The first thing he felt was the chill.
It seeped through his skin like an unwelcome whisper, pulling him out of a darkness he didn't remember falling into.
His eyes fluttered open to a blinding whiteness—polished marble stretching in every direction, its surface so flawless it almost seemed unreal. The faint echo of his own breath filled the chamber, each sound bouncing off the pristine walls like he was trapped inside a giant, hollow pearl.
His head throbbed, a dull and persistent ache that made his thoughts sluggish. Names, places—everything lay tangled in a fog he couldn't push through. He forced himself to sit up, the cold marble biting at his palms.
"What… is this place?" His own voice sounded strange, as if it didn't quite belong to him.
He looked down at himself: a casual shirt, slightly wrinkled, dark pants, and shoes that had seen better days. Perfectly ordinary. The kind of clothes he might have worn to grab coffee or wander the city. But the sight of them here—in this sterile, alien room—felt absurd.
His black hair fell into his eyes, and he brushed it back almost automatically, noting with vague detachment that his hands were steady despite the disorientation twisting in his gut.
He took in the chamber again, scanning for doors, windows or anything near. Nothing broke the unending whiteness. It was like him living in a large tomb with tube lights.
A shiver ran down his spine, and not entirely from the cold.
He couldn't remember arriving. He couldn't remember… anything.
A faint hum prickled at the edge of his hearing. He frowned, tilting his head, and caught a soft glow above him.
It was hanging there in the air like a hologram—a circular pattern etched with strange, shifting lines. The symbols rearranged themselves every few seconds, as if alive.
"What… is that?" he muttered, craning his neck to get a better look.
Somewhere in his mind, a ridiculous thought surfaced.
Okay, maybe it's a cool magic crown. Or… a bullseye for whatever hunts people here.
He winced.
Great. Now I'm making jokes to myself. This is how people go insane.
Another part of him, drier and far less amused, replied.
Too late for that. You were already talking out loud.
He groaned, rubbing his temples.
Fantastic. Step one, wake up in creepy marble box. Step two, self-debate while wearing mysterious floating badge of doom. Step three…?
The answer arrived with a sharp, resounding creak.
A section of the pristine wall ahead split apart with slow, deliberate movement, revealing a doorframe where nothing had been moments before.
Light bled from the gap, golden and warm, spilling across the cold floor in a stripe.
Every instinct told him to hesitate. But hesitation meant being alone with the sigil, and that idea wasn't much better. He stepped forward, his shoes clicking softly, following the strip of light until it swallowed him.
Beyond the door was a vast hall, its vaulted ceiling disappearing into shadows.
Dozens of figures stood scattered about, wearing the same dazed, wary expression he suspected was plastered on his own face. They were all marked.
And they were all just as confused as he was.
Some people shouted questions, others just clung to silence, staring at the glowing sigils above their heads like they were cursed.
He drifted toward the group, still trying to process his own situation, when someone grabbed his sleeve.
"Do you remember how you got here?" the man asked, his eyes wide.
He shook his head. "No. Do you?"
The man let go, muttering under his breath.
Before anyone could piece together an answer, the air shimmered.
A massive translucent screen blinked into existence in front of everyone, its letters bold and impossibly bright.
[ Congrats Player! You are chosen to be a Hunter! ]
For a heartbeat, no one spoke. Then voices erupted all at once.
"A… hunter? What the hell does that mean?"
"This has to be a prank, right?"
"Is this some kind of sick game?"
The word game lodged in his mind like a splinter. If it was… why did it feel so deadly real?
The glowing screen pulsed, its light reflecting in everyone's eyes. Lines of text began to scroll down in a crisp, mechanical font. Words flickered, paused, then solidified.
[ Identity Assigned ]
[ Player Name: Tom Greyrat ]
His breath caught.... Tom Greyrat.
It was strange—he knew how to read it, he knew it was a name, but the realization hit like a punch: he hadn't even remembered his own name until now. It had been there in his head all along, buried under the fog, like someone had pressed mute on his own identity.
A murmur of names spread through the hall as the other players read their own. Some frowned. Some gasped. Some looked like they wanted to deny what they saw.
Before he could think too much, the screen flashed again, revealing a set of massive double doors at the far end of the hall.
No one moved.
People exchanged nervous glances, shifting their weight but staying rooted in place. A girl near the back whispered, "We don't know what's out there."
Tom's chest tightened, but he felt something else too. A restless heat, the kind that wouldn't let him just stand and wait for someone braver.
"I'm going," he said, stepping forward. His voice carried more steadiness than he expected.
Several eyes followed him as he pushed against the cold metal handles. The doors groaned open.
And the moment the group stepped through, the air behind them shifted.
Tom turned just in time to see the grand marble hall dissolve into nothing. Vanishing like mist in sunlight. Now there was only the world outside.
It was… ruined.
Towering skeletal buildings loomed overhead, their windows shattered, walls crumbling. Twisted metal and broken streets stretched in all directions. The city was silent, but not the peaceful kind, more like the suffocating quiet after something terrible had happened.
Above them hung a sun the color of dying embers, black at its center, bleeding red light across the wreckage. The shadows it cast were long, sharp, and unsettling.
Then Tom's gaze caught on the sky.
High above, where clouds should have been, a gigantic hourglass rotated slowly in midair. It was bigger than the tallest skyscraper, its glass sides glinting. Inside, dark red sand streamed but not downward, but upward. Vanishing into the top chamber. Every grain that rose sent a faint shimmer rippling across the horizon.
"What… the hell…" someone muttered beside him.
The group huddled closer, voices overlapping.
"Is this part of the game?"
"Maybe it's a countdown?"
"But why's it going backward?"
"No, no, this can't be real. THIS ISN'T REAL!"
Tom stayed quiet, watching the red sand drift skyward. Something about it made his skin crawl, but at the same time, he couldn't look away.
If this was a game, the rules were nothing like he'd imagined. And if it wasn't… then they were in a place where the world itself was broken.
The wind whistled through a half-collapsed tower, carrying with it a faint, distant sound, something moving, somewhere out of sight.
The air shimmered again, and just above their heads, the same mechanical text from before snapped into existence.
[ Get ready, Hunters. The Night Hunt begins in 01:00 ]
[ Prepare your equipment. ]
The letters burned against the red-tinged sky, every word feeling heavier than the last.
"What does that mean?" someone asked, voice shaking.
No one answered.
A timer began counting down in the corner of the display—59:59, 59:58—each tick echoing inside Tom's head like a war drum.
Night Hunt.
The phrase alone made the air seem colder.
More words flickered briefly beneath the message, but they dissolved before anyone could read them. The screen vanished as quickly as it came, leaving the group staring at the hourglass above. The red sand still climbed upward, oblivious to their growing panic.
"We… we don't even have weapons," a young man stammered.
Tom scanned the broken streets, his eyes landing on a rusted sign swaying in the wind. That sound he'd heard earlier—the faint movement came again, but this time it was closer.
Much closer.
A shadow slid between two ruined buildings, too large to belong to any person.
The timer ticked down to 58:41.
And the heartbeat stopped.