PROLOGUE

 

It was late at night in Clifford Indiana. Kyle Lane was walking home from his friend’s house. He walked briskly to avoid any trouble, but little did he know, this time things wouldn’t go as he planned. Kyle was fairly athletic and very popular at his school. He was currently 15 years old, but he would be turning 16 soon. He wore a purple tank top and black shorts with adidas shoes. His hair was short and black and he had beautiful green eyes. A man creeped up from behind, and put a cloth with chloroform on it over Kyle’s mouth and nose. Later, Kyle woke up in a box.

“Where am I?” He asked dazed.

He could hear talking coming from the outside of the box.

“Has his collar been put on yet?” Said a voice.

“Not yet, I’ll put it on as soon as I get him out of the box.” Said Another voice.

“Well, it’s almost time, you should probably get him out of that box.”

“Alright.”

The box began to open and he could see that he was in some sort of cellar or something of the sort.

“Looks like you're already awake. hold still.”

The man was large in stature. He had a scruffy beard and short curly hair. He came toward Kyle holding a metal necklace. He forcefully put it on Kyle’s neck.

“What is this!? Where am I!?” Kyle demanded.

“Quiet down.” The man said.

“Answer me! Who are you!?”

“Shush, My name’s Steve, and you're here to make me rich.”

“What!?”

“You see that collar you’re wearing. If you don’t do as I say, needles with inject into your neck, and poison will fill through your head, It’s not a fun way to go, It makes your eyes explode.”

Then… Why am I here? Where is this place?”

“We’re in Pennsylvania, that’s all you need to know about where we are. Now, when you're out there, make sure you win. I don’t think you’ll like what happens if you lose.”

“What are you talking about.”

The man Steve was with walked back into the room.

“He needs to go on now.” He said.

“Okay, get out there.”

Kyle did what he said in fear that he actually might be right about the poison thing. Kyle walked out into a stadium that was like a baseball stadium but much smaller. There were blinding lights all around and the roar of an audience. There was another kid on the other side of the ring.

“Hey, Hey you!” Kyle called.

The boy looked back over to him.

“W-who are you?”The boy asked.

“My name’s Kyle. What’s going on?”

“I-I don’t know… I’m scared.”

“Okay, who are you?”

“Nick.”

“Okay, Hi Nick, nice to meet you.”

There was a ringing noise and a voice could be heard over the speakers.

“Heeeeeello ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Your favorite past time! Into The Dark! Where kids all shapes and sizes fight to the death!”

“W-What!?” Kyle asked in shock.

“Today we bring you… Steve vs Drew! The children’s names are currently unknown! We have a special treat for you in the audience today. One of you has a button under your chair, If you're lucky enough to have that button, you can cut the timer in half!”

“Timer?”

“If neither of the Kids kill one of the other before the halved time limit, then you get quadruple what you betted. Now children, this next part’s for you… You see the weapons scattered on the ground, that’s for you to use against each other. There is only one rule, Kill the other kid in front of you before the time ends.”

This was like something out of a nightmare. Kyle and Nick stared at each other with horror in their eyes. One or both of them were going to die. But who would it be?

“Now! Let’s STEP INTO THE DARK!” Shouted the announcer.

The timer up above the two children started 10:00 it said not even a second later it changed to 5:00. Someone had found the button. They only had 5 minutes and counting to kill each other, or else they would both die. In this game either both or one of the kids would die. Never would they both survive. Kyle’s life flashed before his eyes. He knew there was only one way to survive… And that was to kill.

2: Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

 

Kyle and Nick made quick looks at each other and without warning Nick jumped for the nearest weapon.

“I’m sorry Kyle, but I don’t want to die.” He said holding a large hook out.

Nick walked towards Kyle slowly. Kyle took off running away and picked up a cattle prod. He thrusted the prod at Nick. It burned into Nick's side. He fell to the ground screaming and crying.

“PLEASE! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!” He screamed at the top of his lungs.

Kyle could barely watch, tears were falling from his face as well as Nick’s. He never wanted to hurt another human being ever, but this was a life or death situation. While looking away, he pressed the prod to the back of Nick’s head. Nick screamed in pain louder than before. With all of the might that he could manage, Nick grabbed the prod and took it out of the hands of Kyle. His face was red and large amount of tears rolled down his face. He held the hook in his hand and swung at Kyle, slicing into his shoulder.

“AGH!” Kyle shouted.

Kyle grabbed a hold of Nicks arm and pried the hook from his hands. With a swing, the hook sliced right into the side of Nick’s head. Nick fell to the ground screaming bloody murder. The blow to the head had not killed him. Kyle lifted his foot, and brought it down on Nick’s head as hard as he could. He did this again and again and again, until Nick’s head was completely caved in. Kyle’s face was full of horror and covered in blood and tears.

“AAAAAAAAAAND, We have a winner!” Sounded the announcer. “Congratulations kid! You get to live to see another day!”

Kyle looked at Nick’s lifeless body. He couldn’t believe what they had made him do. That could have been him, but it wasn’t, He was still standing, he was the lucky one. Kyle was escorted back to the place where he had woken up. Back in the room, Steve was there to congratulate him.

“Great job! I knew you were going to be a good choice. Now, I need to know your name kid.”

“Why would I tell you!?” Kyle said sourly.

“Because, maybe you forget, with the push of a button, you’ll die.”

“Why should I believe you!?”

“I don’t think you really have much a choice. If I’m telling the truth, you wouldn’t want to risk your life, and if I’m lying, then you have nothing to worry about, but, I think I have a way I can convince you.”

Steve held one of the necklaces in his hand and called over a nearby person, while they were off guard, he slipped on the collar and pressed a button.

“AGH!” The man shouted.

His face started to turn red, and then purple. His eyes bursted open and blood gushed from his eyes and mouth. He fell to the floor a lifeless corpse. Steve looked back at Kyle.

“That convince you?” He asked. “So, what’s your name?”

“It’s… Kyle.”

“Alright, Then Kyle, We should do something about that shoulder of your’s, we can’t have you battle wounded. It’s bad for business. You know, it’s a good thing you went up against that kid, he was pretty scrawny. Now if you went up against Duke, now that’d be a problem.”

“Duke? Who’s that?”

“Only the strongest ‘Into The Dark’ fighter. Nobody has ever beaten him.”

“What’s this whole ‘Into The Dark’ thing about?”
“Into The Dark is the name of the game, the game you just played in. It’s a game where children are thrown into a ring together, and they have to fight to the death.”

“Why?”

“For the entertainment of others of course. People bet on who they think will win, like a dog fight or a horse race.”

“That’s just sick.”

“Eh, It’s a great way to make money.”

This disturbed Kyle, What kind of sicko would put kids against each other to fight to the death? Who would even come up with that kind of thing? While Kyle was thinking this, Steve was on his phone, Likely calling one of the paramedics around to tend to the fighter’s wounds. He hung up the phone and looked back at Kyle.

“Hey, now turn that frown upside down, I figured you would like sports with you being an athlete and all.” Steve said.

“How did you know I’m an athlete?” Kyle asked.

“Your clothes say it all, by the look of them, I’d say you're into basketball.”

“Yeah, Baseball and Soccer too.”

“Soccer? That’s sport’s for pansies.” This made Kyle mad, but he didn’t show it because he didn’t want to die, at least not an agonizing death that he would suffer if he did. Soon a man in white appeared, he grabbed a hold of Kyle’s arm and took him to a room that said ER. It looked really low budget on the inside.

“Okay, we don’t have any pain killers, so… This will hurt a lot.”

Kyle started to breath heavily as the man took a needle and thread. He stuck through his wound. Kyle hadn’t notice how much it hurt until he actually looked at it. With every stitch, his pain would get worse and worse. About an hour later they finally finished stitching him up.

“All right kid, suck it up, we’ve gotta go.” Steve said.

“W-What?” Kyle asked.

“You heard me, We gotta get going if we’re going to make it to the next match.”

“Another one? You mean that last one wasn’t the only-”

“Of course not. You’ll keep battling until you die.”

Kyle’s had a forlorn look on his face. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep this up, how many more people he had to kill, and if he might end up going against this “Duke” Guy. Steve grabbed Kyle by the arm and pulled him out to an RV.

“This is our ride, Kyle.” Steve said as they both got on the RV. Kyle thought about running but then remembered that with a push of a button, Steve could kill him.

“Where are we going?” Kyle asked as the RV started to move.

“Maine.” Steve answered. “I heard that dirtbag, Hank is going to be there too.” Something about that seemed ironic to Kyle. “That man uses adults for Into the Dark, Which is against the rules.”

“I thought the only rule-”

“Those are the fighting rules. The rules I’m talking about are for the Participants, such as myself.

There was a long silence for about half of the trip until Steve broke that silence.

“So what grade are you in?” He asked.

“Why do you want to know?” Kyle said.

“Well, If we’re gonna be with for a while, or not if you die, I figured I should get to know you.”

“Fine.” Kyle sighed. “I’m a sophomore.”

“Hmm. so you should have about two or three years left.”

“What?”

“Remember how I said only kids can fight? Well that’s just the case, we can’t use you anymore if you turn eighteen.”

“So you’ll let me go when I turn eighteen?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of? What do you mean?”

“Well, we don’t want anybody blabbing about this stuff to the cops, so when you turn eighteen, we activate your collar. In fact, that’s the reason I got you. My last kid turned eighteen and I needed a new one.”

Kyle didn’t know if he would be able to stand it anymore, his head was racing through everything that had just happened in the past 2 hours. Waking up in a box, killing an innocent kid just because he didn’t want to die, getting sliced up, and now learning that he’s going to die anyways. He ended up passing out due to not being able to take it all in at once.

When he woke up the RV was at a stop and Steve was standing over him.

“Get up.” He said. “We’re here.”

Kyle grabbed Steve’s shirt by the collar.

“KILL ME!” He shouted. “KILL ME NOW!”

“Huh?”

“YOU HEARD ME! I SAID KILL ME!”

“Why would I do that?”

“I’M GONNA DIE ANYWAYS RIGHT!?”

Steve pushed Kyle off of him.

“Sorry, but that would be too merciful, plus, I kind of need you.”

Deep down, Kyle knew that he didn’t want to die, but something just came over him, and he was in a state where he couldn’t help himself but to just try. He was on the floor of the RV with tears running down his eyes. As the door opened, he could see that they were in a similar building to the one they were previously at. Just barely, he saw what looked like a girl with long purple hair, who was walking into a room marked Bathroom. Her hair was blocking most of her body, so he couldn’t make out much of her. He got up, and walked out of the RV.

3: Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

 

Kyle waited outside of the room, he didn’t expect to see any girls in a game like this. The fact that he would look like a creep while doing this didn’t cross his mind.

“Kyle, what are you doing?” Steve asked.

“I’m… Waiting to use the bathroom.” Kyle answered.

“Hmmm… Okay, I need to enter you into the this match, You probably won’t go on for a while.”

“Okay.” Kyle said not paying much attention.

After a while of waiting, the purple haired girl finally walked back out, She was fairly tall and wore a black skin tight one piece suit which had some yellow markings on it. She also had the same kind of collar as Kyle had. Her skin was almost pale and she had big beautiful green eyes. When she saw Kyle, she spoke in a fun girly voice.

“Hi, who are you?” She asked.

“Um… Kyle.” He replied.

“Cool, Hi Kyle! How are you doing?”

“How am I doing? I’ve been kidnapped and now I’m being forced to kill innocent kids.”

“Innocent? None of us are innocent.”

“What?”

“Everybody is a sinner. Nobody is truly innocent.”

“Oh, I guess… you’re right. Um, what’s your name?”

“I’m Xillia.”

“Okay, It’s nice to meet Xillia.”

“It’s nice to meet you too! I know we’ll be great friends!” She said happily.

“We just met” Kyle thought.

“Sooooo, will you be my best friend!?”

“Um, Okay”

“Cross your heart!?”

“Y-Yes, I cross my heart.”

“Oh yay!” She shouted as she hugged him tightly.

“You’re being awfully optimistic.” Kyle said as she got off of him.

“That’s just who I am, I always look on the bright side of things.”

“I guess that’s good.”

“Hey! How long have you been doing Into The Dark?”

“Um, about a day maybe.”

“Oh, really, how many people have you killed yet?”

“Just one.” He said sadly.

“Oh, I lost track of how many people I’ve killed.”

Kyle jumped in fear. “Um, how long have you been doing this?”

“Um… About maybe six years.”

“What? How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Sixteen? That means they nabbed you when you were ten?”

“Yup.”

“Don’t you think your parents would be suspicious?” Then Kyle remembered, He had nothing to worry about, his parents would find out eventually.

“I don’t have any parents.” Xillia said.

“You… Don’t have parents?”

“No.”

“Wow, I’m sorry for that.”

“Don’t worry about it, Hey! Do you think we’ll end up going against each other some day?”

“I hope not.”

“Xillia!” Shouted a voice from behind them. The one who owned the voice stepped over to them. He had short slick black hair and wore a suit that had the letters: ITD on it. “Stop messing with your boyfriend and get going.” He said.

“Boyfriend? We ar-” Kyle started

“I’m going to stop you right there, I don’t care what you have to say kid. Come on Xillia.”

Xillia followed the man and while leaving, she mouthed “Goodbye” To Kyle. Steve walked up to Kyle and spoke, startling him a bit.

“Oh my god, That’s Mal Vanderbei, He’s the one who founded Into The Dark. Him and that Xillia, They’re dangerous, she’s been around longer then Duke.”

“So does that mean she’s stronger then Duke?”

“That’s hard to say, They’ve never went up against each other. While she has been around longer, Duke has killed more people than her, but they’re both undefeated, so if they were to go against each other, there’s no telling who would win, heck, they might even both die, It’s possible they could be evenly matched, and make the battle go passed the set time limit.”

“I hope not.” Kyle said quietly.

“Well, anywho. You’ll be going up in the next match. there’s currently one already going on, so you’ll go after that one. You should probably get ready alright.”

“Yeah, okay.”

He didn’t want to admit it, but he was sort of sad to see Xillia go, but at the same time, a little relieved. She seemed really nice but she had killed a lot of people. The announcer could be heard vaguely. It sounded like it had said “We have a winner.” This meant that Kyle would be going up there soon. Steve had heard the noise too and he looked at Kyle.

“Looks like you're up pal.” Steve said as he pushed Kyle through the door.

“Did he just call me pal?” Kyle asked himself.

Kyle looked around, the ring looked just like the last one he was in with weapons scattered on the ground. On the other side of the ring, was a small boy with long black hair.

“Um… Hi.” Kyle said to the boy.

He stood there, and didn’t say a word. He had what was like some sort of death gaze fixed right on Kyle. This unsettled Kyle, as he figured the boy had been here for a while and knew what he was about to do.

The Announcer did his little spiel except he didn’t mention anything about a button under a chair. He then focused his words on the children.

“Today, we have Steve Vs John! The kids names are Kyle and Andrew! This is not their first time, so I won’t waste time giving the rules! The bloodbath may begin!”

The timer above them flashed 10:00 and began to count down. Without warning, Andrew ran fast at Kyle and gave a strong punch to his gut, knocking him back. While Kyle was getting up, Andrew grabbed a bat with nails in it off of the ground. Kyle grabbed the closest thing next to him, which was a screwdriver.

“A screwdriver?” Kyle asked. “I guess it’s the best I can get right now.”

Kyle got off of the ground and Andrew was right next to him. Andrew swung the bat as hard as he could but Kyle managed to get out of the way. Kyle took a quick glance at the timer and it said 6:05. this surprised Kyle, It was already almost half way over, It felt as if it had been much quicker than that, but the time flies by when someone is trying to kill you. Kyle threw his screwdriver and Andrew and if buried itself into his chest. Andrew collapsed to the floor gasping for air. The screwdriver likely pierced through one of his lungs. blood was filling in his mouth. Everytime he would try to say something or breath, the blood would shout out of his mouth. When Andrew was on the ground, Kyle grabbed the bat he was using. He kept trying to build the courage to hit him in the head, and put an end to it, but it was hard, he didn’t want to hurt him, he didn’t want to hurt anybody. He reminded himself that in this game, you can only look out for yourself, it’s kill or be killed, and Kyle didn’t want the second one to happen. He still took into account that Andrew didn’t want that second one to happen either. After going through it in his head, Kyle decided to think of it as putting Andrew out of his misery. Kyle raised the bat up high, and swung it into Andrews face. The bat wouldn’t come back out of his face, but it did the job anyways. Andrew was now dead. Kyle was horrified but relieved that he would live.

“Aaaaaaaaaand, We have a winner! Congratulations Kyle, you will live to see another day!” Kyle was escorted out of the ring and brought back to Steve.

“Good job Kyle, You took a while, but still, good job!” Steve said.

“Whatever.” Kyle replied.

“Oh come on now, you won, doesn’t that make you happy?”

Kyle only liked the fact that he survived, everything else was a nightmare.

4: Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

 

Steve took Kyle back to the RV. Steve sat down at the wheel with a smile on his face. Kyle sat down in the seat next to him. He was thinking of the right way to mention that his parents would be looking for him. Eventually, Steve ended talking first.

“You know, I don’t want you to think of me as some sort of dictator or anything like that.” He said. “I want you to think of me as a friend… A friend who can kill you whenever I want.”

“Yeah… That makes everything so much better.” Kyle replied. “Now, you know my parents will be looking for me.”

Steve laughed. “No they won’t”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean what I mean. I forged a letter from the school and it said that the school was sending you to a special trip for honor students. Granted, It’s still a pretty stupid plan, but I don’t think they’ll find us in New York.”

Kyle sat there. It appeared that Steve had thought of everything before even doing anything. Maybe it was really hopeless, perhaps in the next round he wouldn’t do anything accept for let his opponent kill him. No! That won’t happen, he needs to find out just who this Xillia girl is. He found himself asking this question.

“So, now we’re going to New York?” He asked.

“That’s right, the Big Apple! It won’t be as long a drive than Pennsylvania to Maine, but It’ll still be pretty long.”

“Why are you like that?”

“What do you mean.”

“Well, if I’m only here to make you money, then why are you being so nice?”

“Eh, I just want you to feel at home I guess. I sad player is a bad player, as I always say. That’s why I want you to think of me as a friend.”

“A friend that can kill me?”

“That’s right.” Steve laughed.

They drove for a long while. Steve stopped at a drive in restaurant and got them both food. Kyle was a little reluctant to eat, but after a while, his immense hunger took the best of him. Since this time Kyle was awake, he could see just how they got inside of the ITD buildings. Exiting was easy, but to get in, you needed a key card. Steve pulled into the building and they both got out of the RV and walked into the building.

“Alright, I’m gonna go register you real quick.” Steve said as he walked away.

Directly after that, someone had jumped on Kyle’s back.

“Ow!” He exclaimed.

“Kyle! I’m so glad to see you!”

“Xillia?”

“Yup!” She said as she got off of his back.

“So you’re gonna fight in this one too?”

“Yes.”

“Oooooo, interesting!”

“Interesting? What’s so interesting about that?”

“I don’t know, It’s just interesting.”

Steve walked back to Kyle.

“Looks like you’ll be going on tomorrow.” He said.

“Okay, I’m fine with that.”

“Oh, Alright.” Steve looked over to Xillia. “Didn’t I warn you about her?” He asked to Kyle.

“Yeah, but she’s nice, and we aren’t trying to kill each other.”

“Yeah, but in this game, it’s bad to make friends, you’ll grow attached to each other, then you’ll hold back when you fight.”

“I wouldn’t hold back against Kyle.” Xillia said. “And I hope he wouldn’t hold back either.”

Kyle remained silent. Steve looked at both of them with an odd look on his face and then walked away.

“What’s wrong with him?” Xillia asked.

“I think he’s just unsettled by you.” Kyle answered.

“Oh… Why?”

“I don’t know, Maybe the fact that your hair color isn’t normal. Or maybe that your skin is really pale. It could be the fact that you’ve been here the longest out of everybody.”

“Okay, I was just wondering.”

Mal walked up from behind Xillia. He placed his hand on her shoulder and looked at Kyle.

“Xillia, can I talk to this boy in private?”

“Sure.”

Xillia walked off and Mal looked at Kyle was the whim to kill in his eyes.

“I’ve seen you around Xillia a little too much. I want you to stay away from her.”

“But she’s the one that comes to me.”

“I don’t care, I can see already that you’ll ruin her.”

“What? That doesn’t make sense.”

“I mean, she’ll get attached to you, or you’ll get attached to her. I can’t let that happen. She’s the only thing left in this world that I care about.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter! Get out of here.”

Kyle headed to the room that Steve was in. Steve was busy talking on his phone. He motioned for Kyle to go into the the other room that this room lead to. Kyle did as he said. There was a bed and Kyle laid down on it. He tried to think of how Mal had some sort of connection with Xillia. Why exactly did he care about her? There was so much going on at once. He wanted to find a way to get alone with Mal, And question him about everything going on.