The glow of Leo's laptop screen was a small, steady island in the dim quiet of the university library. His fingers flew across the keyboard, not in a frantic rush, but with the precise, methodical rhythm of a problem-solver. Lines of code stacked up, a digital fortress against a looming deadline. To anyone watching, he was just another student buried in work. But in his mind, he was orchestrating logic, finding elegant solutions to complex puzzles—his own quiet superpower in a world that had yet to go mad.
He preferred it here. The silence was a language he understood, far clearer than the chaotic buzz of the student common room. It was a Tuesday afternoon. The world was still normal.
A low, resonant chime echoed through the library, a sound that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. It wasn't loud, but it vibrated deep in the bone, silencing the gentle rustle of pages and the whisper of keyboards. Leo looked up, his focus broken. Around him, others were doing the same, confusion etched on their faces.
Then, the world turned blue.
Transparent, azure-blue screens materialized in the air before every single person. They shimmered with an otherworldly light, displaying a single line of text in a clean, futuristic font:
**[System Integration Initializing...]**
A beat of stunned silence was shattered by a cacophony of gasps, shouts, and nervous laughter. The library, a temple of quiet order, descended into chaos. Leo stared at the screen hovering inches from his face. His analytical mind raced, rejecting the impossible. *Mass hallucination? A sophisticated hack?* But the screen felt real, its light casting a cool hue on his hands.
**[Scanning Planetary Lifeforms...]**
**[Assigning Classes & Skills...]**
The messages changed. And then, the screams of delight began.
To Leo's left, a jittery history major suddenly vanished in a ripple of air, only to reappear a few feet away, his mouth agape. "I... I'm a Rogue! I have [Stealth]!" he exclaimed. Across the room, a girl who spent her weekends in the gym raised her hands, and a faint, shimmering shield of light coalesced around her. A triumphant laugh burst from her lips. "Tank! I'm a Tank!"
It was a carnival of miracles. People were summoning flames at their fingertips, healing minor cuts with a touch, testing newfound strength on the study carrels, which groaned under the strain. The air crackled with raw, untamed energy. A wild, euphoric hope bloomed in Leo's chest. This was it. The moment everything changed. He leaned forward, heart hammering against his ribs, waiting for his turn, for his destiny to be written in that same glowing blue text.
His screen flickered.
Unlike the smooth, purposeful transitions of the others, his screen stuttered like a corrupted video file. The hopeful blue light sputtered, tinged with angry red pixels. A sharp, staticky noise grated in his ears. The message that finally resolved itself was not a class assignment. It was an error, blazing in hostile, crimson letters:
**[ERROR: Player Rejected.]**
Leo stared. The two words echoed in the hollow silence of his own mind, drowning out the celebrations around him. *Rejected.* The system had looked at him, at the very core of his being, and found him wanting. A flaw. An outlier.
"Hey, Leo! What did you get?" a voice called out. It was Mark, a boisterous engineering student who now had bracers of solidified earth wrapped around his forearms, a newly minted [Earth Mage].
Before Leo could answer, Mark peered at his screen. The laughter died on Mark's lips, replaced by a slow-spreading smirk. "Whoa. [Player Rejected]? What does that even mean? You got a dud, man!"
The word spread faster than any superhuman speed. "Rejected." It was whispered, then laughed, then pointed. The gazes that had been filled with shared wonder moments before now turned to him, laced with pity, curiosity, and a cruel, newfound sense of superiority. The girl with the shield actually took a subtle step back, as if his condition were contagious. He was no longer part of the "we." He was an exception. A null value. In a world suddenly defined by power, he had been assigned a value of zero.
He was unceremoniously pushed out of the library, into a city descending into beautiful, terrifying madness. People soared through the sky on gusts of wind. A man was single-handedly lifting a car to free a trapped cat. But amidst the heroes, chaos also reigned. A group of newly empowered [Thugs] was laughing as they used enhanced strength to smash storefront windows. The rule of law had evaporated in an instant, replaced by the rule of the strongest.
Leo moved through the streets like a ghost, his senses on high alert. This was survival now. His programmer's mind, trained to identify patterns, kicked into overdrive. He noted the hierarchy already forming: those with combat classes strutted, already forming groups, while those with support classes trailed behind them, seeking protection. He was lower than them all. He was nothing.
A sudden, guttural roar cut through the urban din, a sound that was profoundly, primally wrong. It wasn't human. Panic, which had been simmering, boiled over into pure terror. From the end of the street, three creatures emerged. They were hunched and sinewy, with leathery grey skin and claws that scraped against the asphalt. [Lesser Void Hounds], a name that somehow surfaced in the consciousness of those with combat classes.
"Monsters!" someone screamed.
The self-proclaimed heroes who had been reveling in their power now faltered. A fireball fizzled out against the lead creature's hide. A warrior with a glowing sword charged, only to be swatted aside like a fly. Their bravado vanished, replaced by raw, panicked fear. They were playing at being heroes; these creatures were born to kill.
Leo ducked into an alleyway, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. *This is it. This is how I die. Not with a bang, not as a hero, but as a footnote.* His eyes scanned the alley for an escape route—a fire escape, an open window. Nothing.
Then he saw her. A little girl, no more than six, was frozen in the middle of the main street, clutching a ragged teddy bear, directly in the path of the prowling hounds. The remaining "heroes" were scattering, saving themselves.
Every logical circuit in Leo's brain screamed at him to stay hidden. He had no power. He was a programmer with a rejection slip from god. To step out was suicide. But as he watched the small, terrified figure standing alone against the encroaching nightmare, a different kind of logic overrode his fear—a simple, human one.
"Damn it," he whispered, the words tasting like dust and defiance.
He burst from the alley, his legs pumping, not toward safety, but toward the child. He didn't have a plan. He just knew he had to get to her. The lead Void Hound turned its lamp-like yellow eyes on him, a low growl rumbling in its chest. It crouched, preparing to lunge.
Time seemed to slow. Leo's mind, usually a whirlwind of code and calculations, went blank except for one pure, white-hot thought: *NO.*
A surge of something—not heat, not cold, but a raw, untamed pressure—erupted from the core of his being. The air in front of him *warped*, shimmering with a faint, violet hue. It was barely visible, like heat haze on a summer road.
The Void Hound lunged. Its claws, meant to rend flesh, scraped against the distorted air with a sound like nails on a cosmic chalkboard. The creature was thrown back, landing on its haunches with a confused snarl. It shook its head, as if disoriented.
A searing pain erupted behind Leo's eyes. He stumbled, clutching his head. In his vision, the world tinted purple for a split second. The red error message that had been burned into his retina flickered violently, fragmented, and was overwritten. The text that flashed before his eyes was no longer red, nor was it the calm blue of the System. It was a deep, ominous purple, the color of a bruise on reality itself.
**[WARNING: Administrator Privileges Detected.]**
**[Threat Level: Catastrophic.]**
The message vanished as quickly as it appeared. The violet haze in the air dissipated. The pain in his head receded to a dull throb. The Void Hound was already recovering, its confusion turning back to predatory focus.
Leo stood, panting, between the monster and the child, his mind reeling. The System hadn't rejected him. The terrifying, world-altering truth dawned on him as he stared at his own trembling hands.
It had been trying to hide him.