Grey

Mitsu Matsumoto opened their eyes, finding themself on the ground on the shore of some grey beach. The waves lapped at their overalls, their black hair at rest and laying on top of the peak of their shoulders just moments ago, had suddenly become spread out across the sand, granules and rock mixing in with the strands of their hair. Above them, the clouds were flattened and moody, and the air was dismal. This was not their home, nor was it where they were seconds ago.

Mitsu sat up, and they remembered what they were doing just before this.

The afternoon was timid, quiet and saturated with silence, as though muting itself to not distract Mitsu. Their younger brother was quiet in his room, only the quiet keypresses on his laptop signalling his existence. Mitsu’s mother was downstairs, and though she had brought home groceries and begun to cook, there was only the faint aroma of some casserole cooking in the oven—no whisk, no dings, no thuds from placing. It was the perfect atmosphere to play a game in. And they had just the game.

A week prior, a person in a Discord server Mitsu was part of had posted a link to an upcoming game, set to release a week from then. Based on the details, it looked to be an MMORPG, featuring a whole host of different areas and many different classes to choose from. The details on the Steam page said that the game was necessarily multiplayer, being played in session sizes of seven.

The game looked interesting to Mitsu, and a few others in the server had been enticed as well. Initially, there were only five of them, though the original poster of the link, a user under the name of PlantsPlantsPlants said she had a friend she could invite, while another, paranotnormal, said he could invite his brother. With that, the total had been brought to seven and a groupchat had been made for the purposes of communication. Waiting a week for the game to release, Mitsu had been waiting in anticipation, excited to finally play the game: Prism.

With the week surpassed and the afternoon as quiet as described, Mitsu sat at their computer, resting their face on the side of their hand and waiting for the game to finish downloading. 65%, the ticker said, barely moving up every so often. With a roll of their eyes, they switched tabs to Discord, examining messages in the groupchat.

Mitsu tilted their head to the side.

Mitsu tabbed in and out of Steam, checking their progress.

Mitsu tabbed back out of Discord and examined Prism’s page now that it had finished downloading. The game appeared to have 7 achievements, all locked. The splash art of the game was just a white triangular prism on a black background, white light passing through it and turning into a rainbow. Mitsu considered what this might mean—would the characters one could pick from all separated from some greater source? Was there going to be a leader? They didn’t really know what to expect—well, they thought, not like I am going to find anything out just looking at it, and they pressed the button to launch the game.

A ping from Discord made them tab back in as the game window loaded.

Curious, Mitsu opened the game window. “Menu screen” appeared to be a hopeful name for it, considering that the screen had no buttons—only a depiction of a white triangle with text above and below it. Over the triangle, the screen said “THE GAME HAS LOADED,” with it reading “SHINE A LIGHT ON YOUR SCREEN” on the bottom. The text was in... Courier New? Mitsu wasn’t particularly familiar with typefaces, only dealing with them when messing around in Google Docs, but they knew Courier New as “that typewriter text thing.” Mitsu briefly wondered if typewriters would be involved, though they dismissed it as they began to dissect the other implications of the “menu screen.”

Why was the game telling Mitsu to shine a light on their screen? Could it really detect light like that? Mitsu’s monitor didn’t even have a camera, nor did they have one in their room at all—well, their dad had gotten that novelty Polaroid for them, but that was beside the point. Perhaps it was that the screen could detect shifts in light level? That, too, seemed unlikely, but Mitsu didn’t have any other ideas.

Whatever the case, it was clear that they needed to follow the screen’s directions if they wanted to start the game. Mitsu glanced around their room for a light source, before remembering that their phone had a flashlight. They decided to tab back into the groupchat real quick, just to see what happened after other people shined the light.

Mitsu waited a moment as no one responded. They opened their friends list—all six of the other players seemed to be playing Prism, their statuses listed as “PRISM - In Wastes,” while Mitsu’s was “PRISM - CONNECTION POINT.” Ominous, Mitsu thought, and they tabbed back into the game, holding up their phone to the screen. They centered the flashlight onto the triangle and then turned it on.

And in a flash, everything went white.

It was then that Mitsu found themself laying in the sand, eyes open and adjusting to the dim and dismal light of the beach, which felt so dark compared to the blinding flash they’d experienced moments ago. They blinked repeatedly, the afterimage of light fading from view and being replaced with an overcast layer of stratus clouds. Mitsu planted one arm in the sand, bringing themself up to a sitting position as they adjusted to their surroundings. In the distance, they heard a voice.

“Hey!” The voice said. “Over here!”

Mitsu turned their head accordingly, seeing someone waving. They were tall, wearing a long brown coat. Unlike Mitsu, with their short-sleeved yellow shirt and dark gray overalls, the person seemed dressed better for the slightly chilly environment.

“What...” Mitsu murmured, rising to their feet and rubbing the back of their head, flicking sand out of their hair. “What is...” They remembered their distance between them and the other person and cupped their mouth with their hands. “What’s going on!?” They yelled. A slight echo bounced off the rocks around them, quickly silenced by the waves.

“I...!” The person looked between Mitsu and something else that Mitsu couldn’t see, thanks to an outcropping of rocks blocking their vision between them and the person. “We don’t really know! Come over here and we can talk!” Mitsu let their hands fall to their sides and nodded, walking over.

Their sneakers crunched sand below them, fine grains shifting and rolling along the shore as Mitsu displaced them. The waves frothed, rolling in and out to an unseen tune. Mitsu shivered. They closed the distance between them and the person.

Up close, the person was more visible. They had short dark brown hair that looked nearly black in this lighting, wearing a beige shirt, dark blue slacks, and sienna hiking boots along with their brown coat.

“Hey! I’m Matt,” they said. “Though, you’d probably know me better by ‘Coppercloak.’ Uh, Elis—that’s ‘PlantsPlantsPlants’—was the one who invited me. She’s over there...” They pointed behind them—or, not them. If the way PlantsPlantsPlants referred to Matt was any suggestion, Mitsu supposed that Matt was a he. “You’re ‘Flowers,’ right?”

“Uh... No...?” Mitsu tilted their head. Matt raised an eyebrow, tilting his head in the opposite direction.

“Uh, so then...” Matt started, though he trailed off as a woman behind him cleared her throat.

“Flowers as in ‘hana hakobi,’ right?” The woman, assumedly Elis, said. With her remark, Mitsu connected the dots—it was their username, 生け花, that Matt was referring to.

“Ohhh,” Mitsu murmured. “Um, yes, I am!”

“Oh, alright!” Matt smiled, though he furrowed his brow as he did so. “Uh, so, I’m guessing you shined a light on your screen and just... woke up here, right?” Mitsu nodded. “So did we.” With another mention of “we,” Mitsu scanned the other people around them.

In front of them was Matt, though they also saw Elis—who had straight, long black hair, glasses with grey frames, a white lab coat, a bright green t-shirt, a forest green skirt, and grey dress boots—as well as three unfamiliar faces, two of the new people seated on the sand next to each other and the other sitting on top of a rock, looking nervously at the sky. The one sitting on the rock had coiled bright orange hair down to the back of their neck, wearing a denim jacket and a yellow t-shirt, along with blue jeans and brown boots. One of the people sitting on the sand had the same sort of hair, though their hair was sharper in places, also wearing a denim jacket—though their sleeves were rolled up—along with a dark fuchsia shirt, teal cargo shorts, and sandals. The other had black hair dyed green at the tip of each loc, wearing a dark brown shirt with two beige silverish stripes running across it, along with dark gray jeans and dark red sneakers.

“I mean,” the one with the black and green hair said, laughing nervously, “how are we gonna get home? It’s— I have school tomorrow! I can’t miss the first quiz of the year!”

“You’re concerned about missing quizzes?” The one with the denim jacket and fuchsia shirt said, slightly scoffing in disbelief. “Dude, magic is real! That’s, like, the best excuse you could ask for!”

“Oh, forgive me for being a little scared that we’re...” The one with the black and green hair gestured around them wildly. “Wherever this is!!!”

“Uh, should we go around the circle and introduce ourselves again?” Matt asked, chiming into the conversation.

“Yesss! I call first!” The one with the denim jacket and fuchsia shirt proudly raised their hand. “My name’s Trius! I’m pepsiboy on Discord, I’m this guy’s brother, and personally, I’m EXCITED to be here!” Trius pointed to the one with the black and green hair as he spoke, then turned to them when he finished speaking.

“Uh, I’m Cedric,” the one with the black and green hair said, doing a small wave. “I’m paranotnormal on Discord... It’s a reference to— never mind. Uh, I’m Trius’s brother, I’m not... very excited about all this.” He finished speaking, then looked hesitantly toward the others, his eyes settling on the one standing on the rock. They blinked, averting their gaze from the horizon and looking toward Cedric and then the rest of the group.

“Oh, I’m Shaun,” they said. “Er, don’t get me wrong, I’m a girl, but I like the nickname.” Shaun glanced nervously towards the clouds. “I’m Dusty_Ranger3 on Discord—Dusty_Ranger1 and 2 were legitimately taken, haha—and I’m... nervous about being here. It’s cool, I guess, that there’s some supernatural shit afoot, but it looks like it’s about to rain and I don’t wanna be caught out here when that happens, y’know? But, uh...” She waved her hand as though to dismiss her rambling, then looked toward Elis. “You’re up,” Shaun said.

“Right,” Elis said, adjusting her glasses. “I’m Elis, PlantsPlantsPlants on Discord. I’m not a fan of being here.” She looked toward Matt expectantly.

“Oh, I’m Matt!” He waved toward everyone. “Coppercloak on Discord. I’m... not exactly enthused to be here, but y’know, gotta stay optimistic.” He nodded, then looked toward Mitsu.

“Um...” Mitsu considered, looking around at everyone. This was certainly an interesting situation to be in. For a brief moment, they considered telling everyone their name was something random, but they decided to be serious. “Hi! I am 生け花on Discord, and in the real world, I am Mitsu! I am... um, excited to be here! It seems scary but cool.” They paused. “So, that just leaves SilverIsSlain, right? Did they not wake up on the beach?”

“Well...” Matt trailed off.

“If we’re all saying how excited we are to be here,” Cedric began, “then she’s on one end—”—he pointed at Mitsu, who winced—“—and he’s on the other,” Cedric completed, pointing down the shore. Trius glanced at the nervous Mitsu and then spoke.

“They’re,” Trius corrected.

“Huh? No, Silver’s a guy, I asked a while ago,” Cedric replied.

“No, Mitsu is they,” Trius clarified.

“Oh.” Cedric rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Fuck, sorry. They’re on one end, and Silver’s on the other.”

Mitsu looked curiously at Trius, then noted what Cedric was saying. “So, is he down the shore?” They leaned their head out toward the ocean, moving their gaze beyond Matt, spotting a figure faintly moving in the distance.

“Yeah.” Cedric nodded. “I think I woke up first, and then I looked around for a while and while I had turned my back, he had appeared on the sand. Yelled at me for a bit when I was freaking out, and then he stormed off and ran down the beach.”

“Jeez. He sounds as nice as he is online, haha!” Mitsu joked.

“I know that’s right,” Cedric said, a small smile on his face. He sighed. “God, if I had known that shining a light on— a fuckin’ blue triangle, that it would send me to...” He gestured around himself. “That it’d send me to grey beach world, then I never would’ve played that game.”

“Wait, blue?” Trius raised an eyebrow, tilting his head. Mitsu, too, was confused. Were the triangles different colors for everyone? “Mine was purple!” It certainly seemed so.

“Huh. Mine was orange,” Matt said, crossing his arms partially but placing one hand on his chin.

“If we’re all sharing ours, the triangle on my screen was green,” Elis chimed in.

“Oh, uh, mine was yellow,” Shaun said, glancing back into the conversation. “That’s a rainbow, right? Matt, me, Elis, Cedric, Trius, and then that’d leave like... Red and indigo.”

“Well, if we’re going based off shirt color,” Cedric said, though his own shirt didn’t seem to match his color, “then that Silver guy is definitely red, so I guess Mitsu is indigo.”

“Actually, my triangle was white,” Mitsu noted.

“Huh,” Cedric said, scratching his cheek. “So, not a rainbow?”

“Wait, guys, it’s like a prism! White light goes in and then like... diffracts into all the other different colors!” Trius excitedly explained.

“Refracts,” Elis corrected.

“They did it again?” Trius said, grinning.

“What?” She replied.

“Ah, you wouldn’t get it.” He waved his hand, dismissing his joke. Mitsu was only eighty percent sure they got it.

“Hmm,” Elis said, turning away from Trius and looking down the shore. She pointed her hand down the beach. “Silver is rejoining us.” Mitsu glanced over. Down the shore, someone with grayish white hair was approaching, wearing a dark gray coat, lined with pale vermillion fleece around the collar, along with grey pants and red sneakers.

“What?” The person, certainly SilverIsSlain by process of elimination and by Elis’s call, said, walking up to the group and standing at the edge of the half-circle they had formed facing the water. “What’s everyone staring at me for?”

“I mean, you did just... walk off when you arrived here, according to Cedric. Yelled, too?” Matt asked, crossing his arms and raising one of his shoulders slightly. Silver scoffed.

“Forgive me for not being perfectly rational when I get teleported here out of the fucking blue,” Silver said, raising his hands up in defense. He paused. “So, we doing introductions?”

“Well, we just did another round of introductions before you arrived. Looks like all seven of us are here,” Matt said, glancing around at the group. “I’m Matt.” The rest of the group all chimed in with their names, though Trius still added that he was excited to be here.

“... And you?” Silver said, looking at Mitsu. They blinked, realizing they hadn’t spoken.

“Mitsu Matsumoto! Nice to meet you, Silver!” They waved.

“Silver? Right, we’re doing away with that one. I’m Zachary,” he said. After a beat of Mitsu continuing to wave, he awkwardly waved back.

“Okay, I’ve been scoping out the horizon,” Shaun started. “I think it’s only cloudy on the beach... So if we get to that field over there, we should be fine.” She pointed to a field of grass in the distance. “Uh, unless it’s gonna rain there too... I mean, I can see the sky, but everything looks grey as hell with this fog.” She waved around herself.

“Oh, yeah, we should probably clear off the beach.” Cedric stood up, dusting sand off himself. Trius stood up as well, though Mitsu glanced over and spotted that he also grabbed a handful of sand, stuffing it into his pocket. Elis stood up as well, walking quicker than the others, seeming eager to get out of the clouds.

With Elis, Shaun, Cedric, and Trius moving ahead, Zachary slowly walked behind, striking up conversation with Matt, who lingered to make sure that everyone was following. Mitsu stood, solitary for a moment, turning away from Matt’s gaze and facing the water.

For a moment, they felt they heard windchimes carried over the waves, dulcet desolate tones to guide them toward the start of this journey. Mitsu smiled, and let their worries about their circumstances wash away with the tide as they marched on toward the others.