"And so the games begin..."

A skeletal-faced figure sat atop his theoretical pedestal and stared down at his brand-new arrivals into Purgatory. A smile adorned his face as he saw their lost faces. He wondered if he should bother explaining anything at all--but then, that could prove boring. They might either just give up and accept their deaths or waste the entire week wandering, lost and confused. That would be amusing for a day or two, sure, but not for seven. He wanted action, drama, romance even! He wanted to see stuff happen! After all, that is what makes a good show for the audience.

Walking down the faded gray stairs of City Hall, Omen stood before the deceased humans and grinned, absently changing to his adult form. "Ghosts! Welcome!" he said and though it wasn't a shout, his voice still echoed over the chatting living nearby. Their little area out front of City Hall was clear of any gray-colored oblivious living humans. Just looking at the faces of those with color, he couldn't help but get a little giddy. "You are dead." A grin adorned his face as he stared them down. Miserable! Absolutely miserable! They will do quite nicely indeed.

"Let me explain my little game to you. You have been killed--thanks to yours truly--and, as with everyone else who dies, have been taken to Purgatory for all eternity." He raised a hand up to halt any possible interruptions, changing into his child form. "You each have a week to amuse me with your game and maybe even learn some things while you are here..." He trailed off, deciding he'd said enough on that subject and changing back to his skeletal form. "You have been given one power each. Why?" He laughed, loud and booming and unnecessary. "Because of the Shadows, of course! You should be meeting with them soon. You might want to keep them away from you, however." He smirked darkly. "In the case that they steal your life from you." He paused a moment. "Oh, right! If any of you little piggies happen to die per se or lose the game by the end of the week, then you all will lose and your lives will be taken from you."

With all that out of hand, Omen felt relieved that he was done. "My name is Omen! This is day one." He grinned widely and changed to his adult form. "Let the games begin!" With that, he snapped his fingers and disappeared from sight, letting the acclaimed Ghosts to stand around confused, left to figure the rest out themselves.

Omen reappeared not too far away, but well out of sight of the Ghosts, where another specially chosen group stood. "My wonderful Shadows! Welcome back to life," he greeted with a grin as he changed to a child form. "Not quite, actually. You have been selected to join in a little game of mine. You have been given a second chance at gaining your life. There are new children here from the living world--miserable brats, really. If you manage to steal their life away from them within a week with the powers I have given each of you, then you may return to the world of the living at the end of the week in their form." His grin only widened, more unsettling than ever before. He changed back to his skeletal form. "But are you willing to take a life in order to have your own back?" In a snap, he was gone once more.

--

Eyes closed to darkness...Is this what death really is? was the last thought he had before all things faded away. Only a minute later, however, Chiko felt his eyes open. He lifted himself up and searched the area, gasping for air as if he'd been dying from--am I dead? He got to his feet. "The world looks different than I remember," he mumbled thoughtfully to himself as shades of gray passed by. Looking down at himself, however, he noted his was still in full color form.

His eyes widened. Wait. Dead. I'm dead. Am I dead? He started feeling himself hyperventilate and he was about to start shouting out names. There was a person nearby and he rushed to the business man, reaching out to grab hold of the man's arm...only for his hand to phase through completely. Chiko watched helplessly as the man continued on his way as if nothing happened. "Wha...?" Then a creature appeared. Still stunned out of his mind, he plopped to his bottom and sat there, watching and listening to the creature numbly. What the man--skeleton--child--was saying registered, but. No, that couldn't be right, could it? Was he really dead?

No more step-dad?

A smile crept up his face and he stood back to his feet. I'm really dead. he stated firmly in his mind, almost accepting the fate that came to him. Chiko noted the other colored-people standing around him. What were they called? He was a Ghost now? He walked into the center of them and laughed out loud. "Hey, guys! I'm Chiko!" He approached a girl with green hair. "So, um, we're dead now? What kinda power do you have?" It almost seemed to not even bother him at all.

Ring around the rosies… Pockets full of posies… Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!

Manic laughter followed the childish verses, drowning out the words that still rang in the space around Alex. He had always been partial to that particular rhyme; he loved the irony of little children singing those words, the words that were used to describe the Black Death centuries before. To think that such an innocent quip could have such dark roots… the Shadow loved it. Although, when he tried to explain it to others, no one ever found it as hilarious as he did. They all seemed too pissed off about being in Purgatory, not that Alex could see why.

The Shadow silenced his laughter as a familiar gaunt face appeared before him and the others. Drawing the shadows around him to form a small chair, Alex settled down and braced himself for what he expected to be a very boring speech.

"My wonderful Shadows! Welcome back to life," he greeted with a grin as he changed to a child form. "Not quite, actually. You have been selected to join in a little game of mine. You have been given a second chance at gaining your life. There are new children here from the living world--miserable brats, really. If you manage to steal their life away from them within a week with the powers I have given each of you, then you may return to the world of the living at the end of the week in their form."

What a fool, Alex thought, chuckling as he formed a pitch black teacup and saucer out of thin air, taking a sip of the imaginary liquid within. He truly believes that he can reverse the hands of death? He must be crazier than I am!

"But are you willing to take a life in order to have your own back?" In a snap, he was gone once more.

A few seconds of silence passed after Omen left. The silence shattered as Alex began to clap slowly, each collision ringing through the immediate area, seemingly louder than it should have. “Well then,” he said slowly, standing up as his chair and tea set faded away into nothingness, “let the games begin!” Alex threw his head back in a loud, manic cackle, small shadowy birds shooting from the ground and whirling around his white-robed figure. By the time they vanished, the Shadow was gone, his laugh stil echoing around the lonely courtyard.

Bright lights...a scream...small amount of pain...silence..

With a gasp, Jenna's eyes snapped open as she bolted up into a sitting postion. Everything was rather fuzzy, and Jenna shook her head violently several times to try and gather her thoughts. "Where's James.." She whispered to herself, already jumping to her feet. Jenna took several deep breaths, her gaze shifting around all the gray colors. She watched as a few people walked past her. "Hey, can you tell me where I am?" She questioned one of the gray shaded people, reaching out to grasp at his shirt sleeve. Her eyes widened a bit more as her hand passed right through the material though, causing Jenna to step back looking around. She noticed a hanful of people, who were still in color, as was she, but that was it. This..can't be good.. Shaking her head she bit into her lip, until a loud voice yanked her back to the matter at hand.

Jenna blinked a few times, listening to the man infront of her as he explained everything. Dead..Wait I'm dead?! Are you serious?! Jenna blinked a few more times, shaking her head a bit as she focused on what the man,child,skeletal thing was explaining to them. She blinked for several moments once he was done. "My name is Omen! This is day one. Let the games begin!" Jenna stared, utterly confused, at the spot the man once occupied. They were dead? But how? Why? And not only that, but they also had powers? That was what seemed to stump Jenna the most. Does he mean like superman? Or what.. Shaking her head a bit, Jenna looked at the other colored people around her. They seemed to be around her age. All rather young. While she looked at them all, Jenna was begining to retreat back into her thoughts. For a second, a slight smile came to her lips as she mumbled to herself. "Well..This means no more James.." Letting out a quiet chuckle, Jenna looked around at the others once more.

Shaking her head some, she pulled herself from her thoughts in time to hear a red-haired boy laugh rather loudly then introduce himself. Jenna raised her hand, giving a half hearted wave before dropping her arm back to her side. "I'm Jenna." She stated only her name, not quite sure how to answer his second question. She was wondering the same thing. What type of powers did they have? What type did she even have? Shrugging a bit, she turned her attention back to the others.

Saura shot a dark look towards the Shadow who sang, secretly hoping that he choked on the music notes. She closed her blackened eyes, trying to block out the annoying child's diddly. As pestered as Saura was by it, the singsong rhyme wasn't the main aggressor. In truth, she was horribly envious of him and the other Shadows.

It really isn't fair that even in death I am to remain miserable, she thought, narrowing her eyes, while the others are free to feel pleasure. With a pout, she rolled her wrist, conjuring up a whirl of shadow energy. A familiar warmth spread through her body, the shadow tendrils swam slowly through the air. She didn't plan to do anything with them just yet, so instead she simply weaved them in and out of each other, morphing them around her, choosing to completely ignore her surroundings.

Suddenly, maniacal laughter exploded from one of the other Shadows, and her concentration faltered just the slightest bit. Well, just the slightest happens to be just enough to piss Saura off even more, and the morphing smoke-like shadow energy grew thicker with her growing frustration. She squeezed her eyes shut, damning him to anywhere besides near her, when the laughter suddenly stopped.

"My wonderful Shadows!" Saura's eyes flew open, and her conjuration thinned and faded.

"Welcome back to life," he greeted with a grin as he changed to a child form. "Not quite, actually. You have been selected to join in a little game of mine. You have been given a second chance at gaining your life." Her expression darkened with every word that was spoken.
A game? What does he mean, game? She scowled as he continued his explanation.

"There are new children here from the living world--miserable brats, really. If you manage to steal their life away from them within a week with the powers I have given each of you, then you may return to the world of the living at the end of the week in their form."
Just what she wanted to deal with; brats, Saura thought to herself with a slight shake of her hair, as the speaker's grin widened and the other Shadow chuckled. Looking over at him, she saw that he had taken a...seat? And-oh! Right before her eyes, formed a teacup out of the shadows. Well he seems to be having the time of his death, she thought to herself, and almost smirked, but no. Truthfully in comparison, Saura was not amused. This was getting less and less entertaining by the second, and this other Shadow was not helping

"But are you willing to take a life in order to have your own back?" In a snap, he was gone once more.

Take a life...?
She had not the time to entertain the thought, before a clap broke the silence. With a small jump, Saura flared, shadow smoke rising around her ankles. The claps continued, echoing, the sound boring into her head. She swallowed her rage, however, and simply glowered at the Shadow.

“Well then,” he said slowly, standing up as his chair and tea set faded away into nothingness. “let the games begin!”
Saura's jaw nearly dropped, were these people serious, games? The Shadow disappeared in a whirl of small, shadowy birds, laughing all the while. As the shadows dissipated, his laugh faded, and Saura stared at the spot where he just was, a vacant expression on her face. Who the hell was that? Damn it!

Saura sighed audibly, and the wispiest of tendrils grew slowly from the shadows and twirled around her circling wrist. I hate this place, she thought with a flick of her wrist and tossing the shadow to her fingers. She weaved the grey shadow between her fingers, and resumed her pout, This sucks.

Jaden slowly opened his eyes. He was laying on his back in the same position he thought he remembered falling asleep in. "Wow, what happened to all the color in the world?." Jaden said, he stayed laying down and closed his eyes again then heard "You have been killed--thanks to yours truly..."

Killed? So those gangsters... it wasn't a dream? Or was it and this dude just killed me in my sleep? Jaden thought to himself. He stood up and turned his head to see the dude who was talking. Jaden wasn't really paying a whole lot of attention, all he really picked out was that he has powers now, some shadows or something are trying to kill them, and that if he dies he screws everyone over. This is a change, it actually matters to people now if I die. When the guy who was talking disappeared Jaden said "Thank god, he was starting to get annoying." Then looked over and saw a red head dude and a chick with black hair. He figured he would just wait and see if they would even notice him before introducing himself.

Rikki opened her eyes and blinked. "Aleena?" she called. No response. "Aleena! What's going on? Where am I?" she yelled, again hearing nothing after that. "What happened?" she thought to herself. The last thing she remembered was her and Aleena jumping off the bridge. She went under the water with Aleena. She had watched as Aleena fell into the rock and broke her arm. Rikki had gone to help Aleena, but the current swept her into the rock, and she blacked out. She faintly head Aleena drag her out of the water. "Rikki! Rikki wake up! Oh my God Rikki please wak up! RIKKI!" she had yelled, beginning to cry. "Am I...Am I dead?" she asked herself quietly. She looked around. She didn't see much color. She saw dark black eyes around every corner, peering at her. "Ummm...okay?" she wondered who on Earth they were. "Oh, hello. We have a newbie." she heard a voice call. She looked behind her, to find a large figure standing over her. Omen introduced himself and explained the process of the game. "So, Rikki, what power do you want?" "Is Necromancy an option?" "Haha very funny. I think we both know the answer to that." he said, flat toned. "Fine. I want to be able to... control the weather." "Whatever you wish" he said, waving his hand. With that, he was gone.

Maci was relaxing, sitting up against a wall, waiting for Omen to get here and give his little speech or whatever he needed them for, Maci looked around, seeing a dark girl, who barely looked the same age as her, seeing her shadowy power which looked like smoke, but wasn’t, Maci tried using them for fun once and it didn’t work, then spotting a man singing “ring around a rosey” song, which he needed vocal lesson for sure, a boy wearing all black and blue eyes, which he actually looked pretty cute, and then some other boy, which now she was just too tired to even think about how he looked.

Right before Maci was about to fall asleep she heard Omen, and the one voice everyone around here knew. "My wonderful Shadows! Welcome back to life," Maci rolled her eyes. Back to life? Place still looks all grey and shit. Maci thought to herself, missing some of what Omen had to say, not like it was too important. “You have been selected to join in a little game of mine.” Maci chuckled out loud. “Another game, better be fun this time...” Maci mumbled under her breath, kind of ignoring Omen now. Omen always talked like he owned the place, oh yeah, he basically does! she thought, sighing afterwards, Maci went to stand, being full herself right now, but then turned half her body into smoke, which is what she did most of the time.

“There are new children here from the living world. If you manage to steal their life away from them within a week with the powers I have given each of you, then you may return to the world of the living” This is about all that actually caught Maci’s attention. Second run at life huh? I could get payback at the asshole he fed me to the sharks. Before she could say anything Omen disappeared, like he always did. Ignoring the man who sang, which was really annoying, and Maci was glad when he disappeared. She then flew away as smoke and went to the streets of this horrible deathly place called Purgatory. Everything was grey and colorless, except her and other people of the dead. Most of then called shadows, but now she was just looking for these new people around here.

Maci walked by the City Hall and saw a bunch of other colored people. They looked confused, these might be the new kids, well I got a week to kill them, mind as well have fun first. Maci then turned back into her normal form and walked up to them, hearing some chatter. "I'm Jenna." [i]Time to act like the first day of Purgatory... Maci thought, smirking in her mind. “Uh, I’m Maci, what power might you have?” Maci said, looking innocent, waiting for a response from any of these people, all a mix of male and female.

No matter how fuzzy his mind, he couldn’t mistake the feel of the fall. Down, down, the wind knocked him out of his buzz right before he hit the ground.

All of a sudden he was tossed into black,

And then back out of it.

“What the-” his eyes grew at the gray hue the world had taken on. “What’s…going on…” People, he needed people so he could ask what in the world was going on. The people, he quickly noticed, we’re gray.

Color.

He has almost not noticed the group of dazed, confused, and normal colored teens trying to get noticed by the gray people or standing around. “Ghost! Welcome!” He whirled around in shock-- who? “You are dead.” Dead, dead, dead, dead-dead-dead-dead-dead-dead-dead-dead-dead-dead-dead-dead-dead! Scotty or Kyle? Me or Him? Dead? How could this be how could this be possible?
To easy.
To perfect.
To wrong.
He was supposed to kill Scotty…Kyle…himself! It was his job, His and his alone! "Oh, right! If any of you little piggies happen to die per se or lose the game by the end of the week, then you all will lose and your lives will be taken from you." He zoned back in, all of them would die, if he screwed up? He couldn’t let that happen again, no, he just couldn’t. He wouldn’t let it happen again. “My name is Omen! This is day one.” Did he just change ages? “Let the games begin!”

The man was gone and people started introducing themselves.

Maci, Chiko, Jenna.

Maci...was she here before? No, of course she was. Stop being jumpy.

He put on his biggest grin. “Names Kyle,” He gave a small kind of salute in greeting, “Don’t know what-” The man HAD said they had powers when he had spaced out, right? “-Power I have though. Hope it’s something cool, like super strength!”

Jaden stayed standing away from the group of kids that were all introducing themselves. He figured it would be a hell of a lot easier to survive here if he at least tried to make friends somewhat. He then felt a really weird feeling in his hand, like he couldn't really move his fingers. He looked at his hand and noticed it was a blade. Is this my power? Jaden asked himself. He then shifted his hand back to normal. He tried his power again and his hand was now on fire. He tried to flick his wrist but only a few ashes went through the air, no fireballs or anything cool. He once again returned his hand to normal.

Jaden turned his attention back to the circle behind him. "F--- it." He said quietly to himself and walked closer to the group. He sighed a little bit on the inside and said "Hey guys, I'm Jaden." He felt like he said that a little too calmly, he felt like he should be freaking out at the fact that he was dead. "And I've pretty much already found out what my power is."

Rikki rubbed her eyes. This couldn't possibly be happening. Or could it? Her life was awful anyway, and it had just gotten worse. They couldn't POSSIBLY expect them to willingly go along with this, could they?

Saura shot a menacing look over towards the group of Ghosts, crossing her ankles. They were conversing, if you could even call it that. With a flicker of her temper, she snapped the shadow tendrils back into nothing. She continued to observe the others, what? Another one had a blade- no it must have just been her imagina-HOLY CRAP HIS HAND IS ON- fire?...Well that was odd.

She flicked her pigtails with a shake of her head and looked over to the group of Ghosts, noticing that one of her kind had joined their ranks. A Shadow, just standing there, talking.

Huh? They could do that? Not like she wanted to...

Saura really could care less about those ghosts, if it was true that they were a bunch of brats. Some of them seemed extremely troubled with their current situation, which made Saura all tingly on the inside.
Stupid brats.
But still, she paid attention to their conversation, angling her body so her ear could catch their words. They were exchanging names, which Saura personally had no care for. And now they were on to discussing powers.

“Don’t know what power I have though. Hope it’s something cool, like super strength!”

Fools, she thought to herself, and listened even harder, wisps of shadow creeping from her fingertips.

"Hey guys, I'm Jaden." another fool said calmly, fool! "And I've pretty much already found out what my power is."

Oh how cute, Saura thought with an eye roll. She hated small talk, about as much as she hated brats. But even so, the Shadow kind of wanted in on the circle. She most certainly knew what her power was. Averting her eyes from the group, she looked darkly out into nowhere, flopping her bangs forward in front of her eyes, and crossing her arms. Shadow smoke began to slowly whirl around her legs, but Saura did her best to suppress it. Outside, she probably looked like an extremely pissed off grump of a teen, but on the inside she was a raging battle. Did she want to approach the others? No. Yes...