The Game: Prologue

Beware a fairy’s love for games. On Terra, the Chaos Games were banned by Titania. Her decree was to protect the non-magical community of the commonwealth from it. The Chaos Games are dangerous. Permanency is not the nature of the game, but rather the lack of rules. Anyone caught in the game could end up dead. Anyone who loses... well, there are fates worse then death, I’ll tell you that now.

But death isn’t the lasting consequence of the game. Not unless it ends before you find a way back to the world of the living.

Chicago, Illinois (Timeline 34α) - 8:14pm Wednesday, 27th of March, 2013

James Sanders was just your average kid, just trying to get home home before his curfew. Too bad he didn’t notice he was fifteen minutes late. His mum sent him five text messages, and his phone ran out of power fifty minutes ago. His hand throbbed in pain after burning it on the skatepark pavement, which strangely this wasn’t hot weather.

Then after realising it was almost curfew, he dashed home, taking a short cut down an ally... and running into a small group of street thugs who left him with a black eye, a hand full of cuts, and an empty wallet.

He limped home and though the door of his apartment, wounded and tired and...

“You're late.”

...about to be grounded by his parents. He turned around slowly and faced them. His mu was dressed in nurse scrubs, either about to leave for a night shift, or just came home from work. His father was still dressed in his work suit, another late day at the office. Both were angry, now worried that they saw the injuries he had picked up on his rush home. An explanation his sister disputed but quickly proven by the empty wallet. After the cuts were treated, James just went to his room and sprawled out on the bed, letting the events of the day wash over him.

He put his phone on charge, the moment his screen lit up, it told him that he had a message. This wasn’t surprising, but it was from a number he didn’t recognise.

‘Shed one life. Embrace another player.’ It read. ‘Past rewritten. Future uncertain.’

“What doesss that mean?” He demanded, not noticing that he was hissing. Then he dropped his phone out of reflex.

His hand started burning and he felt the bones break, reshape and reform under the hardening skin. He tried to keep from screaming, biting down hard and clenching his eyes shut just to keep quite. Then he felt something push out from under his skin.

James risked a look... crimson, tarnished and blood covered, it was a scale...

It was accompanied by another, and another. Then each of his fingertips burst and an ebony black claw pushed out while the scales made their way up his arm. He felt the muscles underneath bulk up and the bones lengthening. The scales made their way across his chest, where they turned into grey scutes then back into red scales before the same process occurred to his other arm, in reverse.

There was a sharp pain in his tail bone. The seat of his jeans ripped open and allowed a seven foot long appendage grew out and landed on the floor with a thump. Nerve endings and blood vessels attached themselves to the existing system. There were a few twitches as the nerves connected to the brain.

Next his legs and feet grew longer and larger, bone reshaping and lengthening, muscle bulking and remoulding for a digigrade stance. His shoes bust open as his toes grew sharp black claws and his feet lengthen five fold.

The scales and scutes started up his neck, lengthening it as they made their way up his neck. The scutes stopped below the jaw but the scales went on to clam what was left of his human identity. His mouth and nose push forward, fusing into a muzzle as his hair fell out, two black horns pushed out of the back of his skull and his ears became pointed and adaptive. His eyes were the last remaining human identity. His eyes burnt as they reformed and became slit, keeping their green iris but expanding them.

The last changes started as growths starting from his head, and continuing down his spine started to spring up. And then, under his shirt, two larger growths began to build up in his back as his shoulders split apart and two huge bat like wings exploded outwards with a shower of blood. The pain dulled and faded leaving a red dragon panting and looking up to the photo on the chest of drawers, him and his three friends standing in front of their skate park, clad in their gear.

He blinked and he was replaced by a tall red dragon, wearing similar gear and towering over the three other humans...

...and one gryphon.