One hour was left before the mission begins and everyone's excited, Chris and Jonas were probably the only two party poopers, since both didn't see what's to be excited about when heading into a potentialy deadly situation.

"Stop being Grumpy!"

Xiao shouted at Chris with a rather puffed up tone as if she was a child throwing a tantrum, acting all cute for her new boyfriend. She and that fatty George decided to try being a thing, but they would take it slowly, good for them I guess.

"Before we go on a mission in the army we always used to pray to god for safety, has saved me till this day"

The old man said, causing everyone to go silent for a moment and each did their own prayer as the time for the mission was drawing near.

"Everyone don't forget to go piss or shit before the mission, we might not have the time to do it once the mission begins and you don't want to piss yourself after seeing a zombie"

The old man said while laughing and everyone agreed, especialy those that needed to go, Chris finding himself in that precarious situation. The problem being that he didn't have paper, so he decided to hold it, also he had sort of a problem with everyone else watching, he came to admire Xiao, because once he tried to pee he found that nothing came out, he suddenly had stage fright.

He didn't know how to describe it otherwise, he just couldn't do it, he had the same problem during army, the worst thing is sleeping in another bed other than his own, even that is difficult unless he's dead tired.

Everyone else did their business while he just stood there with his junk out of his trousers, unable to do anything, just keeping them company. The old man even took a crap and used all the remaining tissues without a care in the world. Maybe it's better to not give a shit about other people's needs or it was just him being too irritated because he couldn't do the same, he simply wouldn't be being true to himself.

"Now that everyone is ready, time for some warming up, I know that most of you haven't eaten anything in the last 5 hours, but bear with me, warming up is a good thing"

The old man was really irritating, but hopefully for Chris, others too called bullshit on warming up, Chris was more afraid of shitting himself while running, thus he just had to say no.

Problems however only startd to rise as the old man became more and more unrestrained, his Intentions were quite noble as he was trying to lift tension before the big event, but not many could understand such a simple concept.

"Lazy Beggar, what good are you, stand up and run with us!"

Another abnoxious person begun to poke her nose into other people's matters, it was Xiao, whom now saw herself as someone important and had it especialy for him, she either found it funny to torture people or thought that by berating people they would try to become better people, either way Chris now hated her.

"Sweetie, what's the matter, why aren't you running with us?"

George begun to inquire as the bussybody he were, well he was sort of her boyfriend now as well, but whether it had anything to do with him glaring at Chris was another matter. He just didn't like his "girlfriend" talking to other guys, understandable to some degree.

"George, half the group isn't running!"

She complained to our glorious leader, all while trying to act cute.

"I told you to call me Pumpkin and I told you before, this the people that will run have a better chance in surviving the mission, let those losers that sit down rue their own decisions"

George said, while glaring at Chris as if they were love rivals.

"Is that so?"

That abnoxious girl was acting cute again, even showing her tongue as she rushed back to jogging with the others. Chris could care less about all this, but some of the spectators begun to run, thinking that they were somehow raising their chances of survival by doing so.

Chris sat there looking as they were running, then suddenly his eyes fell on the two women with the richest of busts, their breasts were bouncing like crazy as they were jogging, Chrysa and Hera were a sight to be seen as both had assets, allas not the top model face, but they weren't bad, especialy Hera.

This was a nightmare that just waited to happen, before he knew it Chris was the only one sitting as everyone had begun jogging, the last one to jog was Jonas, whom complained to no end even as he was jogging next to Jason, the main reason why they were jogging was because of George's speech, Hera whom was sitting down at the time panicked so hard that she forced Jason off his feet and Chrysa and Mike followed suit, everyone understood that failure in this mission might mean death, even Chris understood it, but he physicaly couldn't run right now, thus becoming the outcast of the group.

Time passed rather fast as they did exercise and then went on with friendly chats and advices on how to act towards "NPCs", in other words people that weren't part of their group during missions. Nick was adamant on calling them NPCs and George was okay with it, although he was more interested in seeing if we would be fighting alongside the actors from the movie.

The clock was ticking and before they knew it 0:10:09, there were only 10 minutes before the mission and the agony was killing them, they had no idea what would happen. All Nick told them was that they would appear at the mission area and be given their mission objective.

They had been told that it wasn't impossible to earn 2000 points in a single run, mostly due to the extra points one could get through explaining to new "players" about the game, killing monsters and other actions that would earn them points by the system.

Nick explained it even better, in this game, risking your life earns you points, it doesn't matter if you are bringing harm to yourself or risk your life due to valid reasons, if you survive a near death experience the system will reward you, it can be anything between 10-1000 points and you can do the same thing every mission to earn more points, the max possible to earn in a single mission should be around 10.000 points, but out of those 2000 are awarded for instructing the new members, 2000 have to do with the secret artifact, which is what doomed Nick's previous team or so he said, although not entirely explaining how, 2000 can be earned by killing monsters during the mission, 3000 can be earned by risking your life and derailing the plot of the movie and 1000 you earn just for surviving the mission.

You might think this is bullshit, if I can earn 10 thousand points in a single mission, I'll be out of here in no time. But reality is harsh, for example out of the 2000 points for instructing the new members, you get around 10-200 points for each new person, depending on how well he understood what you told him. Killing monsters is another thing, for example if there are a lot of monsters each head will at most be worth a single point, while elite monsters will earn you 10-100 points each head and even if you kill 2000 easy monsters, you'll only earn 1000 points, because the last 1000 can only be earned by killing the elite monsters.

The Secret Artifact is a hidden item somewhere in the mission map, finding its location can earn you up to 1000 points, but if you can take it and survive the mission, everyone will earn a bonus 1000 points and you get to keep the artifact, of course taking the artifact will screw everyone over.

The 3000 points you can earn by risking your own life is fair game, as long as you don't screw the plot too much as to affect everyone's fate, for example don't go killing necessary for the plot NPCs or wrecking plot items. In other words you'll be lucky if you can earn around 1000-5000 points depending on how lucky you are, since finding the secret artifact is already bonus points for the finder, also you have to understand that most of these points can only be taken by the first person that completes the objective, meaning that these 4000 points will be divided among the 10+ people since there's only so many things they can do to earn extra points.

Nick's advise for them all was simply

"give up on the extra points and go for the sure thing"

Which earned him some ire by the group.

"Yup you might have to go through dozens of missions, but in the end you will earn enough points to go home, everyone will"

Nick's words were as fake as it went, but people believed him, because they liked what he was selling, cheap, free of charge, Hope.

"Everyone get ready the movie is about to begin, any final questions I will answer quickly before the mission starts"

Nick said and they could now barely perceive that the surrounding darkness was forming transparent figures, but they were as if frozen in time, etherial and unreal.

"I have three questions"

Jason asked not waiting for the opinions of the rest.

"Go out with it already!"

Nick looked rather distressed, as if there was little time before the game begun, you could tell that he too was rather nervous and had a hint of fear on his face, well understandably so they had 8 hours and he still had questions for the last minute.

"How are we supposed to fight without weapons?"

Jason asked as he hadn't been paying attention to the talks they had like at all, they've talked about it dozens of times.

"Look Jason, we've been through this dozens of times, just grab anything that can be used as a weapon if you see a zombie"

Nick spoke with unmatched speed as he was looking at his own watch, making everyone else feel the pressure from their lack of time and their fear brought out all the questions they had.

"Do we die for real if they kill us?"

This question was also in the others' minds, but to Hera's question Nick only shook his head as he spoke.

"No you'll go to a better place, other questions?"

His words made the team even more distressed, in truth they had multiple questions, but it was pointless to ask now, because the time was running out.

"Can we change the plot of the movie? like killing a person to get their weapon?"

This question was rather interesting, in truth Chris hadn't thought of that, his thoughts were more like, 'is this all for real?'.

It would have been interesting in a way if they could change the plot to a better conclusion, but it had completely evaded their mind, after all they didn't fully believe the survival game thingy and being inside a movie sounded kind of you know "crazy".

Jonas' question was a rather valid one, especialy since George already told everyone the plot of the movie and there would be people with weapons involved.

"You can try, but the possibility of dying while trying is much higher than of you surviving the plot, most of the times it results in the wipe out of the team or at least the majority dies, of course I won't stop you from killing yourselves, as long as you won't do something that will threaten my own life"

The words "wipe out" could be interpretted in many ways, but truth was that they weren't crazy enough to try seeing if it was him who would kill them or some strange creature, well they would soon find out for themselves anyway.

"Guys chill! it's like those novels, we will survive as a team and become stronger with each win, Nick told me that after the mission we will have access to a store where we can become super human!"

Our fat leader said happily as if someone had appointed him as the main character of a novel or a movie, although the others too felt somewhat exstatic at the thought, after all they had all been bored of their everyday lives and were at the threshold of commiting suicide out of bordom or despair.

"By the plot Nick must be a veteran whom will help us in the first mission, a pity that such characters die at some point, but if we help one another then we can all survive this together!"

The fatty's excited voice was like the speech of a politician, promising the moon and the stars, but Nick had an ugly look on his face, seemingly at the threshold of shooting someone, after all he did just curse him to die an early death.

Chris cared little about the fatty's prattling speech after all he wasn't too attached to life, but he wouldn't simply stand at a corner and wait for death, you could say that he would be the last man to give up even in the worst of situations.

Nick was of course Angry and somewhat nervous as he once more looked at his clock and begun to count.

"Everyone get ready in 9...8...3...2...1!"

Suddenly after the countdown the surrounding came to life and they could see they were in the middle of a huge mansion, probably in the living room. The surroundings looked rather dark and gloomy, but not as dramatic as calling it a haunted house, there was no dust or codwebs anywhere and there was even some light coming from the windows, which however were barred with ceramic shutters.

Nick was the most relaxed as he went for the lights and in moments everything was lit up and they could see such luxuries that they could only dream of. A set of three coaches, a massage chair and an armchair, a grand piano and a crystal chandalier that many would only dream of having in their living rooms, while the carpet under their feet would probably cost half a year's salary to buy for any common working person.

You can understand that the females in the team were too awed by the house to even care about zombies as for the males most of them were on their toes, especialy since they didn't know if the mercs would kill them or not, it wouldn't be strange by Nick's explainations to consider that possibility, they even had to fight the police in one of their missions.

Suddenly they heard a loud sound as something crushed to the ground into hundreds of pieces. Xiao had just broken a vase, she had lifted it to see the decorations better and it was too heavy and it fell from her hands.

"What the fuck! you chinese prostitude, you scared me to death!"

Hera shouted causing the poor girl to cry and of course her knight charming George came to her protection, only to be face to face with Jason, whom was siding with Hera.

"Shhhhhh!"

Nick shouted in a whispering voice and everyone could suddenly hear a sounds from upstairs and two rooms nearby, the first thought would be zombies or more likely the NPCs, the actors from the movie. George was the most excited knowing that they would meet some hollywood actors in real life, unfortunately his hopes were unfound.

The first to come out was a guy he didn't recognize at all, he was wearing a rather expensive suit, but he looked nothing like James Purefoy or Eric Mabius.

It was evident that they weren't the actors he was expecting to meet, they weren't even well powdered and with no makeup at all. also his clothes looked all crumpled as if he had just slept on his jacket.

"Who are you guys!"

The person shouted as he saw them, but the group was too shocked or confused to answer him, especialy Nick whom was already wearing his biker helmet and leather biker outfit. Truthfully it wouldn't be at all st

range to confuse him for a burglar.

Before however they could even react armed soldiers begun storming through every possible entrance and before they knew it, they had a bunch of army men pointing guns at them, causing Nick to simply drop his gun and put his hands up, there was no way he could face a group of well armed soldiers with just a handgun.

"Who are you people! I'm One, leader of the distress team"

The leader of the mercs stated.

"What the fuck, you're not even Black!"

George shouted out loud, causing everyone to want to die out of shame, they were at gun point and he still cared if the cast was done right. Only the mercs behind the guns begun to laugh and smirk, repeating his words again and again to their leader's disapproval and annoyance.

"I don't know whom you jokers are, but you're all detained until we know what to do with you"

One said rather irritated. They however were all shocked, because their clock devices begun to ring suddenly, but the mercs didn't seem to even care, as if they couldn't hear the annoying ringing sound they made.

=Objective No 1 - Reach the Red Queen's Chamber within the time limit of 72 hours=

"Wait! Wait! We're also under umbrella Employment, we work in the Hive!"

George shouted causing the mercs to question their ears, especialy since the ragtag group looked really unreliable, but they could see one wearing pajamas and no shoes, so it wouldn't be strange to assume that he lived there.

"We've found two other people as well, in different parts of the mansion, we've identified one of them as being the contact, they seem to have lost their memories"

Another merc said as they were bringing two other people with them, one in hand cuffs.

"Search these people, I want to see some ID or anything that can tell us what they are doing here"

One ordered and before long they begun looking through their pockets, taking anything they could find.

"What language are these written in?"

One asked their PC expert, whom scanned them one and then laughed, before answering.

-It's Greek

-What?

-It's in modern greek, you know the country that birthed democracy and tons of philosophers and scientists, the one in Europe, the place you went for vacations last year

-I'm not asking where Greece is, I'm asking what are they doing here, without passports or any useful ID papers

-Should we just shoot them?

-Negative, we don't have permission, but the deportation department will be happy to get their hands on them

-Boss we don't have the time to wait for that, we've only got until 8 to finish our mission, we're already running late as it is

-Rain and Medic, you've got the baby sitting job, if anyone tries to run away you've permission to shoot, if anyone tries to stay behind or impend our mission, you've permission to shoot, if anyone annoys you, you've got my permission to shoot them, are we clear!

=Sir! Yes Sir!

The mercs grouped us up and gave the Woman they called Alice Nick's gun, telling her to shoot them if she sees them do anything strange.

Alice might not be Milla Jovovich, but she was rather gorgeous, short blond hair and a baby face that made it hard to tell her real age.

"Can I use the Restroom?"

Chris asked, it was the most stupid thing to do at the moment and "One" already had the gun ready to shoot his head off, but seeing that it was the guy in the pajamas speaking, he felt a bit strange.

The rest of the people at least had some sort of ID on them, one even had a rather high tech cellphone, truthfully they had seen nothing like it, but this person was the most out of place out of all of them.

Nick who had a gun, they immediately registered as a burglar, the others probably illegal Immigrants, but this guy, what was he even, unlike the others he didn't even have the same foreign accent, his english were quite frankly "good" and he was wearing glasses.

Timid personality, wearing glasses, unkept appearance, probably having lost all memory, there was a high chance he was living there and just happened to be out of the Hive. Maybe the others were also part of Hive, but carrying foreign ID papers on their person made it look really sketchy.

"Rain, accompany him and make sure that he does nothing funny, then get him dressed and follow us down on the next train, also take Alice with you, as she's now, she's useless to us, we're taking the cop and these burglars with us"

One ordered and before they knew it, they opened the secret passage and left Chris' view, leaving him with two women with guns, escorting him to the restroom.