"To survive is to suffer, but to live, is to find some meaning in that suffering."

*****

My name is Derek McLan.

I used to be a very bright kid. Always talkative, friendly, and kind to everyone I met. I got good grades in school and excelled at athletics as well. I came from a rich family, lived in a mansion, and was respected all around. My parents were proud, I was happy, and my naiveness thought this could go on forever.

It didn't.

I still remember that day clearly. It was my 16th birthday, the 3rd of April. My family, friends, and I had originally been planning on going golfing, but a sudden thunderstorm untold of by weather forecasts ruined that plan completely. It was okay, though, since we just stayed at my house — it was big enough to host a birthday party of forty people.

But on that day, only one survived.

*****

- On The Day Of -

"Hey, Derek. You wanna game or somethin'?" A friend of Derek's, Phil, tapped on his shoulder and said.

"Sure," Derek replied coolly, then looked around at all the other teens. "Anyone else want to join?"

"Ooh, yeah, yeah, me!" His best friend, Maximo, hurriedly raised his hand and ran over, stuffing the pizza slice he had been eating all into his mouth.

Derek chuckled. "Hey, hey, now. You're gonna choke like that. Slow down."

"U-Um… can I join too…?" A girl timidly asked, almost inaudibly. "I-I don't really know how to play video games, but… if it's with you, Derek, I think I can learn…"

Her name was Angel. She had long white hair and beautiful eyes placed behind a pair of cute circular glasses. She was the classic nerdy-type at school, but Derek thought it was cute.

"Oi, oi," Phil chuckled. "Ay, buddy, ya can't go turning her down, ya hear me?"

Derek smiled. "Don't worry about it, Angel. There's a first for everything. C'mon, the console's in the basement. Let's go."

Phil, Maximo, and Angel followed him downstairs, along with several others who wanted to spectate them. Once they were there, Derek shut the door to avoid disturbing the adults and other teens upstairs. The doors and walls were all completely soundproof, as expected of a high-quality mansion.

Derek then headed down and turned on the console as the room's lights began changing hues from red, to green, to blue, and back to red again.

"Sheeesh," Phil whistled. "Nice setup ya got goin' here, man."

"Woah…" Angel's eyes sparkled as she inspected all the technological equipment around the room, curious and somewhat puzzled.

"Yeah, yeah…" Derek waved off their praise as the TV screen flickered to life.

"What game are we gonna play, Derek?" Maximo asked excitedly, jumping up and down like a little kid.

"Hm…" Derek glanced at Angel. "Since Angel's here… let's start with something suitable for beginners. How about… this?"

He launched a blocky 3D game that featured pixelated graphics, one that was well-known all across the world.

"Oh, this looks interesting…" Angel blinked a few times in awe.

"I know you like building things, so this game should intrigue you quite a lot," Derek explained, handing one of the four controllers to her. "See this here? This joystick lets you move around, this button lets you jump…"

After carefully explaining all the controls to Angel, the four finally were able to start playing the game. Soon, laughter filled the room as Phil kept pushing Derek off the edge of a tall mountain and making him fall to his death, and Maximo failing the easiest of parkours. Angel forgetting the controls and doing something stupid was a common occurrence as well.

The spectators appeared to be enjoying themselves too — but no one realized one tiny detail. Timmy, a boy who went upstairs to get some more food… never came back.

Since everyone was too focused on the game, plus the fact that Timmy never had much of a presence to begin with, no one even noticed his disappearance.

But alas, their fun was cut short as the lights and TV suddenly all turned off, plunging the room into darkness.

"A-Ah! W-What happened?!" Angel cried out first, clutching onto Derek's arm frightfully.

"Calm down, calm down. It's probably just the thunderstorm," Derek replied firmly, keeping a level head.

"Gah… can't see shit now," Phil muttered. "What a time for the power to cut… I almost pushed Maximo off too…"

"W-What?! You were doing that?!" Maximo cried in shock.

Derek sighed. "Let's just head back upstairs for now — it's too dark down here."

Saying this, he fumbled out his phone and turned on the flashlight feature as anyone else who had their phone on hand did the same. This provided enough light for them to see where they were going.

"Follow me."

*****

As Derek led the group up the staircase, he couldn't help but feel it was unnaturally quiet. Even though the walls and doors were all soundproof, this felt… eerie. Subconsciously, Derek gulped in fear as he reached the top of the stairs, afraid to open the door for whatever reason.

Deep in his body, a swirling mass of energy was slowly being awakened, due to being in close proximity of an entity of the same nature as it.

'Why am I feeling scared? It's just a power outage from the storm, that's all…'

Calming himself down, Derek gave the doorknob a twist and opened it slightly. The door that shouldn't have creaked did, and a narrow ray of light illuminated the group of teens. Even so, however, it remained quiet. It was then that Derek knew something was wrong. They had been too busy having fun downstairs to notice, but something tragic had happened up here.

From the tiny slit of the door Derek opened, he could see tiny shards of glass that probably came from his backyard's doors.

'A robbery?'

That was his first thought. But as he opened the door wider, he saw a hand lying on the floor.

Derek's eyes widened and his body seized up in fear.

The hand was stained with blood and gore, but that wasn't even the most disturbing fact.

No… it wasn't a body that Derek saw. It was just a hand.

A severed… hand.