24

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[center][b]24[/b][/center]


[spoiler=[b]Day 1[/b]]
Loud beeping sounds emanated throughout the room, three in quick succession. The vibrant noises repeated eight times before Josh finally got out of bed, silencing the annoyance immediately. What used to be a loud room suddenly became dead silent. Stumbling around, he found the light switch and illuminated the room. Shock filled Josh's body.

He slowly scanned the room, taking in every little detail. Every wall, floor, and ceiling was a solid silver color. The door was on the left wall, practically blending in with the wall. A nightstand of the same color stood next to the bed Josh had woke up in. On top of the nightstand was a single alarm clock, prominently displaying the numbers [b]7:00 AM [/b]with bright red LEDs. To the right of that was a stark white bed. To Josh, it seemed to be the direct focus of the room. On the ceiling was a single black ceiling fan, with a bright white light in the center.

Worst of all, Josh had never seen this room before in his life, let alone slept in it.

Panic swept through him like a hurricane. He needed to get out of here, before whoever lived in this place discovered – or rediscovered – his presence. Josh practically flung open the door as he rushed to get outside. Outside of the room he was just in was a living room type area with a large couch and a flat screen television. Even in this room, a sea of silver invaded his eyes. There were two open rooms to his left and right, but Josh ignored those and headed for the closed door near the TV.

He twisted the door handle as hard as he could, but the door didn't budge. Josh smashed the door with his fist a few times before finally giving up. In his rush to exit the foreign house, he failed to notice the display mounted on the door. It appeared to be counting down to a certain time. What would happen when it hit zero, Josh had no idea. So far, it was at [b]00:58:42[/b], with the last set of numbers going down each second. With no other options, Josh turned around to find another method of escape.

Unfortunately, there were no windows or peering holes of any kind in the entire building, so there was no way of breaking glass to jump through, and the walls were too strong to break through with bare hands. Ironically, the solidity of the place only made Josh feel even more vulnerable. The left and right rooms led to the bathroom and kitchen respectively. Both of those rooms seemed perfectly normal except for their monochromatic coloring. The room behind the sofa in the living room led to the bedroom in which he had woken up in, and the door in the opposite direction was locked shut.

What scared Josh the most was the empty feeling that the house gave off. It was as if he was the first person to ever step foot in it (or rather just appear in it) even though it had to be build by someone. It was the exact opposite of the dorm that Josh had been in the day previous. It was a home to three people, each wall covered with vibrant posters or artwork. The air was always warm and both his roommates, although a bit obnoxious, always seemed to welcome Josh with open arms.

Coming back from the thought made him realize just how empty the air felt in the dull gray room. His eyes wandered around the room aimlessly, as if trying to find some meaning of why he was in this situation, until they fell upon a shiny black keyboard lying on the sofa, complete with a small wireless computer mouse sitting next to it.

Josh was fairly adept at using computers and had a bit of a hobby of tinkering with them. He could never work with new technology, however, because of his tight budget between tuition fees and rooming payments. So when he saw the fresh new keyboard and mouse, Josh's instincts kicked in and he quickly sat down to investigate the two devices.

As he sat down, Josh bumped into the mouse, making the TV screen flicker to life. Sitting on the cushy sofa, the wide screen television almost seemed larger than life. The screen had an interface much like a computer did, with two icons appearing on the screen, and a clock in the lower right hand corner that said DAY 1 - [b]7:07 AM[/b]. The first icon had a small picture of a red and white tent canopy, with the word MARKET underneath. The second showed the outline of a man speaking that had FORUM written below it. He slowly clicked on the market icon, expecting it to trigger some sort of explosion. Surprisingly enough, Josh came out of the situation unharmed, and a new window opened on the screen.

The market was spectacular. It had an easy to use interface and it sold practically everything, if not everything, you could possibly want. Clothing, food, you could even buy more things for the television! But the coolest part, Josh thought, was the selection of different weapons. There were swords, axes, knives, and whatever you could think of. There was even a section on special 'tomes' that claimed you could 'wield magic' with them. He took a good look at the selection of different spears they had. Josh had always had a bit of a fascination with spears. As a bit of a world history fanatic, he could go on for hours about their versatility and use throughout hundreds, even thousands of years in classic civilizations.

At least twenty minutes was wasted before Josh was done searching through the immense selection of objects and weapons. When he was about to shut off the computer, (computing television?) a message appeared on the screen. “You have received a free [i]Soul Core [/i]From ~Anonymous.” Josh's first thought was what the hell a soul core was. His second was that free things don't come by often, and that he should take what he's given. Below the message were the two options 'accept' and 'decline'. As soon as he clicked on the former, a shimmering blue light appeared in front of the screen. It took a few seconds for the object to completely arrive in the room.

It was a whitish-blue flame, the color of ice. At the base of it was a white sphere that seemed to emanate the flame part. It just floated there, trapped in its location. Paradoxically, the temperature around the flame actually seemed to decrease as you got closer. After moving closer to it inch by inch, Josh finally got the nerve to touch it. At first, it sent chills down his spine and all through his bones. But after a few seconds, he could actually hold it in the palm of his hand.

Slowly, Josh played around with it. First he tried passing it from one hand to another. Then he escalated to juggling with it and even bouncing it off the floor. Next he bounced the icy flame off walls. It seemed to ricochet multiple times before slowing down and returning to his hand.

The core must’ve gotten out of control at some point because it was suddenly flying through the house. It dashed into the kitchen and smashed a hole clean through one of the cupboards. After that, it slowed down, almost sensing the trouble it had caused. Josh reached through the hole in the cupboard, his hands almost frozen from playing with the icy flames. After retrieving it, Josh looked inside the broken cupboard. Every last bit of condensation had been frozen, making the inside of the cupboard more of a fridge than anything else.

With that incident over, Josh tried to find a place to store the mischievous core. It took him while to find that anywhere it put it, the flames would eventually freeze its container over. As soon as he gave up, deciding that the flame could have a special spot on the floor, it just disappeared. As if it just vanished into thin air, the soul core simply ceased to exist. Josh knew that was wrong, though. He could feel the presence of its flame, albeit having no idea [i]how[/i] he felt it. It was like a sixth sense.

Something flickered in Josh’s peripheral vision. He instinctively turned to see what had happened. The countdown on the door had just hit zero, and the door swung right open. Josh rushed outside of the door to see what was through it.

The view was even more spectacular that he could’ve ever imagined. There were hundreds of skyscrapers stood all around him, all the color of a shimmering white pearl. Above him was a bright blue sky, with the sun to one side. Josh looked behind him to see what the house he had just exited looked like.

Strange enough, it wasn’t a house at all, but a skyscraper just like the others. Above the door, however, was a small mounted jewel the color of his soul core. ‘[i]Great’ [/i]Josh though [i]‘How am I going to find this place again if I get lost?’[/i]

A shadow flew over him, making everything in Josh’s immediate area pitch black. He ducked quickly, narrowly avoiding decapitation. Josh looked up, inspecting the black shadow a bit more. It was less of a physical object made of atoms, and more of a large black blotch in the air. It had two bright red eyes, each one taking the shape of a flame.

The thing was fast. Too fast for Josh to outrun, at any rate. He clenched his fists and prepared for the worse as the shadow readied for another attack.

An icy blue ball of flame materialized in his hand. Its cold nature seemed to compliment Josh’s sweaty palms. It made his hands relax a bit as the shadow dived at him. Instinctively, Josh suddenly threw the icy blue ball straight at the black demon. It yielded, hurt from the blow.

[i]‘Maybe I can do this!’ [/i]Josh thought, the core returning to his hand. He went for another throw, this time hitting it in the eye. The red flame from its eye fizzed out, leaving it half blind. One more hit and the demented thing would be rendered helpless.

That’s when Josh felt a sharp pain in his abdomen. It was worse than any pain he had ever felt before. Looking down, all he could see was the lower half of his body covered in blood. With the little energy left, he turned around, seeing a second shadow, this one with what seemed to be a black spike. The spike was impaled just below his ribs, to the right of his spine. Josh’s eyes rolled back into his skull as the spike was removed from his body and the ragdoll that used to be Joshua Grandeur fell to the ground.
.[/spoiler]

[Bahamut - Envoy of the End]

*Look at my signiture and you can imagine how furious I am feeling right now*

Casting that aside, I will judge this fairly. It is far too lacking in detail, meaning it moves too fast through the story (which is teetering on the rules of minimum length btw) meaning things are thrown at us so fast and and are also over so fast I feel like I'm in a whirlwind on what the hell is going on? I'm sure there is some grand mysterious plot, but at the minute the action is too rushed and too vague.

We have no background information on Josh. And some of the things he does are a bit weird to me. 'Oh I'm locked in a strange house and don't know how I got here. Best thing for me to do is sit down and buy a spear on this computer...'

This thing has a feeling of Big Brother to it, which would be a fascinated concept, if written in a more methodical, suspense filled pace.

[bury the year]

Actually, this thing doesn't meet the minimum length requirements. Please PM me when you've revised it to at least two pages. LOCKED.

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Day 1 updated so it doesn't suck.