The voice alone made Niall's blood run cold, and it didnt help that he had a gun pointed to his face either. 

Not only were these characters activated, but they were self aware too!

"I'm Niall." He slowly revealed, keeping his hands up. He looked up at the health bars to get another glance of Louis's full name, and saw that the arrows he'd shot are resting on Liam's health bar. 

Niall smirked a little, 'That's so odd!'

"Who are you?" Louis now pointed his gun at Liam who was on the verge of tears. 

"Liam James Payne, please don't hurt me. We're on your side." His voice shook with fear, and his stance was hunched. 

Louis frowned, not recognizing our names, "How did you get here? You aren't part of the game." He accused, keeping his gun pointed. 

"We were-"

"Yes we are, we're part of the new update. Duh." Niall quickly thought, praising himself for being so quick on his feet. 

"What update? What is that?" Louis continued to question, focusing his attention on me now. 

"The 23.7.10 update? You haven't heard? Huh, that's odd," Niall pretended to be confused, "Are you sure you're part of this game? Most every character was affected by it." 

Louis's frown softened, and he thought for a second before shaking his head, "Of course I'm part of this game! I came off that podium right there. Where are your podiums?"

Liam hesitantly glanced at Niall.

"Part of the new update requires us to guide the players along. So that's why we came in here, said a couple lines of dialogue, and the players chose you. Now they're probably on a snack break or something." Niall droned, talking like this was the most obvious thing in the world. 

'Please don't question any further...' Niall thought as his heart rate was through the roof. If they find out the truth, they'll probably be killed. 

Louis gave Niall a small glare, taking his words with great suspicion. 

"Alright..., well, since you're going to be with us this entire gameplay, I'm Louis Tomlinson master of the jungle and sand lands." The character introduced, priding himself on the title of 'master of the jungle and sand lands'.

The boys both nod, Liam being a little more energetic than Niall. 

"I'm Zayn," A voice called out from behind Niall, "Although I do not dominate a particular biome, my mental abilities can help solve problems and puzzles wherever they may appear." 

Niall looked at Zayn as he spoke, noticing how more calm and collected he was compared to Louis. 

There was a small amount of silence until Louis spoke up, "Why didn't they just pause the game? Now we have to wait here until they get back." 

"You know what, they just started it, I can feel them moving me forward." Niall responded, walking somewhat goofily towards the end of the character selection area. 

He wasn't sure what was next, but anything was better than sitting here. 

~*~

A cut scene, that's what was next. 

Once they had exited character selection, they were thrown into a beautiful, tropical party. 

"I don't know what kind of game this is, but I'm loving it." Niall smiled over at Liam, taking a big slurp from his blue tea. 

His joy was short lived as the 'liquid' that entered his mouth turned to sharp, tasteless pixels that cut his mouth. 

Niall spit them out and placed the drink down, "Liam, don't drink that." 

Liam looked at the drink, then at Niall, and slowly opened his mouth with a smile. The straw touched his lips and he began to clamp down on it. 

"I tasted coconut." Niall warned, "Plus, the liquid turns to pixels and scrapes you." 

Liam scoffed and placed the long, hot pink, curvy cup on the table next to him. 

He decided to observe the video game women while he waited for the scene to end. "Forget about being scared, I wanna stay here forever." He mumbled under his breath while watching a girl walk.

The girls were dressed in grass skirts and coconut bras with colorful lais around their neck. No shoes were needed as the sand was comfortable by itself. 

It was a typical beach scene, surfboards rested on against a table, tikis were stacked in a totem and a small band was playing the ukulele. Big, green palm trees danced along to the music, adding their own 'swishing' tune.

A red-orange sunset doused everything in a warm, beautiful glow.

One thing Niall noticed in the distance was a small '100%' icon with a battery life fully charged. He shrugged reassuring himself that he left the computer plugged, although a small doubt in his mind nipped at him.

Practically everything was made from bamboo, no steel or bolts anywhere. 

Liam enjoyed this scene, the flower of nature hasn't been wilted by the bacteria of human kind yet.

Niall on the other hand was merely satisfied, it was now sinking in that he wouldn't be able to spend days in his room gaming anymore. 

Louis was busy chatting up some girls, pushing his hair back and flexing his muscles for them. Zayn was close by, but he took a liking to the limbo instead of socializing. 

"Hey, I'm gonna try to talk to some girls." Liam told Niall, slinking away from the table in pursuit of someone.

Niall shrugged, thinking the game would ignore them. 

"Hey, girl. How're you?" Liam flirted, throwing on his best smirk. 

The woman ignored him like she was completely deaf, and just kept on walking. Her skirt swayed as she moved, enticing Liam further. 

He called out to her one more time before reaching his hand out and touching her to grab her attention. 

Wrong move. 

The woman was shocked, turning around and glitching. She was stuck, walking in place and her hands kept twitching. The movements she was stuck in between were conversing and walking. 

She must have been able to talk to Louis or Niall; but once the game realized Liam wasn't apart of it, it began to glitch. 

"Okay, then. See you later." Liam awkwardly bid, rushing over to Niall with wide eyes. 

"You're such a smooth talker! Look at the way you got her, crazy for you!" Niall grinned, jabbing Liam lightly with his elbow. 

"Oh shut up, i'm just gonna stay back here until this stupid thing is over." Liam told, a little shaken up by the incident. 

Just as he said that, the sun became to turn dark red. The orange glow shifted, dousing everything with a bloody blanket. 

The women began to scream, running around for shelter. 

Louis and Zayn looked up to the sky, glaring at some type of floating boat catching their attention. 

When it came further into view, Niall noticed it's greek-like designs. Humans sculpted from marble were fighting, decorating the outside of the boat. Besides the humans, the boat was very simple; the rest being wooden with two pieces of carved wood sticking out from the ends of the boat.

"Charon." Louis mumbled, his confusion turning into anger. 

Niall couldn't help but smirk, Charon? That was really the name of their villain? How scary could she be? In all honesty, it sounded like a middle-aged lady who worked in an office.

'Well, if she's anything like my gma then I'm in trouble.' Niall thought.

He got his answer as the boat drew closer, emitting fog as it came into view. 'Charon' was covered in a giant cloak, concealing every part of him expect his eyes. 

His glowing, yellow eyes peered from outside the cloak, the rest of his face hidden in darkness. 

"What do you want, Charon?" Louis spat at Charon, looking up at him with a glare.

Liam looked over at Niall with concern, afraid of the games villain. 

Niall paid no attention to Liam, studying the boat in front of him. He was trying to calculate how he could enter the boat, beat up the villain, and go back to the beach paradise. 

His eyes were scanning the edge of the boat, looking to see if there was good grip or not; but instead, he saw a hand gripping the edge. 

Niall's eyes squinted in suspicion, what kind of creature was this?

Soon, the hand grew into an arm, arm into a torso, torso into body. 

Now, Niall was slightly disgusted, thinking Charon was a human centipede remix. Maybe the human part is his weakness, that's how he'd kill him. 

The body was that of an adult male, a confident one at that. The person stood up behind Charon and stretched, as if he was just taking a nap, and looked over at Louis with boredom. 

"Liam! Look, theres someone in the boat!" Niall whispers over to his friend, trying to grab him from cleaning up a drink he spilt. 

The person in the boat heard Niall, their eyes locking. 

Niall's blue eyes were filled with confusion, suspicion and shock but the strangers brown eyes were flabbergasted, displeased, and overwhelmed. 

"Liam! Look, hurry!" Niall rushed, shaking his friend and breaking eye contact with the stranger first. 

"What?" Liam hissed, hating being shaken. 

The blonde haired boy looked back up at the boat, seeing the stranger was gone. 

_______________________________________________________________

sorry this took so long to update! Ive been quite busy. Have a great day :)

also not gonna lie, instead of Charon I was gonna have the villain be naughty boy lmaooo. 

1) Who do you think the stranger is? another human trapped?

2) are you liking the game so far? 

3)yodeling boy from Walmart Is talented don't @ me