The notification appeared at 3:47 AM.
I was awake because Maya was snoring. Again. Three weeks into freshman year and I still hadn't learned to sleep through it.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING]
Blue light flooded our dorm room. Not from our phones. From everywhere—the walls, the ceiling, the air itself. Maya sat up, blinking, her brown hair sticking up in a halo.
"What the fuck—"
[TUTORIAL BEGINNING]
[PARTICIPANTS: 7,943,291,682]
[ESTIMATED SURVIVAL: 8.3%]
The numbers hung in the air, burning cyan against the dark.
"Is this a prank?" Maya laughed, high and nervous. "Did you—"
She stopped.
Her notification was different. Red, not blue.
[CLASS ASSIGNMENT: CIVILIAN]
[SKILL: NONE]
[SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 0.02%]
Maya's face went slack. "That's not—that can't be—"
Mine was still loading. I watched the percentage tick down, 8.3 to 8.2 to 8.1, as somewhere in the distance, someone started screaming.
Then:
[CLASS ASSIGNMENT: GLITCHBORN]
[PASSIVE: OVERCLOCK]
[DESCRIPTION: Push any attribute beyond safe limits. Cost scales with magnitude.]
[WARNING: USER IS THE COST]
I read it twice. Three times.
Maya grabbed my arm. "Lena, what does yours say? What class did you get?"
I opened my mouth to answer.
The window shattered.
Not from outside. From inside. Something crawled through that hadn't existed three seconds ago—limbs too long, joints bending wrong, smiling with teeth that belonged to something that had never been human.
Maya screamed.
I moved.
I didn't think. The thing lunged and I overclocked my Speed before I knew what that meant.
[SPEED: 12 → 47]
[DURATION: 4.2 SECONDS]
[COST: MINOR MUSCLE TEAR, LEFT QUADRICEPS]
Pain lanced through my thigh. I ignored it. The world turned to syrup, the creature's lunge became sluggish, and I saw the gap—under its arm, past its reach, to the desk where Maya kept her field hockey stick.
I grabbed it. Spun. The creature's head tracked me, too slow, always too slow.
I overclocked Strength mid-swing.
[STRENGTH: 9 → 38]
[DURATION: 1.8 SECONDS]
[COST: FRACTURED RIGHT RADIUS, MICROTEARS IN ROTATOR CUFF]
Something cracked in my forearm. The stick cracked in the creature's skull.
Both broke.
The thing collapsed, dissolving into pixels that tasted like copper and static. I collapsed too, gasping, my arm hanging wrong, my leg screaming.
Maya stared at me. At the dissolving corpse. At my arm bent at an angle that made her look away.
"Lena," she whispered. "Your arm—"
[TUTORIAL STAGE 1 COMPLETE]
[REWARD: 50 CREDITS, IRON DAGGER (COMMON)]
A knife materialized on the floor. I didn't reach for it. I was busy watching the blood drip from my nose, wondering why it glowed faintly cyan.
[STAGE 2 COMMENCING IN: 00:59:47]
One hour. Then whatever Stage 2 was.
Maya's notification was still red. Still 0.02%.
"Lena." She grabbed my good hand. Her palm was sweating. "What do we do?"
I looked at my broken arm. Felt the torn muscle in my leg. Remembered the numbers: 7.9 billion participants. 8% survival.
I thought about overclocking my Intelligence just to do the math faster. Decided against it. Brain damage seemed like a bad opening move.
"We move," I said. "Find somewhere defensible. Weapons. People who got combat classes."
"Lena, your arm—"
"I'll fix it later."
There was a skill for that. I could feel it, humming at the edge of my perception. Regeneration. I could overclock it, force my bones to knit, my muscles to seal.
The cost would be something else. Something worse.
I smiled. It felt wrong on my face, too sharp, too hungry.
Maya flinched.
"Or," I said, "I find out what else I can break."
END CHAPTER 1