The first rays of dawn crept through the thin curtains of the Burgies' guest room, soft light spreading across the worn dresser and stacks of books that smelled faintly of dust and lavender. For a long while Luke just lay there, half-awake, staring at the ceiling with bloodshot eyes. Sleep had come in fits, each dream laced with fire, broken glass, and the glint of a crowbar swinging toward his skull.
Every time he closed his eyes, the system had been there too, floating silently in the dark:
[Ability Unlocked: Lucky Instinct]
Subconscious danger detection. Accuracy increases with LP reserves.
The words had seared into his brain like neon graffiti. Even now, with sunlight warming his face and the muffled clatter of Maryland moving around in the kitchen below, he couldn't shake them. Lucky Instinct. His mind kept looping the phrase, rolling it around like a coin between fingers.
He turned onto his side, ribs throbbing in dull protest. The scent of fried bacon drifted through the floorboards, mixing with the faint hum of a coffeepot percolating. It should've been comforting. It should've grounded him. But instead his body was tense, restless.
It wasn't just adrenaline anymore. Something deeper coiled inside him. A buzzing awareness that made every creak of the house, every faint shift of air, feel amplified.
And then, just for a moment, it pulsed.
Not a sound, not a sight—but a feeling, sharp and instinctive, like the prickle of hairs rising on the back of his neck. His eyes darted to the window before he even knew why. Outside, a delivery truck barreled past too close to the curb, clipping a trash bin that toppled into the street. A cat shot from the shadows a split second before it would've been crushed under the tires.
Luke sucked in a breath. His pulse hammered. Lucky Instinct. It had triggered.
---
"Luke?" Maryland's voice floated up the stairwell, warm but tinged with worry. "Breakfast is ready, honey. You need to eat something."
He pushed himself upright with a groan. His muscles protested, but the Second Wind skill from last night must have done more than he realized; his body wasn't nearly as broken as it should've been. He slipped on a faded t-shirt from the dresser, his jeans rumpled from being left on the chair, then limped down the narrow stairs.
The kitchen was a cocoon of warmth. David sat at the table with a newspaper folded beside his coffee, his glasses sliding low on his nose. Maryland was plating scrambled eggs and bacon, fussing over toast like it was an art project. The moment she spotted him, she set the plate down and hurried over, her hands fluttering like anxious birds.
"You should be in bed," she scolded, though her eyes softened with relief. "You look like you've been through a war."
"Feels like it," Luke muttered, easing into a chair.
David lowered the newspaper and gave him a long, appraising look. "Kid, you did go through a war. Don't downplay it. First some maniac with a crowbar, then a damn fire? If I didn't know better, I'd think the universe had it out for you."
Luke forced a crooked smile, stabbing at the eggs. "Yeah… funny how that works."
The system pulsed across his vision the moment the fork touched his lips.
[Daily Task Unlocked]
> Maintain nutrition and strength.
Reward: +2 LP
He nearly choked. The system was grading him for eating breakfast.
"Everything alright?" Maryland asked, frowning.
Luke coughed and nodded quickly. "Yeah. Just… hot coffee."
---
He ate slowly, chewing each bite like it might vanish if he didn't. The food warmed his stomach, steadied his hands. But as the plate emptied, another notification blinked.
[Daily Task Progress: 1/3 Completed]
Tasks Remaining:
- Train your body despite injury.
- Pursue passion: Music.
Luke's grip tightened on the fork. Music? Training? It wasn't just survival anymore. The system wanted him to build, to grow.
"Something on your mind?" David asked, sipping his coffee.
Luke shook his head, but his gaze drifted to the corner where his old acoustic guitar leaned against the wall. He hadn't touched it in weeks. Between shifts at LaZeez, debt hanging over him, and the dull ache of hopelessness, music had become a guilty indulgence instead of a passion.
Now the system was telling him to play.
---
After breakfast, he retreated to the living room. Maryland fussed upstairs, opening windows to air out the smoke smell still clinging to his clothes. David lingered outside on the porch, talking with a neighbor about the police cars from last night.
Luke sat on the couch, guitar resting across his lap. His fingers hovered above the strings, uncertain. The instrument looked older than him, wood scuffed, fretboard worn smooth where he'd played the same chords over and over across the years.
He strummed once. The sound was soft, raw, but it resonated through the quiet house. His fingers remembered what his heart had almost forgotten. He shifted into a melody he'd been tinkering with for months—a country-punk blend, rough but honest.
His voice followed, low at first, then stronger:
"Road's been cruel, but I'm still breathing,
Luck's a game I can't stop playing.
Every scar's a bet I've taken,
Every dawn a debt worth paying."
The system pulsed again.
[Daily Task Progress: 2/3 Completed]
Reward: +3 LP
Current LP: 33
Luke broke off, laughing under his breath. "You've gotta be kidding me… it really counts this?"
But as the sound faded, he realized his hands had stopped shaking. The knot in his chest had loosened. For the first time since the accident, since the crowbar, since the fire—he felt like himself again.
---
His phone buzzed on the coffee table, jolting him from the moment. The screen lit up with a text from Gordy Garris.
Yo, heard about the break-in. You good? Call me.
Luke stared at it, heart tightening. Gordy was one of the few people who'd always had his back. Pool tournaments, late-night drives, trading tracks and half-baked dreams—they'd been through a lot together. If anyone deserved to know the truth of what he was facing, it was him.
But how could he explain it? Hey, man, I got hit by a car, nearly died, and now I have a probability system in my head that throws murderers and house fires at me.
The system pulsed again, almost mocking.
[Hidden Task Available]
> Confide in someone you trust.
Reward: Increased LP generation rate.
Penalty: Isolation.
Luke swore softly under his breath. "You're not making this easy, are you?"
---
The front door creaked as David stepped back inside, his boots leaving faint wet prints on the floor. He glanced at the guitar in Luke's lap, then at the phone in his hand. "You should talk to Gordy," he said simply, as though he'd read Luke's thoughts.
Luke forced a faint grin. "You think?"
David's smile was knowing. "Everyone needs someone in their corner. You've got us. But you need a brother, too. Don't push him away."
Luke looked down at the glowing text hovering in his vision. The system agreed. The dice were rolling again, and this time, they demanded he put his trust in someone else.
Luke thumbed Gordy's name on the cracked phone screen and lifted it to his ear, pacing slowly through the Burgies' living room. Maryland's house had a way of smelling like comfort—coffee, warm wood polish, a faint vanilla that clung to curtains—and the familiar scent kept trying to trick his body into relaxing. It didn't quite work. His ribs pinched when he breathed too deep; his nerves hummed like a frayed wire.
The line clicked. "Talk to me, Walker."
Gordy's voice came rough-edged and bright with that constant performance energy he carried everywhere, like the world might be an audience at any second. Luke stared out the window as the neighborhood stirred to life—a man in a reflective jacket jogging with a mottled dog, a woman in a blue coat scraping moisture off her windshield, the sky a pale, rinsed gray over Midland, Michigan.
"I'm okay," Luke said. It came out automatic, thin.
"'Okay' my ass. I got two texts before sunrise. 'You hear about Luke? Home invasion.' 'You hear about Luke? Hospital gown on a Tuesday.' Then somebody said there was smoke coming out Mary's guest window. You doing a three-act tragedy without inviting me?"
Luke's breath hitched into a quick laugh. "This act's overrated."
"Where are you?"
"At the Burgies'. They dragged me over after the cops left." He swallowed. "I'm… good here."
There was a beat of silence. Luke could picture Gordy, eyes narrowed, the way he paced when he was serious, thumb rubbing the edge of a pick he always kept in his pocket even when he wasn't playing. "Tell me what really happened."
Luke's gaze drifted down the hall. David had retreated to the garage; the muffled ratchet-click of a socket wrench carried through the door. Maryland hummed upstairs, changing linens, windows propped open to banish the last of the smoke. Their presence felt like handrails on a staircase he hadn't known he was falling down.
He could tell Gordy everything. He could blurt out the blue panels, the way odds slid like furniture across a slick floor, the feeling of fate tilting under his feet. He could confess that he'd heard the word "Penalty: Fatality" in his own head and believed it with a clarity he'd never given any prayer.
The system flickered silently in the corner of his vision:
[Hidden Task Active]
Confide in someone you trust.
Reward: Increased LP generation rate.
Penalty: Isolation debuff (LP gains reduced).
His jaw tightened. The letters didn't judge, but they were there, heavy as a hand on his shoulder. When everything in you wants to shut down and shrink, the task says: open up.
Luke lowered onto the arm of the couch, phone pressed to his ear. "Gord, I don't know how to explain this without sounding crazy. I… almost died. Twice. Maybe three times if you count the fire. And every time it felt like—" He swallowed. "Like a coin flipping and landing on its edge. Like the kind of luck that shouldn't happen kept happening."
Gordy was quiet for a long breath. "You're not crazy," he said finally. "You're shook. And you should be. But what I'm hearing is survivor talk. You hear me? You're still here, and odds-be-damned is how we celebrate that."
Luke huffed out air; it might've been a laugh or just a leak in the dam. "You ever feel like something… changes you? So the whole street looks the same but you're taller or shorter or tilted and nothing sits right?"
"All the time," Gordy said gently. "Usually after I bomb a set or win a set. The world doesn't move, but your angle on it does. That what you mean?"
"Yeah." Luke stared at a drop of condensation creep down the window. His voice lowered. "And Gordy… I think that angle—it's sticking. It's not just adrenaline."
"You got me," Gordy said. "Whatever you need. Ride? Company? Pool? Open mic? I'll switch gears and be there."
The words landed hot and clean in Luke's chest. He hadn't known how much he needed to hear that until he did.
"Pool tonight?" Luke said. Then winced; his ribs answered for him.
"Easy, cue cowboy." Gordy's grin came through the line. "Half racks and soft breaks. You chalk, I carry. Hell, I'll bring you one of those foam rollers Mary says fixes backs and souls."
"Deal." Luke paused, something like a smile ghosting across his mouth. "And… thanks."
"Always, Walker. One more thing—"
"Yeah?"
Gordy's voice softened. "You sing last night? Even a little?"
Luke stared at the guitar leaning in the corner. "Yeah. I did."
"There's your anchor," Gordy said simply. "We'll tie a line to it."
They hung up. The room felt larger when the call ended, like his lungs had purchased an extra inch of space.
The system answered without fanfare:
[Hidden Task Complete]
Confide in someone you trust.
Reward Applied: Passive—Momentum Drip (+1 LP per hour while LP ≥ 50).
A steadier current slipped under his skin, almost imperceptible. Like a silent meter somewhere had started clicking in his favor.
He checked his reserves, numbers flicking into place at a thought:
LP: 135
—plus the drip now, one per hour as long as he didn't squander himself to zero. The thought threaded caution into his pulse. Power was an appetite; it would eat whatever you fed it, including your future.
A new tab unfurled inside the blue, as if remembering its own promise:
[Store Expansion – Unlocked]
Panels slid into view with clean, machinic grace.
---
[Luck Store – Expanded Catalogue | Level 1+]
Passives
First Impressions (5 LP): Slightly improves initial reactions from others.
Lucky Dodge (10 LP): 5% chance to avoid sudden harm (rolls in background).
Golden Hands (15 LP): Small boost to odds of finding money/valuables.
Lucky Momentum (25 LP): +5% success on repeated attempts at the same task.
Fortunate Aura (50 LP): Minor increase to allies' favorable outcomes when near you.
Actives
Favorable Flip (5 LP): Tilt a minor outcome in your favor.
Second Wind (10 LP): Rapid stamina recovery; dulls aches briefly.
Danger Thread (10 LP): For 30 seconds, highlights the safer path through an area.
Fortune Nudge (15 LP): Shift odds up to ~10% on a moderate event.
Jackpot Token (25 LP): Roll for a rare consumable or skill (low guarantee).
Utilities
Treasure Sense (15 LP): Ping when hidden valuables are within 10 meters.
Opportunity Scan (20 LP): Flag short-lived chances nearby (jobs, bargains, openings).
Social Spark (15 LP): Briefly heighten charm, presence, and synch with a crowd.
Note: Certain items synergize with [Lucky Instinct]. Accuracy scales with LP pool and recent task completion.
---
He didn't buy anything. The restraint was deliberate. He remembered the taste of emptiness—LP at zero, panic riding bareback over his bones—as the crowbar whistled toward his face. He wasn't going back to that edge unless he had to. Still, his gaze lingered on Danger Thread. Thirty seconds of safer-footing guidance could be the difference between a hazard and a story you told about a hazard.
Footsteps creaked behind him. David shouldered in from the garage with a cardboard box and the contented grunt of a man who'd found exactly the thing he'd been looking for. He set the box on the dining table and flipped it open: resistance bands in faded colors, a scuffed yoga mat, a pair of light dumbbells whose neoprene had gone sticky with age.
"You're not going to the gym," David said, as if continuing a conversation they'd never started, "but you are training."
Luke blinked. "I've got cracked ribs."
"And a stubborn streak," David said. "Which we'll use. PT, not PRs. Breathing first. Core second. We work with the pain, not through it. You yelp, we stop."
Luke's mouth twitched. "Mary told you to say that?"
"Mary told me to wrap you in bubble wrap and lock you in the linen closet. This is me being the fun parent."
Luke set the phone down and followed him out to the garage. It smelled like a life built with hands—oil, sawdust, the mineral tang of galvanized nails. Light fell in rectangles through the raised door, making the concrete look like a chessboard. A couple of cardinals hopped in the wet of the driveway, scissoring red against gray.
"Feet wide. Hands on ribs," David said. "In through your nose, expand the whole cage, slow as you can. Out like you're fogging a mirror."
The first breath scraped. The second fanned. The third found something like space between bones. Lucky Instinct buzzed soft and low in the back of Luke's head—not danger, exactly, but the cool attention of a new line to follow. Breath as a lever. Pain as a gauge. Do this, not that.
"Good," David said, his voice the steady metronome of a man who'd coached sons or nephews or strays through a thousand small recoveries. "Now brace. Not a crunch—just knit it together." He tapped Luke's side with two fingers. "There you go."
They worked in whispers. Band pull-aparts that woke the between-shoulder muscles without angering the ribs. Wall sits for thirty seconds at a time, thighs talking in a language pain hadn't colonized. Calf raises, slow and strict. Each set was a tiny vote cast for staying, for rebuilding.
The system watched, then stamped his effort with a quiet seal:
[Daily Task Progress: 3/3 Completed]
Reward: +5 LP
Current LP: 140
Maryland appeared in the doorway with a glass of water and that half-amused, half-exasperated look of a woman whose kitchen had fed half the neighborhood for ten years. "If you two start lifting the lawnmower I'm calling the hospital."
"No lifting mowers," David said. "Just lifting spirits."
"Cute," she said, but the softness in her eyes didn't bother to disguise itself.
Luke drained the water. A sheen of sweat cooled on his skin. His ribs felt… not good, but organized; pain hadn't disappeared, but it had edges now. He could live around it instead of inside it.
He stepped out into the driveway to breathe air that hadn't spent the morning inside. The maple above shivered droplets. A van rolled past. The neighborhood's slow heartbeat thumped on.
Lucky Instinct lifted its head.
A prickle like static crawled the crown of his scalp, then skittered down the back of his neck. A feeling like walking into a room and knowing the picture frame is off by a full inch even if you can't see the wall. He didn't look around fast—instinct told him not to—but he let his gaze drift, unfocused, like a man thinking idle thoughts about gutters and weather.
A black sedan idled half a block down, parked just a hair too far from the curb to be normal. Tinted windows. Engine a low purr. No obvious motion.
Lucky Instinct tightened—a cat about to flick its tail.
Luke lifted his phone, thumbed the camera open, and pretended to check a text while he angled a photo over his shoulder. The shutter sound was silent; Mary had clicked that setting off years ago. The plate came out in the shot, wavery but legible.
The system ticked:
[Hidden Task: Document Suspicious Activity]
Progress: 1/1
Reward: +10 LP
Current LP: 150
"Something wrong?" David asked. He'd clocked the silent stillness Luke had dropped into; he'd always been good at reading the negative space around a man.
"Maybe," Luke said. "Not sure yet."
They went back inside. Luke cropped the plate and tucked the photo into a folder labeled with nothing but an emoji. Insurance, not action. For now.
The day moved with a suburban rhythm—doorbells, a distant lawnmower complaining to wet grass, a delivery driver trotting up a porch with a rectangle of cardboard like a sacrament. Luke showered (slowly, steam gentle on bruises), pulled on a clean tee, and tuned the guitar until the A stopped wobbling like a nervous dancer. He propped his phone on a stack of coasters and recorded the chorus that had drifted down out of nowhere while he'd been counting reps.
"Road's been cruel, but I'm still breathing,
Luck keeps calling, says keep believing.
If fate's a coin, then watch me spin it—
Heads I win and tails I win it."
He listened back. The take wasn't perfect—room noise, a throat that still rasped—but it had a grit he liked. He sent it to Gordy with no caption. The three dots of reply danced, vanished, returned, then: This one bites. Open mic tonight. Ten people, a beer sign, and a mic that shocks you if you kiss it. Be there.
The system, amused or prescient, dropped a card on the table:
[Side Quest]
Perform live for ≥ 10 people within 72 hours.
Reward: Passive—Stage Luck (subtle crowd synch, +first-song odds)
Bonus: Additional +10 LP if no backing track used.
His pulse kicked. Terror and joy held hands in his chest the way they always had when he pictured a stage. He texted back: If ribs allow. Gordy sent a thumbs-up, then a skull, then a guitar on fire.
Late afternoon unrolled. The drip in the corner of his vision ticked a breath higher, +1 LP on the hour. Luke fixed a loose hinge on a kitchen cabinet just to make himself useful, then sat with Maryland and watched a home-renovation show where the walls always came down clean and the budgets never blew up. There was comfort in watching impossible problems resolve within forty-two minutes.
Dusk bruised the edges of the sky. Streetlights blinked to attention. Luke's phone buzzed again—unknown number, no name. He almost let it die on the table, then thumbed it up.
A man's voice, crisp and friendly in the way of people who expect to be agreed with: "Luke Walker?"
"Who's asking?"
"Someone who appreciates a man who knows how to change his odds." A pause long enough to measure a bet. "Name's Marcus. Some call me Ace. We've got a small game tonight. Nothing flashy. Thought you might like a seat."
Lucky Instinct didn't hiss. It leaned forward.
"How'd you get this number?" Luke asked, keeping his voice flat.
"Midland isn't big," the man said lightly. "Word moves fast when a kid in a hospital gown knocks out a home invader with a pool cue and lives through a house fire the same night. You won, Mr. Walker. People who win interest me."
Luke looked at the window. The street outside was quiet, the black sedan gone—or maybe parked where he couldn't see. "I'm not gambling," he said.
"Sure you are," Marcus said, pleasant as an open door. "You walked into the road last night. You put a cue between a crowbar and your skull. You rolled against a flame and came up rain. Money's just the measurement. The game is you."
"There's no you in my living room," Luke said.
A soft laugh. "Not yet. Eight o'clock. The Ember Room. Back table. Ask for Ace. If you don't show, I'll assume you prefer your odds set by other people."
The line clicked dead.
Luke stood there with the phone at his ear and the quiet of the house pressing at him like a question he wasn't ready to answer. The system didn't throw confetti. It didn't flash red, either. It left him standing in the doorway of a new hallway with the lights off and the air cooler than the room behind him.
He typed a text to Gordy: Ember Room, 8. Bring your 'please don't die' face.
Copy, Gordy shot back. I'll bring a shirt with sleeves.
Luke pocketed the phone. He checked the blue numbers one more time—LP building, drip steady, danger low but listening—then grabbed his jacket from the peg by the door. The ribs twinged; his body's little weather vane. He breathed around the pain. He stepped into his shoes.
From the kitchen, Maryland's voice, as if she'd been expecting this: "Be smart. Be kind. Don't be a hero unless there's no one else around to be one."
David, without looking up from the box of old bands, added: "And keep your hands up."
Luke smiled, small and real. "Always."
He stepped out into the Michigan evening. The sky over Midland wore its usual unremarkable beauty—streetlight halos, a thin, clean moon, the smell of wet leaves and car exhaust braided together. Somewhere, a bass muffled behind a bar door. Somewhere, dice hit felt, cards kissed wood, and fortunes tried on new names.
Lucky Instinct lifted its head again, not a warning, just a quiet, feral curiosity. The night didn't feel like a trap. It felt like a table.
And Luke Walker had finally learned how to sit down.
The Ember Room was the kind of bar most people drove past without ever noticing. Tucked between a shuttered pawn shop and a laundromat that always smelled faintly of bleach and wet socks, its neon sign buzzed with a tired red glow. Smoke curled out each time the door opened, mixing with the scent of fried food and stale beer. The kind of place where fortunes were lost and found in the space of a heartbeat, though no one ever wrote it down.
Luke paused outside, breath clouding in the Michigan night. His ribs ached under the denim of his jacket, but Lucky Instinct was quiet—not warm, not cold, just… waiting. His phone buzzed with a new message from Gordy.
Out front. Don't make me walk in there alone.
Luke spotted him across the street, leaning against a lamppost, hoodie up, guitar pick twirling between his fingers like a nervous tic. Gordy's grin flashed when he caught sight of him.
"Walker! You look like hell, but you walk like you own the place. That's half the battle."
"Other half?" Luke asked, adjusting his jacket as they crossed together.
"Not dying. Low bar, huh?" Gordy smirked, then sobered as they reached the entrance. "Seriously, man. You sure about this?"
Luke glanced at the door, then at the faint blue shimmer only he could see hovering at the edge of his vision.
[Side Event: Invitation to Ember Room]
Risk Level: Moderate
Potential Rewards: LP + Hidden Opportunity
Penalty: Escalated Hostile Attention
The system wasn't screaming danger. If anything, it was nudging him forward.
"I need to see where this goes," Luke said simply.
---
Inside, the Ember Room was dim and heavy with atmosphere. Wooden beams stained dark from years of cigarette smoke, leather booths patched with duct tape, a jukebox that hadn't worked properly since the nineties. Overhead, ceiling fans turned lazily, moving more dust than air.
But it wasn't the bar that drew Luke's attention—it was the back corner.
A group of men sat around a round table, cards splayed, stacks of chips glittering in the low light. Their laughter was sharp, their movements deliberate. And at the head of the table, wearing a gray vest over a black shirt, sat a man with slicked-back hair and eyes like polished steel. Marcus. Ace.
He spotted Luke instantly and smiled like they were old friends. He gestured to an empty chair.
"Mr. Walker," Ace said, his voice smooth as oiled dice. "Midland's newest lucky charm. Please, sit."
Lucky Instinct stirred. Not a scream, not a bite—more like the flick of a coin spinning on its edge. Opportunity and danger balanced perfectly.
Luke slid into the chair. Gordy hovered nearby, close enough to intervene but far enough to look casual.
Ace leaned forward, lacing his fingers. "You've survived things that should've killed you. Not once, not twice, but thrice. The city's buzzing with your name. And I… like men who bend odds."
He tossed a chip across the table. It landed directly in front of Luke.
"One hand," Ace said. "Nothing more. Call it a test. Win, and we talk about bigger things. Lose, and you walk out the door no worse than you came."
Luke's fingers brushed the chip, his pulse drumming in his ears.
The system flickered, text sharp and clear:
[Micro Task Generated]
Play one hand.
Reward: +10 LP if won.
Penalty: None.
A single hand. No risk of death, no penalty. Just odds.
Luke exhaled slowly. Alright then. Let's roll the dice.
---
The cards slid across the table, worn and soft from use. The men around him watched with interest, smirks curling their mouths. Ace's gaze never left Luke, eyes glinting like he already knew the outcome.
Luke glanced at his hand—mediocre. Not a disaster, not a winner. Average.
The system pulsed.
[Skill Suggestion: Fortune Nudge – 15 LP]
Shift outcome odds +10% in host's favor.
Remaining LP: 150
He hesitated. Fifteen points wasn't nothing. But this wasn't life or death. This was just one hand.
Ace raised an eyebrow, smile curling. "Do you trust your luck, Mr. Walker?"
Luke's lips twitched. "I've been trusting it all week."
He whispered under his breath, "Activate Fortune Nudge."
The glow surged. His pulse steadied. Cards hit the table, chips clattered into the pot, and when the final reveal came—Luke's hand crushed the table.
The men groaned, slamming cards down. Ace chuckled softly, slow clapping once before sliding Luke the pot.
"Interesting," Ace said. "Very interesting. You're not just lucky. You're chosen."
Lucky Instinct buzzed hard in Luke's head, sharp enough to make him flinch. The words hung heavy, carrying more weight than casual talk should.
The system chimed.
[Micro Task Complete]
Reward: +10 LP
Current LP: 145
But the text didn't fade. A new line scrolled beneath, colder than the rest:
[Warning: Observation Detected]
Unknown Entity has taken notice of the host.
Future events may escalate.
Luke's grip tightened on the chip in his hand. The room suddenly felt smaller, the air heavier. Someone—or something—was watching.
And for the first time since the system appeared, survival didn't feel like the only game on the table.