The Demon's Game

It was a rather.. dreary night. Night #4, to be exact, at least for Nikoli. He hadn't died or fell asleep in that entire time, nor had he even bothered firing his gun.

Yeah, that'd attract a lot of Zed.

Stuck in a tree perch, the man dressed in camouflage silently fixed his scope onto a target. It wasn't a Zed.. and they seemed pretty scared. Or at least that's what he inferred from their posture. The Russian was bad at judgement.

[Open to anyone! Please do not kill Nikoli right away, though I imagine one would be unarmed and approaching his tree. Go!]

She pulled the black cloak tighter around herself, eyes on the ground. She'd skillfully tucked her hair into the mishappen hat on her head, and scarf hid her face from the nose down.
She sword under her breath, fighting through the underbrush. "...dont know where I am..." She breathed angrily. "...all alone... Not a funny joke..." She extended one hand to feel her way through the semidarkness.

The man watched as the other swore and fought through the thick brush of the woods, just as a Zed approached from the south. He debated on whether or not he should shoot, for shooting would attract more. Soon, he settled with crawling out of his post, and bashing the Zed's skull in with his sniper rifle. It made a loud, sickening crack, though he probably couldn't be seen in the brush.

Nearby there was another lost being. Hunched over, he made his way on the 'road', created By many that had walked on it before him. The boy was confused. Why was he there? Really, he should know but it was all a mystery to him. There was also something that was telling him that the Place he was wondering through wasn't exactly the safest one. He could feel a strange itch going through his whole body as we walked forward, careful with each step....


[ I don't want to bother anyone so... Sorry if I am... ]

[Hey, it's alright, everybody's welcome in this one!]

The male turned around. Noise in the brush, coming from the game trail where he'd seen deer running along on night numero uno. Knowing that most people in the game spoke English, the man called out one of the very few words he knew. "Hello?"

Please don't be a Zed..

The boy let out a scared whine when he heard someone talk. He wasn't prepared on anyone else being there so it surpriced him.

He crouched a bit, getting some cover from the grassland around him. And like some sort of instinct, he covered his head with his hands.

"Don't hurt me..!"

Nikoli approached the other from the darkness within the woods, and stepped onto the game trail. He had deep eyecircles at that point, from staying up for so long.. and yet he was wide awake.

He said something in his native language, roughly translating to "I do not understand." And so, he stepped towards the voice in the dark, gun aimed at the kid.

"Ya Nikolich. Vy dolzhny byt' znakomy s The Game.."

Azazel watched the two from vantage point, crouched at the foot of a tree. 'Russian,' she thought, eyes narrowing. She'd learned many of the languages of earth, ranging from Sanskrit to German to African. She debated her options and thought it best to stay hidden until opportunity presented itself.

He saw a man approaching him and it caused him to back away a bit. The German tried to keep 'an eye contact' with the other even if he couldn't really see them.

He recognized the language they spoke with though, and almost just for that tilted his hea a bit to the side, curiously.
"?" He looked at the man, a bit confused.

"Are you Russian? Am I in Russia now?" he asked, speaking in Russian with the best of his abilities. Sure, he had worked with quite a few Russian people before and his dad being half Russian, the language shouldn't be too much of a problem to him.

The man shook his head, and replied, "you are in game," in Russian. "Scenario: Wild Woods. But da, I am Russian."

He paused for a moment, and thought. "Pochemu by vam ne priyti k moim derevom?"

He knew that there was another something in the darkness, but for now he didn't mind it. Whatever it was couldn't be a Zed, it was too quiet. ..but then again, it might be a bloodied Akira on a killing spree. No-one could tell for sure.

She shook her head, pulling the Scarf higher up her face. She could tell Russian was not the second mans first language, he spoke it with a strange accent that was unlike the people she'd learned it from and indeed, it sounded even unlike the first man... Nicolich, was it?

She tilted her head at a slight angle, trying to understand what he'd meant by 'The Game'.

"Game? What game?" Christofer tilted his head at the statement.

"What do you mean By 'the game'? Is there a training session going that I should know about?" He looked around nervously. The Russians that he knew could barely tolerate people that were lost and 'out of place', so he wanted to get rid of the confusion as soon as possible - but unfortunate for him, it was only increasing.
He could pick up some sounds from nearby, some other sounds. It wasn't coming from the shadowy figure before him, but was rather nearby nevertheless... Maybe this was a training session and he had just comptelly blacked out when they had announced it?

Azazel bit her tongue. Hard. She forced herself to focus on the pain, to resist the sudden urge she felt to lunge out of the bushes, to help Cristofer, to protect and mother him.
She gave a soft shuddering breath, tasting the blood that flowed from her tongue, her body relaxing. The panic that grew in Cristofers voice made her anxious, almost angry at Nicolich for not trying harder to assist him.

"The Demon's Game," Nikoli replied in English. He did his best to explain in Russian, but all of it was about scenarios and Zed and monstrous things that hide in the dark and leap out and make one scream. He described Wild Woods, the layout of the area, and how there was a fence surrounding a whole ten-mile crater in between the mountains. The river that flowed to a lake in the center, the hordes of Zed in the middle.. and he repeated that it was a game, but a serious game.

"YA byl v etom stsenarii dvenadtsat' raz," he said, "and I can stay awake for only two weeks each time," he repeated in Russian. "Eto nevozmozhno vyyti."

Christofer tried to listen carefully. His language skills might have gotten a bit rusty, as he needed to focus a bit better on the person talking than he usually would.
He did get a bit better understanding of the area, but a few parts still left him confused, like, what was the meaning of 'the game'? Certainly didn't seem like football. The other big mystery that he was still iunsure of were the 'Zed'. What on earth was that? He couldn't get himself to ask on it though, the other person seemed to have hard time enough already...

"What? Two weeks? That sounds bad, you need to sleep. Staying awake for so long is not healthy" He was now a bit worried. Usually staying awake for so long could cause some serious health issues - both mental and physical...

"Just, lay down. I'll keep a lookout while you rest. Ok?" the German offered his help

Azazel bit her lip. 'Two weeks...?' She thought. 'Why would he need to stay up for Two weeks..?' She shook her head, pulling her knees against her chest, still watching them.

Nikoli shook his head. He then began to explain that in "The Game," that you died. Repeatedly. If you fell asleep, you died. If you ran into a pack of Zed, you died. If you were mortally injured in any way, you died. If you ran into one of the Gods, you died.

"Yesli vy khotite zhit', vy dolzhny bodrstvovat'," he said, followed by "eto moy chetvertyy noch' bodrstvovaniya."

"? So you can't sleep?" He tilted his head at the statement.

"That's horrible..! I like taking naps..." The Russians had clearly amped it up a notch. Maybe he should have worked harder earlier and it wouldn't have been made into such big troubling thing... The whole 'no sleep' and 'constant dying' sounded so absurd to him. Why? Who would come up with this?

And he also explained that if you died, you woke up in another scenario, such as Kitchen Killer, Hell Hospital, Danger Dunes, Wishing Well, or Obtain-or-Ob-die, all of which he mentioned in English. He sounded like a lunatic, especially with those weary looks of his. But there was a subtle truth to his words that could certainly be detected.

So yes, he shook his head to the not sleeping thing.