachs are going to growl soon too, you know." 

"No one has your low level of decorum." Elisa grinned. I groaned.

"Yolk."

"Huh?"

"Yolk is my Y word."

"Kind." Collen smiled softly, indulging me.

"Donuts."

"Sunk."

"Um, hey..."

"Kindling."

"Gouda."

"Arms."

"Salmon." Another stomach growled. The room was silent.

"See? Everyone has a stomach that can speak its mind when it wants to." I laughed. Elisa turned beet red.

"Rubbish! That had to be your stomach again!" 

"Huh? Seriously?!" I wanted to cry.

"It was mine." Bernard lifted his hand, "I want salmon." I looked over at Bernard and began to giggle. We were chained to the wall in a fucking cave and somehow this kid made me think that everything was going to be just fine! Bernard was a pudgy little thing with baby fat, big eyes, and a chill attitude. This entire time he had been either sleeping or enjoying my lame attempts at staying calm. Everyone watched me laugh and soon a few others began to giggle too. 

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU BRATS GIGGLING ABOUT?!" one of our captors screamed as soon as he came in. I quickly retreated to the corner and hid behind the silver haired kid. The man was not as beefy as some of the other guys, but he was still huge. Muscles spilt out of a sleeveless top, and typical thug bandana tied around his head, scars on his face. He was the poster boy for just about every low ranking thug out there. Well, I had to hand it to the author, cliche really was her selling point.

"We were just behaving." I mumbled. The other kids looked at me in shock, not expecting me to speak to our captors. I slid out from behind the silver haired kid a small fraction. "Um, mister? Are we going to be able to go home soon?" I tilted my head. 

"The hell? How is it any of your business?" He turned and left the room, grumbling under his breath as he went. We all stayed silent, holding our breath as if one single sigh would bring him back.

"There a reason you wanted to chat him up?" The silver haired kid asked me. I shook me head. Not any reason that I wanted to share at this point. It felt like ages before the same guy came to deliver food to us. He made several trips down, throwing trays of food down at our feet. Elisa and Leo turned up his nose at the stuff, but Bernard and I began to dig in right away. The guy clicked his tongue at us, and was about to leave.

"Thank you very much for the food, Mister." I spoke up as loudly as I could. He looked back.

"Yeah. Don't be too thankful yet. You have no idea what's in store for you." he sneered and left.

"Ransom, right?" I piped up between bites. The silver haired kid elbowed me, and kept my head down.

"You think ransom is the reason you're here?" the man leaned against the cave entrance. 

"Isn't it?" I scooped up another spoonful of slop.

"Does it matter?" he turned away.

"Are you going to bring all of these trays up yourself?" I asked instead. He suddenly rushed over and grabbed me, lifting me high up by my nightshirt collar. 

"Don't you patronize me, you little shit! What the hell do you know?! I have better things to do than serve you rich little bastards!" I struggled in his grip and he cast me away in annoyance. I coughed a few times, before trying again.

"Do you want some help?" I asked. He glared at me and picked up the trays, leaving us in silence and darkness.

"What were you thinking?" Elisa gritted out between his teeth. The silver haired boy touched my neck and I winced. He looked angry and annoyed.

"I was just trying to see what was going to happen to us." While relying on the horribly overdone trope where villains monologue about their ambitions... I sighed, rubbing my sore neck. Looks like some tropes didn't work once you transmigrated into a novel filled with them...

...or so I thought. 

"Hey kid!" I woke up groggily to the sound of my chains being unlocked. I yawned, too sleepy to register that someone was talking to me. Smack! The crisp sound of his hand hitting my cheek woke me up sooner than the pain of being hit. I sucked in a breath and held my cheek in pain, tears filling my eyes. I trembled as I looked up at my assailant. He grinned at both my fear and the fact that he had my attention. "Come with me."

"Yes, sir." I swallowed hard and followed him. There was a chilly sensation behind my back and I peeked behind me to observe the murderous aura of the silver haired kid. I flinched and bumped into the man. 

"Watch it!" He smacked the top of my head. I winced as I felt a lump the size of an egg to form on my head. What kind of maniac hits a child? And in the mirror I don't look more than seven?! 

"Sorry, sir." I rubbed my head and followed him up the stairs. What was that kids problem? Why did he look so angry? I followed the man to the surface and looked around in fascination. 

This cave was huge! An entire array of caverns, tunnels, and crevices carved from dead rock. There was a strong pulsing in the air as I walked passed some of these rooms. Sometimes I felt like I could see little wisps or lights flashing by. Yeah... this place wasn't creepy at all...

There was a time in my last life where I had some weird experiences, ghosts and whatnot. I had just moved into my first apartment, which I think we can all agree is something incredibly exciting. I had spent the whole day organizing and reorganizing my merch-- with an hour to organize everything else. Alright, it was two hours; but seriously, who puts much thought into boring stuff like pots and pans and toothpaste? Anyhow, it started off small, I would leave something somewhere to have it go somewhere else. Sometimes it would disappear for days on end. Sometimes things would be left on top of the refrigerator. Weird stuff like that. After a few weeks of thinking I was crazy I found out I had been sleepwalking. Or something like that. My brain-- on overdrive from work related stress-- was causing me to forget where I was leaving things. After a few weeks on pills for anxiety and sleep, and some meditation, I was back ship-shape shape! I moved out to a better apartment without knocking sounds a few years later. People often looked worried about me whenever I exited the apartment and there were some nosy women who would ask me weird things. "Is everything alright, dear?" or "You look quite pale. There's no issue at home, is there?". I mean, yes, I'm a spazz, but why did they have to try and stick their nose in it? Privacy! I wanted privacy! So I moved into the apartment I stayed in until my dying day. Which sounds like I lived until 80 or something in my apartment. Sigh, sometimes I feel like an old lady, but that's a story for another time. 

There were times where I wondered if my apartment was haunted, I almost called a medium. However, a new limited edition figure was coming out along with a box set of my favorite series, who would waste time on a fantasy? Looking at this cave, I might have considered my options a little longer between calling a medium and limited edition merch. Don't get me wrong, I would have only for a few more minutes, then I would have picked anime anyway.

This cave had something different though. A vibe of dread that waited around some corners and some corners that felt comforting, like a pat on the back. I took a good look around as I trotted through the caverns. There was a living room, some sort of rec room, a meeting room-- actually, no, I guess calling them a living cavern, some sort of rec cavern, a meeting cavern, and some sort of training cavern would be more appropriate. People were inside almost all of these, and the looks they gave me were akin to the looks a scientist gives an endangered species. I distracted myself by looking through all the caverns. Wonder where they hide the s-box and tv? I walked a little further until I saw a room with a giant magic circle, Oh, look, they have a room with a giant magic circle covered in blood, gore, guts, and skulls casually thrown off to the sides... I paused and stared at the room. The ominous feeling that I had felt through this entire maze of caverns all stagnated in this one place. The air was thick with hatred, fear, and death. I stared at this place for a while, rooted in place. 

We weren't ransoms...

"The hell you doing? Hurry up!" The man had come back and hit me over the head again. I didn't flinch this time, just stared forward. There was so much, the air was thick with those who had come before us. The man followed my gaze and smirked, "Like what you see? I'm curious, what do you see when you look into that room?" My face drained of blood and my legs wobbled, bringing my already exhausted body to its knees. My body purged everything it could, and even rejected the bile leftover. I couldn't cry, it was like every other part of was frozen. I could only wheeze and sputter as wave after wave of nausea washed over me. 

We were all going to die... sacrificed to whatever they were trying to resurrect... I transmigrated as the male lead only to die as a sacrifice?! WTF?!