Chapter 01 - Where are we dropping, fellow kids?

Brent woke up to darkness. Not a void like in his dream, but just the regular darkness from an insufficiently lit room. He could feel his body, so he probably wasn’t dead. He could tell that he was sitting in a chair and could move his limbs, but there was some sort of harness strapped to his chest that prevented him from getting up. There was a low mechanical-like rumbling sound that seemed to come from every direction.

Wait, he’d read about this kind of thing happening before. Perhaps Brent had been reincarnated into a fantasy world, that worked just like a video game?

“S-status,” he said in a whisper, to avoid being embarrassed in case it wasn’t so. But sure enough, a glowing holographic window appeared in the center of his vision with information about him:

Status Name Brent Davies Race Human Health 100/100 Adrenaline 0% Loadout: Weapon Fists Helmet None Armor None Backpack None

It looked a little odd to Brent as it was missing some key information, like what was his class, his level, and where were his other stats, like strength or intelligence? But it didn’t seem like he could do anything about it at the moment, so he just closed the window for now by touching the X button in the bottom right corner.

As his eyes became adjusted to the darkness he saw the outlines of other people strapped into seats all around him. A bit of motion from the chair next to him indicated its occupant was also awake. “Hey, what’s going on?” Brent asked.

“I don’t know,” a female voice replied. “I just woke up here.” Well, that was a dead end.

“Yeah, same here. My name is Brent Davies.” He stuck his hand out.

“Cassie Nevarine.” They were spaced a bit too far to comfortably shake hands, so they settled for shaking pinkies instead.

Dim orange emergency bulbs began to light up on the walls, giving Brent a better view of his fellow captives. Some of them were normal people like him, but others looked very strange, like one person who had a shiny blue llama head helmet on. The one he’d spoken to turned out to be girl around his age in a sailor uniform with large fox ears poking out of her hair.

“Are...are those real?”

“Excuse me?” Cassie turned a little red.

“Your ears, I mean.”

“Oh, uh...yes?” They twitched slightly. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

Their attention was drawn forward by a loud click. They were all seated in a large hangar-like space. Up in front, past all the seats, a spotlight in the ceiling turned on, illuminating a small section of floor. A hole opened in that section, and out of that hole rose a rather bizarre figure.

It looked like a large, articulated humanoid rabbit much like those animatronic characters often featured in a certain family friendly restaurant chain. It wore a polka dotted clown suit covered in multicolored paint splotches and worn cloth patches.

“OOH HOO HOO HOO!” a distorted falsetto voice suddenly came from a loudspeaker somewhere inside the rabbit’s mouth, filled with large tombstone-like teeth. Startled, Brent would have jumped out of his seat if he wasn’t strapped in.

The animatronic threw up its arms in a jerky motion and began to speak in a cheerful tone, it’s jaws opening and closing at a rhythm that was completely out of sync with its speech.

“Welcome all, to the world of Battleground Survival Legends! My name is Dombey Uno, and I’m here to show you kids the ropes.” Although some of the audience didn’t really seem like kids.

“You have chosen, or been chosen to leave your own world and be summoned to this one, in order to participate in a great contest, a battle royale the likes of which have never been seen before! Well, except for all the other ones,” it added in an aside.

“Here’s how it works!” A projector screen came down from the ceiling and began to play what looked like a grainy old silent film featuring simple 3D models of people running around.

“You, the contestants, will drop onto a deserted island from above. Don’t worry, we’ve already packed everyone automatic parachutes. Once you land, you’ll pick up guns and other fun things!” The ‘people’ in the film ran through floating weapons, which then vanished to reappear in their hands.

“You’ll shoot each other! You’ll KILL each other!” They began attacking each other, and one of them exploded in a shower of cartoonish, polygonal body parts and blood droplets.

“Though there may be 100 of you now, only one can survive to the end and win the contest! This last man standing will receive the grand prize… of one free gourmet CHICKEN DINNER!!!”

A brief quiet followed as Brent and the others were understandably underwhelmed by such a paltry reward for fighting to the death. (Or as some would say, a poultry reward.)

“Oh, and your deepest desire or wish will also be granted. But why wouldn’t that be to eat a hearty helping of delicious chicken?”

“Hey,” one kid interjected, “I don’t want to participate in this, can you send me back home please.”

“Yeah, me too!” several others chimed in.

“Sorry, no can do.” Dombey Uno’s head rotated left and right. “Participation is mandatory.” The last word was spoken at a much deeper, menacing tone. “You’re stuck here until you win or you die.”

Panic set in as some of the captives realized they were well and truly trapped here. “Ahhhh!!” “Help! Someone! Get us out of here!” The ones who objected struggled against their restraints to no avail.

Brent himself was starting to get very nervous as he didn’t like his odds of surviving against 99 other people. This was going all wrong; wasn’t he supposed to be reincarnated into a stronger body, or at least get some special ability? As far as he could tell he was still just an ordinary teenage boy. And this was no fantasy world, there were guns and other modern technologies.

“We’re almost over the island everyone, get ready to go!” Dombey Uno continued in a cheerful tone over the screaming and panicking.

The section of floor underneath them split in two down the middle, then suddenly fell away, leaving Brent’s feet dangling in the air over a vast blue expanse of water. Nobody had fallen since the chairs were attached to the ceiling via overhead poles, but it was quite the shocking revelation to see that they were in the cargo bay of some kind of aircraft flying about half a mile above sea level. The mechanical rumbling grew to an almost deafening volume, revealed to be the sound of the aircraft’s engines.

Brent gripped the edges of his seat tightly, trying to keep his pounding heart under control. He’d always had a mild fear of heights but this really turned things up to eleven.

Up ahead Brent could see the island itself, a haphazard patchwork quilt of many different biomes and a few abandoned settlements scattered across them. A big yellow button appeared on the chair’s armrest, with “DROP” printed in big black letters on it.

“WHERE WE DROPPIN’ BOYS?!” shouted a boisterous young man with ruffled blond hair.

“Let’s land at that military base, they’ve got to have the best gear there.”

“...First thing to do is get a gun. At the very least you can defend yourself. Other items you can loot off of people you kill.”

A few others were also having excited discussions about where to land and what to do, with the remainder of those that weren’t wailing in fear simply surveying the island in silence. Whether this silence was out of prudence for not giving away their plans to potential enemies, or out of ignorance for not knowing what to do, varied by the individual. For Brent it was mostly the latter.

He had devoted his life to playing MMORPGs, particularly the “Full Dive” variety that used the latest virtual reality tech for a truly immersive experience. Now facing a “Full Dive” of a different sort he felt very lost.

The craft reached the edge of the island, and the DROP button lit up. Some people hit their buttons immediately; and in an instant the bottoms of their chairs unfolded and the harnesses disengaged from the seat backs, releasing them into the air. Brent saw a steady stream of spreadeagled skydivers appear below him and appear to be swept away as the craft moved past them.

A small window appeared at the top of his vision for a few seconds:

100 remaining.

No doubt it referred to the number of living participants.

Where would he land? Most of the early droppers were heading towards either a ruined urban area or the aforementioned military base. If he went to one of those places he’d be killed for sure from sheer numbers. There was a volcano, and the surrounding area looked quite inhospitable. A slow dread overcame him, as he was completely out of his element.

The seats around him began emptying. He turned to Cassie. “Er-”

“Sorry!” she exclaimed suddenly, and dropped. Well then.

Before he knew it, they had already passed over half of the island. A loud horn blared as Dombey Uno flipped out at them. “What are you waiting for? Come on, drop already!”

Without any other information, one place was as good as any. Brent took a deep breath, screwed his eyes shut. He hit the DROP button, and fell into the sky.