Steve Ricker knew the smell of cheap toner and stale coffee better than he knew his own mother's perfume.
For seven years, his life had been a repeating loop of fluorescent lighting, Q4 reports, and the crushing banality of being a quirkless cog in a world powered by spectacular abilities.
He was just another face in a sea of millions in the American megapolis, distinguished only by the deep-set lines of permanent fatigue beneath his eyes.
He was currently waiting for the elevator on the 14th floor of Allied Solutions, clutching a slightly damp bag of Thai takeout—his one source of joy for the evening.
BEEP-BOOP.
The elevator doors sighed open. Steve stepped inside and pressed the lobby button.
It was 7:15 PM, and the building was nearly empty.
He was reaching into his pocket for his phone when it happened.
A blinding headache, sharp and immediate, pierced his skull.
He leaned against the cool metal wall, fighting the sudden nausea. It wasn't like a migraine; it was a total system reboot.
When the pain receded, something felt fundamentally different.
He looked at his hands.
They were the same—calloused from his mechanical keyboard and faintly smelling of peanut butter—but there was a clarity, a sharpness to the world around them that hadn't been there moments ago.
He brought his hand closer, wiggling his fingers.
Focus, he thought, instinctively.
What just happened?
He fixated on a small, scuffed spot on the elevator's steel interior—a tiny patch of corrosion near the maintenance panel.
As he stared, focusing with an intensity he usually reserved for calculating vacation days, the scuff mark seemed to shimmer.
Then, with a faint, almost inaudible "shik-shik" sound, the world around the scuff mark pixelated.
The steel panel itself didn't change, but the damaged spot had become a perfect, 16x16 texture block of Cobblestone.
Steve gasped, stumbling back against the opposite wall, dropping his takeout. Pad See Ew splattered tragically across the floor.
He stared at the small block, utterly confused.
It was real.
He reached out a trembling finger, and the texture was rough, undeniably stone, despite being a quarter-inch deep in a steel panel.
What the hell?
He instinctively focused on the Cobblestone block again, wondering if he could make it go away.
He concentrated, willing it to disappear.
Instead, a small, transparent icon flashed near his line of sight:
[BREAK BLOCK: LEFT-CLICK].
He didn't have a mouse. But he had a hand.
Hesitantly, Steve extended his index finger and tapped the Cobblestone block.
Nothing.
He tried again, pressing firmly.
Nothing.
Left-click. Left-click... He thought back to the countless hours he'd spent in his childhood, tapping furiously on a mouse. It wasn't a tap; it was a hold.
He placed his entire palm flat against the block, then, imagining his hand was the mouse, he "held the click."
He didn't push hard, just maintained contact.
Immediately, a faint, translucent grid overlaid the block, and the texture began to visually crack.
The cracks grew deeper, spreading across the surface of the tiny block, the shik-shik sound now a faint, rapid scraping.
K-K-CRCK!
With a final, audible snap, the Cobblestone block vanished.
In its place was a smooth, untouched piece of elevator steel, as if the scuff had never existed.
And floating in the air where the block had been was a single, rotating, three-dimensional icon: [Cobblestone (1)].
Steve stared at the floating block, his mind reeling past logic, past fear, straight into pure, incredulous awe.
He was quirkless. His entire life was defined by that deficiency.
But now…
He reached out and gently touched the floating item. It didn't feel like anything.
But when he pulled his hand back, the Cobblestone item was gone, and he felt a strange, weightless presence that was not his own—an empty slot had been filled.
Inventory.
The single, terrifying, exhilarating word echoed in his head.
He looked at the Pad See Ew mess, then back at his hands, a wild, crazy idea forming.
This power—this system—was outside the bounds of quirks. It didn't belong here.
If the government or any Hero discovered it, his life would become a petri dish.
He pressed the lobby button repeatedly, his decision crystallizing with frantic urgency.
The next morning, Steve Ricker, office worker, would not show up for work.
He needed space.
He needed silence. He needed to understand the mechanics of his new reality.
He needed a place where the world of heroes and quirks couldn't find him.
'I need a forest,'
He thought, grinning maniacally through his fear.
'I need to find a place to mine!'