Prologue

The time was past midnight and all normal people were sound asleep in their rooms, on their beds. It was during this night that a boy was driving his car at a speed unimaginable. The car was going at 200 km/h and he had a thrilled look on his face. The car only continued to speed up and then he heard a knock on the car window. Frowning he turned to look, it could have been a branch but there was nothing outside. He heard another knock then and he turned to look again only to see total darkness. He sighed as the speed of the car increased and there it was again, more incessant and louder. Annoyed he raised his hands of the wheel as he reached towards the window and felt the curtains and as more knocks came he awoke from his dream. The 200km/h car had all but disappeared and Ned lay in bed covered by a blanket and the fan spinning above him speedily. He heard the knock again and the groggy him, groaned. He reached towards the curtains that covered his window and pulled it back, expecting the knocking to be an annoyed bird that kept crashing into the window, or something along those lines.

“Shoo,” he murmured as he pulled back the curtains and then he gave a short shriek and jumped off the bed, landing heavily on his butt on the ground.

Outside was a figure; his face was recognizable to Ned somewhat but it was covered by a hoodie. The figure motioned to the window latches, hinting at Ned to open it.

Ned furiously shook his head, “Who the hell are you!?”

The figure motioned again and Ned climbed onto the bed reaching the window and he looked out, some shock and fright covering his face.

“If you don’t get off my roof–.”

Ned suddenly stopped as the figure pulled back his hood revealing a face Ned well recognized.

“Robbie,” said Ned disbelievingly, it was the last person he would expect upon his rooftop, after midnight.

“Open the window Ned,” said the boy from the other side.

Ned quickly pushed open the window and allowed Robbie to clamber inside when he heard noise from downstairs. He quickly motioned to Robbie to keep quiet.

“Ned!!” came a loud female voice from downstairs, it was his sister.

“What!?” shouted back Ned, there was hint of panic on his face, if his sister came up right now it would be very unpleasant.

“What is going on up there?” asked his sister. “What is all that noise?”

“I was having a nightmare!?” shouted back Ned and he got of the bed and walked over to the water bottle he kept on his table and drank a mouthful.

“Well keep it down!” said his sister. “I just got back at twelve, I need my sleep!”

“Got it!” said Ned.

He turned to Robbie furiously. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Robbie showed a smirk of superiority as he took out his phone. “Just you wait, I found something unbelievable.”

“Ok, but midnight probably isn’t the best time to show something unbelievable,” said Ned frowning as he looked at the phone. “And why the hell weren’t you at school for the past week, the school’s just begun and you’ve already missed the first week, that school psychologist came looking for me and Gars, asking where you were, says you’ve missed three appointments.”

“Psychologist?” said Robbie frowning. “What, I thought I cancelled the appointments after the end of school.”

“Ok, what the hell is going on here?” asked Ned. “It’s midnight Robbie, I need to sleep and you need help.”

Robbie looked furiously at Ned, “I don’t need help Ned, everything I’ve been telling was the truth, this will prove it.”

Saying that he showed Ned his phone which now displayed the words in neon blue writing ‘Future World’.

“A game?” asked Ned as the ridiculousness of the situation caught up with him. “You need to get out of here.”

“No, no…no,” said Robbie shaking his head. “You need to understand, it’s all real.”

“Yep, missing those three appointments is really showing,” said Ned shaking his head. “Just go home Robbie, we’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Listen to me,” said Robbie dropping the phone and grabbing Ned.

Ned closed his eyes and sighed and then gently tried to pry away the arms holding him when he realized they were like iron clamps. He frowned as he looked at the spindly malnourished boy and then his stick like arms. He once again tried to pry it off but it failed. Robbie seemed to have realized this attempt as he looked excitedly at Ned.

“I told you,” said Robbie. “The weirdest thing happened to me today and all of this is an aftereffect of that?”

Ned grew somewhat curious and he sat down on the bed, “All of what?”

He went over to grab the edge of Ned’s desk and with a light force he snapped the edge of it off cleanly leaving Ned absolutely bewildered.

“How in the…” Ned started. “How did you do that, wait no, what did you do to yourself?”

Robbie’s smile widened as he ran to the bed and picked up the phone, “This is all on this.” He said and he pointed to the ‘Future World’ still displayed on the screen, save this time he noticed beneath it in smaller letters there was the word ‘Play’.

“A phone game allowed you to break a piece of my desk?” said Ned baffled.

“Yes,” Robbie said. “I told you right, I’ve been telling everyone, you all thought I was mental but this is the truth.”

Ned thought back to the article Robbie submitted for a column in the school newspaper and he stifled a laugh. Robbie however saw this and he growled angrily.

“I just showed you proof,” said Robbie. “It’s the truth.”

“Oh, come on Robbie, you breaking a piece of my desk doesn’t prove anything, you could be on steroids or the desk edge could’ve had a crack, the second answer is more likely.”

Gritting his teeth Robbie turned away from Ned and started muttering something and his voice slowly sped up.

“Robbie, you need to leave right now,” said Ned and he grabbed Robbie to push him to the window but he didn’t budge.

“He told me you wouldn’t believe me,” said Robbie in a low voice, his eyes had a mad gleam to them, something which disturbed Ned.

“Right, you’re leaving,” said Ned pointing to the window. “Right now, you’re not staying another moment here.”

“I’ll leave, I’ll probably see you at school tomorrow,” said Robbie as he put his hands into the hoodie’s pocket. “But before I leave…”

Robbie took out a syringe out of his pocket and uncapped it, the syringe contained translucent red liquid and Ned slowly backed away.

“Robbie…whatever you’re going to do, think twice,” said Ned.

“I already have,” murmured Robbie in the same voice. “This is the only way to make you believe.”

At those words and with the belief that Robbie was going to inject whatever was in the syringe into himself Ned moved forward to stop him when suddenly Robbie’s hand came around and the syringe jabbed into his neck. Ned felt a sting of pain and then he felt as if the right side of his neck had exploded as Robbie pushed the syringe’s liquid into him and Ned’s hand instantly snapped to his neck

“After this you’ll believe me,” said Robbie and Ned fell sideways unable to talk or move.

His tried to mouth words as his eyes slowly blackened. His heart beat at nearly twice the usual speed. He could just imagine the new when they found his body the next morning. A Highschool Student Killed through Lethal Injection. He saw Robbie’s face and he wanted to say something to retaliate, the only word on his mind were however ‘damn’ and even that couldn’t be said out as he was entirely paralyzed. Then with a flicker the world dimmed into darkness.